A while ago my wife showed me this article on women claiming second virginity. I find the topic interesting because I have come to appreciate purity, innocence, chastity more and more as I walk with Christ and realize how I threw so much away in my foolish youth. Our culture has no place for values such as these and even mocks them. Some have tried to claim a “technical virginity,” but this surely is not purity. I write this first to encourage parents to make this a priority while raising girls and BOYS. (Notice the article only mentions girls being taught abstinence.) There are a few things that you can give away cheaply and your innocence is certainly high on the list (and I am not just talking about having sex). Do not fall into the LIE that experiencing this world is good for making well-rounded persons and they will have to see the real world sometime. A child’s innocence should be a parent’s #2 priority after teaching them the gospel.
Second, the issue is an interesting one when asking what does a new convert think and do after his precious innocence is gone. Of course we are talking about sex out of marriage but there are numerous ways of losing innocence–marriage infidelity, movies, etc. Well, the answer is not to have surgery so you can have the physical facade of purity. The answer is to cleanse one’s heart, mind, memories, and desires striving for renewal. Just as Paul calls the Romans to renew their minds and not be conformed to this world, so too we all must be aware of the oversexualized culture we live in and seek protection, barriers, and accountability. We should in fact be a Holy club.

So, for those who do wrestle with desiring a second virginity and the guilt that comes from such past mistakes, let me offer you this. I was reading Augustine’s On the City of God (book 1, chs 18-20) and I came across his discussion of virgins committing suicide before the barbarians had a chance to take what was so precious to them–their chastity. He argues that this was clearly sinful because they committed murder. He goes further to state that the virgins would not have even lost their purity if they had been raped because it was not their lust that committed the act, but the lust of another. Purity is a state of the mind and the soul, and just because one’s physical body has been attacked does not mean one has lost their unwavering self-control and devotion to God. He even argues that one has lost purity if still physically innocent when walking to another’s house intent on committing sexual sin (obviously based on Matt 5:27-30). Maybe Augustine has too much division between the mind/soul and the body, but I think he is on to something. I completely agree that one has not lost purity of heart when attacked by another. Of course there are difficult memories and feelings that come with such a crime and I do not want to make light of this. What I do want to do is spin off of what Augustine states about the act of another and give some hope to those with guilty consciouses that purity is attainable.

New York Times has an interesting article on the recent findings by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

More than a quarter of adult Americans have left the faith of their childhood to join another religion or no religion, according to a new survey of religious affiliation by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

As it relates to Protestantism and Evangelicals particularly, the survey found the following:

While the unaffiliated have been growing, Protestantism has been declining, the survey found. In the 1970s, Protestants accounted for about two-thirds of the population. The Pew survey found they now make up about 51 percent. Evangelical Christians account for a slim majority of Protestants, and those who leave one evangelical denomination usually move to another, rather than to mainline churches.

Yesterday, our Christianity Matters class concluded its three-week series on Christians and the Arts. Bruce and Aaron led the class in a discussion and Q&A. And there were a couple of points we concluded regarding value judgments that are worth discussing. I’m going to state them and then, Bruce, I need to ask you a question.

First, one of the qualities Christians should be looking for in art, particularly literature, drama, and music, is the promotion of virtue. Admittedly, this is all too often lacking in contemporary expressions of art. As for the arts in general, though there are various genres in each medium, there aren’t many moral parameters.

The second characteristic Christians should look for is “refinement of thought and skill and the exercise of self-control.” This came up primarily as we discussed music, but it could be applied to all forms. The artist should have some precision of artistic skill in his/her expression.

That’s a brief summary. Bruce, feel free to add anything. But let me ask you a question about the conclusion that could be drawn. Okay, I can conclude that where these two characteristics are present I can thereby call the art “good.” That’s simple enough. But what if only one is present? (I know this may be an oversimplification, but entertain me for a moment.) What if the art form doesn’t promote virtuous qualities but does express the highest level of refinement and artistic skill or vice versa; is it still good? (Usually the former is more contentious.)

For example, the award winning and Oscar nominated There Will Be Blood meets and sets the highest standard for film making. However, it tells the fictional story of one of the most narcissistic, greedy oil tycoons. But the tycoon isn’t in it for the money but the competition. “I have a competition in me,” said Daniel Plainview played by Daniel Day-Lewis. “I don’t want anyone else to succeed.” He’s like a star-athlete playing the game not for victory but in order to prevent others from winning. There Will Be Blood portrays some of the complexities of the dark, selfish, depraved soul with holding out little hope of redemption.

Bruce, I know you can’t speak to that specific example. But hopefully it illustrates my question.

I’m also reading Calvin Stapert’s book: A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church (Eerdmans, 2007). You can read a review of it here. Here is a summary of what Stapert says about Clement of Alexandria’s perspective on music:

Clement affirms music that he describes as sober, pure, decorous, modest, temperate, grave, and soothing, over against music he describes as licentious, voluptuous, frenzied, frantic, inebriating, titillating, scurrilous, turbulent, immodest, and meretricious. p. 54

This is the question that it really comes down to isn’t it? Is there bad music or it is just everyone’s taste and preferences? — You know, you have yours and I have mine and let’s be tolerant of each other.

Roger Scruton in his book Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged says there is bad music. He says “we move with the music that we listen to, and this too is a sympathetic response, a way of shaping our inner life to fit the perceived life of another. . . . Movement is a mark of character, and some kinds of character ought not to be subjects of sympathy, not even of the wordless sympathy that is conveyed by instrumental music.” — What do you think about what he says? Come Sunday morning and we’ll think more about God and music.

Brad, I would add to your most recent post that I find value in a film like Kite Runner (haven’t seen it) even if I don’t experience a personal transformation or see redemption depicted. A good many people don’t feel that there is any hope in life and are left in despair. Films like this are trying to find a way to interpret life apart from hope. I don’t find personal satisfaction in art like this, but it is instructive. What’s more, I think that a film ending hopelessly is in many ways better than a film that ends in hope, if that hope is derived exclusively by the redemptive power of human love, self love, etc. Those films just reinforce the message that we don’t need God. They reinforce that we can find all we need right here around us.

Our conversation on “God and art” will continue this Sunday with thoughts on music. Much modern classical and popular music expresses despair. Understandably most Christians recoil from it. I think that our best response to despair and suffering is to call attention to the suffering of the innocent One, and not to expect non-Christian art to see hope.

In our Christianity Matters on Sunday, Aaron briefly showed that drama, as we know it in its various forms, didn’t originate in the Greek and Roman plays as one would suspect but in the Church during the Middle Ages. (BTW, read Augustine’s City of God for an extensive assessment of Greek and Roman plays and theaters.) They were performed during the celebratory months of May and June. Originally the plays portrayed the Passion of Christ, but they eventually evolved into depicting other biblical stories until the productions became too grand for the Church to manage. Nonetheless, all the plays had one goal in mind - point to the redemption found in Jesus Christ. (Aaron, it would interesting to know what happened to drama in the wake of the Enlightenment.)

So what’s the point in knowing the history? First, we shouldn’t be surprised that writers and producers still desire to tell a story of redemption.  As human beings made in the image of God, we have a desire to see the helpless and hopeless saved.  Now I want to be careful here because sin has radically distorted this desire.  Joe Wright’s and Christopher Hampton’s Atonement is a prime example of a distorted and ill-perceived understanding of the nature of true atonement.

Second, as evangelical Christians, who stand inline with Orthodox Christianity, we want to see the story’s narrative point to or illustrate the Christian Metanarrative - the story of Redemption. Commenting on The Kite Runner, Albert Mohler said, “In the end, The Kite Runner is a fascinating and deeply moving story of betrayal and rescue. Missing from the story is the promise of redemption, and that is why the film ends with a most unsatisfying absence of resolution. Where there is no redemption, there is no real sense of hope. There is no ‘way to be good again’ — only a way to be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.” He’s right! The message is “unsatisfying” without the resolution of redemption.

But that does raise another question; one that gets at value judgments. Can we still call the film “good” in the absence of redemption? I would argue that it may be considered good even if it is devoid of the theme of redemption based on a number of criteria for making value judgments.  I’ll just mention one of the more provocative and controversial standards from our class on Sunday.  Film, literature, and art can have a transforming effect and cause for introspection.

This is particularly controverisial among Evangelicals because of the implications of Sola Scriptura.  But Sola Scriptura must be coupled with an understanding of God’s common grace and the imago dei, i.e. human beings are made to know something of God’s divine character and to reflect it.  Man, Christian and non-Christian without distinction, therefore, is able to create that which is honorable, true, beautiful, and real. And mediating on such things can be transforming and thereby “good.”