The Necessity of the Church

I won't be baptized, and I will be a Christian. I'll be a Christian in my own way.

-- Clarence Day, Life With Father

Last Saturday, a very friendly couple in our neighborhood had a Halloween party, which I dutifully attended. I hadn't met the couple, and I don't know my neighbors very well, so it was an opportunity to become acquainted with some and reacquainted with others. They did a fantastic job, decorating their house and yard about as creatively and scarily as they could. Their generosity was something to be imitated, as they provided hamburgers and hot dogs from the grill, numerous sides, desserts, and drinks, without asking a penny of compensation for it all.

One couple from the neighborhood who was there I find particularly interesting, in that they attend a local Greek Orthodox church. While recent years have shown an increase of Orthodox believers in the area, with a couple of new parishes from different dioceses starting up, Eastern Orthodoxy is still a strange bird in North Carolina.

I'm a convinced Protestant, and so there are definite areas in which I disagree with the Orthodox. Nonetheless, I find they often have insights, normally due to their strong understanding of tradition, that Protestants would do well to hear and, in some cases, recover from their Catholic roots. So I'm interested in what Orthodox people have to say, especially about the church.

In talking with the wife of this couple, we discussed what her kids were up to, and whether they had followed in her Orthodox footsteps. One of her sons, she told me, claims that he is Eastern Orthodox, though he never attends the worship services of the church. He says that he and his family pray at home, and that, he thinks, is good enough. But she responded as good Orthodox would, telling him, "If you don't go to church, you're not Orthodox." Her son, it seems, wasn't especially appreciative of her response, but I was. The statement reflected what it seems to me to be the Biblical view of what a Christian is.

I think one of the most devastating notions that pervades the American church today is the idea that one can be a Christian without ever attending church. It has often been called "Lone Ranger Christianity" (though some have wisely commented that even the Lone Ranger had Tonto). There have been those since the inception of the church that believe that the organized church is an unnecessary institution. But nothing could be farther from the truth. From its beginning in the Book of Acts, the church has been an organized group, with defined leadership, and regular corporate worship.

But then the question is raised as to whether one outside the church can be saved. The most famous statement in church history about this came from Cyprian of Carthage, who said, "Nullus salus extra ecclasiam", or, "There is no salvation outside of the church." This has been debated inside and out since, and various responses have been given to the question. One can even detect some differences within Reformed circles, between the Belgic Confession and the Westminster Confession of Faith.

As a Calvinist, I assert that God's hands are never tied in this matter. If He wants to save someone outside of the church, He can. But to think that one can live in defiance of God's requirement to join with the visible body of Christ and still be a Christian is a foolish presumption. The matter is simple: Christians go to church. Those who don't have reason to doubt their salvation.

And...

...a Happy Reformation Day to all! Be sure and thank God for Martin Luther in your prayers today.

Medieval Christmas

I've loved Kemper Crabb's music since a friend introduced me to his "Vigil" album a couple of years ago. Apparently, PBS station KQED is releasing and airing a video featuring Kemper and friends performing Medieval Christmas music. Here's an excerpt. Also see http://www.kempercrabb.net/ for more of Kemper's music.

The Thief on the Cross WAS Baptized

Everyone assumes that the thief on the cross who repented wasn't baptized (Luke 23:39-43). But who's to say he wasn't? John's baptism came a few years prior to this (as recent as three years prior, as Scripture tells us). And Scripture also tells us that "Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him" (that is, John), and that “they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins“ (Matthew 3:5-6). Now we may reasonably assert that “all” doesn’t mean “all” in a fully inclusive sense here (unless one disagrees with limited atonement and therefore realizes the consequence of agreeing with this assertion). But Matthew is using hyperbole here, in order to indicate that the vast majority of people from these places went out to be baptized by John. So how do we know that the thief on the cross wasn't also baptized by John? And if we insist on taking “all” in a wooden, literalistic sense here, thus ignoring the standard conventions of normal language, then the thief on the cross must have been baptized.

Some scholars, however, propose that John's baptism wasn't the same as Christian baptism, which Jesus instituted at His ascension. While this may be true, I don't think one can reasonably argue that there wasn't a continuity between the two. Even then, one may reasonably assume that the thief was a Jew, and therefore would have been circumcised. As Colossians 2 tells us, baptism is the New Covenant sign of initiation into God‘s people, replacing circumcision, which was the Old Covenant sign (Col. 2:11-15). If he wasn’t a Jew, then how did he know who the Messiah was to be, or that Jesus was going to come into His Kingdom (Lk. 23:39-42)? Such, it seems, would have required more than a passing knowledge with the Jewish Scriptures, and therefore he must have had a Jewish upbringing. Therefore, whether he had the New Covenant sign, or just the Old Covenant sign, it appears the thief on the cross had the sign of the covenant.

It seems to me, then, that we paedobaptists have simply copped to the argument of the Believers baptists. They say that baptism isn’t necessary for salvation, noting that the thief on the cross wasn’t yet “born again”. But for us to use the same argument is simply to consent to the idea that one must be regenerated before he is baptized. I see no place where Scripture requires this, and it seems the thief on the cross is actually irrelevant to the discussion after all.

Concerning Halloween

This Friday I am planning, Lord willing, to celebrate Reformation Day with some Presbyterian friends. But, in contrast with many Evangelical Christians, I won't be doing so as some sort of protest against Halloween. All Hallows' Eve is a Christian holiday, and though some observe it in an anti-Christian way, the holiday itself is not by any means inherently bad. For a more in depth consideration of the holiday, see this article by James Jordan:

http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/open-book/no-28-concerning-halloween/

"We are obviously separated by denominational differences."

"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" is on TV right now, and I just found out, a little bit late. I have it on DVD, so it's no big loss. I still enjoy it, even as an adult. But beyond being fun, I find it to be an interesting commentary on the nature of belief and unbelief. Next time you watch it, think about this, and listen out for the line above, stated by Charlie Brown, in reaction to Linus's belief in the Great Pumpkin. What Charles Schulz, himself a liberal Presbyterian, was getting at in this story, I don't entirely know. But it's apparent that he intended it as some sort of religious commentary.

The Beauty of Worship

Churches are best for Prayer, that have least light:
To see God only, I go out of sight:
And to 'scape stormy days, I choose
An Everlasting night.

--John Donne, A Hymn to Christ, At the Author's Last Going to Germany


I was off work today, so I spent the afternoon running errands. Amidst necessary stops, I took the time to drop by a couple of Christian stores (formerly known as Christian book stores) and check out their wares. Christmas merchandise was already in abundance, of course, for those who might be ready to skip past any Holy Days between now and that most covetous of days, December 25th.

Christmas and all its trappings are an interesting mixture of good and bad. There's the cheesy and sentimental, and then there are those things that reflect the greatest elements of Christian art through the centuries. And yet the things I saw for sale simply reflects Christianity in our time. The Christian church today is a mixture of good and bad in all areas, just as it is of beautiful art and ugly art. At Christmas, however, good art tends to step out of the shadows a bit more than it does the rest of the year, and this always strikes me as a bit strange. Why do we turn to traditional music more at this time of year, and ignore it the rest of the year? Why do we mail out Christmas cards featuring traditional, Renaissance-type paintings of the Nativity, but live in the realm of cheesy contemporary Christian art the rest of the year?

I think there are various things that have led to our practices. Dickens's A Christmas Carol has so captured the American mind that we immediately identify things Victorian with Christmas. Also, there's still some consciousness, thankfully, that Christmas is a special time of year, being the celebration of our Lord's birth. If only we celebrated His resurrection with such fanfare!

And while the Christmas hymns we are familiar with are generally good hymns, the other hymns most of us grew up with in the church were derived from the Revivalism of the 19th century, and were therefore pretty hokey. No wonder Contemporary Christian music has become the norm, as hymns are on the out. Sadly, the best hymns, which come from the Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican traditions, are fairly unknown.

We also live with the results of the iconoclasm and anti-aestheticism that emerged from some parts of the Reformation. And then there's the Rationalism of Modernism, that sees Propositionalism as the only reasonable way of attaining truth, therefore looking down on artistic forms of expression.

There's also the fact that Christmas really is a High Holyday, and actually should be celebrated in a grander fashion than the Lower Holydays. But while this is true, I'm amazed at how little visual art there actually is in Evangelical churches throughout the year. I think, for instance, of the megachurch where I attend Bible study once a week with some friends. The building is large, and looks like a business building. (A Chinese exchange student I met there, who was visiting the church for the first time, even commented on this to me. "This doesn't look like a church to me," he said. To think someone from Communist China knows this, and we don't!) As one walks down the hallways, one is struck by just how bare the walls are. Now if this were based on some sort of Puritan commitment to the Second Commandment, then I would understand it. But based on my experience with Evangelicals, I have my doubts that this has anything to do with it. There are sometimes feelings of anti-Catholicism, no doubt, based on some individuals' Catholic upbringing, along with a general anti-traditionalism. But I generally find that Evangelicals have never even considered such things. The determining factors, it seems to me, are Christian Commercialism and Pragmatism. And if Christmas is any indication, then this in fact is the case. For as soon as the season arrives, wreaths and Christmas trees are in abundance in the church building.

While I still struggle myself with certain implications of the Second Commandment, I still believe there is a great need for a return to beauty in the Church. While this should take place in part in the Christian home, it should also return in a significant way to our church buildings. Catholic and Orthodox churches still lead the way in maintaining the great artistic heritage of the Church, but, sadly, there have even been failures in these two bodies (in Catholicism more than Orthodoxy). We need to reacquaint ourselves with the history of art in the church, and, drawing off of that history, to reintroduce beauty to our worship, as well as the rest of our lives. I long for a recovery of the church building as a place of reverent worship, full of beauty, not only on Sunday mornings, but throughout the week.

I used to go occasionally to a local Catholic church after work to pray, until one evening when I found the doors locked. I later found out that, due to the increase in crime in our city, the church had had to begin locking the doors at six o'clock. I had gone to the Catholic church because its doors were open at unusual hours, unlike the rest of the churches in the city. But its beauty was still a factor. If a Baptist church had had its doors unlocked as well, I doubt I would have gone to pray in it.

Our God is the Author of All Beauty, and is Himself a Beautiful God. Therefore He should be worshiped in a beautiful way. But since these things are true, then man has an inborn desire, though marred by sin, for beauty. More than something superficial and secondary, beauty is something man needs. When we force believers to worship in an ugly way, we deprive them of an important part of their sanctification. For the sake of the whole church, then, a return to beauty is a must. But so long as we take Christian Commercialism as our cue, we will end up with mixed results at best.

Facebook

I had tried Facebook once before, and didn't care for it. But as it seems most of my friends are on there, I caved in and joined again. If you, the reader, are on there as well, shoot me an add request.

What Would Jigsaw Do?

I'm a fairly squeamish person, and so horror movies don't generally figure into my regular media consumption. I have seen the trailer for the latest SAW movie, however, and was a bit surprised at the rather daring nature of it. The trailer doesn't show much, of course, as there is little in the film that could legally be shown on broadcast TV. The part that caught my attention was that the letters "WWJD" appear at the end of the trailer, and the viewer is made to know that this stands for "What Would Jigsaw Do?"

Of course, the "What Would Jesus Do?" marketing phenomenon happened about ten years ago, and as far as I know, is fairly dead in Contemporary Christian circles. And we're the better off now that it's dead. Others before me have rightly pointed out that the movement was a mere calling people to the Law at best, and to self-salvation at its worst. But the fact that we are so far past that part of Evangelical history, and that the makers of the latest SAW movie are using it for their advertising, suggests that the SAW creators don't have a clue of what's going on in Evangelical circles. On one hand, this could mean that the SAW creators are living somewhere that Christians are fairly rare. This, of course, would mean Hollywood. On the other hand, this also suggests that Evangelicals haven't done anything really significant in about ten years to cause people such as the SAW creators think that they've moved beyond this fad.

So this is another case where the Church is to blame. The SAW creators are smart. They know that if they piss off Evangelicals, then we'll raise a fuss that will find its way into the mainstream media. That will bring free advertising, and they'll sell more movie tickets as a result. I'm not particularly interested in giving them that kind of attention. But I'm sure I don't have to. Some Evangelicals somewhere who think they can save the world through brewing controversy over this will do it themselves. Meanwhile, the Evangelical Church is still shown to have little impact on the world around it. In this case, I don't think we're being made fun of because we are making an impact, though that may be true in some small way. It seems to me we're being made fun of moreso because we're silly and immature, and therefore we invite the mockery.

But I'm not angry that they're making fun of Evangelicals in doing this. Heck, I make fun of Evangelicals myself, and that on a regular basis. (The point may be made, however, that it's a little different for me to do it. It's the difference between making fun of one's own brother, and somebody outside of the family making fun of him. The former can; the latter better be careful.) I am angry, however, at the replacement of the name of Jesus with "Jigsaw". That is blasphemy, though it might not have been intended as such. Whoever came up with the idea of using the “WWJD” logo for the movie is blind, foolish, and dead in their sins. So one can hardly take them seriously. It may be best that, as Elijah did at Mount Carmel and the Psalmist spoke of God doing in Psalm 2, we simply laugh at the stupidity of the SAW creators and mock them in return. They think they know what true terror is. But the truth is that they don’t even have a clue. And unless they repent, they will one day find themselves victims in the most terrifying horror movie of all.

Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda

It means "the Church Reformed, and always reforming". It is a regular statement by those of us who consider ourselves to follow in the footsteps of the 16th and 17th century Reformers. Within the Reformed church, however, there's a fair bit of difference on what the "always reforming" part means. For some, I'm sure it simply has reference to moral reformation. For them, the idea of any sort of theological change is mostly if not entirely out of the question. As one Congregational Puritan friend said to me recently, "It's not as if we can have a new Reformation every generation!" And to some degree, that's a true statement. It would be incredibly strange to have a theological and cultural change of such a grand scale every forty years or so. Nonetheless, there have been constant shifts ever since the Reformation in the Western Church, and to pretend that the Western Church hasn't changed since then is simply historical ignorance.

And then there's the whole question of who's truly Reformed. This can be witnessed taking place not only in Christendom more broadly, but in any social order. A general consensus is formed on a set of beliefs, but before long differences arise, forming two or more new factions. A split takes place, and whoever is the largest group left gets to keep the name, irrespective of whether or not they are the ones who truly embodied the principles originally set forth.

It seems clear to me that the question of who's truly Reformed has never ceased being asked since the 16th century. Whether it's debates over the Lord's Supper (as took place between the early Reformers), debates over Ecclesiology (as took place at the Westminster Assembly), debates over the Atonement (as took place in Scotland and Wales in the 19th century), or debates over paedocommunion (as have taken place in our day), disagreement over what it is to be truly Reformed seems to be inevitable. And to hearken back to a glorious pristine time early in the Reformation is to engage in mythmaking.

Having said all of that, I recognize that there has historically been a general understanding of what it means to be Reformed. The standard has been the Confessions and Catechisms first and foremost, as expressions of what the Reformed churches believed Holy Scripture to teach. If one can for the moment put to the side the constant disagreements between the Reformed on various matters, not to mention the differences between the Continental Reformed standards and the Westminster Standards, and the changes made to the Westminster Standards by the American church - one can still find a general consensus that can be called "Reformed".

It's something of a constant struggle for me. I've been a member of the Anglican Church for two years. For some, that would be enough to consider me Reformed. But then, the theological positions of most of the clergy in my denomination is Anglo-Catholic. And even though I'm not Anglo-Catholic, and even though Anglo-Catholic teachings and practices are rarely visible in my parish, many would at that point count me as non-Reformed. I personally (at this point, at least) believe Presbyterian ecclesiology to be the most faithful to Scripture, eventhough I'm technically an Anglican. And then there are my other “non-Reformed” views, such as my belief in paedocommunion, and my sympathies with the Federal Vision and New Perspective theologies. There’s the whole question of liturgy. And that’s only part of it. My church friends and acquaintances have no idea all the weird stuff I think about, as I question whether or not we’re missing the boat on some issue or another.

In one sense, I wish I could be plain-vanilla Reformed. John Owen’s theology, passed down from the mount to him by the hand of the Apostle Paul himself. It would be so much easier. I could join a Presbyterian church, and question nothing again for the rest of my life. (Of course, Owen wasn’t a Presbyterian. He was a Congregationalist. But don’t tell the Presbyterians that.) But that would be the lazy way out. God hasn’t allowed me to go that route, and He hasn’t told me why He’s chosen the route for me that He has.

I have a great love of the stories of the struggles of the Scottish Covenanters. One of my favourite books is Jock Purves’s studies of some of the Covenanting martyrs, called Fair Sunshine. When I first read the book, I was more Reformed, and I sided with the Covenanters against the oppressive and murderous Anglican clergy. And now that I’m an Anglican, I still side with the Covenanters. I side with the Covenanters, because I believe they had a right to worship in the way they believed Scripture taught them to. They were the faithful believing party in the conflict, I believe, and not the Anglicans. And yet, in spite of my siding with them, I believe their approach to worship was incorrect. It’s a messy thing. But looking back to the 17th century, I consider myself a Covenanter.

And yet the same is true when looking to the church prior to the Reformation. The early and Medieval church was as full of faulty theology and practice as it was of faithfulness . And this is true of those we would consider heroes of the church. I would have sided with Augustine in his various battles. I would have been a Catholic, in line with the Bishops with their allegiance to the Pope. But I couldn’t side today with certain elements of Augustine’s ecclesiology.

It’s a crisis of identity. When I first became Reformed, I knew what I was. I had a specific theology, specific aesthetics, specific fathers. Now, I’m watching the church and hoping for the best, as I float between various traditions, unwilling to pretend any one group has everything right. I have a theology, which I believe to be in accord with Scripture and the consensus of the Church, even when others disagree with me. I have certain things from various traditions that draw me aesthetically, though the various traditions often aren’t as appreciative of one another as I am with all of them. And I have many fathers, though were they all to live here today, they would have a hard time sitting down to have a beer together without turning their friendly encounter into a brawl. It isn’t a comfortable position to be in. But idolatry of one’s father is still idolatry, and as the first commandment forbids the worship of any other god than Yahweh, discomfort must be my lot for now. The church is ever reforming, according to God’s Providential hand, and so must I.

V. P. Debate

The Vice-Presidential debate is about halfway through as I write this. I was a big Ron Paul supporter, as the regular readers know, and still would be, were he still running for President. As the months wore on, however, I found myself swayed toward voting for John McCain, not so much because I would be voting for him, as much as I would be voting against Barack Obama. When Sarah Palin was chosen as McCain's VP, that raised other questions, particularly in regard to the question of women in office. Doug Wilson has made several comments about this on his weblog, though I haven't had a chance to read much of what he's said. I'm not as of yet convinced that I should vote for a woman for office. And so I still haven't made up my mind whether or not to vote for McCain. But if I decide I can vote for him with a good conscience, it will be more of a vote for Palin, because of her strong anti-abortion stance. I've been pleased in some of what she's said tonight, particularly those comments that call for less governmental interference in individuals' lives. Nonetheless, she is still a pro-war candidate, supporting a foreign policy that has the U. S. meddling where it has no business to do so. And in one breath she will call for a cut in taxes, while in the next breath she will call for ramping up government education and paying school teachers more. You can't have it both ways, Governor Palin.

But watching the debate right now is a bit of a painful experience. To some degree, it seems to be little more than a big brown nosing session for the prospective VP's respective Presidential candidates. "My candidate rocks, and he rocks more than your candidate!" Also, the debate is so stiff. What happened to the good ole days, when the candidates actually debated (which would actually require them addressing one another directly)? This debate is so formal I feel like I'm watching an extended version of one of their cheesy campaign commercials.

I love, too, how Palin gives these little linguistic tip-offs that she's heavily imbibed on the American Evangelical subculture. My favourite phrase that she's used over and over again is "near and dear to my heart". The only reason I'm still watching the debate is to see if they end it by standing and singing "Shine Jesus Shine".

Holy Humor, Batman!

One of my favourite shows as a child was the 1960's live action Batman TV show. It was campy, and full of adult humor that I didn't get at the time, but I still loved it. Sadly, it hasn't been released on DVD, and from what I've read on the web, it doesn't appear it will be in the near future.

But in doing a little web searching, I ran across this page on a web forum where someone had posted a number of hilarious quotes from the show. (I haven't checked the website out thoroughly on which these are located, so beware. From what I've seen, however, the site looks to be safe. Also, those of you with more delicate sensibilities should beware of the numerous double entendres for which the show was so famous.) Here are a few of my favourites:


Robin: If we close our eyes, we can't see anything.
Batman: A sound observation, Robin.

Batman: Nobody wants war.
Robin: Gee, Batman. Belgravia's such a small country. We'd beat them in a few hours.
Batman: Yes, and then we'd have to support them for years.

Robin: You can't get away from Batman that easy!
Batman: Easily.
Robin: Easily.
Batman: Good grammar is essential, Robin.
Robin: Thank you.
Batman: You're welcome.

Batman: You're a rare lady, Catwoman, you're right on time.

Robin: How about rushing the place, Batman?
Batman: Shh. I think not, Robin. All they've done so far is stolen a few items, attempted to kill you, me, and Batgirl. No, I think they plan something really big.

Robin: [After the Black Widow has hypnotized Batman] Batman, I need you to sing a song! That way I can free you from the Black Widow's evil thrall!
Batman: Very well, Robin. I think a little Gilbert & Sullivan... [Picks up flower] I'm called Little... Buttercup... Poor Little... Buttercup... Though I could... never tell... why...

Batman: It is the duty of every good citizen of Gotham City to report meeting a man from Mars in a public park.

Gordon: Batman, you unscrambled that safe's combination in five seconds flat! How did you do it?
Batman: With my Bat-Five-Seconds-Flat-Combination-Unscrambler, Commissioner.

Batman: Just a second while I retrieve my beanie, my hair, my tweezers, and my notes.

Shame: Your mother wore Army shoes.
Batman: Yes, she did. As I recall, she found them quite comfortable.

Robin: Aren't you even going to try and get loose?
Batman: What's the cube root of pi, Robin?

Batman to Joker: Shall we go into the men's locker room and put on our baggies?

Batman (presenting his case in court): We are gathered here today to prove that Catwoman, Joker, and their men are guilty of several major offenses. To wit: robbery, attempted murder, assault.....and battery! Mayhem, and overtime parking.

Batman: Come on, Robin. Let's help a little old lady across the street, and into the penitentiary.

Barbara: I'm afraid I'm still naive enough to believe the impossible can't be done.

Riddler's henchman: Want a piece of cheese?
King Boris: Not without a good vintage port, you lackey.

Commissioner Gordon: You know I'm violently opposed to police brutality.

Batman: Planting a timebomb in a local library is a felony.

Paul Newman

A gentleman at my church attended Kenyon College at the same time that Paul Newman did. And while he wasn't good friends with Newman, he did know him as an acquaintance, as they traveled in somewhat the same circles. Newman, he told me once, hated small talk. In fact, he used to carry a telephone receiver around on his belt. Whenever he was around people who began to engage in small talk, Newman would take the telephone receiver from his belt and pretend he was talking to someone on it. As this was a long time before cell phones were invented, I'm sure it was a hilarious sight, if not an irritating and obvious insult to whoever Newman was reacting to when he did this. As one who hates small talk myself, I have a great appreciation for such a response to mindless babble.

Paul Newman died yesterday after a bout with lung cancer. He was 83.

Liberty

One magazine that I buy on a regular basis is Liberty. Liberty is, in its own words, "a libertarian and classical liberal review of thought, culture, and politics, published... by the Liberty Foundation." Like any other magazine, I don't agree with everything written in it. Nonetheless, it is unique in its perspective, its closest cousin (so far as I know) being Pat Buchanan's The American Conservative, not withstanding the degrees of separation between the two. The latest issue (October) has an article which serves as a good, short introduction to the Calvinistic roots of modern libertarian thought, for any who aren't familiar with libertarian history. Even if such an article would be old news for you, the magazine is worth checking out. Both our local Barnes & Noble and Border's carries the magazine, and I presume this would be true for most locations of these stores. For their website, click here.

Hari Puttar

From BBC News:

A court in India has postponed the release of a film entitled Hari Puttar, after complaints from the makers of the blockbuster Harry Potter films.

Hollywood company Warner Bros has filed a lawsuit against all parties involved in the production and distribution of the Hari Puttar film.

It has been quoted as saying the the title of the Indian movie is confusing.

That last line in the quote is what got me, and it's too funny on its own to merit further comment. For the whole story, go here.

At a Temple Somewhere in Minnesota...

As I type this, Sarah Palin is making her speech at the Republican National Convention. It is playing on the TV nearby, but I'm only halfway paying attention. And I only caught snippets of the Democratic National Convention last week. I thought about watching it, but I thought to myself, "Why watch it? I can lie to myself."

At both conventions, the attendees responded regularly with thunderous applause, especially to the keynote speakers. Seeing this has made me think it's worth repeating something I've said on this blog several times before: Politics won't save you. Politicians won't save you. The civil government, no matter who is running it, won't save you. Only Jesus saves. To look to anything but Him is to engage in idolatry. And based on what I've witnessed in both conventions, it is apparent that many people in the two parties fail to understand this.

The Church International

I am currently watching the closing ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing. With thousands in attendance, it is, like the opening ceremony, quite a spectacle. There is much to criticize in connection with the Olympics. But it should serve for every Christian as a reminder of what the Church is, and in a grander way should be in our day, not to mention what it will one day in its fullness be. It is and will be a body composed of those from every tribe, tongue, and nation. We American Christians can be so provincial, considering ourselves to be, like the self-righteous Pharisee, superior to the rest of the world. We need to remember that there is nothing good that we have that God hasn't given to us. For that matter, if we continue on our present path, He will no doubt be taking some of those things away from us, and giving them to those who show themselves to be faithful to Him. If the Chinese church continues to grow as it has been doing, it may well be receiving those blessings, and even become the center of Christendom.

Today...

...is the first day of the rest of your life. Of course, so was yesterday.

The Wasted Summer of ‘08: Some Read, but I Watch Movies

I’ve seen a few movies over the last few weeks since my last movie “review”, but haven’t taken the time to comment on them. Let me begin to do that now.

My last movie post was right after I had seen WALL-E and Hancock. A few days after that, I pulled another double at the theater, first seeing Journey to the Center of the Earth.

I knew nothing about the movie in advance. I knew it bore the title of the Jules Verne classic, and so I assumed it was based off of the book, though I thought maybe this film was the book done in a modern setting. As it turn out, this wasn’t exactly the case.

Here’s the gist of it. A seismologist (played by Brendan Fraser) is carrying on the legacy of his deceased brother, also a seismologist. During the visit of his brother’s son, he and his nephew end up traveling to an area of newly discovered seismic activity, meet a mountain guide who takes them to their desired location, where they fall into and find their way out of the center of the earth. Along the way it is learned that the deceased seismologist was a Vernian, one who believed that the center of the earth as portrayed by Verne in his famous book was actually true.

That’s the short of it, and it really deserves little explication beyond this. The movie was in 3-D, and when I visited my local theater, I was informed that they didn’t have 3-D capability. I had my mind set on seeing it, so I did, though after seeing it I wish I had just gone to a theater that was set up for 3-D. Much of the movie was set up to be a cinematic thrill ride, and without the 3-D, the thrill ride was more of a walk in the park.

So far as content goes, I might begin by saying that this movie was created by Walden Media, the same folks who brought us the horrible film renderings of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Prince Caspian. They didn’t do much better with Journey. Brendan Fraser, while I haven’t seen many of his movies, is an actor that I always find less than convincing. The first two Mummy movies were enjoyable, but not exactly high drama. The only movie he was in that I really enjoyed a lot was Looney Toons: Back in Action. (Maybe it’s just having grown up with Bugs Bunny & friends, but I could watch that movie over and over again.) Fraser was his typical character here, drifting between irresponsible goof and action hero. The other actors were unfamiliar to me. They were reasonably interesting, though they weren’t good enough to make the movie all that impressive.

Being from Walden Media, the film was touted as a family film. It was a clean film, though there were a couple of moments that I wish had been left out. As the seismologist and his nephew are hiking with their female mountain guide, the nephew pronounces, “I have dibbs on the mountain guide.” Fraser’s character responds, “I have dibbs on the mountain guide. You’re only thirteen. You don’t get dibbs on the mountain guide.” Later these statements are revealed to the woman, who responds, “Nobody gets dibbs on the mountain guide.” The fact that even the adult male protaganist in the movie is presented as one who would see a woman as something to “get dibbs on” is disturbing, and it doesn’t belong in a family film. But the presence of a woman requires some romance, of course. This comes about in a stereotypical scene in which Fraser’s character is about to risk his life to save his nephew, and the female character plants a good-bye kiss on him, for fear that she might never see again this man that she just met and barely knows. The two are shown embracing in the final scene of the movie, as if we are supposed to believe that they lived happily ever after. To say these present a faulty understanding of male-female relations and of courtship is to say the least, though I’ve come not to expect Walden Media to understand that.

Then there was the gradual undressing of the adult characters of the movie. The center of the earth gradually increases in temperature while they are there, and this results in the characters being nearly down to their skivies by the end of the thing. Now this is logical considering the plotline of the movie, and I don’t think that normally I would have noticed, had it not been for the scene in which Fraser’s character, protecting the life of the mountain guide, gets a sleeve of his shirt torn off by a giant man eating Venus Fly Trap. After defeating the plant and saving the woman, he responds by reaching up and tearing the other sleeve off, as if he couldn’t carry on with such asymmetry. It was so blatant as to be laughable. I’m sure somewhere in Fraser’s contract a clause was included that required the exposure of his biceps. Once again, this isn’t really necessary in a family film.

The only other Walden Media film I’ve seen was Amazing Grace which, though I praised it when it came out, had its own problems, particularly in the areas of theology and historical accuracy. But considering the ones from them I have seen, I am struck by a thread that runs between the group of them, and that is the subject of faith and unbelief. This is particularly present in how it relates to the subject of imagination. If one follows the gospel according to Walden Media, it would seem that any worldview will work, so long as you have faith. The Bible could be true, or, for that matter, so could Jules Verne’s book. Now maybe this hasn’t been Walden Media’s intention. But I find the similarities between the films striking, and it makes me wonder. It is a matter I’m still mulling over, so I can’t add any more thoughts to this, though I would encourage the reader to think about it. And I would welcome any thoughts from those who may have seen any of Walden Media’s other films, particularly the more recent ones like Bridge to Teribithia, The Water Horse, and Nim’s Island.

The CGI was good. And the plotline had potential. But the movie was all about action and little about characters. Even the scene that was supposed to make you feel personally for the characters, that of the finding and burial of the deceased seismologist’s body, while well done and touching for me, wasn’t enough to salvage the movie. Part of the problem is a common one, and that is that the movie was too short. Then again, it was supposed to be a family movie, and I guess one can’t expect too much from a film aimed at appealling to the ten year old boy and the forty year old mother. Too much character over too long a period of time, and the ten year old boy will be wanting to hit the video game machines outside the theater.

So would I recommend the film? At this point I’m not sure what to say. It wasn’t horrible. And not being a parent, I’m at a loss to some degree when it comes to what is appropriate for what children at what ages. If you have a solid understanding of male-female relations in your family, it is something you practice everyday, and you’re prepared to talk the above mentioned aspects of the film over with your children afterward, then I imagine you’ll be safe. If you aren’t willing to do these things, then you have larger questions in you life than whether or not to go to the theater today.

After Journey, I stayed at the theater and saw Kit Kittredge: An American Girl. I felt rather awkward going to see it, being a single adult male and going to see a movie I wouldn’t make my son endure, if I had a son. But it seemed like a clean movie, the sort of movie as a Christian I’d like to encourage Hollywood (via money) to make. And I knew someone who had seen it and liked it, so I wanted to check it out. It turned out to be little more exciting than Journey.

The protaganist, Kit Kittredge, is a young girl who lives in Cincinatti during the Great Depression. We witness her neighbors, and then her own family, go through financial hardship, and we see how they interact with others as a result of their trials. Kit’s father loses his job and goes to New York to earn money for the family, leaving his wife to care for Kit. Kit’s mother takes in borders to make ends meet, which borders turn out to be a hodge podge of characters from all walks of life. The climax of the movie comes when some of the borders turn out to be thieves, and Kit and her friends participate in the exposure and capture of the criminals.

The movie seems innocent on the face of it. But the viewer soon finds himself (and his daughter, presumably) assaulted with all sorts of pluralistic and politically Leftist agendas. It was only after seeing the movie that I learned that Julia Roberts was executive producer for it, a fact which would have prepared me for the propaganda, had I been aware of it in advance. I should have done more research.

First there is the guilt mongering on the middle class. The world of which Kit’s family is a part sees itself as better than the scapegoats of the society, the hobos. The hobos of Kit’s time were the poor, many of which we learn were once doctors and lawyers, just like us, only thrust into the life of the hobo by an economic downturn. Middle class people, you see, always think they are better than the poor, and are arrogant and greedy. Of course, those of the lower class are never responsible for their poverty - laziness has nothing to do with it. And how big is Julia Roberts’s house?

The one exception is Kit’s family, though this view of the poor isn’t completely absent from her household. Her family is presented as journeying from being on the edge of middle class snootiness, to escaping it due to its financial crisis. Of course, self-righteousness is always wrong, no matter who holds it. But the fact that the movie is projecting this onto today’s middle class is an inescapable conclusion, and it is inaccurate.

We are made aware early on that the family is living during the time of the Presidency of that great Socialist, Franklin D. Roosevelt. When one cynical uncle expresses doubt about the New Deal, Kit’s father counters with unwavering hope in FDR’s socialist agenda. Of course, no one questions whether it may have been socialism that created the mess in the first place, or whether said socialism may simply continue to create economic problems thereafter, which, of course, has been the case. But when you have the wealth of Hollywood but ignorance of simple economics, a little raising of the taxes doesn’t affect you.

Then there is the anti-masculinity and gender bending of the film. One of the sweet little innocent hobo children of the film (an African-American child, incidentally. Only white people are allowed in the middle class, you see.) poses as a little boy throughout the film, only to be discovered to be a little girl at the end of the film. Protected by a slightly older hobo boy after her father has died, she poses as a little boy for safety. Adult men, it seems, may harm her, as only men are evil. One father, who goes to a larger city to find work, ends up leaving his family for good. Only men, you see, are unfaithful to their marriage vows. And at the beginning of the film, Kit has four female friends who are a part of her secret all-girl club, which meets in her tree house. Two of the girls are forced to move away, but by the end of the film they are replaced, by the rather weak boy of the father who disappeared on his family, and by the gender-confusing African American girl. You see, we’re all one world - black, white, straight, gender non-specific. Why can’t we all just get along? And our world would be so much better if women (or little girls, apparently) were running the clubhouse.

As I mentioned, thievery takes place, as three of the borders are found to be part of a local as well as regional crime spree. At the heart of the movie is the middle class bias against hobos. The hobos are just innocent people, apparently, as the actual thieves are middle class people posing as hobos. We meet, once again, the myth of the noble savage at work again, only slightly modified. People aren’t born sinners, it seems. It is civilization, and, inherently, wealth, that corrupts, not the heart of man. The thieves are two men and a woman, which may initially make one think that my assessment of the film’s view of men is skewed. But as we reach the climax of the movie, we see the female thief “come to her senses” and aid in the capture of the other two thieves. Men, it seems, are incurable sinners, whereas women can actually change their ways when they are wrong.

The ending is a tear-jerking moment (though no tears were jerked from me) too closely akin to the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life to be legally permissible. Everybody “Comes Together” in an indiscriminatory pluralistic stew and celebrates as if they were Christians. Kit’s father, who has been away working in New York since early in the film, shows up at the door of the family’s home, his chistled, soap opera star face covered with a two day old beard (he’s been living poor in New York for weeks, and he’s only been unable to shave over the past two days?), and proclaims that he is home to stay, and that he will now find work in town. But as I recall, the reason he left for New York in the first place was that there was no work in town, and conditions haven’t changed. This is, of course, supposed to be a heart-warming “Daddy is home to stay” moment, and perfectly appropriate. In fact, one could draw plenty of Biblical analogies from it. But the logical inconsistencies with the plot are brazen, and while I suppose this wouldn’t be noticed by the little girl who is moved over the thought of Daddy being home, it is ridiculous to me. The writers could have cleaned this up much better. The result is sentimentalism triumphing over truth. But this is present throughout the film, so this scene, in that sense, is just consistent with the rest.

So the film ends where it begins, in transformative, Old Creation/New Creation, chiastic fashion, albeit a sentimentalistic, pluralistic chiastic fashion. It’s a classic case of pagans borrowing from Christians and then warping whatever they’ve borrowed. There are truths throughout the film that I would echo, even mixed in with the elements of the film I’ve highlighted. The problem is that they are marred by pagan thought, as I’ve also highlighted.

Aside from all of this, the film suffers, just like Journey, as a result of lack of depth. Once again, it is a children’s film, and this may have something to do with it. The acting is a little more convincing than some of what I’ve seen lately, and features an all-star cast. But it doesn’t make the film worth seeing.

So this should serve as a warning to Christians, especially Christian parents, everywhere. Just because a movie is “clean” (which usually means no sex, violence, profanity, drugs, or alcohol - as if these were the only sins in the world - thanks for nothing, Fundamentalism) doesn’t mean it’s good. Don’t waste your time or money on this one. Not only would it not be helpful to your children. I’d go so far as to say it would be harmful for them.

I’ve seen a couple of other movies since seeing these, but they’ll have to wait for another time.

Abortion and Civil Life

I am pro-life, and I am so because Holy Scripture forbids murder. The often overlooked aspect of the abortion debate is that it is part of a larger body of questions involving what human beings are. We bear the image of God in a way unique in all of creation. Because of this, we are called by God to treat all people, both the born and the unborn, with love.

In light of this, I am often amazed at how the key issues of civil life polarize people who, other than on the hot topics of the day, pretty much agree with one another on what is considered to be a permissible way to conduct one’s life. This is especially true in the area of sexual ethics. Take the issue of sex outside of marriage, for instance. It is common nowadays for people who are dating to live together. And yet the same people often will take a dogmatic stance against abortion. Often this is a result of growing up in a morally conservative environment which, here in the South, usually involves growing up in the church to some degree. Certainly, abortion is a much more serious issue than sleeping with someone to whom you aren’t married. But the root issue is the same. Both the woman who aborts her baby and the person who sleeps with someone to whom they aren’t married say, “I don’t care if it’s right or wrong. What I want is more important than whether it is good or evil.” Both sins violate the image of God in a person, seeing that person as an object to be used according to one’s own pleasure. It is only reasonable, then, that an abortion culture should grow out of a sexually immoral culture. The thing that the sexually immoral person doesn’t understand is that once you’ve headed down that road, you can’t stop the bus. You can’t say, “I only want this level of immorality to be allowed in society, but anything beyond this shouldn’t be allowed.” Sin is like the snowball rolling downhill - once it’s started rolling, you’ll eventually end up with an avalanche, unless you are able to stop the whole thing. And like an avalanche, it’s much easier to stop when it’s just a snowball.

Sasquatch claim wasn't worth squat

Well, it turns out the claims of a Bigfoot find were false. But it wasn't discovered until some Bigfoot hunters put up money to buy the "carcass". And the whereabouts of the finders of the "Bigfoot" are currently unknown. Not too surprising, huh? I found it hard to believe that someone would call a big news conference and make a false claim that they had found something like this. My naivete knows no bounds, I suppose. I have a tendency to forget that some people don't care about truth and integrity.

So what now? Will the liars live in the backwoods away from society for the rest of their lives, lest they get sued for every penny they have? Have they hopped a plane for another country? I'm not even sure what the legal situation is here. However they decided they would deal with things after the truth became known, I can't imagine they thought life would be enjoyable hereafter.

For those who saw the opening ceremony...

Do you remember those footprint-shaped fireworks that flashed across the sky during the opening ceremony of the Olympics? As it turns out, they were fake. They were actually computer-generated and added to the final cut before the ceremony, taped several hours earlier, was aired in the U.S. And you remember the excessively-cute little girl who sang the solo during the procession of the Chinese flag? She was actually lip syncing, and it wasn't even her voice on the recording. The little girl who actually sang the song didn't quite have the "cuteness" factor to represent China, it was decided. Some may not be bothered by such things, but I find it disappointing.

Scribblative Agincourting shutting down

Sadly, the Scribblative Agincourting blog is shutting down. And I just linked it in the sidebar a few weeks ago. I've barely spent any time there, so I guess I've got a lot of reading to do. If you haven't visited it, check it out while it's still up.

Yet Another Yeti Sighting; Or, My, What Big Feet You Have!

The latest claims of a Bigfoot find. Am I skeptical? Of course - very skeptical. But if these guys are lying, they’re doing it in an awfully public way. And if they’re telling the truth, they’re going to have to provide some serious evidence, i. e., the body they claim they have. And if they don’t provide the body for scrutiny, they have a miserable, heckled life ahead of them.

And in Georgia, on top of it. If it’s real, I’ll be sad that Flannery O’Connor isn’t alive to see it.

HT: gilgal

Socialised Gymnasts

During the women’s gymnastics events this evening, one of the NBC commentators made the statement that the Chinese women (at least, some of them) were taken from their parents when they were very young (as young as three) and sent away to schools where they immediately begin to train to be Olympic gymnasts. Realizing the possible reactions of any viewers that might have been paying attention to what he was saying, he immediately countered what he had just said by saying, “not that they were, you know, torn from their parents arms and taken away crying.” I’m sure, of course, he would have us to believe he has first hand experience of this. The truth of the matter, however, is that that is exactly how the average child would have been taken away in such a situation. But the Chinese system of dictating a child’s upbringing, while worse than the American system in the details, still works on the same principle as the American system, that of Socialism. We wouldn’t want our American sports commentators slipping up and criticizing American government education, even in a round about way, would we?

I found it interesting as I watched the interactions of the American female gymnasts with one another how they contrasted with the behaviour of the Chinese female gymnasts. The Americans were very affectionate with one another, quick to hug one another after they finished each event. The Chinese, on the other hand, rarely hugged one another, opting to “high five” each other instead. I think it can reasonably be argued that this is the detrimental result of living under a political system that sees all relationships as in competition with it, and which, as a result of seeing the deified State as the Highest Good, destroys families by separating them and removing children from the place where God intended them to learn a healthy sense of relationship and affection. Thankfully, our heritage has kept the incipient Socialism we deal with from creeping into our lives any more than it has, though it gains ground year after year.

Update: Berek, over on my Myspace blog, helpfully pointed out that hugging is not a standard means of friends expressing affection for one another in the Far East, and that therefore the absence of hugging didn't necessarily have anything to do with the affection felt between the gymnasts. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that this could be a mere cultural difference. Again, alas.

China, Greece, and Providence

The Summer Olympics in Beijing have begun, and I love it. With all the televised coverage that’s taking place, it makes one want to quit his job just to see it all. Alas, the bills won’t pay themselves.

Many are boycotting the Olympics this year, due to China’s horrendous human rights record. The Free Tibet movement tends to be a focus, though China’s involvement in the abuses in the Sudan have been noted as well. But the issue of Tibet is a cause celebre. With the ongoing Western fascination with Tibetan culture, Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, yoga, Eastern meditative practices, etc., I have a hard time not being a bit skeptical. Rarely does one find a person in the media who is as interested in any civil unrest one might find in the West. And I understand the interest. There is much beauty in Eastern cultures. But I fear that what is at play here is really a subtle Western paternalism (no matter how much those with such interest would like to escape said paternalism) and the ongoing myth of the noble savage. I believe the West has done lots of wrong. But I don’t believe we’re to blame for everything that’s gone wrong in the world. Tibetans are sinners, too. And I also sympathize with those who would like to see Tibet free. I’m in favour of seccession in principle, when it is the will of the people. But my opposition of Western paternalism is wrapped up with my opposition of American interventionism. It isn’t our duty to solve the world’s problems. This, again, is a theological problem. If we were to believe in the doctrine of Providence again, to which our founding fathers referred with such regularity that the word still passes us by without a thought as we read them, then we would trust God to work out the world’s problems when it isn‘t any of our business. Ours is essentially a Pelagian foreign policy.

Those who call for our government to “do something” about China and Tibet are just asking for a different form of Socialism. As I recall, Socialism in China is the problem.

So I won’t be boycotting the Olympics. If I had been called upon, through business or some other means, to participate in them in a more active way, such as attending them, I don’t know what decision I would have made. But so long as my involvement lies in nothing more than turning on the TV, I don’t expect any “boycotting” on my part would effect a political revolution in China. That will take place through the faithfulness of an estimated 60 million Christians in China, who worship God mainly underground, and through our prayer for them, in addition to any missionary activities we can carry out in aid to them. As the West continues to crumble, it will only be a matter of time before the East becomes the center of Christendom once again.

Also, I can’t help but wonder if exposing those in China to so many Westerners through the Olympics won’t actually be a benefit. Certainly, there’s much in the West that I hope the East never adopts, though Japan, sadly, seems to have already done so. Still, there’s a certain effectiveness to killing with kindness. Maybe, in a world shaped by the dictator, the last thing China needs is for the West to be dictatorial.

On a different note, why is Shaun White’s HP commercial getting so much airplay during the Summer Olympics? He’s strictly Winter Olympics, isn’t he? Somebody help me out here.

Today, of course, was the Sabbath, and I was successful in resisting the temptation to waste away in front of the Olympics all day. As a Sabbatarian, one of my personal commitments is to stay away from commercial TV on the Lord’s Day (though I’ve never sworn any sort of oath along these lines). The commercial aspect, combined with the belief that the Lord’s Day should be preserved for worship, study, and rest, lead me to this practice. As early as last night, as I looked on the NBC website at the TV schedule, I began to wrestle with the decision of how to handle today. And I’m not joking when I say that the case of Eric Liddell came to mind. As popularized in Chariots of Fire, God honored Liddell when Liddell honored the Lord’s Day. But would God still have been honoring Liddell if He hadn’t let him win the Men’s 400 meter race? Yes, though one might get the impression from the movie that if we obey God that we’ll always come in first place in whatever we attempt in this world. God honored Liddell through a blessed career as a missionary in China, and the underground church in China is one way in which God has chosen to honor Eric Liddell. The blood of the martyrs is indeed the seed of the church.

So God honored me today with a three hour nap, which I needed much more than I needed to watch the Olympics. I did go out and take a brief walk around the neighborhood late this afternoon. Liddell (in the movie, at least) said he felt God’s pleasure when he ran. I wish I could say I felt God’s pleasure when I walked, but instead I only felt a pain in my right foot that wasn’t there when I started out the door. I trust the Lord was pleased with me nonetheless. After all, the reality of God’s blessing rarely consists in how one feels.

Those who missed the opening exercises of the Olympics missed a treat. The amount of time and money put into the display was well worth it, so far as the rest of the world goes. Here the boycotters of the Olympics, however, may have a point. “How much better would it be if that money were used for the needs of the poor throughout China?” they would say. Nonetheless, I am reminded of the occasions when two different women (this appears to have happened twice - see Matthew 26, Mark 14, and John 12) anointed Jesus with a very expensive flask of oil, and the disciples considered this to be a waste, as the ointment could have been sold and the money used to feed the poor. (In the case of Judas, in John 12, we are told that his real motivation was one of greed, though we are not told that this is the motivation of the other disciples.) Jesus’s answer is one of eschatology. “The poor,” He says, “you always have with you, but me you don’t. These women are anointing my body for burial.” But the question is, did these women know that’s what they were doing, or did they see their actions merely as an act of worship? It could be that they had listened to Jesus’s teaching so well that they knew He was about to die, and that this was their reason. If so, then we have a lot to learn from them about redemptive-historical hermeneutics - would that we were so understanding of Jesus’s teaching! Nonetheless, my assumption has always been that this was simply an act of worship on their part, as they were being led by the Spirit, and that God Providentially worked these things out to have eschatological significance.

I am also reminded of Jane Dempsey Douglass’s foreword to Paul Corby Finney’s book Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition. The book shows and discusses the tradition of the visual arts as they emerged out of the Calvinistic wing of the Protestant Reformation. Part of Calvin’s commitment to simplicity in worship, notes Douglass, is born out of his concern for good stewardship. It is inappropriate for the church to be ostentatious in its décor, thought Calvin, while the city is full of poor people. This was particularly felt in Geneva in Calvin’s day, a city that had its share of those who were poor. Douglass also seems to imply that part of the issue was the church’s image to those outside of her. If the church is “wasting” money on visual arts, while those right outside the church doors are starving, then why would those who don’t believe have any interest in knowing this God that the church purports to represent?

I haven’t actually read Calvin on this, so I am merely basing my thoughts off of Douglass’s words. And I’m not fully aware of the situation in Geneva at the time. Also, I don’t doubt the behaviour of the Roman Church at the time influenced Calvin’s thought to some degree (I am thinking particularly of the events surrounding the fundraising for and building of St. Peter‘s Basilica). But while I believe there is something to Calvin’s idea here, I think it may be a bit overstated. There are certainly those who are genuinely poor in the world, and it is the duty of the church to take care of those people. Nonetheless, many who are poor are so because of their own laziness. While those people may need some financial help, it is also the churches duty to exhort such people to repentance, and possibly to cut off help to them if they refuse to work (as Paul says that a man who doesn‘t work shouldn‘t eat). Also, while Jesus’s words point out the eschatological dimension of his anointing, His words still ring true that we will always have the poor with us. As with much of the international interventionism I mentioned earlier, both of the Left and the Right varieties, there is much utopianism in the thought of those who promote social welfare policies. Great strides can be made in the church being faithful to its calling, but if we think we’ll ever get it exactly right this side of the eschaton, we’re wrong. Also, as Doug Jones has pointed out in a number of his lectures, it is our tendency, being post-Enlightenment, to think that aesthetics lies on the periphery of life. But nothing could be further from the truth. We are visual beings, created in the image of a God who created an elaborately beautiful world for our enjoyment. It is only normal for us to want to imitate Him, particularly in our worship of Him.

In short, I think an argument can be made for ostentatious churches. As God commanded that both the Tabernacle and the Temple of the Old Testament be elaborate in their beauty, and as Christ’s body, which He spoke of as the Temple, was anointed with expensive ointment, I think it is appropriate that our churches in the New Covenant, which is called the better covenant, be clothed in beauty. Along the same lines, I think a good argument can be made for elaborate displays outside the church such as took place in Beijing this past Friday. Whether I’m right or wrong, I enjoyed the show anyway.

I found it strange that the “Summer” Olympics would be taking place so late in the summer. In my mind, Summer is almost over. The government school year, around which so much of my life and culture is based, and which is about to begin, still largely shapes my view of the calendar year. But it’s also a change in climate that directs my view of the seasons. The first hint of change from summer to autumn, though subtle, took place this past Thursday evening. I went out to my car for something late that night and felt the first cool breeze I had felt in months. Autumn is my favourite season, and so familiar sentimental feelings soon came upon me. One aspect of fall that quickly came to mind is one that is a late addition to my life, and that is the Greek Festival held every year here in Greensboro at The Dormition of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Church. I first attended one evening several years ago with some friends, and that night I began to develop a fascination with Greek culture that carries on to today. By that point in my life I had developed a disgust with American “culture”, if you can call it culture. Meeting with Greek culture was a breath of fresh air like no other. Good food, dancing, music, and the beauty of the Greek Orthodox Church was overwhelming to me. I understand fully how this could influence Protestants to join the Greek Church, as I probably would have myself a long time ago, were it not for serious theological disagreements with Eastern Orthodoxy. If nothing else, I wish Americans would learn something on how to do culture from the Greeks. Until the American church learns something on how to do worship from the Greeks, however, I suppose this is a distant hope.

My memories of the Greek Festival left me longing for some Greek food. There are a couple of Greek delis that I’ve often thought of trying out but haven’t, and so when my hunger for Greek food started, I began contemplating when I could visit one of them. I ended up going to one of them on my way home from work Saturday night and grabbing a gyro with lamb and beef. Man, those Greeks know good food.

One thing I learned Friday night in watching the opening exercises of the Olympics was that the parade of the athletes always begins with the Olympians from Greece, since the Olympics originated in Ancient Greece. That’s appropriate. It wasn’t until after I had eaten some leftover Chinese food for lunch on Saturday and began thinking of getting Greek food for dinner that I began to realized the coincidental nature of my meals. China, Greece…Chinese food, Greek food… ah, life’s little Providences…

Power over justice

Fighting is going on between South Ossetia and Georgia, and Russia has chosen to side with South Ossetia. Of course, the conflict has been going on for some time, and the American media has just now chosen to begin to pay attention, no doubt because of Russia’s new involvement in the situation. Representatives of the U. S. government have urged the Russian government to withdraw troops from the region. And why? Because Georgia was on track to join NATO, and if that were to happen, the the U. S. would have a place in the region by which to gain advantage against Russia. Also, there is a major oil pipeline in the region. The most annoying thing is that this is being presented by our government as an issue of Georgia’s national sovereignty. What about South Ossetia’s national sovereignty? From our government’s perspective, this seems to me to be more about our trying to step outside the bounds of our national sovereignty to impose our wills on those who don’t actually have to answer to us. The years 1861 through 1865 loom large in the background.

Issues, Etc. Returns

A few months back I sadly noted that a select group of individuals in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod lost their minds and cancelled the fantastic LCMS-sponsored Issues, Etc. I just learned today that, while the select individuals never regained their minds, a group of private donors have enabled the show to return to the airwaves. Go listen to it, if you've never heard it. You'll find it at http://www.issuesetc.org/index.html.

A Plurality of Links

I added a few links recently to the side column, and so I thought I would make a brief comment about them.

My personal background of influences is rather diverse. My parents were both Southern Baptists, but we began attending a Plymouth Brethren assembly when I was fairly young. I left the Plymouth Brethren about nine years ago, and have been in many different churches since then. I believe that I have learned things in each of those churches, while I might disagree with any number of things that each church teaches. And in my studies, I’ve always tried to read in a variety of Christian traditions. While this might not be the approach that most Christians should take, I consider it a wise thing for me to do. I’m always interested in others’ perspectives on Scripture, hoping that in listening to others, I can gain new insight. I take this approach, all the while holding firmly to what I am convinced Scripture teaches. Ultimately, I only adhere to any teaching insofar as I am convinced that it is what Scripture teaches.

I say all of this as a bit of a caveat for anyone who might go surfing through my links list. I include links that I find interesting or helpful, but I make no promises as to the correctness of any of the teaching one may find when visiting the websites I’ve linked. To give some examples, I recently linked to blogs or websites run by those who hold to the following teachings, all of which I disagree with: Dispensationalism, Amillenialism, New Covenant Theology, Immersion-only baptism, Congregational church government, consubstantiation, and strict “regulative principle” worship. (I could probably find a few more things, but that will suffice for now.) Some of the sites are run by people I know or have met, some by those I have simply heard of. Some of the links are to local churches, most of which I have attended or visited, but one or two which I have not.

I had a desire to link to local churches other than my own, out of a spirit of Evangelical ecumenism, and the same would apply to the blogs I’ve linked. I trust the reader who visits these websites will read with care, not simply believing everything he reads, just as he would do with this blog. And my hope would be that the “Divine Majesty”, as the Prayer Book says, would “inspire continually the Universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord: And grant that all those who do confess [His] holy Name may agree in the truth of [His] holy Word, and live in unity and godly love.” I hope also that this blog may be a part of that.

Shedd on 19th Century Liberalism’s Revision of the Confession

The spirit of revision, it is said, is ‘in the air’, and this is assigned as a reason why it should be stimulated and strengthened. This would also be a reason for the increase of malaria.

--W. G. T. Shedd, Calvinism: Pure and Mixed

Festschrift for Norman Shepherd

Kerygma Press will be releasing a festschrift for Norman Shepherd next year. For details, see the post on it at Andrew Sandlin's blog.

WALL-E and Hancock

Today was a movie day for me. As I mentioned in a previous post, there have been a number of movies that have come out recently that I have wanted to see, but haven’t had the opportunity. So I went to the theater this morning, ate lunch at a nearby restaurant, and returned to the theater for a second movie. I don’t know if it’s normal for people to do that (my guess would be no), but that’s what I did. Considering gas prices these days, it seemed like a wise choice to go ahead and see two while I was there.

(There are spoilers from here on. Continue at your own risk, or choice, or whatever.)

I started out the day with WALL-E. It hadn’t been my first choice, until last night when I ran across this interview with the writer and director of the movie, Andrew Stanton, on the Christianity Today website. (I found the link through the Avenue blog). I haven’t read the whole interview yet, but I read enough to push the movie to the top of the list. It was a good choice. I had had some concerns that the film was just another Hollywood enviro-Nazi film, based on what I knew of the plot. Stanton seems to deny that in the interview, though the “denial” was a bit ambiguous. I was able to see past that, though, to what the film was actually about. The movie turned out to be a beautiful, moving story about the love of life. It was also a beautiful love story between the two robots. There were some cheesy aspects to the film. In particular, the humans rooting for the robots came off a bit corny. But other than that minor point, it was a terrific film.

The interview notes the two most obvious Biblical themes. One is that the ship on which the humans are living resembles Noah’s ark. The other is that of WALL-E being Adam and Eve being, well, Eve. This is the most obvious and was intentional, as Stanton mentioned in the interview. We also see in the behaviour of the two robots the notion of sacrificial love, causing both to serve as Christological figures. There is also the broader theme that the sacrificial love is for the purpose of redeeming the whole Creation, a love that fulfills its purpose, thus bringing an eschatological aspect to the film. In short, we get the whole gospel in story form here. And it isn’t done in a shallow way. It was done in a way that made you love the characters and root for them.

One aspect that I especially loved was something not usually loved, and that was the closing credits. During the first couple of minutes of them, the viewer is watching a series of scenes related to the movie, but done in a variety of art forms. In fact, one is treated to a history of art in miniature. Beginning with cave paintings, the scenes quickly move to Egyptian hieroglyphics, then ancient Greek art, moving quickly to Renaissance art (did I miss some other stages there, or were they left out? It moved too quickly for me to catch it all), then Impressionist painting, then Post-Impressionist, into early Eighties video game graphics, then late eighties and early nineties. It was an amazing and incredibly creative move, and simply the icing on the cake of an all-around terrific movie. Definitely one of the best of the year. I highly, highly recommend it.

After my lunch break, I returned to the theater to see what my be coming on soon. Out of the movies I haven’t seen but wanted to, Hancock was the next up. I wish I could say I enjoyed it as much as I did WALL-E. Hancock was one film that, based on the numerous trailers I had seen, I thought I would love. And it started out well. Hancock was a worthless bum, though a bum with super powers, who Jason Bateman’s character tries to turn into a worthwhile superhero. That was the first half of the film, and pretty much was summed up in all the trailers. The second half, though, was kept well hidden and provided quite a plot twist. I was enjoying the film up until this point, for the most part. It was all downhill from here, however.

As it turns out, Bateman’s wife, played by Charlize Theron, was a superhero like Hancock, and, in a round about way, Hancock’s wife. It turns out they’ve both lived for thousands of years. There were once many others like them, but all the others have died off. Whenever a couple like them gets close to each other, they begin to lose their super powers. This provides the tension for the rest of the film.

It was sort of a clever idea, but it just didn’t work for me. Pretty much everything I just told you was all the back story provided, and it wasn’t enough to make the story interesting. Hancock being “married” to a woman unknowingly who is married to a mortal as well provides all sorts of moral ambiguity, a problem the film was already plagued with. And the moral ambiguity is never resolved in any significant way, in my opinion. In the end, Theron’s character remains married to the mortal, rather than the man she’s actually “married” to, in order that the man she’s actually “married” to can carry on his life of protecting others. Now, it’s easy to understand when watching the film. It just wasn’t enjoyable, and, quite frankly, I’m not sure I can entirely say why yet - I’m still thinking through it.

And while I’m still thinking through it, I can with confidence say that you shouldn’t waste your time on this film. It had the potential of being a great film. It just never materialized.

One last point I would like to make has to do with the age appropriateness of this movie. It is rated PG-13, and for good reason. I wish people would understand these things, like the guy in front of me who brought a boy who looked to be about eight to the film. I have thought this often recently, including when I saw The Incredible Hulk, which had a lot of very intense scenes and plenty of graphic language, as I sat a few seats down from a family with two or three children under ten. And they weren’t the only ones in the theater like that.

And yet people don’t seem to be concerned about what children see or hear anymore. If I were a parent, and had my child with me in the theater today, not knowing what I was getting him into, I would have taken him out of the theater when the first use of @sshole occurred. Sadly, the first use of it in the movie was by a child probably about eight years old. Hollywood is clueless, and the general public is becoming more and more clueless. It is sad.

That’s it for now. I’m hoping to catch a couple more later in the week. We’ll see if the schedule allows for that, and if so, I’ll try to blog my thoughts on them.

Deil colic the wame o’ ye, fause thief; daur ye say Mass in my lug?

Rock on! We need more of this kind of thing in the church:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7504472.stm

I couldn’t understand much of what the guy said, but hooray for him having said it. He called a spade a spade, that much I could tell. I love the fact that he had long hair, was wearing a black t-shirt, and was carrying a motorcycle helmet. He reminded me a bit of John the Baptist, contrasted so sharply with all the neatly dressed people around him. Too bad he was all alone in his protest.

The clergy may often be clueless on the issue of homosexuality. But I’m glad not all of the laity are. And if it takes the laity standing up and challenging the clergy, then so be it. Jenny Geddes would be proud.

The Theater, The Theater, The Theater…Whatever Has Happened to the Theater?

I’ve been intending for some time now to blog about the movies I’ve seen so far this Summer, but other commitments have kept me from it until now.

I’m normally not a big moviegoer. Recently, however, I’ve found myself a bit more drawn to the theater. Part of it has been the movies that have come out, and part of it, I think, has just been a desire to get out of the house a bit more. And since the Summer is only partially over, and there are a number of films that look promising yet to be released, I expect I’ll continue to be at the movies on a regular basis.

For now, let me offer a few brief thoughts on the ones I’ve seen so far.

Prince Caspian - I had mentioned in another post that I was planning to see it, and have intended to comment ever since. But I simply don’t have much to say about it, other then that it was a very poor adaptation of Lewis’s book. Better yet, let me state this in a less politically correct way - the movie was crap. Those who travel around the Christian blog world will probably already know that Andrew Adamson, writer and director of both films, isn’t the most Biblically astute individual in the world. I didn’t know that until after I saw Prince Caspian, though, as I was trying to avoid reviews of the movie before going to see it. Now it all makes sense. And the fact that Disney has been involved in both films should have tipped me off about the possible disaster, but I was oblivious.

There were lots of changes made to the storylines. This was done quite a bit in the first Narnia movie, and that drove me nuts. Yet, I could still endure the movie. In this one, however, I was really peeved. Now, it has been a couple of years since I read the book, and though I re-read portions of it before and after seeing it, there is a lot I don’t remember. Nonetheless, I remember enough to be ticked.

There are two major problems that I had with the film. One was the conflict between Caspian and Peter, which never occurred in the book. Much of the beauty of the Narnia books is that while the Pevensie children aren’t perfect, they are what kings and queens are supposed to be, and that is noble. They never would have bickered pettily the way they do in the film. The fight with the boys in the train station at the beginning of the film would never have happened. And most of all, Peter wouldn’t have fought for control of the Narnians just to satisfy his own ego. But modern pagan thinking can’t comprehend approaching life any other way than through power and control. It does seem that there was an attempt to show why Peter’s actions were bad, through the failed battle that resulted. But Lewis knew what he was doing. If you want to teach others how to behave correctly, you don’t do it by showing them how not to behave. You do it by showing how to behave correctly. You show goodness to be beautiful by demonstrating goodness, and by making it enticing. To some degree, this seems like the common modern storytelling obsession with the anti-hero. But while there is a very important place for the anti-hero in storytelling, there really is such a thing as a righteous person, and there is a need for righteous people to be portrayed in literature as well. I understand that this is a reaction to the unrealistic Romanticism of previous decades. Nonetheless, I personally am sick of the anti-hero.

This poor choice of pitting Caspian against Peter led to the ridiculous addition of the offensive against the Telmarine castle and the slaughter of many Narnians, a script choice that looks more like a political commentary on the war in Iraq than anything else to me. I don’t agree with the war, but you can keep your political agenda out of Lewis’s story, thank you.

The other thing that really ticked me off was the “love story” between Caspian and Susan. This ended, of course, with Susan throwing herself at Caspian and giving him a kiss at the end of the film. This didn’t happen in Lewis’s book, of course, because Lewis’s women (the good ones, that is) had both self-respect and self-control. This is something that the modern pagan can’t comprehend. Women today are brash and foolish. In other words, the are willing participants in their own whoredom. This is encouraged for pagan women, and there is increasingly little resistance in Christian circles. No, Susan didn’t sleep with Caspian. But you wouldn’t have gotten an Evangelical crowd out to see the film if she had. (Maybe that will be part of the next film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which, amazingly, has the same title as a book by C. S. Lewis). But a kiss is just a kiss, right? Right. A kiss is just a sacred exchange of affection between a man and a woman who are devoted to one another - that’s all it is. A kiss used to mean something in our culture, just like sex used to mean something in our culture. But neither do anymore. Aslan, in the movie, sighed contentedly at Susan and Caspian’s kiss. But the real Aslan, the Aslan of Lewis’s book, would have put a claw in Caspian’s back for that one, and maybe Susan’s, too.

There are other things I didn’t like about the film, such as the presentation of Trumpkin as a frowny crank, and the failure to portray Lucy relationship with Aslan sufficiently. But the above were enough to destroy the film. I’m glad I have the books to return to in order to enjoy the story once again. As for the Narnia movies, if I go see any more of them, it will be in the two dollar theater.

The next movie I saw was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I was really looking forward to it, but was rather disappointed, for a number of reasons. I have fond memories of the previous Indiana Jones films. Harrison Ford is on up in years, though, so I was a bit in doubt about his returning to this character. My doubts were confirmed. The Harrison Ford I remember, both in the Star Wars films and the Indiana Jones films, was full of life. One of the most enjoyable things about watching him act was the way his facial expressions, especially his eyes, conveyed the meaning of the moment. But in this film, the life seemed to be gone, as his eyes seemed to convey nothing but boredom. The movie contained a number of age jokes aimed at Ford, and rightly so.

Ford’s young sidekick, Shia LeBeouf, is a good actor, but he didn’t impress me here. I’m sure any future Indiana Jones films with him in them will show improvement as his character takes shape. I thought some of LeBeouf’s roles in other films (such as I, Robot, and, especially, Transformers) showed him to be a better actor than this one.

The storyline was considerably uninteresting to me. The link between Mayan culture and the so-called crystal skulls has a long history in popular archaeology, and so it would have made for an interesting story itself. But beyond that, the movie got wacky. The mythology of Area 51 has been overplayed, so I thought it was hokey (though the linking of this film to Raiders through Area 51 was a clever idea). Cate Blanchett as a Commie psychic was too unbelievable. The return of Karen Allen as Marion was a good idea, but her acting was rather uninteresting as well. The linking of the Mayan Skulls (which testing has now proven to be a hoax) to space aliens was bizarre and a bit too George Noory. (Wasn’t this already done in the original Stargate movie anyway, only this time it’s in South America instead of Egypt?) The post-colonialism of the movie was rather suspicious, too. This time, Indy’s returning something instead of stealing something? Give me a break. It was the nineteen-sixties, man, not the two-thousands.

There was one interesting aspect of the film, however, and that was the contrasting of rightly attained knowledge and wrongly attained knowledge. This in many ways parallels Raiders. Blanchett’s character wanted all knowledge, no matter what the cost. This we know to be an attempt a attaining the status of deity. She therefore serves as a foil against Indy’s character, who encourages his son, a school drop out, to gain all the knowledge he can. Some knowledge is meant for man, and other knowledge is not. And there is a right way to attain knowledge, and a wrong way, for even knowledge that it is good to attain can be attained in the wrong way. Plus, even that knowledge that is meant for man is not to be used for self-aggrandizement. While some of the lines in the movie dealing with this theme sounded a bit too much like an Afterschool Special, it was an interesting theme nonetheless. I just wish it had been developed in a better way.

After this came The Incredible Hulk. Since I loved Iron Man, I was excited about this one. Sadly, it was nearly as good as Iron Man. Apparently, there was some disagreement between Marvel Entertainment and Ed Norton (who played Bruce Banner) about the structure of the film. Norton wanted more dialogue and character development, which would have required pushing the film over two hours. Marvel, however, still stinging from Ang Lee’s flop Hulk, wanted more action and less dialogue, keeping the film under two hours. They should have listened to Norton. Marvel won out, of course, and the result was a shallow, fast-paced film. Norton and the others in the film are tremendous actors. It’s just a shame they didn’t get to show off their talents.

The film was not intended to be a sequel of Lee’s film. This is evident from the back-story quickly covered during the opening credits of the current film. Nonetheless, the choice was made to begin the film with Banner living in South America, exactly where the last film left him. A strange choice, I thought, but there it is. The cinematography and the cgi were fantastic. But the feeling was one of a constant hurry from one place to another.

A couple of redeeming aspects of the film were the inclusion of a clip of Bill Bixby from The Courtship of Eddie's Father (with Norton watching it - pretty funny) and theme music lifted from the 1970's Incredible Hulk TV show. The latter was an important part of my childhood, and I didn't realize how important until the familiar theme music, played at the end of every show as the wandering Banner traveled on to the next town, lofted from the movie theater speakers into my ears. The music was very sentimental, after the spirit of the time, and apparently made a greater impact upon me than I remembered. It's amazing how something like that can affect you more than you know, and it's especially amazing considering that I haven't seen the show in probably twenty-five years.

The fact that this film was done in preparation for an Avengers film was evident. In the beginning of the film, we find Banner studying martial arts in order to control his anger. While Banner is in active search for a cure throughout the film, the suggestion from others (such as Betty Ross) of harnessing his “power” through gaining control of his anger becomes a theme. And in the last scene of the movie, we see Banner, now living in a cabin in Canada, inducing an “episode” of turning into the Hulk in a controlled way through the Eastern meditation he has been practicing. The purpose? To prepare the Hulk to be a “good guy” and part of the Avengers. This is confirmed by the appearance of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) toward the end of the film. There are already plans for a Thor movie as well as a Captain America movie before the Avengers film. Hopefully Marvel will work a little harder on character development in these three films.

And the last movie I saw was Get Smart. It was a big let-down. It wasn’t nearly as funny as the trailers made it look like it would be. There were a few good jokes and gags here and there, and the basic storyline was good. The end result just wasn’t impressive. In fact, it was so unimpressive that I won’t waste any more time commenting on it than this.

I haven’t seen any movies in a couple of weeks, so I’m behind. But I plan to see at least a couple in the coming week. So far, the best of the Summer has been the low-budget Son of Rambow, followed by Iron Man. Hopefully, the others I see won’t feel so much like a waste of money as these four most recent films have.

Bible stuff

Mark Horne's comments on this passage from Romans reminded me of how much I'd like to have a Bible without chapter or verse divisions. I'm sure there are some translations that you can buy that way (the KJV, at least). But as best I can tell, the English Standard Version, my favourite translation, is yet to be published in that form.

Prior to visiting the Crossway page, I looked at all the versions of the ESV available from Christian Book Distributors, hoping that there actually was a version without chapter or verse divisions. In my search, I found a couple of interesting versions to be published in the near future. First, Crossway is planning to release a parallel Bible featuring both the ESV and Martin Luther's German translation of the Scriptures. How quirky is that? Maybe this is something they received alot of requests from Lutherans for. Nonetheless, it wouldn't have been something I would have expected. And it will be neat for those who know German. The Bible is scheduled to be released next March.

The other is a version of the ESV that is to be published by Oxford University Press that also contains the Apocrypha. OUP has released a couple of Bibles with the ESV so far. But this, like the above, isn't something I would have expected. This will be an entirely new translation of the Apocrypha, translated according to the same methods as the ESV. This will be quite welcome, as other translations are either dated (KJV, RSV) or weighted by liberal biases (NRSV). For more details, see the CBD page about it. It is scheduled to be released next February.

J. Vernon McGee on the Effeminacy of Pentecostalism

My friend, if you take the women out of the tongues movement, it would die overnight. You may say, “That’s not a nice thing to say.” I know it’s not nice, but it is true.

-- Thru the Bible, 1 Corinthians 14:34

Good news out of Sweden

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7491908.stm