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Pillars of the Earth

August 23, 2010 in Culture, Media with 6 Comments

When the Times of London asked its readers to vote for the best book of the past 60 years, they chose Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird. But we all know that being winner isn’t everything. The runner-up was Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth.

I, being a barbarian, was introduced to this latter work for the first time when Netflix Instant suggested I might be interested in the mini-series currently being run on Starz.

I am now addicted.

Now let me hasten to add that I am under no illusion that all my addictions are wholesome. Lost: definitely good for me. Homebrewing: probably good for me. Flannery O’Connor: definitely good for me. Pillars of the Earth: maybe, maybe not. The series is violent, has more than its fair share of sex scenes (I like to say that one of the main characters and his love interest have “a very simple relationship”) and one particularly disturbing rape scene. So, be forewarned.

So why do I watch a violent, “adult content” show, besides, of course, the adult content and violence?

The story sets out, even if too bluntly, the dangers of power, the power one has when one is presumed to speak for God, and the challenges of interpreting a broken world where one’s theology says that God is at work but the things playing out in real life do not testify to that reality.

Although I do not think the story handles the God and power questions with particular subtlety or grace, I nonetheless resonate with the danger I see unfolding on the screen before me. Even for those of us without formal ecclesiastical power, we do a dangerous thing when we presume to speak for God, to interpret the world as God’s spokespersons.

But this is what we have to do whenever we teach someone what the Bible says or how it applies to our lives. This is what we do every time we move forward in confidence because our spirit seems to be nudged by the Spirit of God.

Blowing up those moments into communal and national moments of life and death, as happens in Pillars, has the power to make us realize the power we wield and the danger we undertake when we make similar judgments in our own smaller worlds where the ramifications often seem less a matter of life and death.

Or, to put it somewhat differently. There you are, watching a ruthless king question why God isn’t defending him, why God isn’t blessing him. There you are, confidently barking back that no God worth His salt would come to the aid of such a deluded tyrant. And then maybe, just maybe, it dawns on you: are my expectations that God will baptize my life’s little schemes any more holy? Am I so different? Just what kind of power do I expect to wield on the basis of my faith?

And then, in all likelihood, you get drawn back in and enjoy a captivating story.

Tiny Desk Concert: John Darnielle

August 19, 2010 in Culture, Media, Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Dear NPR, I love you for hosting this and making it available online.

Long live the Mountain Goats!

Inception

August 12, 2010 in Culture, Media, Uncategorized with 1 Comment

Since yesterday was my son’s third birthday, I obviously had to shuffle him to bed as early as possible and get out to see Inception with my dad.

(Minor spoiler alert.)

As I read the film, there seemed to be two major driving forces in the film: one was the question of how you know what is real and the other is the need for redemption.

I thought the latter played out in interesting ways, as the group chose to use a strained relationship as the wedge for implanting a new idea in a subject’s mind. The goal was to get the subject to do something, and it was determined that the positive emotion of redemption would create a more powerful and enduring response than the negative emotions of anger and spite.

In part, this was clearly tied to the particular issues the main character had with his now dead wife, but it was also an interesting, if somewhat overly optimistic take on the power of emotions more generally.

The question of how you know what is real seemed to have its own two-pronged issue. On the one hand, there is the power of “idea”–one of the most unstoppable entities at work in the world. Once it takes root, it controls. Ideas shape our perception of reality, and they therefore shape our reality itself.

The other prong is that this power that ideas have to form our reality can, at times, destroy the life we actually have. Or, alternatively, it can create a life that is good and worth living.

My take on the mysterious ending, and the questions it left hanging, was that the reality in which Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) finds himself in the end is a reality worth living in, a resolved reality with redemption and resolution–even if it is not the waking world.

Overall, I was impressed with how the movie handled the themes of guilt and redemption, the power of ideas and challenges to our perceptions of reality. And I’m looking forward to watching it again as soon as possible.

Death for Good? Thoughts on Donnie Darko

August 2, 2010 in Culture, Media with 6 Comments

This weekend we watched the cult classic, Donnie Darko.

The film is disturbing, challenging, and at least a little bit confusing.

The plot involves Donnie, a teenager with emotional problems and apparent hallucinations, in a series of acts guided by a mysterious, disturbing looking 6-foot-tall rabbit. (Harvey, anyone?)

As Donnie is led by the rabbit to go back and change the past, I was left to ponder the extent to which his changing of the story was a good thing. He was able to act selflessly to transform his own story into one of redemption, to save a couple of lives along the way, also.

But the rabbit had led Donnie to do a couple of things that would now be left undone. One chain of events initiated by the rabbit put Donnie in the right place to keep a girl from being harassed by the school bullies. One action the rabbit led Donnie to perform led to the discovery of a secret child pornography studio and/or distribution center.

It seems that the scary rabbit led Donnie to create a better world–right up the end where Donnie returns to undo what had been done.

Have you seen the movie? Do you think the undoing of the past at the end is ultimately a good thing or a bad thing?

Cuckoo Redeemer

July 26, 2010 in Media with 4 Comments

We just rewatched One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest last week. It is an amazing, troubling film, worthy of its five Oscars et al.

It is a story of redemption, of deliverance–a story in which Jack Nicholson’s character, R. P. McMurphy, plays a leading role.

But what struck me in the film is that for all of McMurphy’s agitating, and for all this his own death is a a means of deliverance, it is (surprisingly) Billy Bibbit who is the Christ figure in the film.

We’re keyed into this on a couple of occasions when R. P. shoots a “Jesus Christ” exclamation his way. And his own death seems to be the self-giving that truly turns the tide on the ward.

So while R. P.’s own death is, in its way, redemptive, it seems that it’s redemptive as a following in the way of death that truly turned the story, the death of the would-be minor character Billy Bibbit.

For Love

July 24, 2010 in Media with 1 Comment

Having spent the past week drafting a chapter on sex for my Jesus and Paul book, wrapping it up with some thoughts on homosexuality yesterday and today, this is all I’ve got left:

Love, Love, Love by The Mountain Goats

King Saul fell on his sword
When it all went wrong
And Joseph’s brother sold him down the river
For a song
And Sonny Liston rubbed some tiger balm in his glove
some things you do for money
and some you do for love love love

Raskalnikov felt sick
But he couldn’t say why
When he saw his face reflected
In his victim’s twinkling eye
Some things you do for money
And some you’ll do for fun
But the things you do for love
Are gonna come back to you one by one

Love love is gonna lead you by the hand
Into a white and soundless place
Now we see this
As in a mirror dimly
Then we shall see each other
Face to face

And way out in Seattle
Young Kurt Cobain
Snuck out to the garden
Put a bullet in his brain
Snakes in the grass beneath our feet
Rain in the clouds above
Some moments last forever
And some flare out with love love love

Bruce Waltke: Evolution or Cult?

March 30, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Media with 7 Comments

In case you missed it on BioLogos, here’s Bruce Waltke on Evolution. If we deny it when the evidence tells us it’s true, we make ourselves a cult. That’s how he leads off. Enjoy.

You Are What You Worship–Choose Your God Wisely

February 19, 2010 in Media with 6 Comments

This morning Karyn Traphagen of Boulders to Bits fame drew my attention to a fascinating article in the Washington Post.

The article reviews a book entitled How God Changes Your Brain. In part, it seems, the upshot is that we must be careful in choosing what God we worship–we will be changed:

“But Newberg’s research offers warnings for the religious as well. Contemplating a loving God strengthens portions of our brain — particularly the frontal lobes and the anterior cingulate — where empathy and reason reside. Contemplating a wrathful God empowers the limbic system, which is “filled with aggression and fear.” It is a sobering concept: The God we choose to love changes us into his image, whether he exists or not.”

As another friend pointed out, the research is not simply about religion per se, but serves as encouragement and warning to any number of activities that both reflect and determine our beliefs:

For Newberg, this is not a simple critique of religious fundamentalism — a phenomenon varied in its beliefs and motivations. It is a criticism of any institution that allies ideology or faith with anger and selfishness. “The enemy is not religion,” writes Newberg, “the enemy is anger, hostility, intolerance, separatism, extreme idealism, and prejudicial fear — be it secular, religious, or political.”

The work also seems commendable for its refusal to allow the findings of neuroscience to weigh in on whether or not there’s a God. Describing religious experiences does not tell us where they come from or to what they may truly be directed.

Take and read. (And, make sure that the God you worship isn’t a jerk.)

Me on UStream

January 25, 2010 in Media with 0 Comments

Last week I did a UStream presentation and Q & A for Fuller Seminary. Here’s the video in case you missed it. You’ll especially want to see how the Curious George story goes at the outset.

And here’s one I did back in the fall:

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