While the good news is that NBC has cancelled "The Book of Daniel"--and good riddance to One of the Crappiest Shows EverTM--the not so good news is we get yet another Law & Order franchise.
So, what to replace BofD with in that time slot?
On Friday, January 27, the show will be replaced with an episode of "Law & Order."
Of course. Among the different franchises there's gotta be oh, say, three or four hundred episodes no one has ever seen. But of course, they won't show that one. They'll show the one where the detectives nab the wrong guy the first time, and then a witness recants on the stand, and the DA's office is forced to do some backroom shady activities to force an emotional confrontion with the defendent in court in which he gets angry and confesses. Fade to credits.
Okay, but then what?
The Friday, February 3rd, the network will air a 2 hour edition of Dateline NBC beginning at 9 p.m.
This must be the one in which some teen got murdered and the killer couldn't be found. I think I've seen this one.
Then? The Winter Olympics of course! Rock on!
But that's only good every four years. Then what?
Following the Winter Olympics the Friday 10 p.m. time period will contain a new legal drama entitled "Conviction" from the producer of "Law & Order".
You don't say? Is that the one in which they get the wrong guy only to find out he's an evil mastermind who's been playing them through the whole show, but then trips himself up on the stand in the courtroom in an emotional confrontation with the DA?
I think I've seen that one.
(Full disclosure. I watch Law & Order occasionally. Mostly the Wednesday flagship. It's the one I like the most, though I do happen to be a Vincent D'onofrio fan (am ambivalent about the return of Chris Noth/Mr. Big). And I usually like the original Law & Order show. But ever since Jill Hennesey left, I've lost most of my will to watch. And no, Crossing Jordan--Yet Another Crappy ShowTM--only makes it worse!)
I'd heard the rumors, but have seen no official confirmation of it. The nearest I've come is this post on the Book of Daniel Message Boards:
Unfortunately, due to many reasons, "The Book of Daniel" will no longer be aired on NBC on Friday nights. I just wanted to say "thank you" to all of you who supported the show. There were many wonderful, talented people who contributed to it's success - and I do mean success. Whatever the outcome, I feel that I accomplished what I set out to do: A solid family drama, with lots of humor, that honestly explored the lives of the Webster family. Good, flawed people, who loved each other no matter what... and there was always a lot of "what"! I remain proud of our product, proud of my association with Sony, NBC Universal, and NBC, who all took a chance on a project that spoke to them, and proud to have made an impact on so many of your lives.Thanks for watching.
Sincerely,
Jack Kenny
Creator, The Book of Daniel
I'm sure that LLL folks will decry the influence and "dramaphobia" of the RRR Volken.
But I think if everyone will just cool their jets a bit, take some deep breaths, and imbibe some good stout, we'll all come to realize what a truly crappy show it was in the first place.
It was cancelled because it was crap, advertisers knew it was crap, and did not fork over the money to pay for such crap.
[channeling Dennis Miller]But then again, I could be wrong. [/channeling Dennis Miller]
(Pssst. For the blogpost title see here.)
During the week following Christmas, I saw the movie "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" for which I had prepared myself by re-reading C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (and went on to read the rest of the series, which I am finishing by starting The Last Battle today).
To cut to the quick: I thought it was good, not great, and I enjoyed it, but not as much as I wanted to.
Disappointments: failing to clearly identify Father Christmas, fording the ice stream as it melts (unnecessary and stupid), tried to be too much like Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings."
Quibbles: no blood when Aslan is killed, left out Mr. and Mrs. Beaver's full to-and-fro as they prepare to escape the dam when the White Witch's wolves come to take them, didn't fully/accurately represent Professor Kirke's conversation with Peter and Susan about Lucy's "story" of Narnia.
Loves: above all the sacrifice of Aslan (and overall the mastery of expression, accomplished via CGI, and voicing, by Liam Neeson, given to Aslan), Lucy, the voicing of Mr. Beaver, the characterization of Mr. Tumnus, Tilda Swinton as the White Witch.
I will probably see each new installment as it comes out. But I will not purchase the DVDs. Nor will I have my children watch the movies until they are first heavily innoculated with the original books through bedtime and personal reading.
From USATODAY.com comes an interesting article about The Christmas classic that almost wasn't. That's right, the November 1965 "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
When CBS bigwigs saw a rough cut of A Charlie Brown Christmas in November 1965, they hated it."They said it was slow," executive producer Lee Mendelson remembers with a laugh. There were concerns that the show was almost defiantly different: There was no laugh track, real children provided the voices, and there was a swinging score by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi.
Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez fretted about the insistence by Peanuts creator Charles Schulz that his first-ever TV spinoff end with a reading of the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke by a lisping little boy named Linus.
"We told Schulz, 'Look, you can't read from the Bible on network television,' " Mendelson says. "When we finished the show and watched it, Melendez and I looked at each other and I said, 'We've ruined Charlie Brown.' "
Good grief, were they wrong. The first broadcast was watched by almost 50% of the nation's viewers. "When I started reading the reviews, I was absolutely shocked," says Melendez, 89. "They actually liked it!" . . .
Schulz, who died in 2000, never doubted the power of his tale of Charlie Brown's quest for the true meaning of Christmas amid the garish trappings of a commercialized holiday. "It comes across in the voice of a child," says Jeannie Schulz, the wife of the cartoonist, whose friends called him Sparky. "Sparky used to say there will always be a market for innocence."
Peter Robbins, now 49, was the voice of Charlie Brown. "This show poses a question that I don't think had been asked before on television: Does anybody know the meaning of Christmas?"
Parents like Molly Kremidas, 39, who grew up adoring A Charlie Brown Christmas, watch it with their kids. "It's the values in the story," says Kremidas, of Winston-Salem, N.C. She'll watch tonight with daughter Sofia, 6. "Would there be any programs for children on today that could get away with talking about the real meaning of Christmas? I don't think so." . . .
On paper, the show's bare-bones script would seem to offer few clues to its enduring popularity. Mendelson says the show was written in several weeks, after Coca-Cola called him just six months before the program aired to ask if Schulz could come up with a Peanuts Christmas special.
Charlie Brown, depressed as always, can't seem to get into the Christmas spirit. His friend and nemesis Lucy suggests that he direct the gang's Christmas play. But the Peanuts crew is focused on how many presents they're going to get, not on putting on a show.
"Just send money. How about tens and twenties?" says Charlie's sister Sally as she dictates a letter to Santa Claus.
Charlie goes to find a Christmas tree to set the mood. He returns with a scrawny specimen that prompts his cohorts to mock him as a blockhead. In desperation, Charlie asks if anyone can explain to him what Christmas is all about.
"Sure, I can," says his friend Linus, who proceeds to recite the story of the birth of Jesus from the book of Luke in the King James Version of the Bible. "And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 'Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and goodwill toward men,' " Linus says. "And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown." . . .
What makes A Charlie Brown Christmas the "gold standard" in [professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, Robert] Thompson's view is that it somehow manages to convey an old-fashioned, overtly religious holiday theme that's coupled with Schulz's trademark sardonic, even hip, sense of humor.
While Schulz centers the piece on verses from the Bible, laced throughout are biting references to the modern materialism of the Christmas season. Lucy complains to Charlie that she never gets wants she really wants. "What is it you want?" Charlie asks. "Real estate," she answers.
"A key element in all of Schulz's work is his sense of man's place in the scheme of things in a theological sense as well as a psychological sense," says Thomas Inge, an English and humanities professor at Randolph-Macon College who edited a series of interviews with Schulz released in 2000. "Then there's this slightly cynical attitude that makes everything work."
Parents say the combination of humor and bedrock values is what draws them and their children to the show. "It does provide a balance, but it's a balance that we as a society have forgotten about," says Patrick Lemp, 43, of West Hartford, Conn. He'll watch tonight with son Brendan, 13.
"This is one of the last shows that actually comes out and talks about the meaning of Christmas. As a society, we're taking religion out of a lot of the trappings of the holiday. This one is different." . . .
Much about A Charlie Brown Christmas was revolutionary for network TV, even beyond its religious themes.
The voices of children had not been used before in animation, a technique Mendelson, Melendez and Schulz all wanted to try.
"Lee didn't want to use Hollywood kids. He wanted the sound of kids who didn't have training," says Sally Dryer, 48, who did the voice of Violet — the little girl who mocks Charlie Brown for not getting any Christmas cards. In later specials, she was Lucy's voice.
Mendelson sent tape recorders home with all his employees in Burlingame, Calif. Dryer, then 8, was chosen because her sister worked for the Mendelson crew. Robbins and Christopher Shea, the voice of Linus, were the only children with professional acting experience in the cast.
The show was also novel in that it used no laugh track, an omnipresent device in animated and live-action comedies of the era. Schulz strongly believed that his audience could figure out when to laugh.
Perhaps the most enduring aspect of the show has been its score — a piano-driven jazz suite that was absolutely unheard-of for children's programming in 1965.
Guaraldi, the composer and pianist, was best known for a 1962 hit called Cast Your Fate To the Wind. Mendelson liked it so much that he hired Guaraldi to score a documentary about Schulz that never aired. When the Christmas program was sold, parts of that music were incorporated.
The driving tune that the Peanuts children keep dancing to in the special, called Linus and Lucy, has become a pop staple that's been recorded countless time in the intervening decades. . . .
The song that opens the program, Christmas Time is Here, was written only for piano by Guaraldi, but Mendelson decided to add words to appease other network concerns. When he found his songwriter friends in California were all tied up, Mendelson wrote the words himself on the back of an envelope.
"So now it's a standard," says Mendelson, now 72. "Who knew? I tell people that I'm old and I'm lucky."
Jazz pianist George Winston, recorded a 1996 tribute album to Guaraldi, who died in 1976. He says that when he plays Guaraldi tunes at concerts, young children come up later and say, "Hey, that's the Peanuts music!"
Says Winston: "Vince made a stamp on our popular culture that will never go away. For an artist, that's the ultimate tribute." . . .
Jeannie Schulz, who was the artist's second wife when they married in 1973, says their five children, 25 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren see the show as a holiday tradition as well.
"The reason it's endured is because of its simplicity and its very basic honesty to real life," she says. "Who would have thought this would last 40 years? How did that happen?"
For many viewers, it is the speech by Linus from Luke near the end that packs the biggest emotional wallop.
Christopher Shea was just 7 when he did the part and credits Melendez's coaching and his mom's doctorate in 17th-century British literature for Linus' lilting eloquence with a Biblical text.
Shea, who now lives in Eureka, Calif., with two daughters, 11 and 16, answers quickly when asked why the special has proved so enduring. "It's the words," he says.
Shea says that for years, in his teens and 20s, he didn't quite understand his soliloquy's impact.
"People kept coming up to me and saying, 'Every time I watch that, I cry,' " he says. "But as I got older, I understood the words more, and I understood the power of what was going on. Now I cry, too."
Go here and click on trailers and clips. Wow.
(By the way, for LOTR movie fans, there'll be a lot of WETA deja vu.)
CT interviews Micheal Flaherty, head of Walden Media (who produced "Holes" and "Because of Winn-Dixie") tells about the "insane" pressure to get LWW just right.
[CT] Why the partnership with Disney for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?Flaherty: Because the marketing and distribution of films is such an enormous undertaking. With this film, we have full creative control, while Disney is in control of the marketing and distribution. They're certainly proving that there was no better studio to take this and really create a great franchise with it. We couldn't be happier with the job that they've done.
[CT] But hiring the filmmakers and making all the big decisions is all Walden?
Flaherty: All Walden. And that was all in place before we closed any deal with Disney.
[CT] Many evangelicals boycotted Disney for a while. And Narnia is very dear to that audience, so there's some irony that Disney is involved. Was that discussed before you partnered with Disney?Flaherty: What was discussed was that we just need to make a faithful adaptation of this book. That's our sole prerogative. We wanted a guarantee that we had control over that, and Disney really understood that. Everyone was on the same page in terms of making a faithful adaptation out of this.
[CT] So if people have gripes about the film adaptation, they should come to Walden, not Disney.
Flaherty: Absolutely. We're trying to build a brand for Walden as something that parents, pastors, teachers and librarians are really comfortable with. So if they see our logo on a movie poster, they'll know that they're going to get a certain experience. We hope that with Holes and Winn-Dixie, people are starting to get an idea. . . .
[CT] I read somewhere that nobody affiliated with this movie is allowed to spit without Douglas Gresham's permission. Is that an accurate description of his creative control on this film?
Flaherty: That quote is sort of a mischaracterization of how it works, because it's such a great collaboration between everybody. I don't think anyone lords approvals over anybody else. I think whoever said that, what they were trying to say was that nobody wants to move forward with this if Douglas doesn't feel comfortable with it.
[CT] Do you think he feels a lot of pressure of being the conscience of C. S. Lewis, of actually representing him in this process?
Flaherty: What's awesome about the production is that everybody feels that pressure. Everybody knows this is a monumental responsibility. Everyone knows that that book is a little lower than angels, and that we have to be as close to perfect as humanly possible. That's where we raised the bar to. . . .
[CT] Another Walden film, Charlotte's Web, is coming out next year. The director said that when people hear it's going to be made into a movie, they typically say, "Wow, that's great." But their second reaction is, "Don't screw it up." If they're saying that about Charlotte's Web, how much louder is the "don't-screw-it-up" voice for Narnia?
Flaherty: Oh, it's amplified, particularly from teachers and librarians and parents. They really rightly feel ownership over the property. So you don't want to disappoint those people on so many different levels, artistically, business-wise. It just doesn't make any sense.
[CT] But does that feel just a whole lot bigger here?
Flaherty: Without a doubt. As Lucy peers into the wardrobe, Christians worldwide will be peering at this film, with the highest of expectations
[CT] Because it's not just librarians and parents, it's this whole subculture.
Flaherty: It's my pastor. Do you know what I mean? It's every accountability partner I have. I mean it's … Yes, the pressure is insane.
[CT] When I heard they were making The Lord of the Rings into movies, I remember thinking, Don't screw it up. But I also decided that if I got hung up on every jot and tittle, every single line of dialogue, I wouldn't be giving myself a chance to enjoy the films. Once I got over that, well, I absolutely love those movies; Peter Jackson got the big things right. Do people need to approach Narnia the same way? Should we insist on every single detail just as Lewis wrote it, or should we mainly be concerned that you got the big things right?
Flaherty: I think it's the latter. But at the same time, with it not sounding like a cop-out, it's just two different mediums—books and film. There's no other way around it. Holes and Winn-Dixie are incredibly faithful adaptations, but there's still things you need to do to bring the story to life. Ditto with Narnia. We didn't lift dialogue 100 percent from the book and put it into the script. But I'm confident in saying that people should have properly high expectations that this will be the faithful adaptation they had hoped and prayed for.
[CT] Probably the biggest concern for Christians is that Aslan isn't dumbed down to just an awe-inspiring lion, but that he remains an apparent Christ figure.
Flaherty: I think that's evident to some people in the book, and it's not evident to others. If it's evident to you in the book, it's going to be evident to you in the film. I think that's the officially sanctioned diplomatic answer! (laughs)
[CT] What did you learn from Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings films that you might apply to the Narnia franchise?
Flaherty: The biggest thing we learned from Peter was the importance of a visionary director who had an insane love for the property. So that's what we got with [Narnia director] Andrew Adamson, who consumed all seven of these books and read them millions of times. And for decades, he has been envisioning and dreaming of how he would bring those to the screen.
I'm breathing a bit easier. A bit.
In addition to the self-written lyrics in the previous Fatherhood Chronicles post, I snuck these into another card for Anna. These lyrics do have music . . . and a singer.
Car door slams, it's been a long day at work
I'm out on the freeway and I'm wondering if it's all worth
The price that I pay, sometimes it doesn't seem fair
I pull into the drive and you're standing there
And you look at me
And give me that come-here-baby smile
It's all gonna be alright
You take my hand
You pull me close and you hold me tight
[Chorus:]
It's the sweet love that you give to me
That makes me believe we can make it through anything
'Cause when it all comes down
And I'm feeling like I'll never last
I just lean on you 'cause baby
You're my better half
They say behind every man is a good woman
But I think that's a lie
'Cause when it comes to you I'd rather have you by my side
You don't know how much I count you to help me
When I've given everything I got and I just feel like giving in
And you look at me
And give me that come-here-baby smile
It's all gonna be alright
You take my hand
Yeah you pull me close and you me tight
[REPEAT CHORUS]
Well, you take my hand
Yeah you pull me close and I understand
It's the sweet love that you give to me
That makes me believe that we can make it through anything
Oh baby, it's the sweet love that you give to me
That makes me believe we can make it through anything
'Cause when it all comes down
And I'm feeling like I'll never last
I just lean on you 'cause baby
You're my better half
Oh, oh baby you're my better half
Ooh, hey baby you're my better half
On Monday night, newly rented DVD in hand, I watched, for the first time, Mel Gibson's phenomenal movie "The Passion of the Christ." I cannot express how powerfully moved I was.
By that I do not mean simply emotionally moved. I was moved emotionally. Primarily by the scene, early on in the movie, of Peter's betrayal and his guilt and self-condemnation. Almost as powerfully by the scene in which the Theotokos hold's her Son's lifeless body and looks directly into the camera--and thus straight into one's own eyes. I was ready for the scene, expecting it, because I'd already read about it. But I was not prepared for the existential impact: I did this, not anyone else, me--by my own fault, my own fault, my own most grievous fault. The subversive hatred and fear of the Jewish elders, the sadism of the Roman torturers, the spitting of the crowd--Mary's gaze brought home the brutal, ugly reality: it was all my fault. The tortured cry of Christ: "Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?" felt like sharp iron thrust through me, both an indictment and my own cry in the desolation of my mortality, sin and guilt. It was strong, strong stuff.
Now I'm in a dilemma. I purchase movies for my own home collection primarily to relive the experience. That experience may be oriented around ideas and writing and story line, or it may be the thrill of the experience of good moviemaking. But how could I justify my purchase of "The Passion" on these grounds? Somehow buying "The Passion" for the experience of it seems horribly narcissistic and self-centered: which is precisely why the events depicted in "The Passion" happened!
But what would be an appropriate reason? Not for the experience, surely, at least not solely or even primarily. But what about as something like an icon? Icons are meant to be "windows into heaven" as the proverbial saying goes. They are meant to give us glimpses into divine realities. "The Passion" surely does that. This, then, would be both an appropriate and honorable reason for purchasing the DVD, it seems to me.
Still, there is a distinct difference between icons and a movie. Both are stylized--Gibson's graphic depiction of the physical violence of course is highly stylized. Both point to realities, godly realities, beyond themselves. Yet I remain in ambiguity.
I'm not sure how to articulate my hesitation. It's not as though icons depicting the crucifixion are bloodless, though some are more bloody than others. And it's not a case of simply wondering whether my mental iconography of the Passion should be the traditional iconography of the Church as opposed to the one of the film. There are a variety of traditional icons, each with their own distinctive emphases, and the one that lodges in one's mind will be the one that shapes one's primary responses to the Passion. Nor is it the case that the film excites the passions (grief, conviction, etc.), whereas traditional icons invite contemplation. One of the most moving icons I've ever experienced is the first one I came across of the "Extreme Humiliation" depicting Christ's repose in the tomb. And Gibson's "The Passion" has unleashed some sincere contemplation within me in the past couple of days.
What the ambiguity also is not, is some sort of concern over soteriological doctrine. Enough wise Orthodox have responded to that issue to quell any concern on my part on whether "The Passion of the Christ" can be meaningfully appropriated by Orthodox Christians. Nor is it a matter of the sort of aversion to mass popularity. I think it mostly true that if most of a consumerist, narcissistic society is for something, one should pause and reflect, and then avoid it. But though "The Passion" turned into something of a cultural phenomenon, I don't hesitate to appropriate it for my home on that basis alone.
But still I hesitate. And I'm not sure why. Is it that traditional icons have something that "The Passion of the Christ" does not have? Traditional icons have the considered experience of the Church over time. "The Passion" is too new. However, that is not usually a conscious consideration on my part, in whatever way it may play a significant unconscious role. Is it that, as a new father, and as an inquirer into Orthodoxy, my role as "priest" in the home has taken on ever-larger significance and seriousness? Am I hesistant because I am unsure of the effects on my family and our piety? Perhaps. But again, not in an overtly conscious way.
In the end, I have no real way to articulate my hesitation. "The Passion of the Christ" is one of the most important movies I've ever seen. And I'm not sure if I want to add it to my home collection. Why that is, I cannot say.
Those who take offense at Paul for these words:
"But women will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety" (1 Timothy 2:15).
Fail to remember that those words are connected to these words:
"While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. . . . But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:6,7,19).
Sometimes inklings of these truths are granted us in the most unlooked-for of places.
She wore a dress with cherries on it,
Goin' somewhere where she'd be wanted.
A town this small; all they do is talk.
No wedding ring; cheap fingernail polish.
She always wished that she could go to college,
But some dreams fade: they just slip away.
She started to show a few months ago an' she had to go.
That's how she wound up.
On the backseat of a Greyhound bus,
Head on down with the windows up.
Starin' at the rest of her life.
She never thought this would be the place,
Where she would find her savin' grace,
But she fell in love; she fell in love,
On the backseat of a Greyhound Bus.
Oh, yeah, yeah
Moon was full, the stars were smilin':
God has a funny sense of timin'.
The baby came on the Interstate.
Somewhere between Jackson and Memphis,
She finally found what she had been missin':
She cried and cried, while the red lights flashed.
Sweet baby girl: she looked into the face of a mirror,
The face of a brand new world.
On the backseat of a Greyhound bus,
Heart so full that it could bust.
Starin' at the rest of her life.
She never thought this would be the place,
Where she would find her savin' grace,
But she fell in love; she fell in love,
On the backseat of a Greyhound Bus.
Sweet baby girl:
She found a brand new world.
On the backseat of a Greyhound bus,
Heart so full that it could bust.
Starin' at the rest of her life.
She never thought this would be the place,
Where she would find her savin' grace,
But she fell in love; she fell in love,
On the backseat of a Greyhound Bus.
She wore a dress with cherries on it,
Goin' somewhere where she'd be wanted.
Hey, yeah, yeah.
Sara Evans, "Backseat Of A Greyhound Bus"
(Of course, men are not excluded from these graces, though they participate in them differently.)
Well, I'm apparently the last one in the world to do so, but last night I saw The Matrix Reloaded. Man, oh, man. A worthy sequel to the original, in my opinion. There were a couple of problems, for me. The technical effects were both not as flawless as the first movie (e. g., Neo vs. all the Agent Smiths--the CGI broke the suspension of disbelief at some points) and also much, much better (e. g., Morpheus and the agent fighting on top of the semi-trailer). The story line was a bit less mythical than the first, but philosophically more interesting. I thought the pace started too slow (and the Temple "orgy" and Neo/Trinity love scene just plain ol' unnecessary) at the beginning, but once the story finally picked up, much better. I don't know what to think about the reverence shown Neo--but I suppose that comes more from my Protestant background, than from the respect Orthodox have always shown the saints. Nor am I sure what I think about the scene with the Architect, though it definitely fit the theme of the plot.
Which brings me to what I like so much about the movie: its philosophical question of causality vs. free will. I've assiduously stayed away from the reviews so as not to accidentally read a "spoiler" before I saw the movie, but I know that some of the reviews are less than happy about the sequel. Perhaps this is why. If the first movie was "Plato's Cave," then this movie is the Timaeus (Plato's mythic account of cosmogony, with it's discussion of necessity).
To what extent are we constrained by the materiality of our being and to what extent are we free to rise above that materiality? Jurisprudence has necessarily assumed choice: those who violate the laws of the state are subject to the penalties associated with those violations. Ethical theory has similarly found it necessary to posit some sort of freedom of human will (cf. Aristotle in Bk VII of the Nicomachean Ethics and St. Thomas' "Treatise on Human Acts" (in the Summa). Modern psychology has increasingly diminished the notion of free will for more of a materialistic determinism, and to the degree that psychology has infiltrated jurisprudence and ethics, these, too, have softened on the concept of human freedom.
This discussion is extremely important in our culture. Witness the discussions regarding alcoholism, sexuality, and other matters. Though no scientific study has come up with a proven link between any genetic makeup and behavior, nonetheless it is almost always presumed. "This is how I was made. I can't help being who I am." So, too, one may say of "nurture" or sociocultural determinism. Thus, Paul couldn't help writing about the relationship between men and women as he did, because he was a product of his cultural era.
But to accept something of a sociocultural and/or materialistic determinism for behavior brings with it a host of problematic implications, not the least of which demean and dehumanize those who practice them. That is to say, if homosexuality is, indeed, thoroughly determined by genetic and other physical causes and/or sociocultural uprbringing, then gays and lesbians have no freedom of will in terms of their sexual practice. Nor do bisexuals, or heterosexuals, spouse abusers, sociopaths, alcoholics--and one might add, for consistency, heterosexual spouses who practice fidelity--and so forth.
But while eliminating free will in these matters also eliminates any moral culpability (or praise), it also reduces those lacking free will to the level of mere matter. It binds them to their bodies and/or their cultures, and eliminates any comparative worth. If we are all mere atoms and molecules, then no one has any intrinsic worth, or at least no more intrinsic worth than anything else. If modern American sexual mores are no better or worse than those obtaining in the Taliban--since we're all determined by our cultures--then, one can not be elevated nor condemned over another. In a universe of sociocultural, materialistic determinism, humans lack the freedom to choose, and therefore lack the ability to place value. And if we are so culturally and genetically determined, and so devalued, then crimes against one another's persons--even if on the basis of that materially bound person's nature or nurture--have no more standing over against the other. That is to say, there is no basis for hate crime laws, no basis for any law, save that of evolutionary determinism. And if Darwinian "social law"--based as it is on a materialistic deterministic worldview--obtains, then not only can there be no valid concept of personhood, indeed, the survival of the majority (insert behavior practice) over the minority (insert different practice) is an indifferent matter, in terms of value, but nonetheless an inescapable outworking of the material world.
Does anyone smell the smoke rising above Dachau?
Though the relationship between nature, nuture and choice is incredibly complex, still the implications attendent to the diminution of free will is why cultural and genetic determination in the discussion of human behavior, must, I repeat, must be rejected by Christians. Indeed, the Christian worldview necessitates free choice. By the Incarnation, we have been saved in our valued human bodies and cultures and freed from our sinful natures that are subject to the corruption and constraints of mortality. The Son of God became man, so that man might become God.
While The Matrix Reloaded seems to posit freedom over causality (the story is unfinished), it also seems to posit something of a Manichean or Zoroastrian worldview (we need the machines, the machines need us). So I'm not sure that what we see displayed is the Christian understanding of free will over the flesh.
But it's a dang good movie. Go see it. I'll be going to see it again.