Alan Ritchson, who plays Jack Reacher in Prime Video’s Reacher series, reacted to Christian criticism regarding his glorification of fornication through his characters that he plays on screen.Fandom Pulse is a reader-supported publication.
"He reacted saying, 'I'm sorry—I doubt that's going to be part of the conversation when I'm standing at the pearly gates!'"
There won't be a conversation. There will be judgment, and it will apply to all your actions, even when you're playing make-believe with another human being subject to those actions. This guy's going to have a bad time of it in the hereafter if this is his attitude.
Sorry, but I am going to have to push back on this take. I love your work in pop culture that you have done for years John, but this pedantic view of art is going to kill your credibility on critical analysis of storytelling.
The puritanical approach to culture has killed the ability of the church to reach others and makes their attempts at storytelling come off as insincere, un-creative and propagandistic in execution.
How is this actor glorifying sin? Is he only allowed Christian contemporary films that have absolutely no intimacy, violence or other forms of sin? Are we not allowed to watch anything with sinful behavior? Are gentiles the only ones allowed to act in sinful roles and it makes it okay now? What’s the cut off point for a story with flawed characters where it becomes a story that isn’t Christian anymore?
These questions come to mind and more and this only shows that you are moralizing like Pharisees and Saducees and finger wagging at audiences like the wokies do. I think you guys need a moment of introspection that dictating what others watch, create and do for entertainment limits the ability of true creativity and expression. Just because think you are right doesn’t mean that you don’t have a blind eye in this argument and puts into question whether you even care for all these pop culture IPs that you comment on.
It comes off as this is a battlefield for your ideology/politics/religious denomination and not that you have a personal stake in storytelling and fandom. This is why Christian contemporary fell flat on its face because it was more worried about offending people and church politics than telling a story that can genuinely uplift people.
He's glorifying sin because it's the hero of the story engaging it. That's done on purpose to get the audience to accept it as normal. If the hero does, it's a good thing especially when there is nothing in the show making it clear it's evil. Furthermore, it's in both Season 1 and Season 2 as something to be emulated.
Second, nowhere in this article did I claim that evil cannot be depicted. In fact, I routinely cite Inter Mirifica and Pope Paul VI who states, "Finally, the narration, description or portrayal of moral evil, even through the media of social communication, can indeed serve to bring about a deeper knowledge and study of humanity and, with the aid of appropriately heightened dramatic effects, can reveal and glorify the grand dimensions of truth and goodness. Nevertheless, such presentations ought always to be subject to moral restraint, lest they work to the harm rather than the benefit of souls, particularly when there is question of treating matters which deserve reverent handling or which, given the baneful effect of original sin in men, could quite readily arouse base desires in them."
Thirdly, describing the Catholic Church and its teaching as "pedantic" "puritanical" "and in the vein of the Pharisees and Sadducees is absurd on its face.
Finally, total freedom is the lie of the devil that leads to enslavement. True freedom is following the divine law of Jesus Christ.
It’s based on a book series by Lee Child. Should Catholic actors not take roles in secular movies? Reacher is ambiguous but he stands up for people who are being victimized. He’s a former MP not an angel or a saint
Neal McDonough refused to do kissing scenes with women other than his wife. He's also portrayed the devil in a recent movie.
There's a fine line where if the fornication was not being glorified and was shown as the grave evil that it is, it could be used to promote the common good as Pope Paul VI explains in Inter Mirifica.
Catholic actors should not be showing fornication in a good light. It is the sin of scandal among others.
Not to mention his "describing" is unforgivably blasphemous.
The six possible ways to unforgivably blaspheme are as such, from The Council Of Trent:
1) Despair of salvation,
2) Presumption of God’s mercy,
3) To impugn the known truth,
4) Envy of another’s spiritual good,
5) Obstinacy in sin,
6) Final impenitence.
Hard to say which ones the prots of various flavors (let's not get into luther's explicit love of fornication, adultery, and rape as well as his public promotion of all three!) aren't doing in this context.
I'll think on your words and I appreciate the engagement. One rule of thumb I try to use when discerning whether something is glorifying a destructive behavior, is this: is the behavior depicted in such a way as to be gratuitous? Often a dead giveaway of whether something is depicted with moral restraint versus to quietly just promote something is when a given behavior (usually such as sex or violence) is shown in such a way that does nothing to drive the story or develop the characters in any meaningful way.
Considering you think the rampaging coomer was trying to protect his porn addiction out of (and I quote) "humility of heart," I sincerely doubt you will do much thinking nor have the wherewithal to understand or learn even if you tried. Certainly not the eschatology or metaphysics or even the will to want to jump out of the nihilistic prot hole you find some comfortable.
As Dr John C Rao said on this topic:
"It is precisely because this venomous attempt to build a civilization upon a freedom from efforts to fight Original Sin and its willful effects upon individuals is so tempting that it has infected almost all of us in some way or another. We almost all fall prey to the enticement simply to pick what “liberty” most appeals to our particular passion, declare it pleasing to God, willfully condemn whichever application of the same principle we find personally unacceptable when used by others, and ignore the innately poisonous nature of the entire concept. And, quite frankly, we almost all fall prey to the cynical temptation to mobilize the “total depravity” argument anew when we chuckle over the naïve, utopian vision of opponents who want to use law and authority to help make people virtuous in realms where we want “liberty”. But blithely making common cause with “liberty” in a world that did not have to be totally depraved but is making every effort to become so is riding on the back of a willful monster---with the current self-destructive appeal to religious liberty at the top of the list. It is only the positive liberty to use our Faith, Grace, our Reason, and the help of social authorities, both supernatural and natural, to correct and transform ourselves under the Social Kingship of Christ that can lead to a life worth living in this world and to eternal happiness in the next."
Or as many people have said for hundreds of years, with the most recent variation being something along the lines of:
"everyone is a libertarian for their own vices."
the marquis de sade said sexual sin makes man a shareholder in satanism no matter the affiliation.
there's a reason he used porn and public displays of sodomy and violence by his "gay scientists" (if you ever wondered why moderns call sodomites "gay") to force the helpless, sinful lemmings of france into their terror.
Or how about from God Himself to St Catherine of Siena:
"Do you know dearest daughter, how I raise the soul out of her imperfections? Sometimes I vex her with evil thoughts and a sterile mind. It will seem to her that I have left her completely, without any feeling whatever. She does not seem to be in the world, because she is in fact not there; nor does she seem to be in me because she has no feeling at all other than that her will does not want sin. I do not allow enemies to open the gate of the will that is free. I do let the devils and other enemies of humankind beat against other gates, but not against this, which is the main gate guarding the city of the soul. I do not will the soul’s death as long as she is not so stupid as to open the gate of her will. They cannot enter unless her own will chooses to let them in."
pharisees DESPERATELY tried to damn The Faithful in their place while trying to excuse all their rich friends; this is what you do, satanist.
there's a very Real Reason why The Church forbade Catholics from being actors. This is why.
most unforgivable damned one, there is a great deal you do not know:
1) mortal sin (what breaks The Ten Commandments) sends you straight to hell because they kill your soul outright!
2) more are in hell for sexual sin than ALL else combined!
3) what you are not aware is that not only are you damned for what you have personally done BUT you are damned no matter what with those whom you have lead astray and suffer their punishments as well!
this last one especially applies to Parents, Priests, and those with influence. Noble Obligation is a Real Thing for a Real Reason, and it's to avoid going to hell with those you have Authority or Influence over!
Venerable Fulton Sheen:
"Conscience, Christ, and the gift of faith make evil men uneasy in their sin. They feel that if they could drive Christ from the earth, they would be free from "moral inhibitions." They forget that it is their own nature and conscience which makes them feel that way. Being unable to drive God from the heavens, they would drive his ambassadors from the earth. In a lesser sphere, that is why many men sneer at virtue--because it makes vice uncomfortable."
“He told them therefore that He was not a Teacher asking for a disciple who would parrot His sayings; He was a Saviour Who first disturbed a conscience and then purified it. But many would never get beyond hating the disturber. The Light is no boon, except to those who are men of good will; their lives may be evil, but at least they want to be good. His Presence, He said, was a threat to sensuality, avarice, and lust. When a man has lived in a dark cave for years, his eyes cannot stand the light of the sun; so the man who refuses to repent turns against mercy. No one can prevent the sun from shining, but every man can pull down the blinds and shut it out.”
God Himself To St Catherine Of Siena on you:
"I do not allow enemies to open the gate of the will that is free. I do let the devils and other enemies of humankind beat against other gates, but not against this, which is the main gate guarding the city of the soul. I do not will the soul’s death as long as she is not so stupid as to open the gate of her will. They cannot enter unless her own will chooses to let them in."
your curses are Consummately Returned!
By My Final Authority you are Hereby Marked!
P.S. Don't think I didn't notice your anime picture too, coomer!
I couldn't agree more. Your thoughts here show a humility of heart and that you care about people, and as a Christian I share your approach. As a writer, I work in all kinds of genres, including some inspirational/Christian fiction, and I think we have to portray human beings authentically. Look, I don't think the goal in any way, shape, or form should be to 'glorify' sin and evil. But in many cases when a finger-wagging Christian is saying that what they *really* mean is, in a fictional story you admitted that sin exists or you dared to portray a protagonist in the story acting in a sinful way.
Showing reality, showing authentic human failings, is not by itself 'glorifying' anything. I think it truly hurts the Christian cause when we take such a brittle view of creative work and storytelling. It hurts the Christian ability to reach others and share God's word too.
Ah, yes, "humility of heart" shown by an anime freak SEETHING that someone DARE point out Virtue in face of your vice.
least nihilistic protestant.
Like I pointed out to the other, there is a great deal you do not know:
1) mortal sin (what breaks The Ten Commandments) sends you straight to hell because they kill your soul outright!
2) more are in hell for sexual sin than ALL else combined!
3) what you are not aware is that not only are you damned for what you have personally done BUT you are damned no matter what with those whom you have lead astray and suffer their punishments as well!
this last one especially applies to Parents, Priests, and those with influence. Noble Obligation is a Real Thing for a Real Reason, and it's to avoid going to hell with those you have Authority or Influence over!
one of the original babylon bee articles from around 2010, before it got big and was "bought out" by the most recent crop of j subversives, had an article mocking how there is no depravity protestants will not partake in with the excuse of "biblical themes."
Characters in the vein of King David. Was he immoral? At times, absolutely. Yet he is one of the heroes in the Bible too and was ultimately redeemed. We are all flawed human beings who fall short of God.
King David doomed his entire people for 500 years, and only God Himself coming to earth to bring Perfected Israel as The Catholic Church brought it out of that.
hypocrites were thieves who pretended to be doctors and promised "miracle cures" that were really just murdering the patients. Hippocrates founded the first medical school in direct reaction to them. The first two lines of the Hippocratic Oath: "First, do no harm. Second, I will never perform an abortion."
on his deathbed, the founder of the orange order (freemasonry's regulating body) said "I have never murdered anyone who didn't deserve it." Referring to how his organization culls their members from the dregs of society who were damned anyways, so he wasn't actually hurting anyone valuable directly regardless of all his false promises. Of course, he uses those to harm Good people, but the point stands that he knows he is harming people.
That arrogant prick is speaking on behalf of God. I really doubt his perverted interpretation of Christianity is his genuine belief. More likely he's trying to subvert and demoralise. Either that, or his bipolar disorder is acting up.
It's impossible to have only moral people in one's stories. They don't exist, at least until Christ comes again. The best one can hope for are those who strive for virtue.
It's difficult to write immoral people who struggle with error and wickedness in themselves, repenting, backsliding, struggling more, and so on without a Christian framework.
One ends in excusing the wrongness, or worse, pretending it's a good. Or losing the characters to world of nihilism.
"Is my work helping to point to what is virtuous and beautiful, or at least not actively helping to damn others,?" ought to be asked and answered.
The question of this actor's Christianity boils down to whether he believes in the resurrection, and the redemption. If he does, pray that he isn't lying to himself about the Hollywood team making his show.
I can see where Ritchson is coming from. Reacher is a morally ambiguous character who mostly does the right thing and stands up for the underdog. However, season two of Reacher was so disappointing even though he played the character well. Physically, he just LOOKS like Reacher, much more than the diminutive Tom Cruise did in the movies.
Ritchson is right. Stories involve flawed heroes, and even more flawed villains.
There's a basic logic failure in the criticism - portrayal != endorsement.
How does an actor play the role of King David (you know, the adulterer.)
Can't do the Passion without someone being Herod, or Pilate, or Judas - in fact, there was only one cast member who could portray a character who didn't sin - Jim Caviezel.
Kevin Sorbo played a militant atheist college professor who told his students God is dead.
In the movie "The Hiding Space, someone had to play the Nazis.
"they not only fail from resisting this frailty…but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid having dimmed the light of the understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them…It is disagreeable to the demon, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demons who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demons leaves."
Again From God Himself said this to St Catherine of Siena:
"Do you know dearest daughter, how I raise the soul out of her imperfections? Sometimes I vex her with evil thoughts and a sterile mind. It will seem to her that I have left her completely, without any feeling whatever. She does not seem to be in the world, because she is in fact not there; nor does she seem to be in me because she has no feeling at all other than that her will does not want sin. I do not allow enemies to open the gate of the will that is free. I do let the devils and other enemies of humankind beat against other gates, but not against this, which is the main gate guarding the city of the soul. I do not will the soul’s death as long as she is not so stupid as to open the gate of her will. They cannot enter unless her own will chooses to let them in."
this "alan ritchson"s curses are Consummately Returned back to whence they came!
"THERE are some who actually like the Country dialects which State education is systematically destroying. There are some who actually prefer them to the Cockney dialect which State education is systematically spreading. For that is perhaps the most practical and successful effect of our present scheme of public instruction: that the village children no longer talk like ignorant inhabitants of Sussex or Suffolk; they now talk like enlightened inhabitants of Hoxton or Houndsditch. Among the eccentric reactionaries who have actually observed this change with regret, a further and more curious fact has also been remarked more than once. An Anglican country parson, a friend of mine, once told me that it was not only a loss of pronunciation, but also of perception. ‘They not only can’t say the word; but they can’t hear it’ was the way he put it. Supposing that the virtuous vicar in question had been so ill-advised as to teach his infant school to recite, let us say, the ‘Dolores’ of Swinburne — which I admit is not extremely probable — their intonation would be different; but without any intention to differ. The vicar would say, ‘Ringed round with a flame of fair faces’. And the Sunday School children would obediently repeat, ‘Ringed rarnd with a flime of fair fices’; with a solid certainty and assurance that this was exactly what he had said. However laboriously he might entreat them to say ‘faces’ and not ‘fices’, they would say ‘fices’ and it would sound to them exactly like ‘faces’.
In short, this sort of thing is not a variation or a form of variety; on the contrary, it is an inability to see that there is any variety. It is not a difference in the sense of a distinction; on the contrary, it is a sudden failure in the power to make any distinction. Whatever is distinct may possibly be distinguished. And Burns and Barnes did manage to be distinguished, in the particular form of distinction commonly called dialect. But the change here in question is something much more formless and much more formidable than anything that could arise from the most uncouth or unlucky of local or rustic accents. it is a certain loss of sharpness, in the ear as well as the tongue; not only a flattening of the speech but a deadening of the hearing. And though it is in itself a relatively small matter, especially as compared with many parallel matters, it is exactly this quality that makes it symbolic in the social problems of to-day. For one of the deepest troubles of the day is this fact; that something is being commended as a new taste; which is simply the condition which finds everything tasteless. It is sometimes offered almost as if it were a new sense; but it is not really even a new sensibility; it is rather a pride in a new insensibility.
For instance, when some old piece of decorum is abolished, rightly or wrongly, it is always supposed to be completely justified if people become just as dull in accepting the indecency as they were in accepting the decency. If it can be said that the grandchildren ‘soon get used’ to something that would have made the grandfathers fight duels to the death, it is always assumed that the grandchildren have found a new mode of living, whereas those who fought the duel to the death were already dead: But the psychological fact is exactly the other way. The duelists may have been fastidious or even fantastic; but they were frightfully alive. That is why they died. Their sensibilities were vivid and intense, by the only true test of the finer sensibilities, or even of the five senses. And that is that they could feel the difference between one thing and another. It is the livelier eye that can see the difference between peacock-blue and peacock-green; it is the more fatigued eye that may see them both as something very like grey. It is the quicker ear that can detect in any speech the shade between innocence and irony; or between irony and insult. It is the duller ear that hears all the notes as monotone; and therefore monotonous. Even the swaggering person who was supposed to turn up his nose at everything was at least in a position to sniff the different smells of the world and perhaps to detect their difference. There is the drearier and more detached sort of pride of the other sort of man; who may be said to turn his nose down at everything. For that also is only a more depressing way of turning everything down. It is not a mark of purity of taste, but of absence of taste, to think that cocoa is as good as claret; and, even in the field of morals, it may well have the ultimate nemesis of thinking cocaine as good as cocoa. Even the mere senses, in the merely sensual sense, attest to this truth about vivacity going with differentiation. It is no answer, therefore, to say that you have persuaded a whole crowd of hygienic hikers to be content with cocoa; any more than to say that you have persuaded a whole crowd of drug-fiends to be content with cocaine. Neither of them is the better for pursuing a course which spoils the palate; and probably robs them of a reasonable taste in vintages. But what most modern people do not see is that this dullness in diet and similar things is exactly parallel to the dull and indifferent anarchy in manners and morals. Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which you are accustomed to seeing or hearing without being shocked. There are two meanings of the word ‘nervous’; and it is not even a physical superiority to be actually without nerves. It may mean that your grandmother was an extremely lively and vital animal; and that you are a paralytic.
We are constantly told, for instance, by the very prosaic paralytics who call themselves Nudists, that people ‘soon get used’ to being degraded, in that particular, to the habits of the beasts of the field. I have no doubt they do; just as they soon get used to being drunkards or drug-fiends or jailbirds or people talking Cockney instead of talking English. Where the argument of the apologist entirely fails is in showing that it is better to get used to an inferior status after losing a superior one. In a hundred ways, recent legislation has ridden roughshod over the instincts of innocent and simple and yet very sensible people. There was a feeling, strangely enough, that men and women might not feel very comfortable, when they met as total strangers, to discuss some depraved and perhaps disgusting aspect of their natural sex relation. This has already given a good deal of quiet trouble on juries; and we have not seen the end of the trouble yet. Now it will be noted that the objection to female juries never was an objection to juries being female. There always were female juries. From the first days of legislation a number of matrons were empanelled to decide certain points among each other. The case against mixed juries was a case of embarrassment; and that embarrassment is far more intelligent, far more civilized, far more subtle, far more psychological, than the priggish brutality that disregards it. But in any case it will serve here as an illustration of what I mean. The question is not whether the embarrassment can be so far overcome somehow, that a good many people can discharge the duty somehow. The question is whether the blunting of the sentiment really is a victory for human culture, and not rather a defeat for human culture. Just as the question is not whether millions of little boys in different districts with different dialects can all be taught the same dialect of the Whitechapel Road; but whether that dialect is better than others, and whether it is a good thing to lose the sense of the difference between one dialect and another.
For what we do at least know, in the most fundamental fashion, is that man is man by the possession of these fastidious fancies; from which the free-thinking haddock is entirely emancipated; and by which the latitudinarian turnip is never troubled. To lose the sense of repugnance to one thing, or regard for another, is exactly so far as it goes to relapse into the vegetation or to return to the dust. But for about fifty or sixty years, nearly all our culture and controversial trend has been conducted on the assumption that as long as we could get used to any sort of caddishness, we could be perfectly contented in being cads. I do not say that all the results of the process have been wrong. But I do say that the test of the process has been wrong from first to last; for it is not a case against the citizen that a man can grow accustomed to being either a savage or a slave."
It's "On Dialect And Decency" from "Avowals And Disavowals."
“IF there is any subject which is offensive to modern sentimentalism it is the subject of hll. Our generation clamors for what the poet has called a soft dean, who never mentions hell to ears polite, and our unsoiled age wants a Christianity watered so as to make the Gospel of Christ nothing more than a gentle doctrine of good will, a social program of economic betterment, and a mild scheme of progressive idealism.”
And another from Venerable Fulton Sheen:
"What is forgotten is that sin is not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing is the denial of sin. If I am blind and deny there is any such thing as light, I shall never see. If I am deaf and deny sound, I shall never hear. And if I deny there is sin, I make forgiveness impossible . I believe that the whole political and religious situation of the world can be summed up in terms of the divorce of Christ and His Cross. Put the cross-less christ on the right side, and the christ-less cross on the left. Who picks up the crossless christ? Our decadent Western civilization. This "christ" is weak, effeminate, with no authority to drive buyers and sellers out of temples, and never speaks of self-discipline, restraint and mortification.
Who picks up the christless cross? Russia and China, where there is a dedication to a common ideology, the use of discipline and authority to keep peace and order. But neither can heal. The, crossless christ leaves men burdened with their guilt which festers in a thousand psychosis and neuroses. The christless cross cannot save for it ends in Dachau, the Gulag Archipelago and the squeezing of the lives of millions like grapes to make the collective wine of the State.
Which will first find Christ with the Cross? The totalitarian states who have the Cross without Love, or the Western world which has “love” so often erotic-without sacrifice? We do not know. But we do know that at the end of time, when the great battle between the forces of good and evil takes place, satan will appear without the Cross, as the great philanthropist and social reformer to become the final temptation of all mankind."sacrifice? We do not know. But we do know that at the end of time, when the great battle between the forces of good and evil takes place, satan will appear without the Cross, as the great philanthropist and social reformer to become the final temptation of all mankind."
"He reacted saying, 'I'm sorry—I doubt that's going to be part of the conversation when I'm standing at the pearly gates!'"
There won't be a conversation. There will be judgment, and it will apply to all your actions, even when you're playing make-believe with another human being subject to those actions. This guy's going to have a bad time of it in the hereafter if this is his attitude.
Sorry, but I am going to have to push back on this take. I love your work in pop culture that you have done for years John, but this pedantic view of art is going to kill your credibility on critical analysis of storytelling.
The puritanical approach to culture has killed the ability of the church to reach others and makes their attempts at storytelling come off as insincere, un-creative and propagandistic in execution.
How is this actor glorifying sin? Is he only allowed Christian contemporary films that have absolutely no intimacy, violence or other forms of sin? Are we not allowed to watch anything with sinful behavior? Are gentiles the only ones allowed to act in sinful roles and it makes it okay now? What’s the cut off point for a story with flawed characters where it becomes a story that isn’t Christian anymore?
These questions come to mind and more and this only shows that you are moralizing like Pharisees and Saducees and finger wagging at audiences like the wokies do. I think you guys need a moment of introspection that dictating what others watch, create and do for entertainment limits the ability of true creativity and expression. Just because think you are right doesn’t mean that you don’t have a blind eye in this argument and puts into question whether you even care for all these pop culture IPs that you comment on.
It comes off as this is a battlefield for your ideology/politics/religious denomination and not that you have a personal stake in storytelling and fandom. This is why Christian contemporary fell flat on its face because it was more worried about offending people and church politics than telling a story that can genuinely uplift people.
He's glorifying sin because it's the hero of the story engaging it. That's done on purpose to get the audience to accept it as normal. If the hero does, it's a good thing especially when there is nothing in the show making it clear it's evil. Furthermore, it's in both Season 1 and Season 2 as something to be emulated.
Second, nowhere in this article did I claim that evil cannot be depicted. In fact, I routinely cite Inter Mirifica and Pope Paul VI who states, "Finally, the narration, description or portrayal of moral evil, even through the media of social communication, can indeed serve to bring about a deeper knowledge and study of humanity and, with the aid of appropriately heightened dramatic effects, can reveal and glorify the grand dimensions of truth and goodness. Nevertheless, such presentations ought always to be subject to moral restraint, lest they work to the harm rather than the benefit of souls, particularly when there is question of treating matters which deserve reverent handling or which, given the baneful effect of original sin in men, could quite readily arouse base desires in them."
Thirdly, describing the Catholic Church and its teaching as "pedantic" "puritanical" "and in the vein of the Pharisees and Sadducees is absurd on its face.
Finally, total freedom is the lie of the devil that leads to enslavement. True freedom is following the divine law of Jesus Christ.
It’s based on a book series by Lee Child. Should Catholic actors not take roles in secular movies? Reacher is ambiguous but he stands up for people who are being victimized. He’s a former MP not an angel or a saint
Neal McDonough refused to do kissing scenes with women other than his wife. He's also portrayed the devil in a recent movie.
There's a fine line where if the fornication was not being glorified and was shown as the grave evil that it is, it could be used to promote the common good as Pope Paul VI explains in Inter Mirifica.
Catholic actors should not be showing fornication in a good light. It is the sin of scandal among others.
Not to mention his "describing" is unforgivably blasphemous.
The six possible ways to unforgivably blaspheme are as such, from The Council Of Trent:
1) Despair of salvation,
2) Presumption of God’s mercy,
3) To impugn the known truth,
4) Envy of another’s spiritual good,
5) Obstinacy in sin,
6) Final impenitence.
Hard to say which ones the prots of various flavors (let's not get into luther's explicit love of fornication, adultery, and rape as well as his public promotion of all three!) aren't doing in this context.
I'll think on your words and I appreciate the engagement. One rule of thumb I try to use when discerning whether something is glorifying a destructive behavior, is this: is the behavior depicted in such a way as to be gratuitous? Often a dead giveaway of whether something is depicted with moral restraint versus to quietly just promote something is when a given behavior (usually such as sex or violence) is shown in such a way that does nothing to drive the story or develop the characters in any meaningful way.
Considering you think the rampaging coomer was trying to protect his porn addiction out of (and I quote) "humility of heart," I sincerely doubt you will do much thinking nor have the wherewithal to understand or learn even if you tried. Certainly not the eschatology or metaphysics or even the will to want to jump out of the nihilistic prot hole you find some comfortable.
As Dr John C Rao said on this topic:
"It is precisely because this venomous attempt to build a civilization upon a freedom from efforts to fight Original Sin and its willful effects upon individuals is so tempting that it has infected almost all of us in some way or another. We almost all fall prey to the enticement simply to pick what “liberty” most appeals to our particular passion, declare it pleasing to God, willfully condemn whichever application of the same principle we find personally unacceptable when used by others, and ignore the innately poisonous nature of the entire concept. And, quite frankly, we almost all fall prey to the cynical temptation to mobilize the “total depravity” argument anew when we chuckle over the naïve, utopian vision of opponents who want to use law and authority to help make people virtuous in realms where we want “liberty”. But blithely making common cause with “liberty” in a world that did not have to be totally depraved but is making every effort to become so is riding on the back of a willful monster---with the current self-destructive appeal to religious liberty at the top of the list. It is only the positive liberty to use our Faith, Grace, our Reason, and the help of social authorities, both supernatural and natural, to correct and transform ourselves under the Social Kingship of Christ that can lead to a life worth living in this world and to eternal happiness in the next."
Or as many people have said for hundreds of years, with the most recent variation being something along the lines of:
"everyone is a libertarian for their own vices."
the marquis de sade said sexual sin makes man a shareholder in satanism no matter the affiliation.
there's a reason he used porn and public displays of sodomy and violence by his "gay scientists" (if you ever wondered why moderns call sodomites "gay") to force the helpless, sinful lemmings of france into their terror.
Or how about from God Himself to St Catherine of Siena:
"Do you know dearest daughter, how I raise the soul out of her imperfections? Sometimes I vex her with evil thoughts and a sterile mind. It will seem to her that I have left her completely, without any feeling whatever. She does not seem to be in the world, because she is in fact not there; nor does she seem to be in me because she has no feeling at all other than that her will does not want sin. I do not allow enemies to open the gate of the will that is free. I do let the devils and other enemies of humankind beat against other gates, but not against this, which is the main gate guarding the city of the soul. I do not will the soul’s death as long as she is not so stupid as to open the gate of her will. They cannot enter unless her own will chooses to let them in."
your curses are Consummately Returned!
pharisees DESPERATELY tried to damn The Faithful in their place while trying to excuse all their rich friends; this is what you do, satanist.
there's a very Real Reason why The Church forbade Catholics from being actors. This is why.
most unforgivable damned one, there is a great deal you do not know:
1) mortal sin (what breaks The Ten Commandments) sends you straight to hell because they kill your soul outright!
2) more are in hell for sexual sin than ALL else combined!
3) what you are not aware is that not only are you damned for what you have personally done BUT you are damned no matter what with those whom you have lead astray and suffer their punishments as well!
this last one especially applies to Parents, Priests, and those with influence. Noble Obligation is a Real Thing for a Real Reason, and it's to avoid going to hell with those you have Authority or Influence over!
Venerable Fulton Sheen:
"Conscience, Christ, and the gift of faith make evil men uneasy in their sin. They feel that if they could drive Christ from the earth, they would be free from "moral inhibitions." They forget that it is their own nature and conscience which makes them feel that way. Being unable to drive God from the heavens, they would drive his ambassadors from the earth. In a lesser sphere, that is why many men sneer at virtue--because it makes vice uncomfortable."
“He told them therefore that He was not a Teacher asking for a disciple who would parrot His sayings; He was a Saviour Who first disturbed a conscience and then purified it. But many would never get beyond hating the disturber. The Light is no boon, except to those who are men of good will; their lives may be evil, but at least they want to be good. His Presence, He said, was a threat to sensuality, avarice, and lust. When a man has lived in a dark cave for years, his eyes cannot stand the light of the sun; so the man who refuses to repent turns against mercy. No one can prevent the sun from shining, but every man can pull down the blinds and shut it out.”
God Himself To St Catherine Of Siena on you:
"I do not allow enemies to open the gate of the will that is free. I do let the devils and other enemies of humankind beat against other gates, but not against this, which is the main gate guarding the city of the soul. I do not will the soul’s death as long as she is not so stupid as to open the gate of her will. They cannot enter unless her own will chooses to let them in."
your curses are Consummately Returned!
By My Final Authority you are Hereby Marked!
P.S. Don't think I didn't notice your anime picture too, coomer!
Nobody asked you.
I couldn't agree more. Your thoughts here show a humility of heart and that you care about people, and as a Christian I share your approach. As a writer, I work in all kinds of genres, including some inspirational/Christian fiction, and I think we have to portray human beings authentically. Look, I don't think the goal in any way, shape, or form should be to 'glorify' sin and evil. But in many cases when a finger-wagging Christian is saying that what they *really* mean is, in a fictional story you admitted that sin exists or you dared to portray a protagonist in the story acting in a sinful way.
Showing reality, showing authentic human failings, is not by itself 'glorifying' anything. I think it truly hurts the Christian cause when we take such a brittle view of creative work and storytelling. It hurts the Christian ability to reach others and share God's word too.
Ah, yes, "humility of heart" shown by an anime freak SEETHING that someone DARE point out Virtue in face of your vice.
least nihilistic protestant.
Like I pointed out to the other, there is a great deal you do not know:
1) mortal sin (what breaks The Ten Commandments) sends you straight to hell because they kill your soul outright!
2) more are in hell for sexual sin than ALL else combined!
3) what you are not aware is that not only are you damned for what you have personally done BUT you are damned no matter what with those whom you have lead astray and suffer their punishments as well!
this last one especially applies to Parents, Priests, and those with influence. Noble Obligation is a Real Thing for a Real Reason, and it's to avoid going to hell with those you have Authority or Influence over!
one of the original babylon bee articles from around 2010, before it got big and was "bought out" by the most recent crop of j subversives, had an article mocking how there is no depravity protestants will not partake in with the excuse of "biblical themes."
your curses are Consummately Returned!
Jon, so you try to have immoral protagonists in your books?
Characters in the vein of King David. Was he immoral? At times, absolutely. Yet he is one of the heroes in the Bible too and was ultimately redeemed. We are all flawed human beings who fall short of God.
King David doomed his entire people for 500 years, and only God Himself coming to earth to bring Perfected Israel as The Catholic Church brought it out of that.
hypocrites were thieves who pretended to be doctors and promised "miracle cures" that were really just murdering the patients. Hippocrates founded the first medical school in direct reaction to them. The first two lines of the Hippocratic Oath: "First, do no harm. Second, I will never perform an abortion."
on his deathbed, the founder of the orange order (freemasonry's regulating body) said "I have never murdered anyone who didn't deserve it." Referring to how his organization culls their members from the dregs of society who were damned anyways, so he wasn't actually hurting anyone valuable directly regardless of all his false promises. Of course, he uses those to harm Good people, but the point stands that he knows he is harming people.
That is the most basic definition of "hypocrite."
and you sir are a hypocrite.
your curses are Consummately Returned!
That arrogant prick is speaking on behalf of God. I really doubt his perverted interpretation of Christianity is his genuine belief. More likely he's trying to subvert and demoralise. Either that, or his bipolar disorder is acting up.
Take a break from commenting. Take a shower and try again later.
Aww, somebody's triggered.
It's impossible to have only moral people in one's stories. They don't exist, at least until Christ comes again. The best one can hope for are those who strive for virtue.
It's difficult to write immoral people who struggle with error and wickedness in themselves, repenting, backsliding, struggling more, and so on without a Christian framework.
One ends in excusing the wrongness, or worse, pretending it's a good. Or losing the characters to world of nihilism.
"Is my work helping to point to what is virtuous and beautiful, or at least not actively helping to damn others,?" ought to be asked and answered.
The question of this actor's Christianity boils down to whether he believes in the resurrection, and the redemption. If he does, pray that he isn't lying to himself about the Hollywood team making his show.
I can see where Ritchson is coming from. Reacher is a morally ambiguous character who mostly does the right thing and stands up for the underdog. However, season two of Reacher was so disappointing even though he played the character well. Physically, he just LOOKS like Reacher, much more than the diminutive Tom Cruise did in the movies.
Ritchson is right. Stories involve flawed heroes, and even more flawed villains.
There's a basic logic failure in the criticism - portrayal != endorsement.
How does an actor play the role of King David (you know, the adulterer.)
Can't do the Passion without someone being Herod, or Pilate, or Judas - in fact, there was only one cast member who could portray a character who didn't sin - Jim Caviezel.
Kevin Sorbo played a militant atheist college professor who told his students God is dead.
In the movie "The Hiding Space, someone had to play the Nazis.
The dude is a Trump hater, therefore I've never watched this show!!! Will boycott all actors with TDS!!
God Himself said this to St Catherine of Siena:
"they not only fail from resisting this frailty…but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid having dimmed the light of the understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them…It is disagreeable to the demon, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demons who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demons leaves."
Again From God Himself said this to St Catherine of Siena:
"Do you know dearest daughter, how I raise the soul out of her imperfections? Sometimes I vex her with evil thoughts and a sterile mind. It will seem to her that I have left her completely, without any feeling whatever. She does not seem to be in the world, because she is in fact not there; nor does she seem to be in me because she has no feeling at all other than that her will does not want sin. I do not allow enemies to open the gate of the will that is free. I do let the devils and other enemies of humankind beat against other gates, but not against this, which is the main gate guarding the city of the soul. I do not will the soul’s death as long as she is not so stupid as to open the gate of her will. They cannot enter unless her own will chooses to let them in."
this "alan ritchson"s curses are Consummately Returned back to whence they came!
GK Chesterton said this:
"THERE are some who actually like the Country dialects which State education is systematically destroying. There are some who actually prefer them to the Cockney dialect which State education is systematically spreading. For that is perhaps the most practical and successful effect of our present scheme of public instruction: that the village children no longer talk like ignorant inhabitants of Sussex or Suffolk; they now talk like enlightened inhabitants of Hoxton or Houndsditch. Among the eccentric reactionaries who have actually observed this change with regret, a further and more curious fact has also been remarked more than once. An Anglican country parson, a friend of mine, once told me that it was not only a loss of pronunciation, but also of perception. ‘They not only can’t say the word; but they can’t hear it’ was the way he put it. Supposing that the virtuous vicar in question had been so ill-advised as to teach his infant school to recite, let us say, the ‘Dolores’ of Swinburne — which I admit is not extremely probable — their intonation would be different; but without any intention to differ. The vicar would say, ‘Ringed round with a flame of fair faces’. And the Sunday School children would obediently repeat, ‘Ringed rarnd with a flime of fair fices’; with a solid certainty and assurance that this was exactly what he had said. However laboriously he might entreat them to say ‘faces’ and not ‘fices’, they would say ‘fices’ and it would sound to them exactly like ‘faces’.
In short, this sort of thing is not a variation or a form of variety; on the contrary, it is an inability to see that there is any variety. It is not a difference in the sense of a distinction; on the contrary, it is a sudden failure in the power to make any distinction. Whatever is distinct may possibly be distinguished. And Burns and Barnes did manage to be distinguished, in the particular form of distinction commonly called dialect. But the change here in question is something much more formless and much more formidable than anything that could arise from the most uncouth or unlucky of local or rustic accents. it is a certain loss of sharpness, in the ear as well as the tongue; not only a flattening of the speech but a deadening of the hearing. And though it is in itself a relatively small matter, especially as compared with many parallel matters, it is exactly this quality that makes it symbolic in the social problems of to-day. For one of the deepest troubles of the day is this fact; that something is being commended as a new taste; which is simply the condition which finds everything tasteless. It is sometimes offered almost as if it were a new sense; but it is not really even a new sensibility; it is rather a pride in a new insensibility.
For instance, when some old piece of decorum is abolished, rightly or wrongly, it is always supposed to be completely justified if people become just as dull in accepting the indecency as they were in accepting the decency. If it can be said that the grandchildren ‘soon get used’ to something that would have made the grandfathers fight duels to the death, it is always assumed that the grandchildren have found a new mode of living, whereas those who fought the duel to the death were already dead: But the psychological fact is exactly the other way. The duelists may have been fastidious or even fantastic; but they were frightfully alive. That is why they died. Their sensibilities were vivid and intense, by the only true test of the finer sensibilities, or even of the five senses. And that is that they could feel the difference between one thing and another. It is the livelier eye that can see the difference between peacock-blue and peacock-green; it is the more fatigued eye that may see them both as something very like grey. It is the quicker ear that can detect in any speech the shade between innocence and irony; or between irony and insult. It is the duller ear that hears all the notes as monotone; and therefore monotonous. Even the swaggering person who was supposed to turn up his nose at everything was at least in a position to sniff the different smells of the world and perhaps to detect their difference. There is the drearier and more detached sort of pride of the other sort of man; who may be said to turn his nose down at everything. For that also is only a more depressing way of turning everything down. It is not a mark of purity of taste, but of absence of taste, to think that cocoa is as good as claret; and, even in the field of morals, it may well have the ultimate nemesis of thinking cocaine as good as cocoa. Even the mere senses, in the merely sensual sense, attest to this truth about vivacity going with differentiation. It is no answer, therefore, to say that you have persuaded a whole crowd of hygienic hikers to be content with cocoa; any more than to say that you have persuaded a whole crowd of drug-fiends to be content with cocaine. Neither of them is the better for pursuing a course which spoils the palate; and probably robs them of a reasonable taste in vintages. But what most modern people do not see is that this dullness in diet and similar things is exactly parallel to the dull and indifferent anarchy in manners and morals. Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which you are accustomed to seeing or hearing without being shocked. There are two meanings of the word ‘nervous’; and it is not even a physical superiority to be actually without nerves. It may mean that your grandmother was an extremely lively and vital animal; and that you are a paralytic.
We are constantly told, for instance, by the very prosaic paralytics who call themselves Nudists, that people ‘soon get used’ to being degraded, in that particular, to the habits of the beasts of the field. I have no doubt they do; just as they soon get used to being drunkards or drug-fiends or jailbirds or people talking Cockney instead of talking English. Where the argument of the apologist entirely fails is in showing that it is better to get used to an inferior status after losing a superior one. In a hundred ways, recent legislation has ridden roughshod over the instincts of innocent and simple and yet very sensible people. There was a feeling, strangely enough, that men and women might not feel very comfortable, when they met as total strangers, to discuss some depraved and perhaps disgusting aspect of their natural sex relation. This has already given a good deal of quiet trouble on juries; and we have not seen the end of the trouble yet. Now it will be noted that the objection to female juries never was an objection to juries being female. There always were female juries. From the first days of legislation a number of matrons were empanelled to decide certain points among each other. The case against mixed juries was a case of embarrassment; and that embarrassment is far more intelligent, far more civilized, far more subtle, far more psychological, than the priggish brutality that disregards it. But in any case it will serve here as an illustration of what I mean. The question is not whether the embarrassment can be so far overcome somehow, that a good many people can discharge the duty somehow. The question is whether the blunting of the sentiment really is a victory for human culture, and not rather a defeat for human culture. Just as the question is not whether millions of little boys in different districts with different dialects can all be taught the same dialect of the Whitechapel Road; but whether that dialect is better than others, and whether it is a good thing to lose the sense of the difference between one dialect and another.
For what we do at least know, in the most fundamental fashion, is that man is man by the possession of these fastidious fancies; from which the free-thinking haddock is entirely emancipated; and by which the latitudinarian turnip is never troubled. To lose the sense of repugnance to one thing, or regard for another, is exactly so far as it goes to relapse into the vegetation or to return to the dust. But for about fifty or sixty years, nearly all our culture and controversial trend has been conducted on the assumption that as long as we could get used to any sort of caddishness, we could be perfectly contented in being cads. I do not say that all the results of the process have been wrong. But I do say that the test of the process has been wrong from first to last; for it is not a case against the citizen that a man can grow accustomed to being either a savage or a slave."
It's "On Dialect And Decency" from "Avowals And Disavowals."
And "About Shamelessness" from "As I Was Saying."
Venerable Fulton Sheen had this to say:
“IF there is any subject which is offensive to modern sentimentalism it is the subject of hll. Our generation clamors for what the poet has called a soft dean, who never mentions hell to ears polite, and our unsoiled age wants a Christianity watered so as to make the Gospel of Christ nothing more than a gentle doctrine of good will, a social program of economic betterment, and a mild scheme of progressive idealism.”
And another from Venerable Fulton Sheen:
"What is forgotten is that sin is not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing is the denial of sin. If I am blind and deny there is any such thing as light, I shall never see. If I am deaf and deny sound, I shall never hear. And if I deny there is sin, I make forgiveness impossible . I believe that the whole political and religious situation of the world can be summed up in terms of the divorce of Christ and His Cross. Put the cross-less christ on the right side, and the christ-less cross on the left. Who picks up the crossless christ? Our decadent Western civilization. This "christ" is weak, effeminate, with no authority to drive buyers and sellers out of temples, and never speaks of self-discipline, restraint and mortification.
Who picks up the christless cross? Russia and China, where there is a dedication to a common ideology, the use of discipline and authority to keep peace and order. But neither can heal. The, crossless christ leaves men burdened with their guilt which festers in a thousand psychosis and neuroses. The christless cross cannot save for it ends in Dachau, the Gulag Archipelago and the squeezing of the lives of millions like grapes to make the collective wine of the State.
Which will first find Christ with the Cross? The totalitarian states who have the Cross without Love, or the Western world which has “love” so often erotic-without sacrifice? We do not know. But we do know that at the end of time, when the great battle between the forces of good and evil takes place, satan will appear without the Cross, as the great philanthropist and social reformer to become the final temptation of all mankind."sacrifice? We do not know. But we do know that at the end of time, when the great battle between the forces of good and evil takes place, satan will appear without the Cross, as the great philanthropist and social reformer to become the final temptation of all mankind."