The Women – Film Review

by Kara McLaughlin

“Don’t be bitter. It leads to Botox.”

The Women is a remake of the film, originally produced in 1939 towards the end of the Great Depression. Originally written as a satirical portrait of the wealthy ‘society ladies’.
The plot centres around Mary Heins (Meg Ryan), a clothing designer, who has  ‘everything’ any women could dream of;  a fancy country house,  rich husband, cute daughter, a maid, a nanny and even good looks (although according to her friends she is neglecting her appearance).

As the story develops Mary’s ‘world’ begins to collapse all around her. Her daughter complains that she is too busy organising charity lunches and the alike, her father fires her from his clothing design business and she discovers that her husband is having an affair with a ‘Spritzer girl ‘(perfume sales woman).

In the midst of grappling with her newly shattered life, Mary goes away to a self help camp. It is here that she meets the ‘Countess,’ a five time divorcee (Bette Midler). Late one night, while they are smoking a joint, the Countess gives Mary some advice that becomes the ‘turning point’ for her character. The Countess’ advice is simple, people say it is bad to be selfish, but it is not. Mary is advised to do things for herself.

This advice seems to awaken something within her and Mary’s transformation begins.

Sermon for the unborn

Over the past weeks we’ve been working through Revelation. We’re now looking at how Revelation helps us understand and critique particular situations in our age. As a ‘working example’ in this introductory talk, I looked at the issue of abortion.

You can hear the talk here.

Working example: Abortion.

Read Revelation 18:11-13

Babylon/Rome were hailed by the world for what came out of them.
If you were to ask the Monty Python question ‘what has Rome ever done for us?’ you may well come out with a list like Revelation 18:12-13.

They’ve done lots for everyone in the Empire!

But perhaps you might not have given quite the list John does.
Look at the end of v13.
John tells us that they also trade in human souls.

This could refer to slaves, but it seems to be something deeper than that – the fantastic trade of this empire cost lives.
It was built upon the bodies of those who died as it hurtled on.
The materialism and the comfort of the Empire was paramount, and it did not matter if people died to achieve it.

That seems to be what people thought.
When we see this image of Babylon falling in Revelation, do the people rejoice that this consumerism built on death has ended?

No – they weep!

The gods and idols of their material wealth were so dominant that they would literally trample over human lives to achieve it.

I read Revelation 18:11-13 and it makes me uncomfortable.

Why?
Because it looks a lot like our country.

Our society is built on 4 things – consumerism, materialism, hedonism and individualism.
What makes our nation ‘great’ in the eyes of so many around the world is our freedom to shop!
We have access to material wealth on a scale never known before in history.

What we see in Revelation 18 was probably only accessed by the privileged few, even if it was desired by many.

Whereas today we have so much stuff – widescreen plasma TV’s, sports cars, holidays in the sun around the world, leisure facilities, cinema’s, theatres that are accessed by anyone and everyone.

The gods that perhaps everyone wanted to follow in John’s day can be followed with great diligence today.

We have come to expect pleasure, on demand comfort, a life plotted out the way I want it – and we’ve come to expect those as human rights.

But at what cost?

Do we see the dead and the bruised that suffer at the hands of these despicable gods?

I want to show you some of those who have died because of this.

Can non-Christians forgive?

People naturally talk about forgiveness. Forgiveness is offered by all sorts and to all sorts. But the question in my mind is ‘is forgiveness possible without the cross?’

The Bible is clear that sin has a cost. There must be some sort of payment for sin. In the Bible there is not unconditional forgiveness, in the sense that someone or something must pay for the sin – there is a condition attached to the forgiveness of sin. In the Old Testament it was at the cost of the life of a lamb. In the New Testament it is at the cost of the life of the Lamb.

This means that I am able to forgive someone else for one of two reasons:

1. Their sin has been paid for by Jesus on the cross if they trust him.

2. Their sin will be paid for by judgement falling on them when Jesus returns.

As a result I am able to forgive because I know judgement will fall on that sin in one of these two ways and I do not need to enact any judgement.

But what then of people who don’t know Jesus? Can they forgive?

Speaking out for those who cannot speak

We’ve been looking at Revelation in our church over the past few weeks and we’re now embarking on a section looking at specific issues of our age, such as justice, economics, politics and seeing how Revelation speaks into and helps us critique the idols of our own day.

I introduced this section with a quick recap and a worked example of how Revelation helps us engage with issues today.

The topic I looked at was Abortion. I’ll put my talk on a future post.

It was quite possibly the hardest sermon I have ever come to. I rarely come close to crying in a public setting, but yesterday there were tears in my eyes.

Church planting with our children – an opportunity for discipleship and evangelism… a post by Matt Spriggs

Matthew Spriggs is an elder in one the TCH churches in Loughborough – a theologian, practitioner, church planter, teacher, and all round good bloke!

He commented on my previous post, but I thought it’d be much more useful to give the comment a post of its own as it’s very helpful… so here it is:

“Thanks for raising that helpful discussion. In Titus, it is clear that the church’s most effective presentation of the gospel is it’s ordered lives (Titus 2:11-14). The self controlled upright living that is talked about is in reference to the family orientated relationships stated in the preceding verses. That being the case, my family is key in my gospel effectiveness and can’t be left behind, but must be brought with me, as we can only do mission together.

The hard bit to realise is that in order to take the gospel to a particular people group, I need to take my family with me. And that is when the hard practicalities kick in. But titus encourages us that all the upheaval of moving kids around, taking them on pastoral visits, are exactly the kind of good works that Christ redeemed us and purified us to do (v14). A small example of this is my wife recently took our 3 kids and a prostitute to local doctor’s appointment in the middle of afternoon sleep time. It demonstrated trust and a sense of welcome that she was prepared to open the family up to a relationship with this girl, and at the same time it provides opportunity to expose our children to the real world in a gospel framework.

But then comes another question. Should we drag our ‘not yet Christian’ children into that?

Family… the last idol, or final protectorate?

Something that has often taxed my mind is the responsibility christians have towards their families.

There is obviously a strong idolatry of family in our country and in our churches. The ‘needs’ of our children govern where we live, what school we send them to, what we spend our money on etc etc. rather than the gospel shaping and defining these things. We often use the phrase ‘I just want what’s best for my children’ when what we are really doing is teaching them that they are at the centre of the world and deserve a comfortable and successful life, at least in the world’s terms – which of course is not what’s best for them at all.

We end up teaching them the way of comfort rather than the way of sacrifice and so it is no wonder that we have a lack of gospel-centred leaders and sacrificial church planters in our country.

But how much should I ask my family to sacrifice and how much should I protect them? This is particularly pertinent for my family as we consider going to South Africa where there is a high rate of violent crime towards women and children.

At the Acts 29 Conference I was at over the past few days Scott Thomas talked about a decision he made not to go and plant a church at one point because his ‘children needed a father more than that city needed a church’. The utmost thing in his mind was to care for his family. Is this falling into the same idolatry as the world? I think not… but why…?