The new V on TV

I'd considered making this a defense of poppery post, but I'd only have been defending this series from those who loved the old TV miniseries, and from those who like me had hated the original and needed to be convinced to give the new one a try.

So instead, for the masses: the first season of the new series V is excellent.

There are plot holes, which is typical for first-season dramas, especially when they only have half a season to prove themselves, and it's one of only two seasons of V that will be produced -- also typical for dramas these days, especially when they only have half seasons to prove themselves. But the reimagining of the "enemies among us" paranoia of the frumpy, stilted and oh-so-80s original version of V has been updated to great benefit for both the narrative and us, the modern audience.

Special effects aren't usually something I care about, and when I do I'm usually complaining about them and how they distract from the narrative (or lack of one, since they're often used to fill in gaping holes with spectacle rather than substance). The effects in V are, on the other hand, very well done, hardly noticeable (which is what I mean when I say "very well done") and necessary, since we're dealing with alien dudes with well-hidden reptilian skin and superhuman technology.

And the whole "sleeper cell" idea -- now there's a plot premise that's finally found its time. Soviet spies may have been scary in the 80's, but for real horror in that era, give me American Psycho, and for this one, give me the terrorist sleeper cell. The new V hooks directly in to post-9/11 paranoia (not much different than conspiracy theory paranoia pre-9/11, but more substantiated and widespread) immediately, giving us an FBI agent on the inside who's job is to focus on terrorist cell activity. And also, a priest. And an awesome dude who turns out to be a human-empathizing V.

It also does an excellent job of displaying the fear and pain involved in having an impossible task to do with the highest possible stakes for failure. Anyone faced with the technologies of these times and finding herself unconvinced that they're benign can get with that program.

And a bonus: if you've missed Firefly, you can get a small, but eviler, piece of it back with Morena Baccarin as Anna, the leader of the Visitors. Now it's a bit antifeminist, perhaps, to have an evil female overlord, but they're bugs, so who else would evilly lead them? Plus, it allows for an intense and intriguing acting-out of the Oedipus, one that might even be intriguing enough for me to write a long paper on the topic.

In which a perfectly reasonable call is made for Mark Driscoll to stop being a jerk, and some Christians insist that he be able to continue being one

Here's the post, by Rachel Held Evans.

The post itself is short and to the point, unless like me you read the articles linked within it, and the comments that overflow beneath it. I've been in the process of reading these for several days, enjoying the feeling of outrage at some commenters and at Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle -- whose youtube videos are easy to find, and who espouses views of manhood and womanhood that directly contradict my theology, experience, and most fervent hopes for the world -- and in that sense actually enjoying the toe-in-the-water experience of being reacquainted with some of evangelicalism's foibles.

There are so many of the foibles. But as an exangelical, I feel only we-the-formerly-initiated can truly understand and laugh at them. Only we can feel the bitterness of the prescriptions and proscriptions of contemporary American fundamentalism...and be sucked in by them again and again.

It's partly that evangelicalism has so much outrage within it, I think, that makes me insist on reading comments urging "men should be encouraged to act like men" and accusing Rachel Held Evans herself of bullying and slander. (The slanderer a woman, no less! Reading between the lines I feel this is implicit in every comment calling her a "gossip" and excoriating her character for pointing out the public faults in Mark Driscoll's. These sorts of objections all began when Paul said in the epistles that he doesn't permit a woman to speak in church. You know the ladies, always gossiping and saying nonsense before the lord.)

I enjoy the superiority of knowing these particular commenters are dumb, and that I know the truth. I enjoy the irritation at their ability to continually rehearse their ridiculous views. I like to be mad at idiots.

But of course, there's the regular human part of me -- the part that's more ex-evangelical than clinging conservative -- that feels pained by all of this. Without that part, I'd be a sociopath. Without that part, I'd never have been an evangelical at all.

Because here's the thing about evangelicalism, at least as I experienced it: it's partly about the pain, superiority and outrage. It's about the external pain, sometimes invented but no less painful for it, of being confronted and judged by the whole world while knowing you're saved. It's about the internal pain of knowing simultaneously that you have the only truth that matters and the injunction to disseminate it, and also that you don't entirely believe it yourself. It's about the pain of flogging yourself and others into service for Christ. It's about conflict, and debate.

I love this kind of stuff.

Reading and mentally repudiating (or "refudiating," more like) the positions of those who for no listed reason (other than Bible verses once again taken out of context and applied liberally only when we feel like it) decided that Rachel Held Evans calling for the end of an unapologetic bashing of "effeminate" worship leaders was actually her speaking out of turn and "slandering" the guy who keeps showing us he hates feminism...that is the work of an evangelical -- or an exangelical. It is the work of evangelicals to quote those Bible verses, applying them liberally only when they support existing doctrine. And it is the work of evangelicals to dispute them.

We are debaters. We are thinkers, but we are most importantly Think-My-Wayers. We are talkers, because if you don't say the prayer just right, Jesus may not understand you and you'll end up in Hell.

It is the work of evangelicals to pretend to be nice, but to hide under politeness and "I'll pray for you"'s a warrior spirit that can cut down the non-believer, the dissenter, the back-slider. Instantly. As though the infected might contaminate you as well.

(We will, too. The infected will infect with doubts, alternatives and indifference.)

For that reason, I can kind of see the points of the commenters saying we should let Mark Driscoll do his thing without questioning him, because the point is not questioning, the point is answering, and Mark Driscoll is answering.

And for that reason, I doubt Mark Driscoll has much to fear from a bunch of emails asking his elders to ask him to stop being such a bully. Driscoll believes in warriors. He calls for Christians (men) to take on that character, and beat up the rest of the world with it. That's what evangelicals are doing, everywhere, laying waste to the flesh and the world like Sherman's army.

Rachel Held Evans' blog, and the comments there, just proved it.

PSA: The only job where you can make $4500 a week.

Counterfeiter.