Brad Harper reviews Jon Coutts’ analysis of True Grit. Harper appreciates Coutts asking about what happens when men and women submit to one another in Christ. This is a crucial question, especially for the time we live in, that Coutts explores through this classic western. While Harper is intrigued by the movie’s placement of “grit” in both men and women, he is more intrigued by the Christological implications of grit when it is redefined by one of the character’s redemption. Harper then pushes Coutts to go further in his answer to the original question both biblically and theologically.
Rejoinder
Responding to Brad Harper’s request for delineating theological ramifications of his essay Relative Grit, Jon Coutts asks this question: what happens in a church where men and women come together “in Christ” to “get their man”? The author argues that there is in the Body of Christ a newborn freedom for male and female to find themselves in an interactive and mutual self-giving that is forwarded in the fellowship and truth of the Holy Spirit. In this, there is neither a denial nor an essentializing of gender roles and cultural norms, but the submission of these relative constructs to a greater defining factor and a greater common cause. The film True Grit will serve well as a modern parable as we seek the culturally subversive gospel idea of mutual submission in our own contexts.
Theology Engaging Science Fiction: Reflections on Culture as Gender Host
A growing number of Evangelicals are bringing theology and culture into dialogue in order to not only develop a better understanding of the biblical text but also better understand the cultures in which the interpreter finds herself/himself. Such theological analysis of culture needs to extend increasingly to the sphere of popular culture. This essay will focus on one particular genre within popular culture, i.e., science fiction. Using an episode from Star Trek: The Next Generation as a case study, the essay will explore how science fiction can assist with an awareness of our assumptions about gender. The insights gained from these considerations can then be applied to cultural assumptions brought to an interpretation of the biblical text.
Reflection on Gender
In this essay, Sarah Thebarge discusses how women in the church often identify themselves, and relate to each other, based on gender stereotypes and roles. Thebarge advocates that instead of seeing the Gospel through the lens of family, fertility and femininity, women in the church begin to engage in the true Gospel, which calls for fellowship based on identity in Christ instead of particular life circumstances. In doing this, women will be free to experience the unity described in John 17, rather than finding common ground in superficial affinities.
False Binary: One (?) Person’s Story
Using his personal story as an illustration, Wink Chin addresses American and Evangelical Christian culture’s use of a strict binary between male and female. Taking time to define and separate sex and gender, as well as introduce the idea of a gender spectrum, Chin shows how creating a strict dichotomy of male/female isolates and rejects those who aren’t able to identify with one or the other because of their biological makeup or gender identity. In the end he questions if Evangelical Christianity is able to welcome him and those identifying as transgender or genderqueer into its community.