Our wrongdoing . . .
. . . is our own doing.
And how do we know what is “wrong”?
Did you ever wonder “by what standard” does anyone live?
Watch our Truth in Two to understand where Hollywood & Christianity agree (full text below).
The only way out of our wrongdoing is if someone who had done no wrong came down (Isaiah 53:9).
Find out more about becoming a Christian APOLOGIST. I would be glad to talk with you about the work of RATIO CHRISTI (here). Subscribe to “Truth in Two” videos from Comenius (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), hosts a weekly radio program with diverse groups of guests (1 minute video), and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).
Picture Credit: Luke Renoe, YouTube, Wikipedia
FULL TEXT:
Two men in automobiles crash into each other on the highway. Their cars are damaged, but they are about to ruin each other’s lives. Such is the premise of the Sydney Pollack movie Changing Lanes. The actors Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Affleck play characters locked in the struggle between right and wrong, good and bad.
Affleck is a lawyer racing to court to deliver a document; Jackson is a father racing to court to retain custody of his children. Throughout the movie, both men steal from each other, attack each other, and undermine the other’s attempts to finalize their court appearances.
Toward the end of the movie, Affleck is confronted by his failure. Unbeknownst to him, his law firm lied to accomplish the task Affleck’s character could not. Even after all his own ethical lapses, the lawyer criticizes the decision. The head of the firm, played by Sydney Pollack, responds to the questioning of the company’s ethics this way:
“At the end of the day I think I do more good than harm. By what other standard do I have to live by?”
Each of us must ask and answer the question, “By what standard do I have to live by?”
At the Comenius Institute we believe knowing where we come from and where we’re going to, helps us know how to live now. The God-centered source and end of our ethics is the basis for our everyday behavior. The movie Changing Lanes brilliantly demonstrates the problem faced by all people: there is a need for a standard whereby we judge wrongdoing.
We may never encounter road rage. We may never battle it out in the streets with an adversary. But every day we each make decisions based on a standard we live by.
For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, President of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking Truth wherever it’s found.
AFTERWORD: I have been showing this movie to students for conversation ever since it came out in 2001. Sydney Pollack is one of my favorite Hollywood directors.