'The Blind Side' Reaches Across Class and Race

I look for redemption in stories, knowing full well that most stories fall short of portraying it perfectly. The Blind Side, a film based on a true story about a wealthy Tennessee couple who takes in a black teen from a broken family, is such a story.

By the way, I don’t love football; I don’t even like it overly much. But movies about football are another matter. Besides, ever since While You Were Sleeping, I have more often than not enjoyed Sandra Bullock. And if my football-loving husband sits by my side during movies like While You Were Sleeping, I should attend an occasional sports flick with him (though this is not your typical sports flick).

Bullock delivers a strong performance here, playing a wealthy woman with a big heart and a love for football. She listens to the nudging of — well, maybe it's God; no one else successfully nudges Leigh Anne Tuohy. What is clear is that Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy are Christians who support the private Christian high school where Michael Oher is admitted, in spite of his poor academic record and inability to pay tuition. He is admitted because he’s big, fast, and looks intimidating on the football field.

On one hand, the movie struck me as racist and anti-Christian, reinforcing stereotypes about African Americans being mostly incapable of making good choices, and doomed to their bad ones unless a white person comes along to save them. It also reinforces stereotypes of wealthy Southern Christians as being mostly white Republican snobs. But in both cases, I found that the movie went beyond such stereotypes to show what’s possible when one responds to the nudging of God.

The Tuohy family welcomes Michael, a homeless boy with a traumatic past, into their home and hearts. He becomes son to Sean and Leigh Anne and brother to S. J. and Collins, the Tuohy’s two children. The siblings stand up for Michael at school, and Leigh Anne does the same among her high-society friends, in the projects, and at the football stands. Mostly Leigh Anne’s friends have demeaning and condescending things to say about bringing an African American home. At one point one of her friends responds to the situation by saying, “Well, good for you. You have helped change that boy’s life,” and Leigh Anne replies, “No, he has changed mine.”

We do see that — but mostly we see how the Tuohys change Michael’s life. And when Leigh Anne stands up to the African American drug-dealing, gun-toting gang leader, I cringed at the story not being told. The ease with which she intimidates such a man comes from the protection of her status as a rich, white female. The structural inequalities and the deep history of racism that lead to the sobering realities found in low-income housing projects in cities like Memphis don’t garner any attention. The storyline stays on the easier-to-accept individual level, failing to consider how the Tuohys' wealth emerged from a stratified system that makes it easy for some to achieve success and others to stay trapped in poverty.

The Blind Side raises the motive question as well, suggesting the Tuohys became legal guardians of Michael to ensure that he would ultimately play for the University of Mississippi, their alma mater. But Michael’s own testimony confirms that he chose to play football at Ole Miss instead of the numerous other places where he received offers, because that’s where his family had always gone. Michael’s testimony places his own questions about their motives aside, and he embraces the good that came from a family that reached across class and race to give one adolescent love, support, the hope of an education, and a career in football. Oher now plays for the Baltimore Ravens.

Christianity Today also reviewed The Blind Side.

Going Rogue: An American (Pro-)Life Woman

Since entering the national scene last fall as John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin has attracted hefty media attention from friends and foes alike. Now her full-time job seems to be making media appearances promoting her newly released Going Rogue: An American Life. Last week she appeared in interviews with Barbara Walters and Oprah, criticized Newsweek's cover featuring her in running shorts, and even stopped by Montreat, North Carolina, for a dinner Sunday night with the Rev. Billy Graham.

Most media coverage has focused on speculation about Palin’s plans for 2012. Several interviewers have asked about her presidential aspirations. Palin told Walters that she wants to play a major part in politics in the future “if people will have me,” although she claims that the elections are not on her “radar screen.” Her claim has led many commentators to question her true motives. But instead of debating Palin’s merits as a political candidate, what if media outlets considered the good she is already doing as an advocate? With personal experience to back her up, Palin has the capacity to breathe new life into pro-life issues such as abortion, end-of-life care, and disability rights.

Palin told Oprah that she enjoys feeling less “handled” since giving up her political titles. She is at her best when focusing on specific issues, and is passionate when speaking about her children. Her descriptions of balancing full-time parenting and full-time politics are an important element of the book, and she talks about applying the lessons of motherhood to politics (to the point of “letting the mom come out” in debates). Throughout anecdotes (changing Trig’s diaper was the last thing she did before speaking at the Republican National Convention) and tougher episodes (two miscarriages, and her teenage daughter’s pregnancy), Palin emphasizes the value of human life, a belief she continues to articulate by way of her media platform.

Palin writes that when she found out she was pregnant with Trig, who would be her fifth child, she felt the pressure of her political responsibilities and understood how a woman could think of getting pregnant as a “problem.” Then she explains the power of right-to-life groups:

If not for those groups providing an affirming voice, it would be so easy to go along with what society wants women to believe: that it’s easier to end a pregnancy than to bring the baby into this world. Society has made women believe that they cannot do both — pursue career, or education, or anything else, and still carry a baby. Pro-life and pro-adoption groups affirm the power and strength of women. Even if it’s just a seed of faith the pro-child message plants in a parent’s mind, that bit of faith can grow.

That was before her doctor diagnosed her unborn child with Down syndrome. On Oprah, Palin admitted that the diagnosis scared her. Oprah asked Palin whether she considered abortion at that point. “Not so much a consideration but an understanding,” Palin said. “It also, though, really solidified my position that, yep, there are less-than-ideal circumstances in so many of our lives. It’s how we will react to those circumstances, how we will plow through them, and make the most of what we’ve been given.”

Palin, who briefly describes her conversion experience (at a youth Bible camp) and writes about the sense of purpose she felt upon entering politics, is matter-of-fact when stating her beliefs and quoting Scripture. I suspect the reason critics cannot accept that Palin doesn’t know what’s next for her is because she is waiting for God to fill her in. “I don’t know if this chapter is ending or just beginning, but You do, so I hand it all over to You again,” she writes at the end of the book.

Palin promised that her resignation as governor “wouldn’t be the end of my work to make a difference.” As she told Oprah, she doesn’t need a title to do that. None of us need a title to follow God, either, but I suppose a title can sometimes result along the way. Time will tell for Palin. Regardless of whether she ever runs for office again, I’d like to see her continue to use her national platform to speak out on the issues she has lived.

Alicia Cohn previously interned at Christianity Today magazine. She has written for Her.meneutics about Anne Graham Lotz, parental rights, journalists in North Korea, Juanita Bynum, the Breast Cancer Bible, and The Stoning of Soraya M.

I Have a Confession to Make

In support of her latest novel, Daisy Chain, Christian author Mary DeMuth launched Family Secrets, a website where users can anonymously confess their secrets to an online audience. DeMuth writes, "In Daisy Chain, many characters harbor secrets, but only a few are brave enough to bring them to the light of day and find freedom and hope. That's why I created this site — to give you a safe place to air a secret anonymously."

DeMuth's project picks up on a confessional trend made famous by PostSecret, a blog that posts submissions from its ongoing community mail art project, in which people mail their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. The blog, which boasts of attracting 284,343,252 visitors (and counting), has been turned into museum exhibits as well as five books, the most recent of which tackled the topic Confessions on Life, Death, and God. The idea is to rob the secrets of their powerful grip as writers identify, process, and share with others those things they are afraid to admit to themselves.

There’s a simple reason these blogs are so popular: We experience a rush as we recognize the pain and courage each entry represents, heightened when we find ourselves connecting with the confessions. “I thought I was the only one,” we marvel as we see our own hearts in the words of a stranger.

Confessing to others is good for our spirits and psyches. Often we evangelicals make light of it, thinking of it as “a Catholic thing” and insisting that God is the only one we need to confess to. But by doing this, we ignore not only the rich tradition of confession in church settings, but also the biblical command: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16).

But we need to be careful. There’s something unsettling about the voyeuristic consumption these types of projects encourage when they lack an accountability structure. When we give voice to things we have been afraid to confront, we rob them of their powerful hold over us. When we confess these things to other people, we admit that we cannot handle them alone, and enter into the kind of community that is called not to judge but to lift up and support. But when we just throw confessions into the Internet's vast expanse, to people who have no connection to us and no way to follow up as we continue on with our lives — is this something we should encourage?

Just one example: The postcard on the back of the newest PostSecret book says, “I’m a Christian who is falling in love with someone who doesn’t believe in God . . . I think it’s a beautiful love story.” As a piece of art, it poignantly depicts the truth of a common struggle. We can pray, and, as the James verse reminds us, that is a powerful, effective response. But this is not how we are called to live in community. As it is, we can only hope that this person has other Christians to surround them with love and support, to sharpen them “as iron sharpens iron.” And, in the case of the confessors at Family Secrets — many of whom have histories of sexual and physical abuse — we can only hope that they have the supportive relationships and the wisdom of a Christian counselor to help heal the scars of a hellish childhood.

These types of exercises point us in the right direction. To search our hearts and share those things we most fear is to recognize that we are not meant to carry all of life’s burdens ourselves. But just saying it isn’t enough. We need to connect with people who will hold us accountable to the change we say we want, and who will ask how they can help us in the difficult process of turning confession into change.

What do you think of these confessional blogs? Are they a helpful tool? How should we approach the act of confession in the church?

Iranian Christian Women Freed from Evin Prison

Coming on the heels of the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (Nov. 8), Christian religious-freedom groups celebrated a victory yesterday in Iran. Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, 30, and Maryam Rustampoor, 27 — two Iranian converts to Christianity — were freed after being imprisoned for 259 days.

Authorities raided the women’s apartment, which contained "Christian literature," on March 5. The women were charged with anti-state activity, spreading Christianity, and apostasy (deserting one’s faith), and were placed in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.

In Iran, apostasy alone is punishable by execution or life in prison. The country has been placed on several watch lists of places that repress religious freedom. Recently, Iran has come under fire for jailing believers following raids on churches and homes belonging to Christians.

While in custody, reports came that the two women endured “intense interrogations which have reportedly included sleep deprivation and other psychological pressure.” In the past, Evin in particular has been accused of denying its inmates basic rights, and both women suffered from poor health that went untreated. Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari just released a memoir about her hellish eight-month stay in Evin following a routine visit in 2006 with her elderly mother.

Additionally, the women were heavily pressured to reclaim Islam. Back in August, a judge urged them to renounce Christianity. When Esmaeilabad and Rustampoor would not do so, they were sent back to jail “to think about it.” According to BosNewsLife, at one point in the hearing, one of the women said God had spoken to them through the Holy Spirit:

After a deputy prosecutor reportedly told them, "It is impossible for God to speak with humans," Esmaeilabad apparently replied: "Are you questioning whether God is Almighty?" The prosecution was heard telling her that she is "not worthy for God" but Esmaeilabad countered: "'It is God, and not you, who determines if I am worthy." After they were told by a court to return to prison and think about their options, the two women were heard saying: "We have already done our thinking. If we come out of prison we want to do so with honor."

On October 14, Her.meneutics noted the women were no longer facing the anti-state charge. As Washington TV reported, “This is good news that Iran has dropped the unfounded charge of carrying out activities against the state,” said Release International chief Andy Dipper. “But what it indicates is how Iran confuses personal matters of faith with national security.”

“Christians are wrongly regarded as being anti-government in Iran and are heavily persecuted. The state must move to grant full freedom of religion to its citizens,” said Dipper.

Organizations such as Elam Ministries, Open Doors USA, and International Christian Concern have been vocal in demanding Esmaeilabad and Rustampoor's release and garnering international attention on the situation.

This past weekend, the women were told they would be released from prison for the time being. Esmaeilabad and Rustampoor will likely be back for a court hearing in the future.

Elissa Cooper is an intern at Christianity Today magazine. She has written about online romance fraud, beauty pageants for landmine victims, and Paula White's new ministry, among other topics, for Her.meneutics. She has written about Christian religious-freedom fighter Gao Zhisheng for CT print.

Silencing the Maternal Nag

Women want their spouses to be more involved in raising their children, but they need to allow fathers to father, not force them to mother. The New York Times reported last week on new research that suggests that women are unintentionally blocking men from greater participation in child-raising because they insist that men do it their way. Women need to find a way to encourage their partners for the good of the children. The research shows that children thrive when both mom and dad are involved, not one or the other.

The article hit close to home. As a new mother, I confess to needing to fight the temptation to turn my husband into my employee in the Raising Our Son business. We both work outside the home, but because I’ve chosen to exclusively breast-feed, I’ve arranged my schedule so that I’m with our baby more than my husband is. Naturally, I feel like the expert on what each of our son’s cries and coos mean. Sharing information on our son’s development is helpful, but when I swoop in to rescue our fussy baby from my husband’s arms, I know I’ve gone too far. More often than not, the baby keeps fussing in my arms, anyway.

But shouldn’t my husband be quietly humming Brahms Lullaby instead of singing the raucous Rocky Raccoon song (our own creation) while he is getting our son ready for bed? Isn’t PBS better than the Golf Channel for their television viewing? Should they even be watching television? Again, I have to silence the inner nag. The point is that my husband is involved in the raising of our son. Our child needs a mother and a father, not two mothers.

That children do better when both parents are involved is not news. What caught my attention in the New York Times article is that research affirms that happy marriages make for happy children. As Philip Cowan, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, is quoted as saying, “Parents work all day, and feel as if they need to give every other minute to the kids. But if they don’t take care of the relationship between them, they’re not taking care of the whole story.” Nagging my husband to take care of our son serves only to gnaw away at our marriage.

As a child, I remember going into the kitchen looking for a snack, only to find my parents kissing by the refrigerator. I would usually giggle, or in later years, offer my pre-adolescent commentary: “That’s so gross.” I also felt a sense of warmth and security that I couldn’t name at the time. I would find the Oreos, go back to watching Happy Days or The Muppet Show, feeling that all was right in my world.

Placing love for spouse ahead of love for children is not without controversy. Ayelet Waldman, author most recently of Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace (Doubleday, 2009), created quite a stir when she confessed in a 2005 New York Times column that she loved her husband more than her children. She writes,

I wish some learned sociologist would publish a definitive study of marriages where the parents are desperately, ardently in love, where the parents love each other even more than they love the children. It would be wonderful if it could be established, once and for all, that the children of these marriages are more successful, happier, live longer, and have healthier lives than children whose mothers focus their desires and passions on them.

Of course, it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that one must love one’s spouse or children more than the other. But in our child-centric society where photos of kids-as-accessories fill the pages of celebrity tabloids, it’s good to be reminded that marriage is supposed to come before children. Even within Christian culture, our desire to “focus on the family” can take on an idolatrous zeal.

We have developed a ritual in the Gardner household called the “family sandwich”: When my husband comes through the door to the kitchen from the garage at the end of the day, we embrace, and then we kiss the baby. Since I’m usually holding our son at the time, he becomes the “meat” in our family sandwich. Now that I think of it, it usually happens by the refrigerator.

Stanton Jones, CedarvilleOUT Come to Campus

Last spring, John* asked if we could meet at the Hive, our college campus snack shop. After a bit of small talk, he confided, “My friends said that you’re someone I’d feel safe talking to. And this is what I wanted to tell you: Since junior high, I’ve known that I am gay. I don’t think I’ll ever change. If you lined up one hundred of the most beautiful women you could find, I’d maybe be somewhat attracted to one.”

“Have you told your parents?” I asked. “Yeah. I came out right before I returned to school this year. I’m not looking forward to going home.”

Last year, Hope* told me that she struggled with homosexuality. Hope grew up in a legalistic Christian home where an older sibling had sexually abused her. Her parents have no clue about her struggles, and based on past experience, Hope believes her mom would turn suicidal should she discover her daughter’s same-sex attraction.

This semester, as we sat and talked in my apartment, her eyes beamed. “I actually had a crush on a guy who I worked with at Christian summer camp! I don’t feel so gay anymore.” But she also related how her ex-girlfriend recently ridiculed her faith in Christ, and how a female co-worker had confessed to having a crush on her. “The thing is, I have never told anyone I was gay. I don’t even know how she knew. Please pray that I would be protected from temptation.”

As a resident director and spiritual mentor at Cedarville University, a Baptist evangelical school in the Midwest, I interact with students in almost every facet of college life, and delight in encouraging them to follow Jesus closely in the midst of their struggles. I live with my husband and 2-year-old daughter in an apartment attached to a women’s dorm at Cedarville. In the past few years, the Residence Life Department has seen an increase in the number of students confiding their struggles with same-sex attraction. And because we believe the Bible expressly forbids homosexual behavior, yet desire help in being Christ to students who struggle with their sexuality, we invited Stanton Jones, provost and psychology professor at Wheaton College, to discuss the research published in his 2007 book, Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation, for Cedarville’s Critical Concern Series.

In his first lecture October 28, Jones addressed the question, Can gays change? He and his colleague, psychologist Mark Yarhouse of Regent University, studied a group of 98 men and women seeking to change from a homosexual to heterosexual orientation through the ministry of Exodus International. The study found that 15 percent of those who sought help from Exodus were successful in changing their sexual orientation. And 23 percent of the subjects remained celibate. In addition, Jones and Yarhouse found no measurable evidence that attempting to change one’s orientation is mentally harmful.

In his evening lecture, which addressed the question, Is homosexual conduct wrong? Jones referred to Scripture and the testimony of prominent theologians to argue that Scripture unequivocally forbids homosexual behavior. But he also challenged the church to treat homosexuals with love, respect, and compassion, and answered questions after both lectures.

Upon hearing that Jones would lecture on campus, members of Cedarville Out, a group of gay/lesbian and supporting Cedarville alumni (not endorsed by the school), decided to attend his lectures and requested a chance to schedule an on-campus meeting to present their views. Cedarville denied the request, so the group hosted a post-lecture panel discussion at an off-site coffee house. Instead of a formal presentation, the group focused primarily on telling their stories and allowing audience questions to shape the discussion. Three gay men on the panel shared how they had spent years trying unsuccessfully to overcome homosexuality. Eventually, the men said, they embraced what they saw as their “God-given” homosexual orientation, believing that since it is God-given, it cannot be wrong. All three said that they were committed Christians, leading happy, fulfilling lives.

Over and over again, Cedarville students mentioned to me the benefit of hearing Jones’s gracious presentations and Cedarville Out’s humble response to student, staff, and faculty questions. Neither side caricatured the other. Moreover, students became familiar with the strongest arguments on each side of the issue. My experience in the Christian community is that, where strong arguments are presented by proponents from both sides of the issue, gracious conversation is rare. Why? Because of fear that such open discussion will prompt students to endorse homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle. Or fear that expressing a desire to hear both sides will lead to verbal attacks and defamatory labels. It’s my conviction that completely isolating students from those who present opposing arguments to their views, in an effort to protect them, will ultimately backfire. If Cedarville and other evangelical colleges are not places where students can work through this issue in Christian community, I fear they will seek help and information elsewhere — from unorthodox sources who may not value the Scriptures as we do.

A few days after the discussion, I ran into Hope on the sidewalk, and asked what she thought about Jones’s lecture and Cedarville Out’s panel. She told me that she had a lot swimming around in her head and that we would need to talk soon. Last time John and I spoke in the cafeteria, he said he was contemplating whether or not to remain celibate. We plan to catch up next week.

Marlena Graves (M.Div., Northeastern Seminary) is a resident director at Cedarville University. She blogs at His Path Through the Wilderness.

*Names changed to protect students’ identity.

Top 10 Posts of the Last 30 Days

Another month, another top-10 roundup. Thanks to all our regular readers and stumble-upon visitors for your thoughtful commentary on the topics we've recently covered — especially Wheaton College's search for its next president, what makes women happy, and online scams that target Christian women. Keep the comments coming over the next month as we cover Bollywood-flavored Bibles, online confession rooms, and the importance of father-child bonding time. And if you have more ideas for what Her.meneutics should cover, please e-mail me at kbeaty[at]christianitytoday.com or fellow editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey and spulliam[at]christianitytoday.com.

(10) "Penny Pinching as a Christian Virtue?" by Christine A. Scheller // Comments: 9
The spiritual dimensions of frugal living.

(9) "Cancer's Mercies," by Julie Evans, guest blogger // Comments: 14
October is breast cancer awareness month, and I’m so aware I might as well be pink.

(8) "It's a Not-So-Happy But Wonderful Life," by Caryn Rivadeneira, guest blogger // Comments: 15
God doesn't call us to be happy.

(7) "Trouble with Online Love," by Elissa Cooper // Comments: 3
Australian police found that two out of three victims of 'romance fraud' are women.

(6) "Wheaton Students Advocate for Woman President," by Katelyn Beaty // Comments: 19
An open letter encourages selection committee to commit to 'ethnic, economic, and gender diversity.'

(5) "Where Someone Loves Us Most of All," by Laura Leonard // Comments: 8
Is Where the Wild Things Are too wild for children?

(4) "Planned Parenthood Puts Restraining Order on Former Director," by Sarah Pulliam Bailey // Comments: 13
The director had resigned after watching an ultrasound for an abortion.

(3) "This Is Your Brain on Evangelicalism," by Christine A. Scheller // Comments: 33
NPR reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty's Princeton lecture last week revealed a woman highly ambivalent about evangelical spirituality.

(2) "Addicted to Facebook," by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, guest blogger // Comments: 11
A new study suggests negative consequences from the rising social media use on Christian college campuses.

(1) "The Day We Let Our Son Live," by Ellen Hsu, guest blogger // Comments: 23
It ended up being the most important day of my life.

Carrie Prejean's Book Urges Women to Stand Up for Beliefs

In her book, Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, and Political Attacks, former Miss California Carrie Prejean describes herself as “a sacrificial Christian thrown to the vicious and cruel media lions to be torn apart.” Prejean, a competitor and semi-finalist in the Miss USA 2009 pageant, became the center of media controversy this spring when she responded to a pageant question that she believes “marriage should be between a man and a woman,” not between same-sex couples.

Media treatment of the ensuing controversy — which raged on between Prejean, pageant officials, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, and pageant owner Donald Trump — revealed more incriminating details, such as Prejean's half-naked photographs and pageant-funded breast implant surgery. Prejean’s avowed Christianity also prompted questions about the effectiveness of pageant preachers and Christian women's involvement in the questionable beauty pageant scene.

In the book, Prejean skirts some of the major issues that circulated in media gossip — including her relationship with Michael Phelps, the photographs, her breast implants, and heated comments in her parents’ divorce records — by acknowledging but quickly dismissing them.

Regarding the breast implant surgery, she writes, “It was a choice I had to make, and I made it; and as with all my choices, I’m prepared to stick by it.” It is an interesting answer, considering the book was inspired by another choice she had to make on stage. The book is more about Prejean’s right to make her own choices than an argument that she made the right ones.

The closest she comes to expressing regret is her admission that she did not always listen to the right people. She admits to putting herself “in a position to be exploited” when she signed on to the Miss California pageant, which is also the closest she comes to repudiating her involvement in the pageant scene. “For me, pageants had always been about competition and using that sash and tiara for good,” she wrote. “Now I saw the whole pageant as a sham, glittering and fake. Many of the people I had worked with and the girls I competed with were wonderful. But we were trapped in a system run by petty egos, shallow values, and a sort of venomous incompetence.”

Still Standing evokes similarities to an earlier memoir about a beauty queen, Yes, You Can, Heather: The Story of Heather Whitestone, Miss America 1995. Whitestone, the first Miss America with a disability (she is deaf), also used her crown as a platform for her faith. Yes, You Can, Heather used a similar theme as Still Standing by blending memoir with exhortation for young women not to compromise their dreams. But the differences between the two memoirs are striking: The crowning achievement in Yes, You Can, Heather is Whitestone's achievement of the crown, while Prejean’s story describes her choice to give it up. “It was more important to me to be biblically correct than politically correct,” she writes.

One other difference is tone: Comparing the two book titles should make it obvious that Prejean is the more defiant beauty queen. Indeed, her book is so effective at depicting a hardened survivor that the reader is likely startled by any mention of Prejean’s age: only 22 by the book’s release date.

As Still Standing reaches to make a larger point about freedom of religion and speech (Prejean veers from her own story by dedicating an entire chapter to First Amendment issues), it is likely to leave readers wondering if the real Prejean is really revealed within these pages. Everybody watched as Prejean stumbled over her words on stage. Her book barely hints at the vulnerability beneath the events: the indecision, doubt, and the coaching that must have occurred regularly throughout the subsequent months.

Yet when Prejean ends the book with eight lessons aimed at young women, the words of wisdom seem well earned. Prejean speaks of making a choice on stage between the Miss USA crown and staying true to her beliefs and herself. The book reveals that the true choice was made after the incident on stage, in a day-by-day struggle to stand behind a choice that she made in a split second and a statement that, admittedly, she blurted out. In many ways, it is a story of a girl from a Christian home growing into a Christian woman who is responsible for her own decisions and their consequences. Prejean discovered that her beliefs were worth standing behind, and that is a story worth reading.

Her.meneutics editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey interviewed Carrie Prejean about her book, her faith, and her plans for the future.

Are We Obsessed with 'Cute'?

Irresistible cuteness, in pictures and videos online, is overwhelming America, says Jim Windolf in December’s Vanity Fair. Office workers gather around YouTube videos of toddler antics, the Mini-Cooper has been out-cuted by the Smart Car, and the website Cute Overload (filled with pictures of puppies, kitties, and bunnies) gets 100,000 hits a day.

Part of this new addiction is as ancient as our human nature, Windolf writes. Ethologist Konrad Lorenz proposed in the 1940s that we naturally want to care for any small, vulnerable creature. “Lorenz suggested that infantile characteristics — big head, big eyes, the very round face — stimulate caretaking behavior,” Marina Cords, a professor of ecology, evolution, and environmental biology at Columbia University, told Windolf.

Then why, if we’ve always been attracted to adorable infants, is the cuteness craze gaining ground now?

Part of it is certainly the accessibility. Thousands of websites and e-mail forwards offer the goods. Bored with a work project or with doing laundry? Pop onto the Internet or your phone for a quick pick-me-up.

Another part of it, according to Windolf, may be our collective unhappiness — lengthy wars on two fronts and a struggling economy. He points to Japan, where he says cuteness took hold in the post-war 1940s and 1950s, influenced heavily by Disney’s Bambi and Fantasia. Now big-eyed, infantile anime characters can be found almost everywhere in Japan, from airplanes to condoms to ATM cards (and, as Her.meneutics blogger Lisa Graham McMinn covered, on body pillows made to look like young girls). “Cuteness in Japanese culture” even has its own Wikipedia entry.

Cuteness as an antidote to social unhappiness — there’s something to that. Photos of cute things — a kitten frolicking in a field of flowers, a toddler dancing, a pair of puppies cuddling — are comforting, and give us a moment to escape, to be where all is right with the world. Like happy endings, they let us breathe a sigh of relief that for someone, somewhere, things are working out perfectly.

And we crave those moments more when life around us is dark or uncertain. For example, I am a voracious reader, and normally I appreciate books that tell a good story or raise significant points, even if they don’t end with the main characters riding happily into the sunset. But when I am worried or dejected, I crave a moment of light, of beauty, even of cuteness. I want my movies to end happily, my books to be resolved to my satisfaction. I want to feel that life is working out for somebody, even if that somebody is fictional, since it doesn’t seem to be working out for me.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with a desire for happy endings. A breath of joy, even from something as insubstantial as an image of a baby chick, is still a breath of joy. What we need to remember, of course, is that it is a temporary fix. A better option is available to us: a prayer, a Bible verse, a quiet moment remembering who is in control. The peace from such moments lasts longer, and works more deeply in us, than a baby laughing or a panda sneezing.

Of course, our God is the Creator of puppies, too. And kittens. And laughing babies, and dancing toddlers. Go ahead and enjoy them — remembering that he is the real source of our joy.

A Quest to Question Mainstream Media

Many people who know me as an author and women's ministry speaker are often curious about why I started a film company. They seem to assume there is a split focus there. Perhaps there is, but because I see media in a more holistic way, one of the reasons I started Citygate Films was to influence the diet, so to speak, of what is being consumed in mainstream media. I also have a heavy concern that the "screen generation" is being fed more harmful images and narratives than uplifting ones.

For example, this is how my day has gone so far. I checked the news, and saw stories about a 15-year-old girl who was brutally gang-raped by anywhere between 7 to 10 men outside of a high school while at least a dozen others stood by and watched it without interfering, and a sadist who allegedly raped, murdered, and stowed the bodies of at least 10 women in his home. Those are just the stories in CNN's headlines — the tip of the iceberg nationally. There are numerous local stories about child sex abuse and murder that don't even make the national news.

Next, I checked my Twitter feed, which carried news of many nonprofit organizations (Christian and mainstream) that are working to improve the conditions of women and girls around the world. High on their list of concerns is sex trafficking and enslaved prostitutes.

I then started work by listening to a media panel about "transmedia" efforts — telling a single story across a variety of media platforms. One of the panelists spoke without shame of working with a clothing company that sponsored an interactive game about a stripper. The gamer controls the stripper's actions, which this media expert cheerfully said allowed the player to either make the stripper engage "in the most depraved actions" or "save her." It's an odd sponsorship, given the fact that the sponsor's clothes aren't seen very often. (The clothing company wasn't mentioned in this panel, but I wish it had been so that I would not patronize their stores or product.)

Listening to this panel, I wanted to scream: Why can't we connect the dots here? Why is it that as a culture in the developing world, we put our heads in the sand and vociferously protest there is no connection between the media we consume and our actions? Yet other studies show that when television is introduced to new areas of developing nations, there is a measurable change in behavior. Do we think we are somehow immune to the effect of media in our own nation? Do we think we can allow people the fantasy of degrading and brutalizing others (especially women) and argue that this thought life will not eventually affect behavior?

This is the kind of thinking that I'm trying to change through Citygate. I have three documentaries in various stages of production, with one nearly finished with principal photography. A Note of Hope explores the idea that music reveals a lot about a culture. I'll never forget what one of the African American musicians in this film said after touring the Cape Coast slave castle in Ghana: If only our young adults could understand that they are descendants of those who survived these brutal dungeons, they wouldn't accept prison as a normal passage of life.

One of the earliest song forms in America was the traditional Negro spiritual, songs that spoke of faith and trust in a just God who would redeem such harsh circumstances for his own glory. Those songs eventually became the code for the Underground Railroad and eventually the soundtrack for the civil rights movement. But now we have songs that celebrate thug culture and sexist, demeaning views of women. The jazz musicians who participated in this film want to see music used to elevate humanity, not celebrate our darkest drives. And their commitment to use their music to do so is the theme of this documentary.

I want to encourage each of you to become media activists. Please protest media that undermines the safety and dignity of women and girls, in particular, through social media and your wallets. Teach your children to understand that what they feast their eyes upon will become normalized. Let retail vendors know of your displeasure. And please support media that challenge these denigrating, dehumanizing trends by producing edifying content. I'm not arguing for cheesy, unsophisticated content in the name of being positive, but well-produced content that elevates human dignity.

This post is adapted from Carolyn McCulley's personal blog, Radical Womanhood. To learn more about her film company, visit CityGateFilms.com and ANoteofHope.com.

Planned Parenthood Puts Restraining Order on Former Director

Planned Parenthood has found itself in a legal battle with a former director who said she had a change of heart after watching an ultrasound for an abortion and quit the organization .

KBTX of Bryan/College Station, Texas, reports that Abby Johnson worked for Planned Parenthood for eight years, and two years as director, but joined forces with the Coalition For Life earlier this month, praying with volunteers outside the clinic.

Johnson said she was told to bring in more women who wanted abortions, something the Episcopalian churchgoer recently became convicted about. "I feel so pure in heart [since leaving]. I don't have this guilt, I don't have this burden on me anymore that's how I know this conversion was a spiritual conversion."

Planned Parenthood filed a temporary restraining order October 30 to prevent Johnson from disclosing information about the organization.

Johnson told Fox News that she became disillusioned after she felt pressure to increase profits by performing more abortions, which cost patients between $505 and $695.

"Every meeting that we had was, 'We don't have enough money, we don't have enough money — we've got to keep these abortions coming,' " Johnson said. "It's a very lucrative business and that's why they want to increase numbers."

Johnson had told KBTX that the organization put its moneys mostly toward abortions. "It seemed like maybe that's not what a lot of people were believing any more because that's not where the money was. The money wasn't in family planning, the money wasn't in prevention, the money was in abortion and so I had a problem with that," she said.

The parties are expected to go to court November 10.

Religion editor Frank Lockwood reports that Maryana Iskander, a top Planned Parenthood executive, will speak in Little Rock on November 9.

The surprisingly blunt title of her speech: “How to Get Rich with Public Service.” It’s debatable whether running a chain of abortion clinics qualifies as “public service.” But it’s clearly a good way to get rich — or at least well-to-do. As Planned Parenthood’s chief operating officer, Iskander makes about $270,000 per year, according to IRS 990 forms.

And in the neighboring state of Oklahoma, a state-wide legal battle continues, according to Associated Press. Pro-life groups have hailed ultrasound technology as a way to convince women not to abort.

Another district court judge overturned the other law, which would require women seeking abortions to undergo an ultrasound and to have a doctor talk them through what they're seeing. The law would require a doctor to use a vaginal transducer in the earliest stages of pregnancy, since that provides the clearest image when the fetus is small. The method is more invasive than the abdominal ultrasounds most pregnant women undergo.

The state has appealed the decision to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

A separate judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of a law that would require women seeking abortions to disclose information, such as previous pregnancies, previous marriages, previous induced abortions, how the abortion was paid for, and the reason for the abortion, which would be put on a state-run website. A hearing is set for December 4.

The Day We Let Our Son Live

When it comes to the chance for those with genetic defects to live, the news has not been good on either side of the Atlantic. Last week’s Telegraph reported that of all women in the U.K. who find out through prenatal testing that their baby will have Down syndrome, about 90 percent choose to have an abortion. And yesterday, ABC News reported a near-identical rate among women in the U.S.: 92 percent of those who find out their child will have the chromosomal defect decide to abort. One geneticist at Children’s Hospital Boston found that, without prenatal testing, the number of Down syndrome births would have increased by 34 percent between 1989 and 2005. Instead, the number of Down syndrome births has dropped by 15 percent over that time.

Upon hearing such news, I remembered Ellen and Al Hsu (pronounced shee), a Christian couple who works at InterVarsity Press in Downers Grove, Illinois, and who faced the same situation as the women above. This is Ellen’s story of Elijah, their 4-year-old with Down syndrome, as originally told on their family blog, Team Hsu.

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I gazed in wonder at the blurry form on the screen. “Hi, Baby,” I whispered. The image of our baby was much clearer on the level-two ultrasound. The technician rolled the ultrasound wand over my growing abdomen, and I marveled as I watched our son squirm and suck his thumb. A new life forming within me.

Our OB/GYN had referred us for a level-two ultrasound after he noticed choroid plexus cysts on our baby’s brain during the standard 20-week ultrasound. I was anxious about what the maternal health specialist might find. We knew a couple whose ultrasound also had showed choroids plexus cysts, but whose baby was perfectly fine when he was born. We had spent the past week praying for our baby and hoping for the best.

Al walked into the exam room as the technician was finishing up. She hadn’t said much and explained that the doctor would be in to take a look for himself and to explain what he found. Al and I chatted quietly while we waited. I was relieved that he had made it before the doctor came in. Little did I know how much I would need him.

The doctor came in and began his exam. I was delighted at the chance to see more images of our baby. But my world was shaken when the doctor finally began explaining what he saw. “Something is very wrong with this baby.”

He continued to roll the wand over my tummy as he pointed to various spots on the screen and began listing all the “abnormalities”: larger than usual nuchal folds; clenched fists; possible club feet; something wrong with the liver; enlarged ventricles in the brain; possibly no stomach. My tears flowed as his list grew longer. My delight at the new life within me turned to icy fear, and I clutched Al’s hand tightly.

The doctor suspected a chromosomal problem, possibly Trisomy 13 or 18, birth defects caused by an extra 13th or 18th chromosome. He explained that both of these conditions are generally “incompatible with life.” We were told that if our baby was born alive, he was likely to die within a day. If we were lucky, he might survive for 6 to 12 months. We wondered if we should begin preparing for death instead of life.

Frightened and uncertain of our baby’s future, we agreed to an amniocentesis. We would not, we thought, consider aborting our child, but we wanted to know what to expect. And this situation wasn’t really covered in What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Al held my hand while the doctor extracted amniotic fluid from my womb using a long needle. The doctor explained that it would take around two weeks to receive the results, and mentioned when we would need to make a decision regarding termination.

Once we were home, I went to our bedroom and wept. I left Al to explain what was wrong to his mom, who was watching our three-year-old that day. I was worried she would blame me.

Later that evening, after we’d both had some time to process the news, Al and I talked. I felt lost. This scenario didn’t fit any of my plans. We talked about funerals, and, if the baby survived, what life would be like for us and for him.

“What should we do?” I asked. “I never thought I would even think this, but do you think it would be more compassionate to terminate the pregnancy?” I felt horrible even thinking about abortion, but given what the doctor told us, I honestly wondered which was more the more loving thing to do: save him from the pain he would likely experience if he survived, or allow him to live.

After a moment of silence, Al responded, “I think we should do no harm.” Relieved, I quietly agreed. From that moment on we began to prepare ourselves to welcome our son into this world, no matter what that looked like. The most important day in my life is the day we decided to let our son live.

We began to refer to our son as Elijah instead of “the baby.” It helped us to remember that he was real. Even if he didn’t survive the pregnancy, he was alive now and we would enjoy him as long as we could.

A couple of weeks later, the doctor called with the results of the amniocentesis. Elijah was diagnosed with Trisomy 21, more commonly known as Down syndrome, a condition caused by an extra 21st chromosome. We had done some research. We knew that a diagnosis of Down syndrome meant that Elijah would have difficulty learning. We knew that he would experience developmental delays, such as walking and talking later than typical children. We also knew that he was more likely to have a congenital heart defect and other medical problems.

The doctor asked if we had made a decision regarding termination. I was surprised. “Why would we terminate? It’s only Down syndrome!” I was actually relieved. Elijah would most likely survive. I had no idea at the time that close to 90 percent of people who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome decide to terminate their pregnancy.

Although we were glad Elijah would most likely live, we still grieved our lost hopes for a “perfect baby." I vacillated between mourning, “This is not what I planned for my life!” and making new plans. I spent many evenings crying (pregnancy hormones were bad enough, but a difficult diagnosis made things even worse). We read whatever books we could find about Down syndrome. We contacted the National Association for Down Syndrome and were paired with a support family. I was put on partial bed rest and spent a lot of time at the maternal health specialist’s office for appointments and non-stress tests.

On April 8, 37 weeks into the pregnancy, I went to see the maternal health specialist for a standard appointment. I told him I was a little worried because Elijah wasn’t moving very often. Since Elijah was technically full-term, the doctor decided we should deliver him via C section. I was promptly taken to a hospital room where I called Al and told him that we were having a baby — today!

A few hours later, Al held newborn Elijah Timothy Hsu up for me to see. He was small, just four pounds seven ounces, and looked like a little old man. I had a few moments to gaze at him before the nurses took him to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. After several difficult weeks, Elijah was released from the hospital and we took him home.

Other than having Down syndrome, most of the other “abnormalities” the doctor listed were not present. Today Elijah is a happy and healthy 4-year-old. He loves preschool and is learning to read. He communicates using a combination of sign language and spoken words. He enjoys giving hugs, dancing, and babbling in front of a mirror. His smile lights up a room, and his laugh is contagious. He and his 7-year-old brother, Josiah, play and fight together like any siblings. He often throws his food off the table when he’s finished eating, and once he colored on our white furniture with a purple marker.

Elijah has developmental delays and sometimes takes longer to learn new skills, but for the most part he’s a normal kid doing normal kid stuff. Elijah’s first year was sometimes difficult and overwhelming, but life with Elijah has settled into its own routine. Taking care of him is not all that different from taking care of our typical child. And loving Elijah comes just as naturally to me as loving Josiah.

I can’t imagine life without Elijah anymore. He brings us so much joy. I’m so glad he’s alive and that he’s a part of our family. And I look forward to the day when Elijah can tell me about the most important day of his life.

Wheaton Students Advocate for Woman President

Out of the 111 members schools of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), six are led by female presidents. Some current and former Wheaton College students are hoping their alma mater becomes the seventh, once president Duane Litfin retires in mid-2010.

An “Open Letter to the Presidential Selection Committee” — penned by ’05 male graduate Ariah Fine and posted online Friday, October 23 — “strongly encourage[s] the committee to search diligently for a female or minority candidate to be in the final pool of candidates.” Circulated primarily on Facebook, the letter calls on the committee to uphold its stated commitment to hire someone who will “champion ethnic, economic, and gender diversity.”

As of November 2, the letter has garnered 351 signatures, and was sent to the committee right before the application deadline of November 1. Fine said he received confirmation that the committee had received this letter and a similar one he sent this spring, but hasn't heard from any of the committee members.

The letter claims that the number of white male presidents leading CCCU schools is much higher than those leading secular U.S. colleges, citing the statistic that only 2 percent of CCCU schools are led by females, compared with 21.1 percent of secular schools. Fine said he found these statistics from a 2005 Christian Higher Ed article summary available online, and makes this screenshot available.

Mimi Barnard, CCCU’s vice president for professional development and research, provided Her.meneutics more recent statistics. As of fall 2008, the gender ratio among all senior administrators at CCCU schools was 86 percent male, 14 percent female, compared with a 55/45 percent ratio among all U.S. colleges and universities.

Further, 5 percent of CCCU schools are now led by women: Sandra Gray at Asbury College; Corliss McGee at Eastern Nazarene College; Shirley Mullen at Houghton College; Kim Phipps at Messiah College; Carol Taylor at Vanguard University (at left); and Andrea Cook at Warner Pacific University. That compares with 23 percent of all female U.S. college presidents, a statistic from the American Council on Education, as reported in Forbes.

Still, the gender disparity is striking.

Barnard, former director of faculty enrichment at Abilene Christian University, said she feels specifically called to ensure greater female leadership at CCCU schools. “Women are half the world . . . various traditions and various schools will do things in their comfort zones. But that doesn’t mean that we should just wait,” she said. “If God created half the world to be of the female gender, then it would be nice if they actually had a place at the table.”

Others feel that Wheaton's selection committee should primarily focus on applicants’ skills and experience rather than on their gender or ethnicity. Fine quoted one anonymous commenter as saying, “[I] would hope that the selection committee finds the most qualified person out there regardless of gender or race. Those two things shouldn’t even matter; what matters is who can do the best possible job. . . . Could it be possible that God has a great godly leader who is another white male? Yes. Would that be so bad? Not really . . . could he have a woman that is also a minority? Yes, and that would be great too.”

How do you think gender should factor into Wheaton's selection process for the next president? Do you think the committee should aim to hire the most qualified person, regardless of gender, or will that only stifle God's creative intent to see "half the world" advance his kingdom? How do the ethics of gender diversity compare with those of ethnic diversity and affirmative action? What are the dangers in making diversity the highest institutional goal?