It is often quite telling to compare the opinions of feminists and traditional conservatives on current issues. This is certainly the case in comparing the views of feminists with the president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Owen Strachan) regarding the latest Star Wars movie.
Warning: Plot spoilers below.
For feminists the controversy revolves around whether the feminist heroine of the movie (Rey) is too perfect or not. They love that she is a badass warrior, but worry that maybe her feminist perfection has gone too far. As Caroline Franke at Vox.com explains:
Is Rey, the new movie’s protagonist, too perfect to be a good hero? Is she, in fandom speak, a “Mary Sue”?
Franke disagrees:
In The Force Awakens, Rey, a young scavenger with mysterious origins, becomes entangled with the Rebellion, flies the Millennium Falcon without prior experience, discovers that she can tap into The Force, and uses it to her advantage to best a more experienced Jedi. Any additional skills Rey has — mechanical work, hand-to-hand combat, climbing — are explained when we first meet her. She’s been fending for herself on Jakku for years. If she hadn’t picked up those skills, she’d probably be dead.
Feminist Donna Dickens at Hitfix.com argues that asking the question itself is sexist:
So if you have a problem with Rey’s skill set, ask yourself this question: would you even have noticed her ascent to badassery if she’d been a dude named Ray?
One thing is perfectly clear; The Force Awakens is the movie about women in combat that feminists have been dreaming of. Lesbian feminist Patricia Karvelas at The Guardian explains why this is the case in Star Wars is a game-changer, awakening the feminist force in little girls everywhere
Finally we have our female Luke Skywalker – an orphaned scavenger girl alone on the desert of Jakku.
…
As she prepare to fight scores of Storm Troopers Han hands her a weapon. “You might need this,” he says. She replies: “I think I can handle myself,” and he answers: “That’s why I’m giving it to you.” It really sets the tone of the film.
Clearly feminists loved the movie, and their only concern is if it went too far in the area of feminist propaganda. But what about Christian conservatives, the ones focused (albeit ambivalently) on gender roles? How did the president of the CBMW react to the movie?
Not surprisingly, Owen Strachan quite liked the movie*, and doesn’t note or object to the over the top feminist message. In fact, he especially liked the scene featuring a woman in combat, listing it as one of the four best in the film:
The forest battle between Ren and Rey (Ren’s lightsaber was very cool)
Elsewhere Strachan tells us:
I liked how Rey showed steel as she discovered the power to use the force.
Notably absent from Strachan’s review is a criticism of the movie presenting women as warriors. This is especially noteworthy since the Guardian feminist was so delighted to see a man hand a woman a weapon so she could go fight.
This however isn’t surprising, since Strachan and others at the CBMW are in denial of the feminist goal to erase gender roles (the roles the CBMW exists to defend) when it comes to women in combat. Back in 2013 Strachan wrote:
The decision by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to place women in the front lines of military combat is an anti-woman decision. It seems “pro-woman,” but it’s not. It will put women in situations that are not suited to them.
Strahan closed that piece with the bizarre claim that what we are witnessing isn’t an envy driven feminist usurpation of men’s roles, but men forcing women to usurp their roles:
…the call by men for women to fight in their place is the height of cowardice, and worthy of the strongest possible rebuke.
He echoed the same bizarre denial of reality in a separate article that same year:
If men will not own this responsibility, then women will be forced to take it on as did biblical women such as Deborah and Jael (and the extrabiblical figure Judith). Many modern men fail to mirror Christ in leading, providing, and protecting.
Strachan isn’t alone in this delusion driven by a willful blindness to feminist rebellion. This is a laughably common denial for the CBMW. So it isn’t a surprise that Strachan, who can’t spot the most obvious feminism in the real world, can’t spot the most obvious feminism in the movies. This is true even when the movie matches his own fantasy of a man handing a woman a weapon and telling her to go fight.
*H/T jonakc1
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Strachan is just another one of the weak fear driven pussy men that worked their way into evangelical leadership. Western Christianity no longer has masculine evangelical leaders.
Considering the plot and character development of an almost 40 year old franchise founded on 6 movies, yes!
This natural ability “no need to learn it” dynamic for female protagonists is very common in fempowerment characters. It’s actually very telling of the nature of intersexual dynamics when you understand that a male character must learn, improve, refine and make himself an expert of an elite level through character development, while a woman is simply imbued with innate ability.
I have no doubt that Finn will eventually become an expert in future sequels, but the comparison between his need for instruction and Rey’s ready-made out-of-the-box expertise (not just in Force using, but fixing things, combat, intuition, pre-resistance lore, etc.) is almost unavoidable for Abrams. It’s really so stark that even fan boys have to suspend their disbelief.
It’s likely Abrams was oblivious to this God-mode woman narrative he created. Women are entitled to be perfect and all their merit is simply evident without having to earn it (as Anakin, Obi-Wan, Luke, all the Sith characters and every other Jedi spinoff has had to for the entirety of the franchise). Men must perform, men must struggle and earn anything approaching the ready perfection of woman and still they lack.
The Star Wars franchise has become a vehicle for the messaging of the FI. TFA is essentially a retelling of the original movie with genders swapped and feminine triumphalism baked in (even the Yoda fill in character was female), but the greater message to consider is that the FI has made it its purpose to appropriate the male space of science fiction and use it as a contrivance to resell its message.
TFA was contrived to such a degree that it’s essentially the same story as New Hope, but it’s a contrivance because the gender swap agenda is so blatantly obvious. The purpose of the movie (beyond the gross commercial interest) wasn’t to tell a great story for the sake of it, but rather to force fit the FI’s message into a preexisting story – literally. And as I stated in my article, all because the FI is utterly incapable of selling its message in a truly creative, original work.
Now consider that Disney barraged the media, merchandising and cobranding to such an extent that we were supposed to already love it before we’d ever seen it and you can begin to understand the efforts the FI will make in order to have that contrivance seem like it’s inspired originality.
You don’t dare criticize the movie everyone loves, but no one has seen until last Thursday for fear of being called racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynist or guilty of any ready-made “ism” SJWs have to choose from. Everyone loves Star Wars, it’s a part of Americana right? And as such it represents the perfect vehicle for the FI’s messaging.
One of the most galling moments in ‘The Force Awakens’ is when Rey masters ‘the force’ in all of about 60 seconds.
This mirrors the propaganda in the real world, where women are told they are awesome at everything, and can outperform a man at anything.
It is utter nonsense, and yet this tripe will be swallowed whole. This franchise is now ruined for me, and I doubt I will see any further ones.
The real question isn’t ‘Are feminists loving this move?’ It’s ‘Why the hell are men lining up to see this crap?’
@Casey:
It’s probably good to remember that unless you were an uber-nerd, you actually knew very, very little of the plot going in. It was “Star Wars: go see it” mode for most people. As Rollo is quite apt in putting it, it’s the perfect vehicle. People will show up for a Star Wars movie.
It partially the reason the best CGI Robot movie Hollywood as put out is Pacific Rim. We just want to see Robots fighting on the big screen. The less story to get in the way, the better.
Most church leaders are willfully blind to all current rebellions, feminism being high among them. There’s an obvious reason for that.
@Rollo Tomasi
“It’s actually very telling of the nature of intersexual dynamics when you understand that a male character must learn, improve, refine and make himself an expert of an elite level through character development, while a woman is simply imbued with innate ability.”
Compare and contrast TFA with “Braveheart.” In the beginning of the film, the father tells a young William to stay home and not go fight with them against the English. When he insists he can fight, his father replies “I know you can fight. But it’s our wits that make us men.”
Then later his uncle Argyle lets William hold his sword for a moment and then takes it from him, saying “First learned to use this” taps his head, “then I’ll teach you to use this.” He also acts surprised when William doesn’t know Latin, saying “that is something we shall to remedy, isn’t it?”
Even William Wallace doesn’t become a great warrior on his own. A boy needs to be taught how to be a man by a man. The apprentice-mentor relationship is a fundamental aspect of masculinity, and it’s no surprise in our femcentric society this concept is all but lost.
I’ll also add a quick note on his romantic relationship with Marian. She doesn’t try to compete with him, be as much of a man as him, or tell him what to do. She doesn’t say “I can take care of myself” when William stops soldiers from raping her.
Feminists aren’t doing anything, much less affecting media or culture. What a bunch of conspiracy theorists and misogynists we have collected here.
The latest star wars is nothing compared to the latest Sherlock: the abominable bride.
BBC explicitely promotes feminism.
Rey is a straight-up Mary Sue. Instantly likable, instantly amazing at everything she tries. So was Anakin, but he was literally set up as Space Jesus from the first moment we saw him, and we knew what his eventual fate was.
I fully expect she’ll end up being Luke’s daughter and have had extensive training as a child which was subsequently “forgotten,” which is the only way to make her character acceptable. But she needs some flaws, stat. Otherwise she’s going to be boring with a quickness.
Luke, on the other hand, was completely wet behind the ears. He got his ass (and hand) handed to him by Vader after much training, and the only reason he survived in ROTJ is because Vader decided to turn.
Just another reason to pass on what Adorno and Horkheimer called “The Culture Industry,” which exists merely to reify and sell back to the producers the pallid shadows of the organic truths they create naturally.
If you must see this crapola, then just get it on the torrent sites, and laugh at it and take the piss out of it without giving the Hollywood vultures any money.
krakonos,
I was enjoying SH:TAB, but when the feminism stuff hit it was just a major groan-fest. It wasn’t even subtle. “Oh yeah, it’s totally cool to murder people for your cause, no worries”. Sickening.
Sure, I can see how being a scavenger would just naturally lead to someone mastering every type of weapon in existence. Right.
over at ArsTech, they’re defending Rey’s abilities ( both mechanical, piloting and Force ) as being reminiscent of a younger Anakin’s in Ep1.
problems with that analogy:
1 – Anakin was building shit all over the place. so far as we can tell, Rey built nothing … but she was scrapping stuff
2 – Anakin’s preternatural mechanical ‘expertise’ involved … devices HE HAD BUILT ( not at all the same as Rey telling Han he didn’t know how his own ship worked )
3 – Anakin didn’t best any trained Force user at anything, sure he whupped up on a bunch of nerf herders in the pod race and then got involved in the space dogfight, but NONE of those people knew a damned thing about, heh, midichlorians. i mean, consider, AFTER years of training, Anakin STILL gets his ass kicked by Obiwan in Ep3.
so, while it IS true that Ep 1 Anakin was a Gary Stu ( and a stupid one ), he never rose to the level of Mary Sueness that Rey exhibits.
but let’s grant them that the best defense that can be made of TFA is that these things were established in TPM … they want to compare TFA to the most reviled work that Lucas has done?
i’ll also note that it’s not quite accurate to say that TFA is simply ANH, redone. it’s really a pastiche of all three of the original trilogy … and with crap from the prequels thrown in.
Spork is the new emperor from Ep5-6.
Han’s confrontation with Kylo is a call back to the shock reveal in Ep5 ( I am your father, Luke … search your feelings, you know it to be true )
Maz is a female Magic Negro Yoda from Ep5. only, you know, she doesn’t teach Rey anything. because why would a woman need to be taught?
Luke is doing the Ben Kenobi thing from the beginning of Ep4.
Rey is Anakin from Ep1, only even more GodMode.
The franchise is creatively bankrupt. “Ooh look, now we’ve got an EVEN BIGGER Death Star!”
That’s the reason for MaRey Sue. “Jar Jar” Abrams knew that prominently featuring a feminist “Grrlpower” cartoon would generate all the undeserved praise and positive reviews he could ever want without going to the trouble of actually making a good movie.
It’s overtly feminist. Then again, don’t bother arguing against it. Argue for it, promote it. Use it to promote females in upfront combat roles. Use it to argue that men only hamper women and women should be all of our armed forces. Use it to promote what feminists want. To be men, let them have all the privilege and all of the responsibility.
This simply is another exhibit in how the CBMW in particular and “complementarianism” as a general rule is just conservative feminism. Pace’ Art Deco, conservative feminism is the norm, the baseline, for women in Western society – accepting as normative Title IX, affirmative action for women, all the special handouts and handups that young women get in education, while continuing to demand that men “man UP” of course.
What was radical feminism is now just feminism. What was feminism is now the norm.
The CBMW is in the world and of the world, seems to me. Is that what they are supposed to be?
The franchise is creatively bankrupt. “Ooh look, now we’ve got an EVEN BIGGER Death Star!”
To shamelessly steal from a couple of sources:
The plot of Star Wars: Empire builds a Death Star and the rebels blow it up.
Plot of Revenge of the Jedi: Empire builds a bigger Death Star and the rebels blow it up.
Plot of $tar War$: The Farce Awakens: Empire builds an even bigger Death Star, what, again? Ok, ok, ok, rebels will blow this one up, too.
Future Emperor to his son: “Other emperors said I was daft to build a Death Star, and that one burned down, fell over and sank into the swamp. But the fourth one STAYED UP! And that’s why you’re going to rule the Galaxy, m’lad! You’re inheriting the strongest Death Star in the Galaxy.
And No SINGING!.
It’s about the money, and about the Female Imperative, it’s two, two, two statemints in one!
Luke had barely any training, yet he was able to master the Force enough to shoot proton torpedoes better than even his ship computer could.
He’s trusted with an X-Wing despite never having flown an aerial ship or space ship before.
Also, the plot makes it clear that Kylo Ren is at a disadvantage during the fight because he was commanded to keep the girl alive, whereas she is actively trying to kill him. Also, he just got shot (and it’s not totally clear how he even survived that shot).
I don’t think there’s anything illogical about having a new death star. It was thirty years after the last one. And they did at least wipe out the Republic’s homeworld with it, along with several other planets.
That said, I agree that the movie was uncreative. I was not thrilled with the plot. My two main problems were the lack of creativity, and also I felt like the continuous “chasing” plot became a little bit tiresome and hectic.
“Also, the plot makes it clear that Kylo Ren is at a disadvantage during the fight because he was commanded to keep the girl alive, whereas she is actively trying to kill him. Also, he just got shot (and it’s not totally clear how he even survived that shot).”
IIRC, Kylo Ren had just thrown Fin thirty feet into a tree trunk with the Force. He also lost the Force tug o’ war over Luke’s lightsaber. The former shows that he was plenty strong in spite of his injury, and the latter shows that he was still weaker than Rey (the command to keep Rey alive would not have caused him to lose the tug o’ war).
Rey also repelled Kylo Ren’s mind probe earlier, before he was shot.
I didn’t interpret it as a lightsaber “tug o’ war” but simply as her getting to the lightsaber before he did. Nonetheless, I agree the movie makes it clear that she has greater intrinsic magical power than him — for unknown reasons. But the physical fight is the main thing that people complained about. During the physical fight, he was at a disadvantage. He wanted to capture her. That’s why he specifically held off on killing her. Instead, he locked blades and tried to convert her.
Consider that David killed Goliath. People don’t call him a Mary Sue, and complain that he had less martial training than Goliath. People who get hung up on the “training” issue forget that the Force is supposed to vaguely resemble God.
Saw the movie. Besides being plotless and mediocre, it was pure propaganda. First rule: bad guys must be white men with British or German accents. Second rule: gurlz rule and, even as novices, are superior to men with far more experience and training. Third rule, villain may not be a “minority” unless the hero is also a “minority”. Any others?
Luke is literally saved by almost every other major character in the movie. Obi-wan twice, Leia once, Han at the end.
He does one thing really well, shooting the exhaust port, and even that is foreshadowed a bit. And he wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without Han.
And Han is super-annoyed with Luke, at first. Luke tries to tell him what to do and and Han: “This ain’t like dusting crops, boy.”
In the new movie, Han just bows before Rey’s magnificence.
My 3000+ word review. Apparently I care more about Star Wars than I remember. https://medium.com/@mattrobison/the-force-hits-snooze-and-sleeps-in-f98d9412538f
The first two Star Wars movies were a happy accident (with much of A New Hope saved in editing). It’s probably best to ignore that the rest of the Universe & Expanded Universe even exist.
Oh yeah, Luke is also saved by R2-D2.
And the Force has never been a Deus ex machina. When Rey tried the the mind altar, and the Stormtrooper resisted, I thought “Good. They’re just playing it off as a joke. Here’s the moment where she’s actually going to struggle to overcome something. Wouldn’t be stupid if that mind alter had actually worked?”
But of course, she tries again, and it does work. At that point, the movie just lost me. There was no way Rey was ever going to be in any real danger.
@krakonos
I have to agree. Started watching the new Sherlock and had to turn it off. Steven Moffat, who wrote the Shelock episode also writes most of the new Dr Who stuff and has pretty much turned that series into a feminist “you go girl” story line with female companions driving the action and the Doctor along for the ride.
Strachan is a treacherous fool who, like Han Solo, needs to be (figuratively speaking) killed by his sons. It will be their rite of passage.
is-the-force-awakens-too-feminist/
Yes, it is.
Undeniable it would be.
But sentient beings argue still
I wonder how many women will get killed by this mindless tripe? But that’s okay……because times are coming when the feminists will be culled out. Yeah, no one believes that…..do they?
Just think…..mommas little girl……in a hand to hand fight with an Islamic soldier. His biggest concern is how to kill her without getting her blood all over her gear.
But no one really explained to her that she isn’t physically capable of fighting a small man, much less a bigger one. The Good Lord speaks of letting error multiply until the harvest is ready. TFA is just a manifestation of that error. Normal women can’t function in combat. Certain genetic outliers, but they’re rare.
WW3 is cranking up. Islam is growing rampant. Western masculinity is being severely damaged. It’s enough to make you wonder, isn’t it?
Just a thought on that scene where Han gives Rey the weapon… when he said “that’s why I’m giving it to you “, I interpreted that as “because you can’t actually handle yourself, so take this weapon and you might have a chance “.
I don’t think there’s anything illogical about having a new death star.
Perhaps a literary reason will do
According to Malcolm Gladwell, David was no Mary Sue and Goliath was handicapped, needing a guide to find the battlefield and not apprehending what David could do until he did it. The theory is, Goliath had a pituitary disorder and a tumor which blurred his vision. His giant strength would overwhelm anyone fighting him at close quarters, where he could see well enough. Whereas a good sling shooter like David was the equivalent of a marksman, the force of his stone about the same as a bullet, moving way too fast for Goliath to see, let alone avoid.
I prefer to look at it holistically. It is what it is in the Star Wars Universe. You like it or you hate it. It is believable or its not. I prefer to think of it not as realistic sci-fi, but pure fantasy sci-fi. People do extraordinary things. The Force Awakens is a remake and a reboot. It is wonderful entertainment. It is different while being the same. It is revisionist while having the same plot. How could this all be true? Best to not over analyze it. Too late! This reboot is as much of a movie of today while the original was a relic of its time. At least we didn’t have to deal with mudsharking.
I don’t think there’s anything illogical about having a new death star.
Ok. Noted.
Yoda
Perhaps a literary reason will do
A literary reason surely there must be.
It I fixed for you.
At least she has the Force. Whedon stopped even caring to give his women warriors super powers in Agents of SHIELD. Not only are they regularly shown beating well trained men who are taller, heavier, stronger, and have greater wingspan, they also can hold their own against enhanced people.
Drew says: January 4, 2016 at 2:08 pm
I don’t think there’s anything illogical about having a new death star.
it’s not necessary for you to beclown yourself, we’re quite capable of doing that for you.
as a fer instance, here’s some reasons why the ‘Starkiller’ ( ooooooohh, all the ingenuity went into a new name ) was abysmally stupid:
1 – from a plot perspective, the Empire had already tried AND FAILED with ‘Death Stars’ twice. it’s not bad enough that the Empire bureaucracy never learned ( after all, bureaucracies don’t learn, they just spend more money ) not to follow Hitler’s “I’d rather build one monstrous huge thing that can’t be used effectively rather than 50,000 small things I can swamp the battlespace with” non-strategy. no, they ALSO recreate the same goddamn stupid weakness every time. if i wanted to watch A New Hope, i’d go buy the 1980s laserdisc.
2 – economically impossible. at the end of RotJ, the Emperor is dead. Vader is not merely dead, he was turned to the Light before he died. the Empire is *destroyed* ( as you can see from all the crashed Star Destroyers on Jakku ) and the ‘Rebels’ reinstate the Republic.
where in the ever living fuck is the ‘First Order’ ( ‘nee Third Reich ) getting the funding for this?
building Death Stars is no great difficulty when you’re collecting taxes on a galaxy wide empire … now that you have no tax base at all, you’re going to build a weapon that DWARFS the mightiest creation of the Empire?
the sad fact is that JJ Abrams is just as stupid, economically, morally and governmentally as Lucas. the ONE thing Abrams does to well, is keep the action moving. and lens flares. this functions as a distraction from the all the plot holes.
Abrams is the Dan Brown of Hollywood. trite, asinine, fundamentally incompetent about basic aspects of reality. but he does have a certain ability to carry the story forward at a frenetic pace which leads most people to ignore the stupidity.
oh, and this is who voices Maz:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupita_Nyong%27o
i called it, Magic Negro through and through.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro
@Bob K. Mando,
I agree that Jar Jar Abrams is really lame. He has no genuine creativity. He’s not smart. He’s not respectful of canon. I felt like he did a decent job with this last Star Wars film (to my surprise), but I agree that it could have been better.
One main thing that I didn’t like was the lack of explanations for things (which is a core Abrams problem). My interpretation of the film was that the First Order controls a substantial region of space — just not the whole galaxy, like the empire did. I think it’s entirely feasible (although uncreative) that they would seek to develop new weapons of mass destruction. But I agree with you that the lack of explanation for the prior thirty years was really annoying. The new movie made me feel like after Luke killed the emperor, nothing really was accomplished and everything still sucked.
“I liked how Rey showed steel as she discovered the power to use the force.”
One wonders to what “uses” Strachan has subjected God in his own life, and with what enthusiasm.
Whether Rey is a Mary Sue is irrelevant. She totally is, but it isn’t important.Her character is poorly written, and along with the prequels, ruined the original trilogy.
Luke took the heroes journey. From annoying teenage complainer to Jedi zen master. This was over the course of 3 movies. He failed time and time again. You see all his flaws and are along for his transformation. Little things like using Force persuasion to lie his way into Jabba’s, and wearing a black cloak vs. the white in ANH shows his loss of innocence. It also shows that while everything was simple in the beginning, he begins to use darker methods while trying to save and protect his friends. The Force was a mystical energy that took years of meditation and training to become proficient at using in the originals. It’s now a genetic condition that you either have or you don’t, which turns it from a heroes journey into a fairy tale.
My suspicion is that America is far too narcissistic to accept the original trilogy type of movie again. Hard work, training, and delayed gratification doesn’t sell to Americans now. We enjoy people who are just special, because it makes us feel better about not being a Jedi equivalent. When you are precluded from becoming something due to birth, then you can avoid dissonance and point to that as the reason you’re a failure.
To help define “mary Sue” I had to look it up.
Anybody remember the musical score they do?
I thought not.
Even feminist SJW music poor it is
I enjoy your posts, Dalrock. And your comments, you guys. But the movie was a blockbuster success. Fans (most of them were male) loved it. Expect most future fantasy movies being about perfect Mary Sues.
One wonders to what “uses” Strachan has subjected God in his own life, and with what enthusiasm.
You’re probably giving Strachan too much credit for thinking that he can see the God analogy in the concept of The Force.
The new movie made me feel like after Luke killed the emperor, nothing really was accomplished and everything still sucked.
Darth Vader killed the Emperor he did.
Though true not much accomplished it was.
Feminism in the new Republic had taken hold not.
Evil Patriachy abounded still.
A female redeemer for this flaw required it was.
On the true path to redemption now on we are
But the movie was a blockbuster success. Fans (most of them were male) loved it. Expect most future fantasy movies being about perfect Mary Sues.
For 900 years I have existed.
A long run there is.
Plan for that we should
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Red pill eyes see and hear. This movie just like the church is just reaffirming what is right and “normal” for the blue pill main stream. The sci fi geek crowd are some big time blue pill manginas. I have the new outer limits and the FI is through and through.. This Mary sue thing is going to kill this genre
If this ep happens 30 years after the Rebellion destroyed the Empire(ROTJ)…would’nt that make the Resistance the government, and the First Order the ‘rebellion?’
“So if you have a problem with Rey’s skill set, ask yourself this question: would you even have noticed her ascent to badassery if she’d been a dude named Ray?”
No problem, especially if this dude named Ray fixed the Millennium Falcon by punching it. Some of us buy automotive salvage from guys like that in real life.
Call him Billy Joe and I won’t even blink as he singlehandedly mows down half the Wehrmacht, I mean, First Order. That’s how I would make the next Spaceballs movie: a Mary Sue named Billy Joe.
…
Drew @ 2:26 pm:
“Consider that David killed Goliath. People don’t call him a Mary Sue, and complain that he had less martial training than Goliath.”
David brought a gun to a swordfight and learned to kill by slitting the throats of hungry lions and bears. (1 Samuel 17:34-37) Just like Beggar’s Canyon back home!
…
TomG @ 3:27 pm:
“At least we didn’t have to deal with mudsharking.”
You don’t see Rey falling in love with Finn next movie?
———
If this ep happens 30 years after the Rebellion destroyed the Empire(ROTJ)…would’nt that make the Resistance the government, and the First Order the ‘rebellion?’
———-
I figured that the Republic must be like the Articles of Confederation or the United Nations, and maybe it doesn’t have its own military. The “Resistance” could be like the “Coalition of the Willing.”
But I agree that it definitely should have been better explained. Abrams sucks at explanation — and at logical thought in general.
This post is waaay too serious.
@Rollo
This natural ability “no need to learn it” dynamic for female protagonists is very common in fempowerment characters.
That’s because the “no need to learn it” is a metaphor for sex.
The burden of performance is always thrust upon men (who must be well-equipped, have experience and possibly even training in order to truly perform in an outstanding manner) while the woman only has to lie there and show some (fake if necessary) enthusiasm in order to get a pass. No-one questions the obvious, that her real enthusiasm is most often a *reaction* to his performance, not something she’d be bringing to the table if her partner was under-equipped/unskilled/inexperienced. The trope is well established because so very few men have ever actually had sex with a skilled and caring lover. The trope continues because men derive pleasure from pleasing a woman in addition to whatever gratification the act conveys to them.
Reality: Women don’t have the burden of performance, therefore they don’t have the burden to “learn it” beforehand.
Reality: Men are so starved and thirsty that they don’t care if she’s unskilled, unenthusiastic and unexciting. They’re just happy to get it.
This post is waaay too serious.
Cultural Marxism must be fought. This movie is a big step forward for Cultural Marxism
PokeSalad says: January 4, 2016 at 5:31 pm
If this ep happens 30 years after the Rebellion destroyed the Empire(ROTJ)…would’nt that make the Resistance the government, and the First Order the ‘rebellion?’
logically, yes.
but, as we’ve been pointing out all thread, this isn’t anything but a pastiche of the previous Star Wars movies.
and in the Star Wars movies the ‘good guys’ have to be the lovable, rag tag underfunded ‘rebellion’ and the Empire is required to be the oppressive, ‘fascist’ ( in the lieberal epithet sense ) mass army with all of the over sized and over powering weapons.
which is why the planetary capital of the Republic was destroyed.
i’m sure that in the Abrams sequel, to the extent that they don’t ignore the issue, that will be the excuse given as to why the Republic has no capital ships of their own to speak of.
here’s a bigger question though:
in ANH, Luke and Leia were both hidden because the Sith were ascendant and in control of the Empire.
WHY has Rey ( obviously also royalty just like L&L [ midichlorians, dontchaknow ], most assume she’s Luke’s daughter ) been left in hiding for well over a decade on Jakku?
even if Luke has been off hiding somewhere, why was she not kept with ‘General’ ( snort, i don’t know why they didn’t go whole hog and call her ‘Generalissimo’ ) Leia?
further, why did Luke run off anyways? Kenobi / Yoda went into hiding because the Sith were ascendant, to have remained public would have gotten them killed. the Republic capital didn’t get blown up until 3/4 of the way through this movie! even if he wants to sulk … children with high midichlorian counts are going to continue to get found all around the galaxy. who else is there to train them? i mean, it’s SUPPOSED to be well established Star Wars lore that an *untrained* Force user is particularly susceptible to the Dark Side. so all Luke accomplishes by refusing his training responsibilities is … the spontaneous creation of more Sith?
speaking of, why has Leia received no Force training? you’ll remember that she’s supposed to be almost as powerful as Luke.
my comment walking out of the theater was, “this movie made no sense whatsoever if you haven’t previously watched Ep 4-6. and even then, it’s just a stitched up, out of order telling of those movies.”
Yoda says: January 4, 2016 at 4:59 pm
For 900 years I have existed.
Groot?
greyghost says: January 4, 2016 at 4:49 pm
To help define “mary Sue” I had to look it up.
easier to simply go to TVTropes.org-
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue
@Rollo, I think it just goes to show that women do not perceive the transitional stages a man must overcome to be great at something. Their whole lives, they are focused on apex men who have usually toiled many hours to get to their position, but all of that is irrelevant in their eyes. They literally cannot contemplate the sacrifices that men must make. Considering the massive affirmative action programs females have been granted from girl-focused elementary to female-quota scholarships and internships, the modern female has no real reason to question Rey’s ascension based on their own reality.
As a side note, I recall a dating show in Britain where there was this “cute fireman” that had obvious muscle definition, which the girls really digged. However, once they showed the female contestants a day in his life, and saw that he went to gym, they were turned off by the effort he had to make for his body.
The point is, females don’t care about how hard you worked, suffered, and toiled to get where you are. They would prefer to stand outside the alpha male factory and go from there. Effort does not compute. It’s all about the mystique that you are so naturally, genetically gifted that success just falls in your lap. Female acknowledgement of only the best men can explain Rey.
The unwillingness of modern women to help build a man up to success (marrying young) seems to be part of the reason for the delay of marriage. Hell, I used to think these girls who dated men in medical school were kind of gold-diggerish, but now it might be a sign of a decent women considering the times we are in. Today, it would appear that women can’t even stand to be with a high-potential that is on track. They want certainty and would prefer to just date men right after they receive their medical license.
In 2016, a women settling for a beta-provider will require the highest degree of certainty of his success. Forget being high potential, forget building something together. That’s largely over. And, p.s, this is only if you’re willing to play the game of being a consolation prize. If your women is over 24, had past badboy relationships, not a virgin, unwilling to talk about sex number, expect divorce in 8-15 years.
Enjoying the wife of your youth is largely a fairytale. 26 is not youth. Those women are jaded, hardened, and are corporate slaves to their jobs, travel, materialism, and hookups with local celebrities on tinder. Try 18-20. Your max timeline for finding a decent women is now probably age 26 for a man (Don’t forget it could take years to find the one and a year of dating/engagement – better get hunting). Older dudes are out for a young bride. 80% of women are alpha-widowed by 24.
The church is doing everything in its power to set young Christian men up for a life of relationship disaster. Firstly, they constantly pound that lust is evil and essentially tell you to break eye contact with any pretty girl immediately. Beta tell, check. Teenage years of female interaction ruined, check. Then, they consistently tell the Christian women that they can do no wrong and conveniently leave out any discussion of how to deal with sexual feelings. Essentially, the men are told their nature is evil, and the women are told they have no sexual nature. Christian men are shamed and Christian women are confused. So, we have men that are trained to hate themselves and worship women. Naturally, the women are turned off by this behavior. Christian men have no game – Actually, they have anti-game.
The final nail in the coffin is the ruthless pounding by pastors and Christian institutions everywhere that Christian men are porn-addicted perverts. At my Christian university, they had posters everywhere saying something like 80% of Christian men are addicted to pornography. Unfortunately, because this messaging is consistent, Christian girls probably think non-Christians don’t have any issues with porn. The end result is that your average Christian guy in college has zero game, thinks the girls are angels, and is branded as a porn addict. The geniuses at Christian universities everywhere wonder why people are not marrying or dating at their 40k/year schools/mixer. They then wonder why a non-Christian man is appealing to a Christian girl. The truth is, a good portion of ‘Christian” girls at my university were dating non-believers off campus. Naturally, they have some form of game, push for sex and then the girls lose their virginity to their alpha non-Christian boyfriend. See the stats – 80% of young evangelicals are not virgins. If by chance, a god-fearing man stumbles into a relationship with a Christian girl at his college, he will quickly realize that all the uproar about respecting boundaries will result in being dumped. These women want escalation. I hate to say it, but Evangelical girls see “saving one’s virginity” as a giant shit test. Not getting physical will result in being dumped. Fantasies by baby boomer’s about creating a courtship environment are foolish. The fact is, the women don’t want it.
All this is to say, that if you are a young Christian man, you need to do everything possible to maximize your looks, game, and social circle and some track to providership and start searching for decent girls immediately in venues where you can stand out (i.e. amog other Christian betas).
To the original point – do they really think that little girls seeing Rey will make them want to become warriors and join the army. I highly doubt it. And to the president of Christian feminism or whatever, maybe he’s never heard of the draft.
If one Googles “Mary Sue Rey”, one finds article after articles saying “no, she is not one”.
What do you believe? What you are told, or your own lying eyes?
“If one Googles ‘Mary Sue Rey’, one finds article after articles saying ‘no, she is not one’.
What do you believe? What you are told, or your own lying eyes?”
If it was so obviously wrong (that she’s a Mary Sue) that it merited such a unanimous response, it wouldn’t get one because no one would bother contradicting the troll. That kind of response shows that we’re onto something (that she is, and pretty obviously so*). The first step in a changing mind is attempting to defend the original idea.
* – I was arguing in the previous thread that they’ve left the door open to make her more (and less) than a Mary Sue in subsequent movies – we don’t know that much about her yet – with the theme of the movie (The Awakening of the Force as an actor in history – which is also a Christian theme re: God, perhaps coincidental) accounting for some of her exploits in this film.
We’re not there yet, and shes still a Mary Sue because she lacks flaws. In that sense, it’s similar to the debate about the Immaculate Conception between Catholics and Protestants.
It’s funny to read that this movie is as big of a hit as the original ANH. Nonsense. After two weeks it’s getting little press coverage at all. It’s off the magazine covers, it’s out of the newspapers and off TV.
Box office receipts are good, and that’s important…but this was all built on hype and nostalgia for the original. Do you really think this will be in the theaters for a year? If this were a new release, it wouldn’t last 4 weeks.
JJ Abrams is overhyped. Star Trek Into the Darknewss had multiple scenes that lasted 10 minutes too long. I can only imagine how tedious this one must be.
Interesting that someone thought the culture would no longer tolerate the full hero’s journey through the training and mistakes. One of my chief criticisms of Harry Potter is that neither Harry nor Ron ever did any work to improve their skills (w/ the possible exception of quidditch). It seems that Harry’s legitimacy to be a hero is that he had a tough upbringing, wh/ of course the angsty pre-teens believe they can identify with.
desiderian,
I am not a troll. It was meant to have a measure of sarcasm. It is so obvious that Rey is a Mary Sue to anybody who bothers to think, that it very telling that there are legions of people who deny what their eyes see.
Farm Boy,
I know. You’ve completely missed my point.
If you, or anyone else claiming (correctly) that Rey was a Mary Sue were a troll, then the response would have been far different.
Farm Boy is the real deal. Plus, along with Yoda, he is one of the few here who understands the significance of sammiches.
“it very telling that there are legions of people who deny what their eyes see”
Yes, it tells us that among them there are minds changing.
Mary Sue on the other hand, does not.
Understand the sammich significance I mean.
Yes, sammiches are important. And the Star Wars movie had zero scenes with them in them. I think that this is very telling also.
The strongest woman is weaker than the weakest man. She is of lower IQ than the lowest IQ man. The highest order of women could be easily destroyed by the lowest order of men. I don’t see what all the hub-bub is all about. Feminism is full of shit. We all know it. Why do we even discauss the issue? Women weak, men strong. THAT is the order.
I don’t think the movie is particularly feminist. In fact I think it has many strong masculine themes. I wrote something to that effect yesterday.
http://levitersalsalis70.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/masculinity-and-star-wars-force-awakens.html
@mike
Your comments on the church were pure gold.
@ Mike
“Hell, I used to think these girls who dated men in medical school were kind of gold-diggerish, but now it might be a sign of a decent women considering the times we are in.”
Your first gut instinct was correct.
Just a quick reminder that Luke handed Leia a blaster in ANH while he was getting ready to swing them across the chasm. Oh, and she had to figure out how to get them out of the prison wing. It’s not like this is new.
I do totally agree that Rey is a little too perfect to be true and I hate the idea that for thousands of years people trained to be Jedi but now Rey gets to just “really want it” and she is good to go. I’m also willing to wait and see what the backstory is in the next couple movies.
Mike is cool
OT but a very interesting article I discovered today
http://alphagameplan.blogspot.ca/2013/07/why-feminized-societies-will-fail.html
“Your comments on the church were pure gold.”
Agreed.
“I hate the idea that for thousands of years people trained to be Jedi but now Rey gets to just ‘really want it’ and she is good to go.”
That’s the thing, she’s not a Jedi. Maybe the whole Jedi thing was the mistake.
See: priesthood of all believers.
@ Jim Christian
Actually, Re: the I.Q. of men and women, men have more outliers on the extremes of I.Q. The dumbest of the dumb men are dumber than the dumbest of the dumb women. Vice versa on the high end, men are at pinnacle of I.Q. scale. Not that it matters because the score differences are miniscule; it’s what women and men do with this I.Q. that drastically sets them apart. Even the most brilliant of women, show little intellectual curiosity about world around them and would rather spend time with other women talking about relationships.
This doesn’t make women inferior to men, but it’s perfectly clear (to even those feminists who say otherwise) that it is men who drive cultural, political, creative, technological and intellectual advancement for the human race. When this process of advancement stalls, it will be because men choose to do so. The pretense otherwise is a luxury of a morally and intellectually suicidal Western culture that’s had it too good for too long a time.
@Heresolong (January 4, 2016 at 8:31 pm)
“I’m also willing to wait and see what the backstory is in the next couple movies.”
John C. Wright explains why not explaining (or hinting at) part of the backstory, thereby leaving the audience hanging or yanking them out of the story, is a failure of significant magnitude by the writer and the director.
http://www.scifiwright.com/2015/12/the-force-snores-in-its-sleep-campbell-and-lewis/
Abrams’ incompetence helped cement the “Mary Sue” label on Rey, and it’s going to be a very hard one to shake.
@Mike
they constantly pound that lust is evil and essentially tell you to break eye contact with any pretty girl immediately.
…
The final nail in the coffin is the ruthless pounding by pastors and Christian institutions everywhere that Christian men are porn-addicted perverts.
…
all the uproar about respecting boundaries will result in being dumped. These women want escalation. I hate to say it, but Evangelical girls see “saving one’s virginity” as a giant shit test. Not getting physical will result in being dumped.
I sympathize with your frustration, but the problem is multifaceted. We can start with the first two points about men being trained to be betas and denigrated as “porn-addicted perverts.” The problem there is the leadership is peddling a lie based on false doctrine and the young men are either too ignorant or too unwilling to fight back.
The truth is lust is a desire that cannot be legitimately obtained. It’s the sexual subset of coveting and a young man looking at a woman eligible to marry is definitely *not* lusting after her if he desires her, although he would be if she was a married woman. This is proven by what Jesus said in Matthew 5, that if you look on a woman with lust then you’ve already committed adultery in your heart. Adultery requires the presence of a married woman that isn’t the man’s wife. Ipso facto, no possibility of adultery means no lust and no sin. A veneer of good intentions on top of willful ignorance will not excuse damaging people, which is what church leaders do on a daily basis.
The truth that NOBODY wants to hear is that premarital sex isn’t a sin, per se. That, as with the point about lust, is easy to establish. Romans 4:15 and 5:13 state that when there is no Law there is no transgression and there is no sin is imputed. With that in mind, we examine the Law for what it has to say about pre-marital sex. That takes us to Exodus 22:16-17, which discusses the seduction of a virgin that is not betrothed (NB: if she was betrothed it would be adultery). There is no prohibition, no condemnation and no penalty (unless you want to call marriage a penalty). Then we look at Deuteronomy 22:28-29, which describes the man raping the *virgin* rather than seducing her. In the previous verses we see that raping a married woman or a betrothed virgin was a death-penalty offense, but if the man rapes a woman eligible to marry he simply has to marry her. Her father does not have the option to refuse the marriage and the man cannot divorce her all the days of his life. However, premarital sex is not “fornication” because fornication is a sin and premarital sex is not a sin according to the Bible.
Some might bring up Romans 14:23 and James 4:17 with respect to personal behavior and I must say that while I agree it’s extremely difficult to see how a young man could claim banging his girlfriend was an act of faith and waiting for marriage was not the right thing to do, Romans 14:4 says not to judge. Why? Because premarital sex is not contrary to the Law and therefore is not (universally) a sin. This is a subject area that can be fun to debate because anyone who studies it will figure out really fast they have nothing with which to oppose premarital sex as a matter of doctrine. Perhaps as a matter of personal wisdom but not as a matter of doctrine.
That knife cuts both ways, though. The woman who sluts it up prior to marriage might be in sin if her conscience convicts her, but if she is honest with her husband that she isn’t a virgin she isn’t specifically in sin. The fact that statistically it can be proven that she’s sowed the seeds of the destruction of her marriage simply means that she’s unfit for monogamous marriage. It becomes a point of wisdom- is it wise to marry a former carousel rider? If the only choice is monogamous marriage my answer would be a resounding no.
However, given the environment in which we live today in which women are subject to temptations they should never be exposed to, there are certainly no guarantees that marrying a young virgin will promise a successful marriage and over time people change.
While the elders in the church might think they know how to handle today’s women, their approach (while it might have been wise 30-40 years ago) is probably not the wisest course of action today. Especially if their instruction is designed to pander to the women in the interests of keeping the collection plate full. Wisdom, in this case, depends on the guy and what he brings to the game as well as the girl and what she brings to the game.
That brings us to the girls. I disagree that saving yourself for marriage is a shit test because she should not know anything about the guy’s sexual history, the shit test is the boundary hunt. The guy who is trying to save himself for marriage will typically not engage in a boundary hunt, pushing for sex to find out how far she will go, but that’s what the bad boys do and that’s what she wants. That is the shit test, not the virginity, although young men would do well to observe the Iron Rule of Tomassi # 2: NEVER, under pain of death, honestly or dishonestly reveal the number of women you’ve slept with or explain any detail of your sexual experiences with them to a current lover. Heartiste’s 16 Commandments of Poon are also worth applying, inasmuch as you can, but should never reveal that he is a virgin or anything else about his sexual history.
The boundary hunt is a serious shit test men need to pass, but only if control can control themselves. The 15th and 16th Commandments of Poon are appropriate reading:
If you can maintain control and push to find her boundaries to the point she says “stop” and means it, you win. You passed the test. If you discover that she doesn’t have any boundaries, you win because you just discovered that either 1) she’s so into you that she’ll give it up on the spot; or, 2) she’s just a garden variety slut and now you know that you can look elsewhere. If she’s really that into you and she meets other criteria, it might be a good match. One of the worst mistakes a man can make is to marry a woman that isn’t truly attracted to him, and that mistake is just as bad a mistake as marrying the village bicycle.
Sound cruel? It isn’t nearly as cruel as what the women are doing to young men- it’s proactive self-defense. The problem comes when things get out of control and suddenly you find her half naked and rapidly getting completely naked as she tries to open your trousers. There is only one way out of the situation at that point without going beta and that’s a nuclear rejection: Back up and appreciate her nakedness, then get a pained look on your face. Look her in the eye and tell her “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this. I have standards, and honestly, you need to lose (10-20) pounds. I’m really sorry but I just can’t do this.”
(I should point out this tactic only works if she actually *is* overweight- at least a little, a problem she has complete control over. In fact, if she’s only a bit overweight it works better than if she’s obviously plump, but either way it’s a problem she can solve.)
Compose yourself, terminate things as fast as possible and leave. My experience from the times I’ve had this happen was it either provoked a furious, violent tirade complete with a hysterical physical attack, or a sobbing, crying emotional meltdown. Either way, leave. Do not try to placate, do not try to console. Leave and don’t look back (unless you’re dodging the stuff she’s throwing at you).
If she’s at all attracted to you and at least reasonably emotionally balanced, you just increased her attraction to you. There is a high probability that as soon as she loses the weight she’ll be following you around like a puppy. You waited until she was either naked or nearly naked (very vulnerable) and kicked her in the pride (hard) by rejecting her for her appearance. However, by saying you were sorry and the rejection was because you have standards, you demonstrated you are much higher value than she is while at the same time leaving the door open to the idea that if she lost the weight the two of you could be together.
Machiavellian? Absolutely. But women talk and it’s a story that will get told to the man’s benefit. Yes, it’s a totally jerk move, but it works because it demonstrates in a very graphic manner that the man will not compromise his standards for sex and therefore he will have the power in any relationship he might develop. That’s attractive too.
Just tell Feminists you’re disappointed Disney made Star Wars into another Princess movie. If they look at you like a Labrador retriever trying to figure out what you’re saying, point out the original movie had three main characters with strengths and weaknesses who had to learn how to work together to save the universe. The new movie is just about one special princess who will eventually – by the third film probably – need to marry a prince to save the day.
@Mike
Heartily second The Question’s kudos. Your analysis of why women cannot appreciate the struggles men endure in order to achieve success deserves an entire in-depth post of its own.
@ Mike et al
One of my plurality of elders is in very tight with CBMW. He’s our church’s “go to guy” when it comes to issues of alleged biblical headship/manhood/womanhood. He mentions at the end of a Sunday School lesson that “the marriage age is increasing because women are looking to marry and all they see are “boys””. That instantly pegged the discernment needle and I politely asked him to speak about it via email. He agrees and I give him about 1000 words on why it’s wrong since the first premise (women are looking to marry) is flawed. Marriage age increasing, women are more and more delaying marriage via education, becoming unmarriageable at 28-30 with crushing debt, submission to their bosses and Daddy Government instead of a husband.
Threw in references to hypergamy and other proven red-pill ideas and did so, at least I thought, respectably and without any sort of profanity.
His reply was one of more or less “How dare you disrespect an elder by lecturing me?” and the usual elitist “how many books have you read/where’s your education?” Complete failure on his part to address anything I said other than “Adam abdicated responsibility and all men do so now to focus on porn and video games.”
These CBMW folk will not brook any dissent and will put out a full-court press on the shaming language and the benefits of delayed marriage as long as they can. It’s truly sad….. and, again, I repent and ask for the readership’s forgiveness in sticking up for CBMW a while back.
@Sean:
Have a line-by-line refutation worked up. Then go to the Elder Board and call not just that Elder but all of them to Repentance. Be very clear that this isn’t a small issue: they have shown themselves incapable of believing the Word of the Lord. So if they continue in such a manner, they are heretics and it *will* cost them their souls.
It won’t go over well. But do it from a position of Strength within the Lord. If they Repent, you’ve changed an entire Church for the Lord and He will dwell there. If not, dust your feet off and move on.
The church is doing everything in its power to set young Christian men up for a life of relationship disaster. Firstly, they constantly pound that lust is evil and essentially tell you to break eye contact with any pretty girl immediately. Beta tell, check. Teenage years of female interaction ruined, check. Then, they consistently tell the Christian women that they can do no wrong and conveniently leave out any discussion of how to deal with sexual feelings. Essentially, the men are told their nature is evil, and the women are told they have no sexual nature. Christian men are shamed and Christian women are confused. So, we have men that are trained to hate themselves and worship women. Naturally, the women are turned off by this behavior. Christian men have no game – Actually, they have anti-game.
You left out telling 20 something men that wanting marriage is saying God isn’t good enough, they want “God, and…”, to keep them from getting underfoot while church girls decide which ‘leaders’ they wish to chase after. Once those same women come back w/ a couple kids in tow, then the lesson switches to “man up”.
That’s the thing, she’s not a Jedi. Maybe the whole Jedi thing was the mistake.
See: priesthood of all believers.
Or, based on what’s shown, it’s simply inherited, passed down from one generation to the next,
like hemophilia in the Romanovs.
“Or, based on what’s shown, it’s simply inherited, passed down from one generation to the next,
like hemophilia in the Romanovs.”
Or like the Levitical Priesthood.
Until The Story was Changed by the Son of a virgin.
@Looking Glass:
Have a line-by-line refutation worked up. Then go to the Elder Board and call not just that Elder but all of them to Repentance. Be very clear that this isn’t a small issue: they have shown themselves incapable of believing the Word of the Lord. So if they continue in such a manner, they are heretics and it *will* cost them their souls.
If we had done this earlier, things wouldn’t have slipped to the degree they have reached now. Imagine if men in the 70s, 80s and 90s had stood up to those feminist hags, and held their grounds despite withering criticism of their “oppressive misogyny”. While feminism would not necessarily have been aborted, more women would have rejected their destructive messages, and listened more to their own hearts instead, and saved themselves a whole lot of heartache later.
Even then, it is not too late now. We can still salvage the little that remains “that are ready to die” (Revelation 3:2). Let’s get down to making it difficult for the heretics who have hijacked our churches and ministries!
Bitch Skywalker, Black Solo, and a busted-ass Darth wannabe. Everyone, including Luke, comes off as a whiny sissy. Horrible.
As I said before on the other thread. Best not to watch the trope. The entertainment industry is run by progressive simps, let them have it. The creativity is gone and the sooner the greater population realises that, the sooner they will repent of its vileness and move on to other more real things.
Why bother with Star Wars, it happened in a galaxy far, far away and should be no concern of ours. Leave it be.
@Sean
This is a delicate situation, and you have to be very careful when trying to instruct an elder. By its very nature it challenges their authority.
If you find another opening (which I doubt), I would focus on this. He wants to discuss original sin, and it is entirely relevant. But what was Adam’s sin? Answer: He failed to rebuke his wife when she rebelled against God, when she grasped for that which she should not have grasped. Instead he went along with her, followed her, in her rebellion. The truth is that Adam’s sin is what is driving our problems today; Christian men in leadership are choosing to go along with the rebellion instead of rebuking the women in rebellion. Adam’s choice should at least be understandable for us. It is hard to rebuke a woman. And it feels wrong. This is where we are today. Christian men are afraid to rebuke the feminist rebellion, no matter how blatant, and are instead looking for only men to rebuke. But in only looking for men to rebuke they are repeating the same error. They need to rebuke men, but they need to rebuke men for going along with the rebellion of women instead of calling it out.
Lastly, the issue of delayed marriage is a difficult one to argue because there is so much ambiguity. Even secular feminists are careful to switch their messaging once they are 30ish and looking to shame a man into marriage. This is why I have focused so much on the issue of women in combat. Everyone, everyone aside from complementarians knows that women are demanding that they be allowed to join men in this role. Men did not refuse to serve on submarines, forcing the Navy to spend who knows how much retrofitting the sub fleet and destroying moral of the men who serve; women demanded, and men in authority who were afraid to rebuke them because it would feel mean (sound familiar) went along with it. No one else denies this, certainly not the feminists; they covet the status of men and are entirely open about this.
This brings me to:
You don’t end up as far down the road of absurdity as the CBMW is on denying the driving force behind women in combat by allowing dissent. This is a very cloistered group not used to being challenged by anyone but feminists, whom they consider driven by genuine grievances against lesser men than themselves.
No need to repent here. You thought they were being unfairly criticized and stood up for them. You also kept your mind open. However, you may need to repent to your elder.
Bitch Skywalker, Black Solo, and a busted-ass Darth wannabe. Everyone, including Luke, comes off as a whiny sissy. Horrible.
Forget the new “Emperor” Spork you do.
Thank goodness a watered down version of me there was not
@God is laughing: “Feminists aren’t doing anything, much less affecting media or culture. What a bunch of conspiracy theorists and misogynists we have collected here.”
At the risk of starting up an old and well worn debate, conspiracies about the FI are about the same as the Jewish conspiracy theorists. Women (and bluepill manginas like yourself) don’t have a central clearing house where they get their marching orders via snapchat from the island of Lesbos every day any more than Jews get their marching orders from Tel Aviv. Women know who the allies are and who the enemies are. Women don’t conspire together to further the imperative of the tribe. All of them already know the imperative. See also Genesis Chapter 3.
Women, as a group, work towards making portrayals of women as better, smarter, and more capable than men. All media must reflect that. They must be morally superior in every way to incompetent, deviant men. Any media that fails to portray this is “misogynists.”
Similarly, any man who objects is either whining or a misogynist, or both. Do you see? God is Laughing didn’t get a text telling him to object. There is no need for an organized conspiracy when both the master’s and the slave’s in this fuckfest of a culture have the same goals. The FI is really simple:
Women good. Men Bad.
Women Capable. Men bumbling or malignant.
Woman not at fault. Man at fault.
Women empowered. Men destroy the patriarchy.
Disagree? All pile on and call it misogyny.
Tangible and obvious evidence of male disadvantage like Suicide, death on the job, loses your home and family with the children turned against you is just whining- but fuzzy examples of so called female disadvantage like pay gap, discrimination, and rape culture are SOCIAL PROBLEMS THAT MUST BE SOLVED.
Men: Blow your brains out, die on the job, go insane, become homeless, go to prison.
–Nobody gives a single shit.
Women: With all the men dying so young it might be harder to find a husband (mangina/beta provider who I can play games with, torture, titillate, and deny sex by pretending to be frigid AFTER I am done getting pumped and dumped by 6 ‘ 2″ linemen and passed around the party like a dinner plate).
–OH…MY…GOD. This is a crisis. Somebody has to DO something or else some women might not find a man to marry. Man up and marry those sluts guys! This is a problem of MALE BEHAVIOR. MEN MUST CHANGE. Got it?
Next up, space aliens in Ancient Egypt.
The insanity of saying that men are not willing to be in the military and navy and other combat units, and so women are being brought in against their will, is laughable, when all such units are still well above 90% male. I would continuously remind them of that until it sunk in.
Laugh in their face Sean, in his face, straight to his lying mouth. Do it!
@Yoda
Sorry I am. A weird yellow version of Edna Mode played by a black woman there was; your role she had.
@Looking Glass.
I’d love to do a point-by-point refutation but there was nothing to refute other than the original sin point. Everything else was “How dare you” and “You’d be such a testament if you became a Biblical man instead of immature.” I put out 1000 words of evidence in response to a question of “why was it unhelpful?” “why am I misguided?”… whilst leaving 2000 more or so in my head.
@Dalrock
Thanks for the response. I already asked for forgiveness and apologized for the offense I seemed to cause. Not for what I said, ’cause it’s all true, but how I did it. I am amazed at how these CBMW True Believers can hold positions of power within a church, “preach” their ideas and see pews filled with unmarriageable women, men who want nothing to do with them, and pastor’s daughters wearing leggings and a sweater to a morning service like it’s a 830am Poli Sci 313 lecture. Why, it’s almost like it’s uneffective.
It’s a shame to see churches with solid theology, great people in the pews and full of younger people be infected with vag worship.
Sorry I am. A weird yellow version of Edna Mode played by a black woman there was; your role she had.
So lame that character was, that consider her I did not.
Sad I am.
Back to my hut I will go.
Ponder this silliness I will.
I`ve seen a lot of talk about Rey being a Mary Sue (which she is) but no one has really touched on the feminine mindset that requires her to be a Mary Sue. If you think about it most good looking women are just born that way and really don`t have to do anything to attract attention. Many of them are just given things for being a good looking woman which creates a sense of entitlement. Given that in our modern age most women think of themselves as deserving of attention and success in life just based on growing up into a woman and that the possession of a vagina gives them the magical ability to get what they want it is no surprise that Rey is a Mary Sue, it is almost a requirement for modern movies.
The list of Mary Sue`s in movies is so long it`s not even funny (Mr. and Mrs. Smith was one that bugged me a great deal in that the wife beat her husband in all areas and whenever they were in competition se always came out on top). Mary Sues are required now in order to keep the feminist centric world view alive in the masses so expect the media to churn out these type of movies and TV shows on a regular basis. This is part of the reason that I no longer can ever bare to watch most of what Hollywood puts out. And this is not limited to just Hollywood, I`ve seen the same garbage in Japanese anime for quite sometime.
What I can`t quite figure out is why blue pill betas are so attracted to this type of entertainment, what is it in the modern male psyche that makes them want a woman that will dominate them physically and intellectually? Have they been so crushed by their years in the public school matriarchy that they`ve lost any ability to actually be a man and instead wish to take the submissive role they were forced into throughout their school years? I certainly hope not but that`s about what it looks like to me.
“you have to be very careful when trying to instruct an elder”
Of course, but is mere fact-finding instruction? He’s not challenging him on biblical teaching or the interpretation of scripture.The elder’s authority is not principally a temporal one.
“What I can`t quite figure out is why blue pill betas are so attracted to this type of entertainment, what is it in the modern male psyche that makes them want a woman that will dominate them physically and intellectually?”
Arrested development. They’re (early) adolescent boys in the bodies of grown men, so they like their women to still be tomboyish too. Certainly nothing grown-up and maternal to remind them how unready they are for paternity.
There’s a big problem having a woman as your action lead (other than it’s completely asinine, as women lack the warrior instinct as well as the physical strength): you can’t have the villain beat them up.
In ESB, Vader just kicks the living crap out of Luke and then saws off his arm. It’s a crucial bit of character development and an awesome scene, and any man can relate to a situation where he did his best and got beaten badly. It shows Luke how far there is to go, how inadequate he is and how hard he’s going to have to work to reach Vader’s level if he ever wants to win.
Nobody would want to see that happen to a cute girl. It would be unpleasant to sit through. Thus the girl character has to be a Mary Sue because she can never lose; if she lost she’d get beaten up and/or injured by the male villain (and thus be less pretty!), and that’s not allowable. Basically the writing sucks because it’s not really possible to have a non-Mary Sue female main character.
However, you may need to repent to your elder.
Given Sean’s description of this man and his peers and their attitude toward what Scripture actually (and clearly) has to say on this matter under discussion, I don’t think it is at all out of line to question whether he should even be an elder at all. Indeed, one has to wonder what objective standards are applied within most churches today to determine such suitability. Given the saturation of the churches with modernist heresy, I seriously doubt that selection criteria bear any resemblance to those set forth in Paul’s epistles to the early church.
Dalrock,
“For feminists the controversy revolves around whether the feminist heroine of the movie (Rey) is too perfect or not. They love that she is a badass warrior, but worry that maybe her feminist perfection has gone too far. As Caroline Franke at Vox.com explains:
Is Rey, the new movie’s protagonist, too perfect to be a good hero? Is she, in fandom speak, a “Mary Sue”?”
^That reminds me of Cynthia’s comment that all women hate each other and are secretly in competition with each other at every moment in real life.
I actually don’t think healthy women think like that or allow themselves to operate in that kind of scarcity mindset. With maturity, you allow others to just be different from you and aren’t constantly comparing in ways to compete, you have an abundance mentality that there’s enough for everyone if you work at life hard enough. But here we have feminists that admit that they actually *don’t* seem to like a woman who they describe as “thinner, prettier, and with better LTR prospects.” I’m guessing for feminists or women who think this way, its a “you can be great, even a role model for others, but don’t be too great or we’ll feel threatened by you and reject you viscerally.” It reminds me of that old saying that feminism is for ugly women, because it helps them compete better for the same resources that the “prettier” women often get instead of them. Feminism levels the playing field….
Your posts on Feminism and ugliness explain it well also…
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/feminists-are-ugly/
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/a-year-of-ugly-feminists/
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/feminist-self-loathing/
I understand that Rey is depicted to be better than Luke (no need for training), and better than the black man who should have at least had some combat training, but as far as Mary Sue’s go in literature, isn’t that what all the old fairy tales and legends were about? I saw an old comment from Tz2026 basically saying that women were created to show God’s beauty, goodness, and truth, and women failed to uphold those things, hence Eve.
Feminism is ugly because it works to undermine beauty, goodness and truth, and how do they most often undermine them? In helping women to reject those things (fat acceptance, bad attitudes, encouraging mocking and insulting, encouraging women to hate each other). The opposite of those things is a woman willing against her sin nature, and is beautiful and should be admirable.
So the more a female character goes toward becoming the epitome of beauty, goodness, and truth (a Mary Sue? or a virgin Mary), the more they will scoff that she’s too perfect, even though, unless I’m somehow mistaken, that was God’s design for women (without sin). We messed it up because of sin, not because beauty, goodness, and truth aren’t things that should be desired.
“not because beauty, goodness, and truth aren’t things that should be desired”
A girl beating up four assailants single-handedly with only a staff is neither beautiful, good, nor true. Taking arrogant offense at Finn’s offer of help is worse.
To the extent she functions as a Mary Sue, she’s not Marian. The two are mutually exclusive. She might yet play a Marian role in the whole saga, but her depiction as a Mary Sue in the first film is an undoubted flaw.
Star Wars has always been a haven for manginas.
Luke actually made out with his sister. He didn’t know it, but it is pretty evident George Lucas was excited to have this thread go as far as it did.
Annakin was attracted to Padme who was clearly 6 years older than him. He was 10 and she was 16, yet he ‘thought about her in between’.
Creepy, creepy. Most Star Wars fans are mangina-heavy as well.
Dalrock
It is hard to rebuke a woman. And it feels wrong. This is where we are today.
The flip side of that, however, is that once a man starts rebuking bad behavior in a woman, it becomes easier. It is like Gaming a woman, the first time feels really stupid, even slightly nauseating, and when the all but inevitable pushback comes it seems just wrong, like skidding on ice. However the next time it is easier. Postiive results do show up, sooner or later, and dealing with bad behavior not only gets easier, the incidence of that behavior decreases.
It is really appallingly interesting to talk with the middle aged churchgoing men on some issues. A lot of men are really afraid of their wives temper, that’s obvious, yet the solution – Don’t Give A Flip, for example, then later on rebuke her anger – is beyond their vision. But isn’t Anger one of those behaviors people are supposed to avoid, along with lying, etc.? So what gives? Rationally talking this out with men can be done. With women, we all know the answer: show, don’t tell.
All you men who go to church, try this sometime with any of the betaized men in the next pew: ask them where in the bible the word “Sexist” is. See whose face lights up, and who looks really confused. Because if it ain’t in the Bible, howcome women in church get to use that word, huh?
I’d love to do a point-by-point refutation but there was nothing to refute other than the original sin point. Everything else was “How dare you” and “You’d be such a testament if you became a Biblical man instead of immature.” I put out 1000 words of evidence in response to a question of “why was it unhelpful?” “why am I misguided?”… whilst leaving 2000 more or so in my head.
That’s because your elder is doing emotion while you are doing reason.
This is incredibly common in the modern churches, a direct result of feminization.
He’s all about feelz, not thoughts. One angle, and I’m just about to get back to work, is to pick a root Bible quote and hammer on it. Dalrock’s point about Adam might be a good place to start, apparently a lot of churches regard Adam’s sin as failure to protect Eve from herself when as Dalrock notes that wasn’t it at all.
Got to disagree with Dalrock on age of marriage. Women marry when they want to, period. I’m old enough, and from a backward enough place that I can recall men marrying right out of high school because their girl wanted to do that, and maybe even got herself knocked up to make sure it happened. I do see couples marrying in college or right out of it and in every case the women wanted to get married then. The dearies riding the carousel want to get married “someday”…
As for the CBMW, don’t underestimate the power of groupthink in an insular group. Echo chambers don’t “do” dissent.
The flip side of that, however, is that once a man starts rebuking bad behavior in a woman, it becomes easier.
Yes! Yes ! Yes! Someone stated it very succinctly.
These days, I don’t give a rat’s hairy and stinking butt about what your gender is. If you act like an idiot you will be treated like one, “in love”.
However, you may need to repent to your elder.
Not necessarily. Was he respectful to the elder? We are commanded to respect the elders.
But what if the elder is sinning? After all, he is human and capable of sin. If he is sinning, then the elder should be rebuked to the point of repenting, and not just to him, but to the entire congregation.
So, if it can be proven that an elder is sinning, he is to be rebuked in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. Paul charges this to be done without partiality.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2488496/board/thread/252049846?p=1
If Episodes 4-6 were written the same as TFA
@Rickety
I think I was respectful. I waited for the invite to discuss before writing. I didn’t take any cheap shots, no profanity, no accusations of sinful behaviour. I merely stated he was at best unhelpful and at worst misguided from my original post and an earlier statement months ago about porn and video games were causing men to not be men. I stated months ago that this was effect, not cause. Men are seeing the pool of marriageable women and saying we’ll pass, thanks. I even pre-emptively asked for forgiveness for any perceived disrespect during my missive.
Is the elder sinning? Unlikely wrt to this unless it’s idolatry of women or a lack of grace to nascent theology.
desi “A girl beating up four assailants single-handedly with only a staff is neither beautiful, good, nor true. Taking arrogant offense at Finn’s offer of help is worse.”
^I never said it was, that is the feminist part of the movie for sure – so it’s opposite of beautiful, good, or true. But the whole strangeness of a “Mary Sue” something I’ve never heard or thought about before, seems to go back to old tales of virtuous women – of course, women *aren’t* really virtuous, but willing against their sin natures to become someone excellent is only ever mocked by feminists.
It’s like with fat acceptance that feminism has pushed onto our culture… they hated seeing that swim suit model for Protein World’s add because she was a model of physical beauty and excellence. There’s nothing wrong with excelling at something, but they tried to make it the opposite of what it was. Excellence is mocked as being “too perfect.”
I actually heard something today that talked about the men captured by Babylon… the Hebrew men were 10 times better than all the King’s wisest men – in EVERY area of knowledge. They were excellent beyond belief… and it created maliciousness in the hearts of the other men toward them. But that maliciousness, that hatred of their “perfection” wasn’t good itself, it was actually just jealousy, and caused them to look for any tiny flaw they had so that they could blow it out of proportion and get the Hebrew men killed.
Regarding warrior women, I always thought Monty Python did it best, in a boxing match between a man and a little girl:
What makes this skit so funny, is that you expect the standard comedic “twist” that the girl beats up the man. Instead, Monty Python twists the “twist.” The result is both true to the real world, and subversive to comedy cliches.
desi “A girl beating up four assailants single-handedly with only a staff is neither beautiful, good, nor true. Taking arrogant offense at Finn’s offer of help is worse.”
^I never said it was, that is the feminist part of the movie for sure – so it’s opposite of beautiful, good, or true. But the whole strangeness of a “Mary Sue,” something I’ve never heard or thought about before, makes sense, but it seems to go back to old fairy tales of virtuous women… Cinderella being one of them for sure – of course, women *aren’t* really virtuous, but in using their will against their sin natures to become “perfect” (biblical meaning “mature) is good.
It’s like with fat acceptance that feminism has pushed onto our culture… they hated seeing that swim suit model for Protein World’s add because she was a model of physical beauty and excellence. There’s nothing wrong with excelling at something, but they tried to make it the opposite of what it was. Excellence is mocked as being “too perfect.”
I actually heard something today that talked about the men captured by Babylon… the Hebrew men were 10 times better than all the King’s wisest men – in EVERY area of knowledge. They were excellent beyond belief… and it created maliciousness in the hearts of the other men toward them. But that maliciousness, that hatred of their “perfection” wasn’t good itself, it was actually just jealousy, and caused them to look for any tiny flaw they had so that they could blow it out of proportion and get the Hebrew men killed.
Sean,
“I merely stated he was at best unhelpful and at worst misguided”
That’s not a statement (implying a statement of fact), it is a personal judgement of the elder himself. That’s not your place. Make your statements about facts, not about him.
“from my original post and an earlier statement months ago about porn and video games were causing men to not be men. I stated months ago that this was effect, not cause.”
It’s both. It’s also beside the point and most likely sinful behavior, so it detracts from your stronger argument and the principal issue: female sin.
“Men are seeing the pool of marriageable women and saying we’ll pass, thanks. I even pre-emptively asked for forgiveness for any perceived disrespect during my missive.”
Given your “statement,” you did so in blatant insincerity, further undermining your position. His perceptions are his business, not yours. Don’t presume to apologize for the actions of another, especially someone in authority over you.
If you’re being disrespectful, stop. Don’t do it while apologizing.
If you’re not, don’t apologize.
“But the whole strangeness of a ‘Mary Sue’ something I’ve never heard or thought about before, seems to go back to old tales of virtuous women – of course, women *aren’t* really virtuous, but willing against their sin natures to become someone excellent is only ever mocked by feminists.”
It may seem to, but it doesn’t. Its a problem of (poor) writing stemming from arrested development on the part of the author. Unsurprisingly the term originally came from fanfic written by a teenage girl. Also unsurprisingly, it appeals to feminists who suffer from the same affliction. They’re stuck in that post-pubescent period where girls have a short-lived developmental advantage over boys.
Sean,
If your elder is tight within CMBW circles, perhaps you need to take a different approach.
Does the church have any fine china you could smash?
seriouslyserving says:
January 5, 2016 at 9:57 pm
Okay, you made me laugh.
@Jim Christian: “The strongest woman is weaker than the weakest man. She is of lower IQ than the lowest IQ man. The highest order of women could be easily destroyed by the lowest order of men.”
We have got this. No reason to go a bridge to far. I know many women with an IQ higher than yours- and you are presumably not the lowest quality man while the braniacs I know are surely not the highest quality women.
@seriouslyserving
That’s funny right there.
@seriouslyserving:
I laughed. And that would be a great “sermon” demonstration piece. 🙂
Is the elder sinning? Unlikely
Well there is 2 Tim 2:24
As well as
1 Tim 1:4-7, and
1 Tim 3:2-3 (patient, apt to teach), and
1 Tim 4:7 (old wives tales), and
1 Tim 6:3-5
@Jim Christian: “The strongest woman is weaker than the weakest man. She is of lower IQ than the lowest IQ man. The highest order of women could be easily destroyed by the lowest order of men.”
bluepillprofessor says: January 6, 2016 at 1:10 am
We have got this. No reason to go a bridge to far.
sure there is. read it again.
read the avatar name again.
try going to the non-existent facebook page.
that’s a troll, son.
“Is the elder sinning? Unlikely”
Of course he is. There is only One without sin, and it’s not him.
(1) His personal spiritual development is the responsibility of his pastor and the other elders, not you.
(2) You do have the responsibility to help him get the facts straight, so that he’s not inadvertently bearing false witness.
Stick to the facts, not the elder.
“Is “The Force Awakens” too feminist?”
Only a complete and total idiot would think it isn’t.
In 1 Timothy 3:3 (NASB), it says an overseer should be “not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money.” It doesn’t sound like this elder was gentle or peaceable.
Elders (and other church leaders) do not have immunity from correction or discipline. Of course, they are to be respected, but are not to be pedestalized.
Christians other than elders and pastors have the responsibility and right to discipline an elder for sinning. It does require 2 or 3 witnesses, presumably to avoid false witness. Knowing that many elders are churchian, I am not willing to leave the pastor(s) and elders to police themselves.
My own experience suggests that elders and pastors are often very arrogant men. The arrogance is cloaked in apparent humility which quickly disappears when their teaching or decisions are questioned. However, I was astounded when a pastor asked me to forgive him for his actions during my divorce. Admittedly, I had to talk to him at length, and it took a week or two before he asked for forgiveness. So, even in this case, there seemed to be a huge hurdle to overcome before he did that. To me, this arrogance is opposite to the attitude described in the Biblical requirements for elders.
“Christians other than elders and pastors have the responsibility and right to discipline an elder for sinning.”
What sin is it that you allege that he has committed?
Not fulfilling his office up to the exacting standards of some guy on the internet who has very little information upon which to judge his performance?
Those are pertinent issues for a nominating committee, session, or a congregational meeting convened to consider his candidacy for the position, or, in extremis, his removal.
If I were in that position, I would not be thrilled about his high-handing Sean, but I’m not; nor is Sean. He, not unimportantly, has other fish to fry here.
Only for sinning should be bold.
Being a “genetic celebrity” is what Dr. Warren Farrell calls this in his book Why Men Are the Way They Are. The large majority of females do enjoy a period of celebrity-like treatment from many, if not most, of the people around them. They don’t do anything of their own volition to earn it, they just look young and pretty and female. It’s genetic. The counterpart young man experiences nothing like this, any attention he gets he must earn. He’s a genetic groupie.
Genetic celebrityhood explains a lot about female behavior; a few examples: how common magical thinking is among females, the Princess Attitude of entitlement, the female expectation that she’ll be rescued when she’s in a jam, and how angry so many females are when their genetic celebrityhood passes (just look around you and see how upset females are when they discover they’ve aged into being “sexually invisible” as the expression goes–“Welcome to
my world, Buttercup” is the response every man could give her).
Genetic celebrityhood, I believe, explains the female fascination with royalty of almost every kind, from Princess Di to Disney Princesses. Other expressions of the “I’m really a Princess!” internal urge so common to females is the Secret Identity (e.g., Hannah Montana, Part-Time Pop Star!; Sabrina the Teen-age Witch; Mia Thermopolis from The Princess Diaries) and especially common, the Secret Special Power (e.g., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and now Rey of the Disney Star Wars).
I think this is not new, I believe it has always been the case. However, our modern mass media has found pandering to this female weakness very profitable because females make up the largest portion of the TV audience, so the mass media through popular entertainment is feeding this female tendency and virtually all females are responding. It’s grown pathological.
“Christians other than elders and pastors have the responsibility and right to discipline an elder for sinning. It does require 2 or 3 witnesses, presumably to avoid false witness. Knowing that many elders are churchian, I am not willing to leave the pastor(s) and elders to police themselves.
My own experience suggests that elders and pastors are often very arrogant men. The arrogance is cloaked in apparent humility which quickly disappears when their teaching or decisions are questioned. ”
^I do think this can be true, but thankfully the pastors we’ve known, and the few elders we’ve known, haven’t been like that. Only one pastor that we knew was an arrogant man and fraud, and it was sad. He ended up almost destroying his marriage with an affair – all the while preaching purity and sanctity in marriage. He humbled himself though and became great afterwards. But the arrogance from an elder or pastor is gross to see, because it’s an abuse of their power and position. The people who cover for them (they usually have cover friends that won’t call out their pride or sin) are to me, just as responsible.
@Desiderian,
I am not alleging that this particular elder has sinned in this particular instance. I don’t know if he did or not.
However, I do wish readers to know that elders are not off-limits to spiritual rebuke and correction.
As I said, “Christians other than elders and pastors have the responsibility and right to discipline an elder for sinning.” They should not be hunting for the opportunity, but, if the sin is continuing, then it should be addressed Biblically. If it is happening, I think it’s reasonably possible that the other elders and and pastors may be ignorant or blind to it, or are unwilling to act because it might result in the congregation looking bad, or, perhaps worse yet, bringing disrepute to the position of elder that they themselves hold.
The first part is important, however it is irrelevant in this case because he already is in an elder. If he is already an elder, then the process should be similar to that in Matthew 18:15-17 and it appears that Paul teaches similarly for elders in 1 Timothy 5:19-21. Indeed, it should be an extreme case that an elder would be removed from the position, just as it should be rare that a non-elder would be “excommunicated” for sinning.
This is a bit tangential, but can any of the commenters here think of a piece of fiction with a female main character whom they’d consider to be a good heroine? I saw somebody mention Robin McKinley’s books in the comments of a different post discussing, I think, the same subject as this one; but I’m curious to know if there are any more.
After reading this. Idk if I want to see this movie.
The movie wasnt bad, it looks and feels like an old star wars movie for the most part. 2.5 stars. (The ships were awesome.)
FN turning was stupid, especially since he was being trained for 20+ years. kylo ren isnt likeable like darth vader.
Mr.A is Mr.A ,
Thanks for the link to John C. Wright’s followup to his review. Jeez, I already liked the guy, but now he goes and disses the loathsome and overrated Jared Diamond? JCW, are you my long-lost alter ego or something? Awesome.
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So are the most virtuous Disney Princesses the one’s that started as peasants. Belle and Cinderella were peasants that had to overcome difficulty and were rewarded at the end by finding favor with powerful men through their virtue and gentle spirit.
This just in: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2016/01/08/hasbro-to-include-rey-in-star-wars-monopoly-set-after-complaint/
So we now have one of the world’s largest toy companies scurrying to avoid the consternation of an 8-year old girl, in reality a sock puppet for her social media empowered mother with a long history of grrll power activism.
O My people! Their oppressors are children, and women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray and confuse the direction of your paths.
Isaiah 3:12 (NASB)
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“The first part is important, however it is irrelevant in this case because he already is in an elder. If he is already an elder, then the process should be similar to that in Matthew 18:15-17 and it appears that Paul teaches similarly for elders in 1 Timothy 5:19-21.”
Only if he is indeed sinning.
If he’s not, and you haven’t established that he is, how is any of this material to the discussion at hand?
Look, no one is less enamored of the quality of church leadership at this point than yours truly, and I’m entirely on board with your general point, but Sean didn’t ask a general question, but a specific one. Stay focused.
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I’ve had a chance to watch Star Wars and struggled to contain my cynicism. Rey is all of those things: a survivalist, an awesome pilot despite having no experience, a mechanic in a complex ship she’s never seen and a fighter that can out-do trained men.
Yet Rey is the latest in a long line of heroines in movie re-boots made along feminist lines. In Terminator: Genesys, Kyle Reese is sent back into time to find a Sarah Connor already trained up with a pet Terminator. His only job is as sperm donor for John Connor.
Watch Mad Max: Fury Road and you will find the moxied, crew-cut Charlize Theron (“Furiosa”) is the central character, rescuing Max so he can help her deliver a bunch of women somewhere in a plot so bad I couldn’t even watch the last 45 minutes.
I expect our Social Engineers in the Military/industrial / Media will produce more of this, so our women will be more used to being individuals replete with detachable “boyfriend” relationships just like Rey. This will make them far more compliant in earning and spending money, which turns the wheels of Western economies. The last thing they want is men focussing on building substantial things like families, churches, unions, clubs, associations, cultures and nations.
I’m glad for long-haul flights. They mean I can watch crappies without paying for them at the box office…
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@bluepillprofessor
I bet you don’t.
@Jim Christian
Almost.
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