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

Dutch doobies okay, but...

...tobacco (in public, at least) is not. Strange.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7482571.stm

Repetition

There is a problem with newness; or, rather, there is a problem with an obsession with newness. As I write this, I am listening to J. S. Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” for the I-don’t-know-how-many-hundredth time. It hasn’t lost its sweetness, its beauty, its ability to lift my soul. In fact, I’ve found that when I am in a good mood, I have started going about my daily business whistling the melody of it - at least, the portion of it that I know.

So is the greatness of Bach’s music in the fact that it is old? Not necessarily. That which is older is often better for us, due to the depravity, both moral and aesthetic, of the culture we find ourselves in. As C. S. Lewis said, in his defense of reading old books, every generation has its blind spots. The point he was making was that there is a need for us to read authors who lived in another era, in order that we be fuller people, aware of our own generation’s blind spots. And yet the reverse is also true. It is noticeable with those who become obsessed with an era other than their own. Those who spend all their time reading Puritan authors, for instance, can easily lapse into seeing everything the exact same way that the Puritans did, including buying into any erroneous beliefs the Puritans had as well. Then there are those who become taken with the Victorian era, the result being Anglo-Catholics afraid of going to Hell (or, maybe, just spending more time in Purgatory) for accidentally eating the main course with their salad forks.

The greatness of Bach’s music lies in its conformity to the Triune God. Something in his aesthetic reflects God’s character, causing even pagans over the past three hundred to praise him.

And yet, much of the appreciation of good art lies in the repeated experience of it. I’m sure I didn’t appreciate “Jesu” the first time I heard it, or any of Bach’s music, for that matter. It took a certain measure of maturity before it hit me the way it does now. And now, I can’t help but to praise God for allowing me to experience such beautiful music. It is such that it isn’t merely listening to beautiful music anymore. It is, for me, hearing God speak, telling me that He loves me, and that so long as He reigns, everything is going to be alright in my life and in this world.

But the repetition is important. It is an enculturation, a shaping of my view of the world. This is part of the reason that commercial music is everywhere in the public sphere. The idea is to shape the individual until he thinks of himself mainly as a consumer. In so doing, the person begins to act as he has come to think of himself. His main goal is to attain material goods, thinking he needs them, whether or not he actually does. This is part of the reason that I don’t shop on Sundays. I believe Sabbatarianism to be Biblical, and so I seek to devote all of Sunday to rest as Scripture requires, and to worship of God and study of His word. But the commercial sphere wants that day, too. Think about it - why do so many sale ads get published in the paper on Sunday? Certainly, it’s technically the beginning of the week - though, considering our language of “the weekend” and beginning a new week on Monday, one would think Sunday was the last day of the week. But we and the advertisers together have made Sunday the biggest shopping day of the week, and any notion of giving that day to God has largely disappeared from our culture. Lest anyone miss it, this hasn’t made us any Godlier. As a Christian who believes the Sabbath is Sunday, I’m more than happy to refuse that day to the pagans who could care less about me but want my money.

And so I have grown to largely hate commercial music. So far as I can help it, I don’t want it shaping me into something I don’t want to be, something other than the best person I can be. I prefer to expose myself to those art forms that are most glorifying to God and most beneficial to me. That doesn’t mean that Bach can be all that I listen to. But, as with all forms of art, I’m thoughtful in what I choose.

Repetition in stories are important in the same way that repetition in experiencing music is important. Children here often understand this better than we adults do. They tend to glory in the repetition of a thing. A father picks up his son and throws him for what may seem to the child to be hundreds of feet in the air. And what does the child say, as he falls into his father’s hands, the giggling mess that he is? “Do it again, Daddy.” It is the wisest people for whom the setting and the rising of the sun never gets old.

Children are the same way with stories. How many parents get weary of reading the same bedtime story to their children night after night? And this isn’t to say there is never a need for a change. There are many stories in the world, and sometimes children need to be directed to a new one, lest the old one become wearisome for them and they begin to stagnate. God even varies the rising and the setting of the sun for us on a regular basis.

But children know that the enjoyment of the story lies to some degree in its repetition, though they may not know why. It is in the repetition of it that it shapes you and becomes part of you. It is also in the repetition that one can really know if it’s a good story. There are stories that immediately please on a superficial level, but do nothing on repeated exposure. But good stories carry an eternal newness about them. They have a depth that only opens to you over time. You experience them over and over again, and you learn things about them that you didn’t know before. In this sense, a particular artistic creation reflects its creator. Shallow people create shallow art; people with depth of character create art with depth of character. And reverse is true as well: shallow art creates shallow people, and art with depth of character creates people with depth of character.

God does new things all the time. “Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end. The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you” (Ps. 102:25-28). Sometimes He turns fertile fields into a lake, and sometimes He turns lakes into deserts. Sometimes He allows Christian kingdoms to last a thousand years, and sometimes He moves the center of the activity of His church halfway around the world. And yet some things He does the same, day after day, for His own glory and enjoyment, as One who delights in repetition, and for our sakes, that we may reflect His enjoyment and rest secure in Him.

How could you not know?

So one day you’re walking along, minding your own business, and all of a sudden you find yourself giving birth to a baby you didn’t know you were pregnant with:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/7445055.stm

We’re North Carolinians, and Yes, We’re Weird - but We’re Proud of It

Unusual Names

In 1898, it was reported that there were a number of families in Rutherford County with very odd names. There was a family named Clements with children named Zeno, Zula, Zebulon, Zinnie, Zolen, Zaco, Zaluski, Zenix, Zalf, and Zeolly. Another family named Andrews inflicted the following on their children: Kansas Love, Quitina Quiltina Quinn and Eulalia Valtasia Flabanico Anifecto. And yet another family named Allen disfigured their children with Linsco, Lansco and Stumpco. A few years before this report, another child near Louisburg, North Carolina, was reported to have the following names: Jesse Fido Ringtail Fillmore Hancock Jarvis Dowd Harper.

-- From Forgotten Tales of North Carolina

Thoughts from Screwtape, upon the death of Yves Saint Laurent

In a rough and ready way, of course, this question is decided for us by spirits far deeper down in the Lowerarchy than you and I. It is the business of these great masters to produce in every age a general misdirection of what may be called sexual “taste”. This they do by working through the small circle of popular artists, dressmakers, actresses and advertisers who determine the fashionable type. The aim is to guide each sex away from those members of the other with whom spiritually helpful, happy, and fertile marriages are most likely. Thus we have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females - and there is more in that than you might suppose. As regards the male taste we have varied a good deal. At one time we have directed it to the statuesque and aristocratic type of beauty, mixing men’s vanity with their desires and encouraging the race to breed chiefly from the most arrogant and prodigal women. At another, we have selected an exaggeratedly feminine type, faint and languishing, so that folly and cowardice, and all the general falseness and littleness of mind which go with them, shall be at a premium. At present we are on the opposite tack. The age of jazz has succeeded the age of the waltz, and we now teach men to like women whose bodies are scarcely distinguishable from those of boys. Since this is a kind of beauty even more transitory than most, we thus aggravate the female’s chronic horror of growing old (with many excellent results) and render her less willing and less able to bear children. And that is not all. We have engineered a great increase in the licence which society allows to the representation of the apparent nude (not the real nude) in art, and its exhibition on the stage or the bathing beach. It is all a fake, of course; the figures in the popular art are falsely drawn; the real women in bathing suits or tights are actually pinched in and propped up to make them appear firmer and more slender and more boyish than nature allows a full-grown woman to be. Yet at the same time, the modern world is taught to believe that it is being “frank” and healthy” and getting back to nature. As a result we are more and more directing the desires of men to something which does not exist - making the role of the eye in sexuality more and more important and at the same time making its demands more and more impossible. What follows you can easily forecast!

-- The Screwtape Letters, ch. XX

Son of Rambow

“Garrison Keillor was raised Plymouth Brethren,” an acquaintance once told me.

“Really?” I replied. “That’s funny. I wonder why he always talks about Lutherans then, and never the Plymouth Brethren.”

“Somebody asked him that one time,” he answered. “Keillor said it’s because nobody has heard of the Plymouth Brethren.”

I don’t know if this story is true or not. In part, it seems to be, as in listening to Keillor’s tales of Lake Wobegon since then I have heard the occasional reference to “the sanctified Brethren”, as he likes to call them. I can’t imagine that the average listener has a clue who he’s talking about. But a handful of us do - we sanctified ones, that is.

And it isn’t entirely true that nobody has heard of the Plymouth Brethren. The fact that the PB’s don’t call themselves by that name doesn’t help things. But the occasional student of church history has heard of them, as have those individuals familiar with the most infamous product of Brethrenism, occultist Alistair Crowley. Nonetheless, the Brethren are fairly unknown, at least in our day.

The Plymouth Brethren were one of the many Restorationist religious groups to emerge in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 19th century. Beginning in the 1820’s, they based their approach to the Christian life on a concept of returning to “the simplicity of the early church”, as they believed it had been. This meant doing away with many things they considered to be trappings created by the organized church through the centuries: denominations, ordained clergy, and liturgies, for starters. They sought to emphasize a sense of the priesthood of all believers, manifest in a sort of evangelical ecumenism. They met with one another outside of the organized church, believing that the table of the Lord was for all who believed in Jesus, no matter their denominational affiliation.

A tension began to grow early on in the movement, and continues to this day. If the New Testament church is supposed to meet a certain way, that being the way the Brethren had determined, and that it is as clear in the Scriptures as the Brethren believed it was, then how are those who claim to be Christians but do not meet in the same way to be perceived?

There soon grew up with this a concept of the Higher Spiritual Life which further shaped the Brethren’s dealings with those not of their beliefs. It was determined, building off of John Wesley’s doctrine of Perfectionism and Medieval mysticism, that there are two different types of Christians in the world. There are those who are Carnal, and those who are Spiritual. The Carnal Christian is saved, but is walking out of fellowship with God. This is due to things like unconfessed sin and outright disobedience. Then there is the Spiritual Christian. He is not only saved, but is walking in fellowship with God. He lives in perfect congruity with the will of God, and in so doing lives on a higher plane of spiritual beatitude than the Carnal Christian. Thus conceived, the PB’s had their answer to those who didn’t meet as they did - those people were either unbelievers or Carnal Christians.

But why did so few follow their way? Here we arrive at the Plymouth Brethren’s most notable contribution to modern Christianity. The Brethren had determined, mostly through their most notable founder John Nelson Darby, that their was taught in Scripture a radical distinction between Israel and the Church. God’s main dealing was with Israel, but when they had rejected his Son, God had set them aside for a time while He created a Gentile church. This was temporary, as God would eventually remove His church from the world (through a Pre-Tribulational Rapture) and begin to work with Israel again. God’s church, it was believed, would fail to obey God just as Israel did, and so the flow of history would be a slow train to depravity and destruction. Based off of this eschatological scheme, the Brethren determined that they were living in “the last days”. And if they were, then it would only be reasonable that few would truly be following Christ toward the end of the world. They determined they were that few.

So in order to keep themselves pure from the “world”, which they had defined in the Gnostic fashion of separation from material things (much like Medieval monasticism - the Brethren are far more Roman Catholic than they realize) as well as separation from those not of their way, they sought to refrain from activities which they saw as worldly. Since the world would be ending soon, who cares about culture, for instance? “Why polish the brass on a sinking ship?” as is often repeated. In the Plymouth Brethren worldview, “the earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof,” is only marginally true.

Thankfully, not all Plymouth Brethren are consistent with their theology, thus verifying that it isn’t as true as they think it is. How one is supposed to have a secular job or shop at the grocery store with that theology is beyond me. But the living with the contradictions is maddening, as I know from first hand experience, having grown up Plymouth Brethren.

Also, some Brethren are more Open to allowing non-Brethren into their midst, and thus they are often called “Open Brethren”. This was my background which, though less legalistic in some ways than the stricter Brethren (usually called Closed, Exclusive, or Strict Brethren), has many of the same problems as the Closed Brethren, not to mention some of its own.

The Plymouth Brethren were, and still are, small in number. And yet their influence has been felt far beyond what one would expect. I don’t doubt that the theology as I’ve described it above will ring true to most of those that have grown up in the Evangelical church, as it is the prevailing approach to the Christian life. Even more influential has been the end times theology of the Plymouth Brethren, as is manifest in the millions of books sold, first by Hal Lindsey, and then by Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins. Comparatively few people have heard of the Plymouth Brethren, but the majority of Christians in the United States believe in the Pretrib rapture.

“So why is he writing all of this?” you might be asking yourself. Would you believe it is the preface to a movie review? (Just trust me.)

I’ve seen a number of movies recently: Expelled, Iron Man, Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones (comments on the latter two are forthcoming, I hope). But today I saw the best one of them all, and that is Son of Rambow. I don’t doubt that unless you are a connoisseur of the most obscure movies, you haven’t heard of it. Only one theater in my town was playing it, and that was a theater that, as I learned just recently, specializes in low-budget, foreign, and independent films. In fact, I watched it in a small screen theater built for only about forty people. Nonetheless, it topped the big-budget films I have seen recently.

It is about a boy from a Closed Plymouth Brethren family (see, there is a connection) named Will. His father is deceased, and he lives with his mother, his sister, and his grandmother. Unusual for his Brethren background, he attends a local non-Brethren school, where he meets another boy named Lee Carter.

Now I could tell you more about it, and I will. But you have to go see the movie first, before I give all the spoilers.

Are you back now? Okay, let’s carry on.

Will is a boy whose imagination is far grander than his Brethren faith would like it to be. He is an artist, but his family’s religion isn’t especially friendly to such expressions. He meets Lee, a rough boy who coerces Will into starring in his Rambo-like home movie, which Lee is making to enter into a BBC Young Filmmakers contest. In the process, Will sees a television (and a movie - First Blood) for the first time. He quickly finds his imagination and his young masculinity set free in a way he had never before experienced. A sharp contrast from his life in a home run by an overbearing and grieving widowed mother (Mary), as well as his life in a faith that inspires a passivistic piety, Will takes after the world of Rambo and filmmaking with gusto.

Lee’s family life is a direct contrast to Will’s. Living with his abusive brother who runs the family’s convalescent home while their mother lives with her boyfriend in another country, Lee reflects in his treatment of others the treatment he has received in his own family.

Woven into the picture is the visit of a number of French exchange students to Will’s school, and the particular fascination of a number of students with one particular French boy named Didier. The film is set in the 1980’s, noticeable in the haircuts of the students, and especially in the New Wave style of Didier. Eventually Didier and his followers cross paths with Will, and work their way into his and Lee’s film, much to Lee’s dislike.

The climax of the film comes in a conflict between Will and Lee, resulting in Lee’s being seriously injured in an accident. The end result is good, however, as the accident brings reconciliation between Will and Lee, as well as between Lee and his brother.

I’m sure many will be disinclined to see the film because it revolves around a family from a Christian tradition they’ve never heard of. I may be incorrect, but I don’t see that as a hindrance to enjoying this film. Anyone familiar with American Christianity knows Pietism when they see it, though they might not be able to identify it by its name.

And Will’s church is Pietistic. Meeting in a simple building with white walls and wooden chairs which all face toward one another, in the center of which sits a simple communion table, each member is required to take off their watch at the door, lest they be tempted to look at it while the service is in progress. (I’m sure many a minister would think that a good idea, not to mention the collecting of cell phones.) The women and men both dress in the plainest of ways: the men in their earth-tone pants, shirts and jackets, and the women in their plain dresses, skirts, and head coverings.

The plainness of Will’s church and home stand in sharp contrast to his broad imagination. He draws in drawing books, he has a vast mural he has worked on gradually in a bathroom stall at school, and like a Medieval illuminator, he draws on page after page of his Bible, often taking his artistic cues from words in the text he is writing on.

But the Pietist is to take pleasure in spiritual things, not worldly things. This means things of the Brethren assembly and of God. And yet God seemed curiously absent from the movie in any direct sense. While that aspect might be a little overdone when it comes to representing the Brethren, there is a truth there which I personally have experienced. When personal sanctification is the emphasis, a sanctification which I alone am responsible to achieve, then God can easily (and often does) get bumped out of the picture. I am left to save myself, or to re-achieve the higher life by myself, while God sits in Heaven, impatiently brooding over my consistent inability to walk in perfect holiness.

The tension between pleasure and the Pietistic standard emerges in other ways as well. Will’s mother has an ongoing “relationship” with one of the Brethren men (named Joshua), but it is a relationship in the loosest of ways. Unable to have any physical contact due to accepted conduct with the opposite sex, the desire and frustration between the two is visible.

The plainness of Will’s life also stands in contrast to that of the French students. Up to date with the latest fashion and music, they are extremely appealing, not only to Will, but the rest of his schoolmates, who are trapped their simple school uniforms.

And yet, there seems to be some mocking of the French students as well. Didier, who at first behaves aloof and above the British students, soon condescends to meet Will when he learns of Will’s talent and that he is making a movie. Didier is presented at first as a savior: it is no coincidence that it is in the school’s chapel that Will is taken to meet Didier. Didier emerges from shadows and descends from the chancel like a priest or Christ himself, illuminated by sunlight beaming through the chapel windows. Yet he soon shows himself to be a child like the rest, longing for acceptance from one higher than himself.

The longing for a father is central to the film. The shed in which Will’s father worked behind the family’s house is where Will hides to do his drawing. When Joshua attempts to take the place of Will’s father, the man proves himself to be a complete failure. The absence of a father can explain Will’s inability to deal with a bully like Lee, and his willingness to trust Lee implicitly. Lee’s father abandoned his family, and his mother’s boyfriend has even taken her away from her children. The following that emerges around Didier can itself be seen as a longing for a father figure. And while it is a more subtle theme to the film, there is some accusation of the failure of patriarchy present. Those who know the Brethren know that there is a strong emphasis on male-only leadership, both in the home and the assembly. Yet other than Joshua’s paltry attempts to help bring Will “back into the fold”, the men are noticeably uninvolved with Will and his family. Uninvolved, that is, until they decide to visit Mary to let her know that she is being warned of the possibility of expulsion from the Brethren due to Will’s behavior and her failure to control him. In patriarchy, this is often true to life. When it comes to loving relationship, the men are absent. But whenever things get to the breaking point, they are more than willing to show up and dish out some judgment.

Adults in the film are generally portrayed as failures. And yet, when all is said and done, there is one adult who comes to her senses: Will’s mother. Having reflected on her own bad childhood experiences with the Brethren, she eventually rejects the Brethren that are rejecting her. The symbolism of her removing her head covering twice at the end of the film - once as she cries and holds her children in her husband’s shed, and later as she throws Joshua out of her house for good - will no doubt slip past the viewer not familiar with Brethren tradition. In so doing, she is rejecting the authority of the Brethren and, more specifically, the male leadership of the assembly that has been oppressive to her. By removing the head covering, she is saying, “you have failed me, and I am removing myself from under you. I will no longer submit to you.”

And yet, what is the answer? In this collection of people looking for a hero-father, where do they find him, and who is he? It sadly isn’t in a true presence of the church. When the movie is over, the only church in the film is cast aside. And, as I mentioned before, God is noticeably absent in any clear way. The answer seems to come in a restoration of relationships: Lee to his brother and to Will, and Will to his family. What is presented doesn’t seem to be a sort of feminism as the answer, as is so frequent in American films. What appears to be presented is a renewed masculinity. Will and Lee, without the masculine leadership they should have, manage to find their way nonetheless. They have failed themselves, and have repented. They have learned from their mistakes, and will conduct themselves differently from now on. Most interesting is the death and resurrection they both experience at the end of the film. Both boys, in fact, serve as pictures of Christ.

The experience that Will and his family go through is no fiction. While I can’t side with all the conclusions of the film, the insights are numerous and are communicated in the most creative of ways.

I believe, for instance, that wives should submit to husbands, and I believe that men in leadership in the church have real authority. Yet husbands and church leaders must love sacrificially, or else destroy the souls of those under their care.

I also believe certain things aren’t permissible under God’s law. It wouldn’t have been a solution for Joshua and Mary to start sleeping together outside of marriage, for instance. And yet licentiousness doesn’t just emerge in a vacuum. While sometimes it comes simply out of sin and rebelliousness, oftentimes it comes about due to legalism. In fact, the natural fruit of legalism is lawlessness.

So in the end, a true Biblical worldview won out. That worldview is one that embraces beauty, love, sacrifice, family, and community. It is a sign of the church’s failure to give these things that people have to go outside of her to find them and therefore to live more Biblically.

And there’s my brief analysis of the film. I’m sure many other things will stand out to me more in future viewings (I do intend to see it again). And there are other matters that I wonder about. For instance, is the film shaped in the form of a chiasm? At first glance, it would appear that it does, though I could be wrong. My imagination could be just carrying me away.

Links, movies, I'm a lazy bum, etc.

A happy Memorial Day weekend to you all. (That is, you Americans.) I have today off from work, which, since it is Saturday, is unusual for me. And so far I’m finding it hard to get up and do anything.

I just got done adding a few new links in the side bar to your left, as well as removing some dead links. In new links, I have added Pastor John Barach’s blog. I’ve learned a lot from reading his blog over the past few years, and have often thought of linking him, though I’ve always forgotten when I got around to updating my links. As it turns out, he linked me before I got a chance to link him. Hits have increased on this page a fair bit over the past few weeks, and I can only figure that it must be because he linked me. So many thanks to Pastor Barach for that. His blog also has a great links section. I try to keep a handful of links on this page, but he has a number I would add if I was willing to take the time. But I’m not. Yes, folks, that’s internet laziness. Sad, isn’t it?

I also added The Rabbit Room to the blog links. It is a page featuring the ruminations of a number of Christian artists, and is headed by Andrew Peterson, one of the few Contemporary Christian musicians I’ll listen to anymore. But I’ll save that rabbit trail for another time (snicker).

In the general links section, I’ve added a link to Kemper Crabb’s website. Kemper is a musician and an ordained Episcopal priest. He plays for a Prog-rock band called Atomic Opera (who, I must confess, I’ve never heard. I’m working on it.), played with King’s X in years past, and has even sat in with Caedmon’s Call a few times. He has a number of solo recordings, including his classic The Vigil. He is very influenced by Early Music (pre-Baroque), hence my being drawn to it. Check him out.

I’ve added a link to the page dedicated to the teaching of N. T. Wright, theologian, Bible scholar, and Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. There are other pages featuring his work, but this page both links to those other sites and has things not otherwise available on the web. His work is indispensable for those seeking to understand the Bible better.

Lastly, I’ve added a link to Athanasius Press, a publishing house affiliated with Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church. They’re a small publisher, but offer a number of fantastic books, as well as audio and video teaching series.

I just received James Jordan’s teaching series on Numbers through Judges from Athanasius Press, and began listening to it as I was writing this. One doesn’t retain a whole lot when trying to write and listening to a lecture at the same time (at least, I don’t), but I did pick up on one interesting thing in Scripture I hadn’t noticed before in the story of Joseph. In Genesis 40, the King James Version tells us that Joseph is put in prison with the “butler” and the baker of the king of Egypt. In fact, as later translations such as the English Standard Version tell us, the “butler” was in fact the king’s cupbearer (Genesis 40:1). So we have the baker and the cupbearer, corresponding to bread and wine, that is, the Eucharist. It was a passing comment, and Jordan doesn’t expound on the passage any further. Knowing his thought, I would expect he would explain how there is a movement from bread to wine in the passage, as well as in Joseph’s life more broadly, and that this is noted partly in the fact that the king puts the baker to death whereas the cupbearer is allowed to live. The movement from bread to wine symbolizes the movement from immaturity to maturity, and so the order of partaking that Christ established isn’t merely accidental, but intentional. I would expect Jordan would say something like that. But I’m not Jordan, so that’s mere speculation. And I should probably leave this kind of deep thought to the theologians and exegetes anyway.

This evening, I am planning to meet some friends to see Prince Caspian. I have resisted reading any reviews of it, though some friends tipped me off about the many changes made to the story from the book. After the Tolkien films and the last Narnia film, I tend to go in with low expectations from the moviemakers anyway. I just finished reading the Narnia series a couple of months ago, and the book I enjoyed the most was, in fact, Prince Caspian. But it’s been a couple of years since I read it, and I haven’t had a chance to reread it in preparation to see the film, so maybe I won’t get too bent out of shape. I’m sure I’ll be offering my thoughts here later on. I had hoped to go see Indiana Jones today too, but though my body is awake, my motivation appears to still be in bed. I’m a sad case.

As a side note, I just learned that Robert Downey Jr., in the role of Tony Stark (aka Iron Man), will be making an appearance in the upcoming Incredible Hulk movie as a tie-in to the Iron Man movie. Could this be all leading to the Avengers movie I predicted? Only time will tell.

That’s all for now. Y’all have a blessed Sabbath, and a good Memorial Day.

The limits of comprehension

A flash of light, a cloud of dust, and what was the question?

-- Prairie Home Companion Pretty Good Joke Book

U. S. general worships Allah

An American soldier uses a copy of the Quran for target practice and is caught (or supposedly - I’m leaving open the possibility of a scapegoat). He is forced to write a letter of apology to Sunni leaders. Now I think the whole act of using the Quran for target practice was fairly childish, and that one shouldn‘t do anything to tick someone else off without good reason, though I don‘t personally think he should be disciplined for it. But what followed was that the general who read the apology to the Sunni leaders kissed a copy of the Quran which he then presented to them. He was spreading the word, I suppose. In case there is any doubt, let me make this abundantly clear. Though the general might not have thought of it this way, his act of kissing the Quran was an act of worship, of idolatry. That’s what your tax dollars are going towards, folks.

The worst part about it is the motivation behind it, which is apparent in the article. We can’t tick off the Sunnis, because they’re our allies in our war. That’s right, our war - not theirs. Read the article here.

Even the Finnish hate Neil Young

I'm speechless.

Hat tip: The Avenue

Iron Man

I know that this is opening weekend for Prince Caspian, and so I probably should have gone to see it. But I’ve been hankering to go see Iron Man, and since I was off work yesterday, that’s what I did.

Comic book movies have been the rage the past few years, and reasonably so. I’m less likely to go see a movie featuring some new action story that I have no familiarity with. Movie production companies are somewhat unpredictable in the quality they put out, and unless I have some assurance that I won’t be wasting my money on some film, I’m unwilling to pay. Sadly, movie reviewers are no help. Either they are blinded by their own political agendas which align with the majority of the populace within the intellectually isolated province known as Hollywood, or they don’t know morality from a hole in the ground, thus making it difficult to know whether or not to trust them. Christian reviewers are no help either, as they are usually too busy counting profanities to know whether or not they are watching a well-crafted storyline in action.

But comic book movies have proven a relatively safe bet as of late. There have been exceptions, of course. The first of the Fantastic Four movies was abhorrent, and as those who saw the second one warned me of its equally poor quality, I didn’t bother to see it. The X-Men movies were terrific so long as Bryan Singer was at the helm. But when he jumped ship to go to the new Superman film (not that great itself), he left the third X-Men film to fall apart in the hands of others. Much criticism was also thrown at the Incredible Hulk movie from about four years ago, and I’ll admit I disliked it at first. Repeated watchings have given me a sense of appreciation for it. Apparently I’m the only one though, as the whole cast from the last film was chucked and has been replaced for the sequel, due out this summer.

Despite some missteps, the movies based off of comics have been good. They aren’t always as morally sound as I being a Christian would like them to be, but they do pretty good over all, and I overlook their wickedness in the same way I overlook the wickedness of the worldly-minded people I deal with everyday.

Iron Man was one of the better comic book movies. (Warning: spoilers ahead.) I think I only had a couple of Iron Man comic books when I was a kid, and so I wasn’t really familiar with the basic storyline. That ignorance didn’t prevent me from enjoying the film, though.

Robert Downey Jr. played Tony Stark, who became Iron Man in the film. I don’t keep up with the gossip in Hollywood, but I knew enough to know that Downey has had his share of substance abuse problems. It has interfered with jobs he’s worked on, resulting in his being removed from the cast of Ally McBeal a few years back after a short stint on the show. I had heard nothing about him since then, and so I was both surprised and glad when I first saw trailers for the movie and saw he was playing the lead. I wouldn’t have pinned him for a superhero role, but he pulled it off and, I thought, was perfect for the part.

But the first commercials I saw for the film only featured him. As it turns out, the film features Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, and Gwyneth Paltrow, who played Stark’s assistant Pepper Potts. Downey’s humor was a highlight of the film, and his chemistry with Paltrow was fantastic.

The script was great, the acting was great, the cinematography was great, and the music was great. Yes, it was all great. I especially thought the inclusion of a portion of Black Sabbath’s song “Iron Man” during the closing credits was a nice touch. What would an Iron Man movie be without it?

There were the expected political agendas. The film begins in the Middle East (Pakistan, I believe… I don’t remember for sure), and a fair portion of it is set there. Tony Stark goes from being a weapons manufacturer, to being captured by radical Muslims (though you can rest assured that neither the word “radical” nor the word “Muslim” was used in the movie), to deciding that, since his weapons are falling into the wrong hands, his company will no longer produce weapons. The typical simplistic Hollywood leftist pacifist position is at play here, and while I side neither with the left nor the neoconservative right, it would be nice if Hollywood could make a movie without trying to preach at me. Make a violent action film, and preach against war in the movie. What’s wrong with this picture? (Pardon the pun.)

But Stark’s personal transformation carries Christic overtones to it too, as do many superhero myths. He goes through a sort of death and resurrection, as he descends into a cave (into the earth), only to arise as a new man. This also pairs with the historic American Evangelical narrative of the New Birth. Stark goes from being a rich playboy, to being born again as a man repentant of his former life and interested in the world around him for the first time. The only down side to this is that while he finds the woman who should be his true bride (Pepper Potts), the relationship remains frustrated to the end of the film. Oh well. There’s always the sequel.

And there will be a sequel, as those patient enough to wait until the end of the credits found out. Samuel L. Jackson makes an unexpected appearance there, suggesting the possibility that the next film will in fact be an Avengers film. I can’t help but wonder if this is Marvel’s attempt at making up for it’s screw-up on the X-Men franchise. Two X-Men that I know of (Wolverine and Beast) were also Avengers in the comic books, and so this might present a chance for a cross-over from those movies. Spiderman was also an Avenger, as was the Incredible Hulk, so maybe there will be some connections there as well. Marvel will have to do it up right for me to like an Avengers film as well as I liked the first two X-Men films, but here’s hoping they will pull it off.

For now, though, if you haven’t seen Iron Man, you should. It’s worth the price.