DOUBT

DOUBT

I have just watched a very intriguing film: DOUBT, starring Meryl Streep and Seymour Hoffman (he's the reporter who gets glued to an antique wheelchair and set on fire in RED DRAGON). The film treats the subject of the Eighth Commandment, gossip. This is a very good talking point if you're discussing the Eighth Commandment, and why God has forbidden this among his children. The destructive power of gossip is most graphically displayed in this film. Everything is ambiguous. I would recommend this film to all pastors and members. This would be a great teaching aid, especially for the Eighth Commandment. I hope this film will give us all pause before we open our mouths.

DOUBT

On another, sadder, note, something happened here a few days ago that has caused something of a media sensation and controversy, legally and doctrinally. The wife of a well known broadcast journalist here in the Philippines committed suicide, apparently because she was scammed to the tune of about US$426,000. She took her husband's gun and shot herself in the head. What was interesting was that when her husband got wind of what had happened, he rushed from his television station to their house, and with another member of their household, they opened the bathroom door, where they saw his wife. Two of them saw the same thing, and yet, they offered two very different versions of what they saw. The husband said that he saw his wife slumped in a sitting position on the bathroom floor. The household member who saw the same thing with the husband said the wife was lying prone on the bathroom floor. 

My observation: that is why we need to get the message straight before we can get the message out. 

Recently, I also learned that one of the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church consented to conduct funeral services, which means that the Roman Catholic Church will give the journalist's wife a Christian burial. 

My observation: hmm. Makes me wonder: is the Roman Catholic Church afraid that the husband of the suicide, who is very influential both on TV and radio here in the Philippines, might give them bad publicity if they refuse to give his wife a Christian burial? There are exceptions, i will grant, but I don;t think those exceptions apply in this case. Hmm.