Summary: See the triumph of feminism in its conquest of American institutions, even those of conservative Christians. Their anti-family “family films” show the scale of the revolution.
She’s seen the films, and is excitedly preparing for a Christian divorce!
How the Kendricks, Rainey, and Lepine
see the married fathers they go to church with.
By Dalrock, 31 October 2018. Reposted with his generous permission.
Family Life and the Kendrick brothers set out to make a movie to teach about biblical parenting. The title of the movie is Like Arrows, and they describe it at Family Life as portraying the typical Christian family (emphasis mine):
“The film centers on the joys and trials of parenting and the power of family to shape the next generation. More than just an entertaining movie, the goal of Like Arrows is to honestly show a couple journeying through every phase of parenting. The film opens with Alice telling her boyfriend Charlie she is pregnant. As they are married and begin growing their family, they face typical parenting struggles and become aware of their need to be intentional and to cling to God’s blueprints for marriage and family.
“’The parenting journey is both incredibly challenging and incredibly rewarding at the same time,’ says FamilyLife’s Bob Lepine, who served as one of the executive producers for the project. “We wanted to take viewers on what we hope will be a very relatable journey. And in the process, we hope they’ll be inspired to make their faith more core to how they function as a family. That’s the goal.”
But like the larger modern Christian culture they are selling to, they are filled with contempt for the kind of man who marries and takes his children to church. Naturally, this feeling came out in the movie they made.
How do they see the married fathers they sit next to on Sunday, the men who buy their products? In their minds the men they sit next to on Sundays only married their wives after an unintended pregnancy, and are failures as husbands and fathers. From the Movieguide review (Warning: plot spoilers ahead).
“The movie opens very powerfully with Alice telling Charlie she’s pregnant. She thinks she’s messed up and remembers all the times her mother told her she was a mess. After some argumentation, Charlie decides to do the right thing and proposes to Alice.
“Alice is overwhelmed by the prospect of parenting. The nurse who helps her deliver her baby invites her to church. Alice convinces Charlie they might find support in church, but life is still not easy when they have their first child, Ron. When they have their second child, Alice is told that Kate won’t be able to go to preschool at church because she keeps hitting the other children. Alice tries to talk to Charlie about it, but he’s too busy.
“The movie skips ahead, and Charlie is still too busy, but he’s losing his children. Kate is going out with all the wrong guys and was thrown out of one guy’s car. Now, Alice and Charlie have four children, another boy named Joshua and an adopted Asian girl named Faith.
“Finally, they go to the church to seek help. They learn children need direction. They are arrows in the quiver of the parents, gifts from God, and they need a target. Now, Charlie decides to devote his life to his family.”
The reviewer at Dove describes the plot very similarly. The typical married churchgoing father portrayed in the movie is clueless and detached:
“With a spontaneous proposal and a quickie wedding, the couple begins the lifelong journey of parenthood.
“Viewers watch as Charlie and Alice navigate parenting through the course of their lives, pausing to focus on specific times in their journey. It’s clear from the start that they’re flying blind, and out of anxiety Alice decides that they need all the help they can get, which means raising their children in church. Alice quickly realizes that she is in over her head, but after five years and two children, she has no idea how to correct the issues she sees.
“Meanwhile, Charlie appears distant and uninterested in his family, leaving Alice isolated and overwhelmed. As the years wax on, more children – and more issues – are added to the family’s life. They’ve already done all they could, right? Raising the kids in church and providing a nice life for them should produce happy, well-behaved children, right? Or at least that’s what they thought.
“When their eldest son, Ronnie, leaves for college, Alice discovers that he has not only abandoned their shared faith, but apparently any love or respect for his parents. Kate follows in her brother’s waning footsteps, seeking attention and acting out. It is Kate’s safety that ignites a fire in Charlie. He realizes that he must take his role as father more seriously, and Alice is relieved to finally be working toward a solution.”
The irony is that Alex Kendrick, one of the creators of the film, has spoken out against the secular anti-father message that he amplifies in this and other movies. He knows exactly what is going on here, he just can’t bring himself to do something different.
“Interviewer: As Stephen [Kendrick] was saying this morning, you can start holding up Courageous as the antidote to the popular culture, which now denigrates the role of the male – which rarely prevents viable, positive role models. As a critic, I can point to that as a very unique and special thing that comes out of your work. Do you feel that’s something that’s naturally come out of your work as something God-given, or is that something you’ve really focused on – honed and developed?
“Alex Kendrick: I would say that we’re driven to do that. That’s the heartbeat behind what we’re doing, other than the general desire to please the Lord. When I turn on the TV – and we don’t watch TV much any more at all – every other character, every other commercial, demeans and devalues the role of the man. It’s terrible. Just take note of the commercials that you see when you’re watching TV. How many of them make the woman look like, ‘Well, I’m the smart one. The man can’t figure this out, but I can.’ And while there’s plenty of demeaning behavior spread around to both sexes, it does seem heavily biased to be anti-father, anti-man. And in movies, when parents are having problems with their children, things get resolved by the parents saying to the children, “Oh, I’m sorry. I was wrong all along. You were right.” I mean, even look at Finding Nemo
In a separate interview with CBN Alex leveled the same criticism against secular entertainment:
“Alex: Look at how media is portraying fathers today. You look at almost any commercial, and the father figure is the idiot, the goober, the guy who doesn’t get it. The wife or mother is the one who really knows what’s going on, the smarter one. And you can’t name one TV show right now that has a really good, honorable father. This generation is growing up with anti-heroes rather than heroes. Rather than Superman, truth, justice, and the American way, it’s now Bart Simpson and his dad, Homer.”
Alex made those remarks promoting his and Stephen’s 2011 movie Courageous
“Moms’ Night Out may be a Christian movie, but it’s part of a long cinematic tradition portraying men as useless louts. And that’s not good for anyone. …
“And that’s the biggest problem with Moms’ Night Out: The moral of the story isn’t that the women are supposed to stay home and not have fun, but that the men are totally hapless morons without them around—and that this lesson is still being drilled into our heads in 2014. We’re supposed to feel better about this “men are total idiots, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world” philosophy (and that latter piece of wisdom was actually uttered in the movie in case you missed the point). But this story of the helpless manchild is a disservice to men – and families – everywhere.”
After Mom’s Night Out in 2014, Alex and his brother Stephen released their next anti married father movie War Room
“The film’s centerpiece sequence occurs early on, as Elizabeth sits weeping in her closet while pleading, ‘God, help him love me again.’ This moment is heartbreaking for all the wrong reasons. Since the Kendricks have mistaken one-dimensional caricatures for people who exist in the real world, they forgot to provide Tony with any redeeming qualities that would make us want to root for his marriage. As for the film’s advice to women who are beaten by their husbands, one of Elizabeth’s co-workers advises, ‘Learn to duck so God can hit him.’”
What is most striking however is not that Christian movies like Fireproof
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Conclusions
The radical feminists have won. They control almost all the major institutions in America, and powerfully influence those they do not control (e.g., the military and higher appellate courts). The have begun the equivalent of the last stage of battle: the pursuit of a broken enemy to crush the remnant of opposition – and consolidate their victory.
Dalrock has chronicled the conquest of conservative Protestant Christian institutions by feminists. In this article he shows the extent of their victory: films advocating divorce as a casual tool by wives to enforce their will on husbands. They have inverted the biblical concept of the husband’s headship over his family to make him a servant (see his posts).
As usual in America, films are a mirror showing how we have changed. As Americans, our amnesia – living in the present, ignorant of our past – makes us unaware how much we have changed. See these films as markers on the path to a new America, tributes to our careless apathy about America. See the trailers at the end of this post.
About Dalrock
He is a married man living with his wife and two kids in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He is very interested in how the post feminist world impacts himself and his family, uses his blog to explore these issues. See his website. See his posts about Christian films, especially these …
- Don’t fear marriage & fatherhood, beware those who are working to destroy your family.
- Bad boys, single moms, and the love of a strong independent woman.
- The structure of most Christian films.
- Conservative Christians are terrified of feminism but want to condemn it.
For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about women & society, about Christianity, about Dalrock’s work, and especially these…
- Feminist revolutionaries seized control of colleges. Now come the tribunals…
- Some Christian conservatives bow down for feminists.
- Essential advice from a feminist conservative pastor! — How to become a divorced beta.
- Professor Suzanna Walters asks “Why can’t we hate men?”
- Feminists conquer the Evangelicals.
- Feminists are winning the the war on boys.
Trailers showing the new version of American Christianity
Fireproof (2008).
Disliked by critics (40% at Rotten Tomatoes). a surprise hit. See Wikipedia for details about it. See the best scenes here. See Dalrock’s posts about it.
Courageous (2011).
Despite negative reviews (33% at Rotten Tomatoes), it was a big hit. See Wikipedia for details. See Dalrock’s posts about it.
Moms’ Night Out
(2014).
Hated by critics (19% at Rotten Tomatoes), it made a small profit. See Wikipedia for details. See Dalrock’s posts about it.
War Room
(2015).
It had negative reviews (33% at Rotten Tomatoes), but was a surprise hit. See Wikipedia. See Dalrock’s posts about it.
Indivisible (2018).
Liked by critics (69% at Rotten Tomatoes), it opened weakly ($6 million in the first 6 days) vs. its $3 million production cost (marketing and distribution usually are roughly the same as production cost). See Wikipedia for details. See Dalrock’s posts about it.
“The radical feminists have won. They control almost all the major institutions in America, and powerfully influence those they do not control (e.g., the military and higher appellate courts). The have begun the equivalent of the last stage of battle: the pursuit of a broken enemy to crush the remnant of opposition – and consolidate their victory.”
What will be the lot for men in this brave new world?
Sven,
More importantly, how will men respond to the feminists’ victory? There is always a counter-revolution. For every social action, there is an equal reaction. See my posts about the first signs of this.
Maybe women should read a very good book by Field Marshal Eric von Manstein, titled “Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler’s Most Brilliant General.
Roberto,
Thank you for pointing to that interesting book.
How do you believe von Manstein’s insights apply to today’s gender wars.
I’m a woman and I like to know how it applies to me, let alone the gender wars
Der Maiden,
How do these films appear to you? That will be a first, tentative, tell.
Erich von Manstein probably was the best general in WW2 (e.g., his the plan for invasion through the Ardennes forest which utterly and swiftly defeated France in 1940). On the battlefield, he almost always won: but his many victories were lost, because Germany, which then undoubtedly had the best military in the world, catastrophically lost WW2. As William Lind would say (with col. John Boyd), Germany lost on the moral/strategic level of war; no tactical and operative victories can redress that.
I think that women, today, are winning on the tactical and operative level, but that these are “lost victories”, because they are losing on the moral/strategic level.
Moral level: among men (and increasingly among women too, I think) respect for women has reached a new bathos: to claim promiscuity, philandering, pornography, abortion as “women’ s rights” does nothing to increase respect, does a lot to increase disgust and contempt.
Strategic level: if women’s grand strategy is to reach cultural and political hegemony, they have to gain consent among men, too. No respect, no consent. I’ll add that female promiscuity deprives women of a precious asset, in their conflict/bargaining with men. Never has been easier, for a man, to score a screwing. Never has been riskier, for him, to get married: and women want to get married, because they want to have children, and to be economically and socially safe when they become mothers.
That’s why I think that women’s many victories are doomed to become lost, just like von Manstein’s.
Roberto,
Your comment is one of the more remarkable examples of parallel thinking I’ve seen in a long time. Today’s post is Lind’s “Losing at the Moral/Strategic Level.”
Tomorrow’s post applies that to the gender wars, making almost the same points as in your comment.
I didn’t have a vivid example, as you used von Manstein. I’ll use him, and note your contribution. Thanks!
Very funny, Mr. Kummer! Sincronicity? Maybe telepathy?
Thank you.
Cringe-inducing with their heavy-handed plots, the women reminding the men to either rein in or face destruction at the hands of an unfeeling god, and the men bonding each other whining about woe is me. When the men do pray for God for help, they are not (mostly) going through their respective churches but they isolate themselves so they can empower themselves by begging God to teach them how to be a good husband, not forgiving God for sinning against him.
The men weaken themselves wearing the words of the sage women around their necks to drown themselves in misery.
I could say a lot more but I think this will be enough for the moment
Der Maiden,
What’s you read on Dalrock’s analysis of these films?
Also, arrived home a few minutes ago, first impressions etc
Hooah and The wake-up call saves the day yet again I presume? I gave them a glance but I’ll look deeply into them though I am an outlier.
Not a feminist and an Eastern Orthodox convert of 20+ years so I might be a bit biased here
Der Maiden,
Everybody is biased, or dead.
My read on Dalrock’s analysis is that he and the group are mostly dead-on regarding Hollywood and the feminist agenda.
However, they do not talk about what the husband should be doing when his wife is being submissive.
7 Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
1 Peter 3:7 NIV
Because the point of marriage is sacramental union, not a mere legal contract. If the spouse and husband are unable to live with understand towards each other, then it affects their relationship with God.
8 Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For,
“Whoever would love life
and see good days
must keep their tongue from evil
and their lips from deceitful speech.
11 They must turn from evil and do good;
they must seek peace and pursue it.
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to their prayer,
but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
1 Peter 3:8-12
My opinion of course
The topic is the problem of feminist ideology and the corrupted encouraging the negatives on the side of the wife .
Not the role of the husband. Because its not the focus of the topic.
Husbands role is expounded plenty yet undermined at every turn.
Or bias and undead if they are from Chicago
Thinking about it…
Since the man debases himself before the woman, he is perceived to be weak, hapless, and feminine so he is forced to cling to the strong woman promising him grace if he submits for the final time. What happens is that no one really listens to him anymore.
Regarding the woman in the marriage, no one wants to be around her since she is a two-faced hypocrite that promises salvation only if you do what she says and take care of her every whim no matter what. Sooner or later, no one will want to be around her person, especially with all the men that she has ditched.
No one will want to get married because what is the point of it all. The strong man is forced to band together with other like men in 4GW fashion while the women that despise the feminists for ruining everything put up false smiles and fight their own rear-guard action so they can have some security when they reach middle and old age
roberto,
feminists’ many victories, not women