Why We Need Classic Fairy Tales

My favorite of the classic Disney princess movies is, without a doubt, Sleeping Beauty. I like it very much for several reasons. In fact I like it for almost the exact reasons why it probably is disliked by many today. I like it because it has a love at first sight story. I like it because it has a manly hero who slays the dragon and gets the girl. I like it because there is no confusion about what is good and what is evil.

As to the first point, it has become in vogue to knock the idea of love at first sight. We do not believe in such nonsense now. In fact many have come to even ridicule the idea of ‘true love’ itself. We live in a culture that mocks the idea of committed monogamous love. Divorce is always an option when a young couple goes into marriage and even the idea of marriage itself seems rather old fashioned and outmoded to many.

I am a fan of Disney’s hit movie Frozen as well. I think it does send some pretty good messages itself. I think it is great that the act of true love in that movie which ‘thaws a frozen heart’ is an act of love which is given rather than received (and indeed the heart that was truly frozen was Elsa’s and not Anna’s). There is some great gospel analogies that can be drawn from Frozen but they do something that is I think more hurtful than helpful also.

We are all shocked when prince Hans turns out to be a scoundrel who never loved Anna at all. He has played her using the love at first sight motif to take her for all she is worth. It is great writing on the story-maker’s part in my opinion. I surely agree with the sentiment that we need not get too carried away by mere emotions and marry a person whom we do not even know. And it is all too true that there are boys out there who are looking to take advantage of young women who just want to be loved.

That being said, however, this reflects a real shift in our culture’s thinking about love. True love, love at first sight, that is just the fairy tale. That is the thing which you cannot find in the real world. ‘Here is a dose of reality’, says Disney, ‘that kind of thing isn’t real’.

We don’t believe in that kind of love anymore.

Well you had better not tell that story to me. I fell in love with my wife practically overnight and we are going strong 12 years later. And while we asked each other important questions, talked about our beliefs and hopes and dreams, we got to know one another, it wasn’t but two weeks after I met her that I was buying a ring to ask her to marry me. So maybe love at first sight is a bit of a hyperbolic idea, but it is not so far off in my case and I’ve known others the same. True love is real and I think it dangerous to suggest to this generation that it is not and that they ought not to hope to experience it and to give it in return.

As to my second point, we need men who act like men. Can I just say ‘to Hell with feminism?’ I say that not crassly but with seriousness. It is a doctrine from Hell and to Hell let it return. We are in a time where everything is permissible except to act like a real man. We applaud males acting like women, we applaud male adults (in the chronological sense) acting like little boys, we applaud females who attempt to be men, but we deplore men who act like men.

Perish the thought that a man act like a man. The idea of men who believe that part of their purpose in life is to be committed to one woman for life, to pull out chairs for her, to open car doors and, if necessary, to slay a dragon for her, is the last thing that our culture wants to celebrate. But let’s be honest, deep inside the heart of every young woman (at least before that desire is crushed or shattered by some boy or whatever age) is a desire for a real man. Even the self professed lesbian has desired a real man at one time in her life (probably her father) but has more often than not only met boys. They have met boys who hurt them and abused them and engendered feelings of hate for all things that have both an X and a Y chromosome. All they really needed was a man.

No, I don’t mean a ‘man’ like our foolish culture thinks of. I mean a man who loved them unconditionally, who put their needs first, who protected them from boys, who slayed dragons for them. Every girl needs a man. They need a daddy who loves them more than life itself and then when they grow up they need a husband who carries that torch passed on to him from her father.

Oh I know that any feminist who reads this will think ‘How dare he say that! How wrong he is!’ but I know better. I know that you have simply missed out on being loved as you should have. On behalf of all of the real men in this world I want to tell you that I am sorry for the boys who have been in your life and who have hurt you. I want to tell you that you matter and you are valuable and you are precious in the sight of God your true Father who does love you unconditionally.

As to my final point, we need clarity on good and evil. There may be some ‘gray areas’ in this world but that is a far cry different from saying that ‘there is no black and white’. We have reached a point as a culture where we have stopped believing in categories like good and evil. We have traded them in for ideas like ‘evil is just misunderstood’. This may have no better reflection than another modern Disney story like Maleficent. It is in fact a turning on its head of the original story of Sleeping Beauty which I have been praising.

In the movie Maleficent we see the ‘untold true story’ of Sleeping Beauty. The evil Maleficent is not evil at all she has just made some bad decisions. The real evil lies in the King who betrayed her. You can watch the story for yourself, if you like, although I would argue that it is bad CGI and even worse acting. But the main thing I want to point out is that it is representative of this idea that what we once called evil we now call good and what we once called good we call evil (Isaiah 5:20). Furthermore we find that prince Phillip’s kiss is actually powerless to wake the sleeping princess. It is the Maleficent herself, who cursed the girl to begin with, that must wake her by loving her.

It is not that there is no beauty in this story or that there is not some message of redemption that could be mined out and applauded, but it is the fact that we have had to ruin a good story to make a mediocre one. We have taken the moral of the story and destroyed it to write a new moral. The new moral has no place for an honorable prince who truly loves the girl and sacrifices himself for her good. We must, we are told, find true love somewhere else because it does not exist in love at first sight.

The dragon may be the hero, the prince may be the villain or at least the impotent wannabe hero, and you may find yourself without hope of finding what your heart truly longs for in this world. In conclusion my point is the following:

While we need to caution our young people about getting carried away with their passions and marrying strangers I think it may be that there is at least an equal danger in telling them they ought not to have passions, hopes and dreams. It is both good and right that a young woman should be looking for a prince to sweep her off her feet and it is both good and right that a young man should aspire to be that prince. We need dragon slaying men who love their wives and daughters, who serve them and honor them as princesses. We need to keep the dream and belief alive in the hearts of young people that they can slay dragons and love dragon slayers. We need to know that there is truth, goodness and beauty in an objective sense and it is not all relative or simply a certain point of view. What young people need is not to stop believing in fairy tales but, rather, to be the kind of people that the classic fairy tales portray.

Believe in love, believe in dragon slayers, believe that goodness is there to be claimed as your own.

Why is Homosexuality a Sin?

A student recently asked me why homosexuality was sinful and I could tell that she wanted a more in depth answer than 'because the Bible says so.' It's understandable, to some degree, that in our culture she would be repulsed by the notion of calling homosexuality sinful. Everything she sees, hears and reads in the media and entertainment industries is geared towards telling her that homosexuality is perfectly normal. They tell kids, as early as they can get their attention, that homosexuals are people just like you and I who want to love and be with people they care about.* They would like to say that it is no different than our mother and father's love for and relationship with each other.** To deprive homosexuals of the 'right' to same sex marriage*** is an atrocity and to condemn their love as sin is simply archaic and back wooded nonsense.

You cannot watch a new television show which does not feature a homosexual or two or three. Everyone has a gay friend and/or family member. It's normal and they are everywhere you go. They are presented as happy, healthy, attractive, and well adjusted people who are committed to a long term and monogamous relationship with their partner. They just want to love and be loved and to be accepted like everyone else.

So why call such a perfectly normal thing, a natural thing, a good thing...sinful?

This question is best answered by asking another question. Why call anything sinful? The term 'sin' has, after all, been attached to a lot of other things besides homosexual behavior. Heterosexual sex outside of the context marriage is also called sin. Lying is called sin. Stealing is called sin. Coveting is called sin. The list of sins rolls on. But why are any of these things sinful?

To put it another way, to use a bit less 'religious' term, we might say that these things are morally wrong. It is wrong to lie and steal and cheat. It is wrong to murder and enslave other people. It is wrong for a man to beat on his girlfriend or to sexually fondle a young child. It is wrong... Isn't it?

I think all but sociopaths just answered yes.

But why is it wrong? How can you say that murder or rape or molestation is objectively wrong? You may think these things are wrong but the person committing those same acts might not agree with you. If it is simply you against him then who is right? Why is your opinion more valid than his? Surely no human being can dictate morality for all others! 'Who are you to judge me?' the rapist says!

So you take the next logical move you can make and you appeal higher. You say that 'no individual person can dictate morality but society as a whole can'. Really? 'Yes,' you say 'society agrees together what is best for human flourishing and this agreement is what morality is. Murdering people does not aid the flourishing of our civilization, nor does molesting children, therefore they are wrong.' But I have a few questions.

What if I can get away with it? What if I commit the act and am never caught and therefore there is no punishment? Furthermore what if I really enjoy doing this act and feel it benefits me personally? Why ought I not to do it then? And before you say 'I should care for the good of the rest of society' I ask you why should I care about other people or what is good for society? It does not seem to follow that simply because a lot of people are saying something is so that it in turn actually is so. If an action benefits me and I can accomplish it without any harm to me, you have hardly given me a reason why I ought to not do the thing.

Furthermore your notion 'society defines morality' has some real difficulties. For one, it justifies a lot of atrocities throughout history and into our present day. Our society once felt that human slavery was permissible and, indeed, the majority supported it. Under the reasoning of 'society decides morality' we would have to say that slavery was morally good while the majority supported it. That moral reformers were actually evil because they opposed the norm and said the majority were in the wrong. Moral reform is impossible when we are simply counting noses.

Even further we have the problem that societies do not always agree with other societies. Who were we to tell the NAZI's to stop killing all the Jews and handicapped people? If their society was in favor of it then who is our society to judge them? This just takes us back to the difficulty we had before when you and the rapist were in a disagreement. You kicked it up the chain a bit to the level of society to avoid the problem of individual morality but it did not work. The problem is the same but merely on a larger scale. We think we ought not to murder people because of their ethnicity, they think it is for the good of all mankind to do so. Who is to say?

Who is to say?

It would seem that you have a real choice to make. You can choose between option A) that there is actually no objective morality which is binding on the consciences of all people everywhere across all times and cultures or B) That God exists. You might think that I have just tried to pull a fast one on you but, I assure you, I have not. I have however backed you into a corner with only two options. It is time that you faced them.

The problem of objective morality, that some things are really right and others really wrong, is that if it exists it is not a product of man. Mankind cannot, in themselves, account for morality. If morality is man made then it is just 'you versus me' or 'us versus them' and, in neither case, do we have objective moral truth that is binding for all people. The only place such an objective moral standard could come from is a Creator-God.

If it is the case that we are made by God and that he designed us and placed us upon this earth then he alone can state what our purpose is and how we are to function in relationship with one another and with him. He provides the accountability, He is the ultimate will-answer-to, that we lack if morality is man made and subjective. I ought not to do something, even if I can get away with it and it benefits me immediately, because it is actually wrong and I will be held accountable for my actions before God.

If there is no God then there is no objective morality. If there is objective morality then there is a God. These are your options.

And so now we come full circle. 'Why is homosexuality a sin?' It is a sin because it is contrary to the design and purposes of God for human life and flourishing and he has made this plain both in natural revelation and in special revelation (Scripture). Or there is no God, homosexuality is not sin, and all is permissible.

What I have trouble tolerating is people who try to play around like there is a middle option. I assure you there is not. The problem is that mankind is in rebellion to its Creator. We think we know better than our designer how we ought to behave and function. We reject him, we normalize what he has forbidden and we destroy ourselves in the process. Homosexuality is sin, just as heterosexual sex outside of marriage is sin, just like lying is sin, just like murder is sin and stealing is sin, etc., because God has made us and knows what is best for us and has told us how to live and we are either in accordance with his will or in rebellion.

If we say that homosexuality is not sin then we simply are rejecting God either in his existence or his authority.




*And, of course, homosexuals are people just like you and I who want to love and be loved and we ought to love them as people. But they are also living in sin (just like you and I apart from Christ) and they need to turn away from sinful desires and submit to the will of God. All of us have sinful impulses whether they be homosexual or otherwise. All of us have to deny ourselves certain things we crave because they are wrong.

** There is an obvious difference, however, because the human form was designed in such a way that the opposite sexes were complimentary and that the sexual organs, male and female, actually complete one another and produce offspring.

*** The issue of rights is similar to that of morality. Who can give individuals 'rights' beside their creator? Who defines marriage but the one who created the institution in the beginning?