Girls Gone Mild

Wendy Shalit has written another book encouraging girls (and parents) to buck the trend of sexualizing virtually everything to do with girls of almost any age. Here is an excerpt of Mona Charen's review:

Her skepticism about the bacchanal we call modern sex is undiminished. The book opens with a discussion of Bratz dolls (sold by MGA Entertainment), apparently aimed at ages "four-plus." "Bratz Babyz makes a 'Babyz Nite Out' doll garbed in fishnet stockings, a hot-pink micromini, and a black leather belt . . . . the baby also sports a tummy-flaunting black tank paired with a hot-pink cap. 'These Babyz demand to be lookin' good on the street, at the beach, or chillin' in the crib.'" Another of the dolls wears heavy red lipstick and bright toenail polish to match red panties. One is almost reduced to sputtering.


For the slightly older set, the "tweens" (girls between 9 and 12), Target markets thong underwear. Apparently you can find "Care Bear" thongs at some retailers and "push-up" bras at Kohl's for the first-time bra purchaser.


American popular culture seems determined to obliterate innocence — even in the crib! But Shalit's critique is not so much prudish as pitying. Her deepest insights concern the new repression that has been imposed on young women. Repression? In this "liberated" age? Read on.

Click on the title to read more....

I read parts of Wendy's previous book and I am glad to see a young woman writing to encourage other young women to bypass the hookup scene and to be comfortable about not wearing the fashionable styles that put everything on display (I am *so* glad that shirt styles are getting longer...). I really don't understand why parents are in such a hurry for their girls to have boyfriends and why they accept what the culture tells them is appropriate for their children. This book sounds like a good read - I'll have to add it to my list.

---Katie

Back to Harry Potter

Did you notice that one of the first things the Ministry of Magic did when they were taken over by the evil forces of Lord Voldemort was to ban homeschooling?

---Katie

Churchwide Assembly Approaches

There is an interesting thread on the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau forum. It begins with the posting of a letter from a pastor in Georgia in support of Pastor Bradley Schmeling, the pastor who has been defrocked for having a sexual relationship with a man. The thread goes on to discuss many of the issues around sexuality that the forces for change are insisting that we address yet once again at CWA.

Here is an excerpt from one of the posts from a member of the sexuality task force that worked prior to the 2005 CWA:

At one of the ELCA sexuality task force meetings in Chicago I was involved in a conversation with one of the gay advocates during the lunch break. I or someone else asked the question -- don't you worry about those folks who don't agree with you on the appropriateness of gay behaviors being excluded from congregations where they or their families have been members forever? His response was interesting to me, because it showed that for all the talk about the importance of inclusion, gay people aren't that inclusive. He said -- There are plenty of other churches for those people to go to.

One of the sessions we had at the task force was when we asked advocates for both sides of the question to come in and state their views and engage in question and answer format with us. It was interesting the contrast between the two "sides." The first day we had what we would call traditionalists. They had given us their views in writing prior to the meeting and then we were free to ask questions of them and engage in conversation. I asked the question -- What doubts do you have about the position you are taking? Every one of the respondents admitted they had doubts and wrestled with the positions they had taken.

The next day the gay folks came in under the same format. The difference was striking. We had asked both groups for 5-6 people to represent their views. The gay people insisted that 11 had to be present. We had asked for written papers to be presented ahead of time and then we would ask questions and engage in conversation. The gay people insisted first that they read their papers to us. The conversation time, therefore, was deeply shortened. I asked the same question -- What doubts do you have? -- and to a person, everyone said they had NO doubts whatsoever. We are dealing with zealots here; there is no middle ground.

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Click on the title to read the whole discussion. ALPB is a great place to keep up with goings on in both the ELCA and the LCMS. Lots of good traditional people there along with a couple of liberals who are quite irritating.

---Katie

So I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I'm happy with the ending.

Here is an old quote from JK Rowling:

Harry, of course, is able to battle supernatural evil with supernatural forces of his own, and Rowling is quite clear that she doesn’t personally believe in that kind of magic — “not at all.” Is she a Christian?

“Yes, I am,” she says. “Which seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every time I’ve been asked if I believe in God, I’ve said yes, because I do, but no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that, and I have to say that does suit me, because if I talk too freely about that I think the intelligent reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what’s coming in the books.”

I think she was right.

---Katie

Not so sure about Harry Potter?

or perhaps you hate the whole series and think that Christians in particular should avoid it because it has witches and wizards in it.....

Here is an interesting article on the philosophical issues the series addresses:

Kirk Honeycutt, writing for the Hollywood Reporter, echoes the complaints of a number of critics that the Harry Potter films are becoming darker as the series progresses. This would be a valid point only if there were a consensus that fans (particularly adolescents) should be protected from the darker things in life (or in fiction that has real-world parallels). And though I think the criticism overwrought – the throngs of people who showed up for midnight screenings of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on Wednesday night certainly enjoyed the film – embedded in critiques of this kind is the belief that the hallmark of Harry Potter films should be fun. Inadvertently, such critics fall into the same mindset as that of J.K Rowling’s arch-villain Dolores Umbridge: deny the existence of real, malevolent evil and it can’t hurt you.

Oh, but it can.

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Click on the title to read more. It is an excellent article.

And, yes, I really enjoy the HP stories. I just reread all six books so that I can be ready for book seven. I'm going to see the movie for the second time tonight. I never go to the same movie twice in the theater.....

And I am a Christian...one who loves to read about good battling evil.

---Katie

Well, there are some orthodox leaders left in the ELCA

But I can't possibly hope that Churchwide Assembly won't be all about changing Visions and Expectations to accommodate Pastor Schmeling.

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Committee on Appeals of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) ruled July 2 in favor of an appeal by the Rev. Ronald B. Warren, bishop of the ELCA Southeastern Synod, Atlanta, who sought removal of Bradley E. Schmeling, Atlanta, from the official clergy roster of the ELCA. The appeals committee ruled that Schmeling was to be removed immediately from the roster, upholding the determination by a disciplinary hearing committee that Schmeling was in violation of the ELCA policy regarding the sexual conduct of its pastors.

Decisions of the Committee on Appeals are not made public by the ELCA churchwide organization. According to the ELCA Constitution, Bylaws and Continuing Resolutions, summaries of decisions are to be reported to the next ELCA Churchwide Assembly, the church's highest legislative authority, which will be here at Navy Pier Aug. 6-11. In this case, the decision of the Committee on Appeals was released July 5 by Warren and posted on the synod's Web site, and it was released at a July 5 news conference at St. John Lutheran Church, Atlanta, the congregation Schmeling has served since 2000. . . .

Warren filed formal charges in 2006 against Schmeling after Schmeling reported to Warren that he was in a committed relationship with another man, a violation of the ELCA's clergy standards. Seven members of the 12-member discipline hearing committee, which met Jan. 18-24 in Atlanta, voted to remove Schmeling from the ELCA clergy roster and stayed the effective date of his removal until Aug. 15. That committee issued its opinion Feb. 7.

In separate filings in March, Warren and Schmeling both appealed the decision of the discipline hearing committee.

The 12-member Committee on Appeals met here June 9-10 to consider the appeals. That committee voted 10-1, with one abstention, to remove Schmeling from the clergy roster. It voted 10-2 to reverse the discipline hearing committee's decision to stay the effective date of Schmeling's removal from the roster until Aug. 15, and it voted 10-2 to remove Schmeling from the clergy roster on July 2.

The Committee on Appeals noted that the ELCA Constitution states that "the decision of the discipline hearing committee shall be final on the day it is issued by the committee," and that "nowhere in ELCA Constitution, Bylaws and Continuing Resolutions is a discipline hearing committee authorized to stay its own decision."

"In this regard, the Committee on Appeals determines that the effective date of Pastor Schmeling's removal from the clergy roster of the ELCA ... should have been Feb. 7, 2007," the Committee on Appeals said. . . .

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Note, should have been Feb. 7! These folks are not politically correct! Is there hope for the ELCA? What they are saying is that the committee's decision to make Pastor Schmeling's removal from the roster effective after CWA was way out of line! Let's stop playing politics folks!

---Katie