A number of Christians took issue with my even renting this movie that at best accepts (and at worst glorifies) pre-marital sex and drug use. But having a number of friends who were drug users and a sister who had a child out of wedlock, I know how important it is to accept the reality and do my best to love and support them.

I had heard that the writer/director Judd Apatow really had his finger on the pulse of what it is to be a man in today's world. In this I was not disappointed. Ben is a slacker, and even though I can't describe myself as a slacker, there is a great deal about him that I can identify with. He does things that the younger me would have relished (and sometimes did relish), mostly in regards to movies and sex. My wife also strongly identified with the character Alison, not so much in her lapse of judgment to sleep with Ben, but very much so in the scenes where she had to suffer the overly familiar and often insulting behavior of people commenting on her pregnancy.

My feeling is that most Christians will be turned off to this movie because it presents the good and bad behavior without spoonfeeding you the judgment. The terrible comments that Ben and others make to Alison about her pregnancy elicit a subtle revulsion from her... so subtle, that I would have missed it, had I watched this movie before I was married. Childish behavior in this movie always has bad consequences, and in that, I thought it was realistic. Calamity after calamity happens before Ben finally accepts that what his father has been telling him about "taking responsibility" is really true, if not very fun.

My favorite moment in the movie was Alison breaking up with Ben. She tells him that she thinks he's a great guy, but that she fears the constant struggle of wanting to change the guy that he is. Ben's response is "I'm not that guy anymore." To me, that response sums up a lot of what it is to be a Christian. Once our eyes are opened to what love really means, we can't go on being the person we were.