Sydney Sweeney is a twenty-something actress who recently made the news with her "scandalous" commercial. The apparel company, American Eagle, had her do a commercial playing on the similarity of the word "genes" to "jeans" with the tagline, "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans." Funny. Of course, not anymore. Now it's "Nazi propaganda." She was promoting eugenics. Nonsense, of course, but today our society sees "evil" around every corner where "evil" is defined by "whatever I think it is."
Paul wrote, "To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled" (Titus 1:15). What does that mean? It does not mean that all impure things become pure to the pure, or that all believers are pure in everything they do. What does it mean? Paul is writing to Titus about establishing the church in Crete. They needed elders (Titus 1:5-9) who would "hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught" (Titus 1:9). This is in direct contradiction to the "insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers" (Titus 1:10) who needed to be rebuked (Titus 1:13). They were devoting themselves to "the commands of people who turn away from the truth" (Titus 1:14). So, "To the pure, all things are pure" is intended to convey direction. If we are pure, we will pursue the pure. If we are faithful, we will "hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught." We won't be defiled, won't pursue the evil, won't follow human rules instead of God's rules, won't be misled by false teaching.
In our world today, they decry "judgmental" people while being judgmental and "intolerant" people while being intolerant. They cry out for "diversity, equity, and inclusion" while eliminating all of them ... odd, man-made rules that simply end up contradicting themselves. And we Christians aren't immune. Never have been. Back in my day it was "dancing" and "alcohol" and "smoking" kinds of things that have no biblical support, but we were sure we were morally superior because we avoided things we made up as evil. Our society does it all the time, and is getting more irrational in its moral insanity. What we need is not less "genes" commercials. It's a firm grasp on God's word ... what Jesus calls "truth" (John 17:17). Ultimately it's a firm grasp on Christ Himself.
5 comments:
It was bizarre to me that the world took this perfectly benign commercial and deemed it the worst of all evils. Your reminder that we frequently corrupt the pure and "purify" the corrupt is helpful in explaining how it got so blown up.
I think that a word study of “pure” (and “purity”) in the Bible would make for an edifying exercise for us believers; it would definitely present a stark contrast with the way the world thinks and acts, as you point out. When I was a youth going through the motions of “confessing my sins” to our RC priest, one of the infractions we kids learned to confess each time (along with “disobeying our parents” and “neglecting to say our prayers”) had to do with “impure thoughts.” I am certain I was clueless then of what that entailed (and mostly innocent), but I have since learned how truly impure and ungodly my mindset and behavior would be apart from the purifying influence of God’s Word. When I think of “pure,” I think of Jesus Christ. Having His Spirit indwelling me and making me more Christlike every passing day is pure joy.
I would not deem that commercial “perfectly benign.” I think the Nazi/eugenics connotation some added was a stretch, but the entire thing--including the wordplay in the tagline (“jeans / genes”)--was intended to capitalize on her physical features and sex appeal (rather than, say, highlighting the quality, value, or fit of the pants). It’s just like the world to do that, of course, but certainly not “gentle and harmless” to those who seek to keep their thoughts pure, I would say.
Lorna, this was a comment sent by Craig that was accidentally deleted (when I was simply trying to delete the email notification). Here it is in its entirety.
________
As we know, using physically attractive people to sell products is an effective strategy. Given the fact that Sweeney was essentially fully clothed in the ad, I'd lean toward it being pretty benign as ads go. The uproar was ridiculous, and absurd. Yes the play on words was a reference to both her physical attractiveness and the pants.
While I agree that "perfectly benign" is a stretch, I'm not sure that noticing the attractiveness of a virtually clothed woman is a huge threat to purity either. Obviously, it could lead to impurity, but not necessarily.
Craig, if we are thinking of the same commercial, I would say that rather than being “fully clothed,” she was more like “in the process of getting there” ;). Yes, it was tame by today’s standards, but it very much reminded me of the 1980 jeans ad where Brooke Shields stated, "You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” Not much has changed in 45 years regarding worldly advertising strategies, yet God expects us to hold different standards from the world, I believe.
Post a Comment