“We’ve all heard the warnings and we’ve ignored them. We push our luck. We roll the dice. We play with fire. It’s human nature. When we’re told not to touch something, we usually do, even if we know better. Maybe because deep down, we’re just asking for trouble.” – Dr. Meredith Grey.
From Grey’s Anatomy Season 8, Episode 18: The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Posted in culture, entertainment, faith, philosophy, religion, TV
Tagged greys anatomy, meredith grey
What motivates a man to leave the comfort of home to father the fatherless, release captives and bring hope to the hopeless? Machine Gun Preacher is based on the life of Sam Childers (Gerard Butler) an ex-con whose self-destructive life is transformed to one of compassion. After being released from prison, Childers life continues where it left off, except that his wife (Michelle Monaghan) has converted to Christianity. When he nearly kills someone, Sam reluctantly begins attending church, where he too is born again.
While visiting Uganda on a house-building mission, Childers is awakened to the plight of children in Southern Sudan under the oppression of Kony’s Lord’s Liberation Army (LLA). Struck with compassion, Childers sets about liberating these desperate children: disabling LLA vehicles, eliminating opposition, and rescuing any children trapped in the convoy, taking them to the safety.
Some Christians and others watching the film may wonder if this use of violent force is appropriate for those professing faith in Christ. And it’s a great question: how do we deal with people like Kony who are responsible for such dreadful suffering, when the Bible is so big on loving one another. You know, blessed are the peacemakers. Shouldn’t Christians be pacifists? Isn’t vengeance up to God? As the nurse says: “This place does not need more guns.”
People like Sam Childers first acknowledge that our world is broken (if we had any doubts from the news headlines). Things aren’t the way they ought to be. People don’t respect each other the way they ought. People use other people as commodities to be owned, to be enslaved. In releasing these children, Sam is not seeking revenge or conducting a reckless military offensive. This is a man who sees injustice and acts out of compassion, seeking to defend those who cannot defend themselves. These are armed, brutal men who seek to be gods, seeking nothing but power for themselves from those least able to do anything about it.
Childers is uniquely gifted and perhaps God is redeeming this rough edge, because, maybe that’s what needs to be done sometimes. As much as we may not like it. But we ought to be most outraged by the fact that the world is this way in the first place. Indeed, we ourselves are complicit in the evil and suffering in our own lives and the lives of those around us.
Defeating Kony’s forces is in a way only dealing with the symptoms, and that is important. But solving the problem of evil in the world first begins with conquering the evil in us. In a sense, we’re all orphans but this is our own doing. Jesus leaves the comfort of his home to reach into our dark world to rescue us on our path to destruction (Ephesians 2:1-10), to give a father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5) and to free the oppressed:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free…” (Luke 4:18)
No machine gun. Just a cross.
Trailer here:
In The Next Three Days, Russell Crowe stars as John Brennan, a teacher whose wife, Lara, is convicted for the murder of her boss. Not convinced of her guilt, and having exhausted the legal options, Brennan begins developing a plan to break her out of prison. Writer-director Paul Haggis (Crash) twists a crime thriller into something akin to a heist film, relegating the wife’s guilt to secondary importance to explore the broader issue of control:
John Brennan: So, the life in times of Don Quixote, what is it about?
Female College Student: That someone’s belief in virtue is more important than virtue itself?
John Brennan: Yes… that’s in there. But what is it about? Could it be how rational thought destroys your soul? Could it be about the triumph of irrationality and the power that is in that? You know, we spend a lot of time trying to organize the world. We build clocks and calendars and we try to predict the weather. But what part of our life is truly under our control? What if we choose to exist purely in a reality of our own making? Does that render us insane? And if it does, isn’t that better than a life of despair?
Herein lies John’s conflict – does he chose the rationality of accepting the judge’s decision and despair or the irrationality of action for a life of happiness with his wife? If John is to rescue his wife he must live between these two worlds. Thus, he studies the prison, learns its routine, draws maps, develops a budget, analyses regularity of human activity, he builds “clocks and calendars”, as he searches for the key to smuggle his wife out of prison.
At the same time, the heist requires a great deal of what might otherwise be considered irrational behaviour for most ordinary citizens – he acquires illegal identification, weapons, creates a ‘bump’ key, suspending the ordinary regularities and moralities of his life. John is constantly presented with various choices, each of which would have massive consequences. For example, he considers robbing a bank for cash; he considers escaping town with his wife but without his son. He races off and nearly reverses over a young family: “You’re out of your mind! You don’t look!” the mother shouts. As John seeks to control one variable, another is sent off the scale.
As Lara declares her guilt to him in a bid to protect their son from being without both his parents, she drives a wedge between his resolve and his rational mind about what is right. Her guilt or innocence will either condemn or justify his actions in the viewer’s mind. Only with some measure of trust in her character does he proceed: I know who you are, and I promise you this will not be your life.
But isn’t Lara at least somewhat complicit in their predicament: she was angry, she was hasty, so that her fingerprints end up on a murder weapon – fire extinguishers don’t end up in the middle of a carpark for no reason. A moment of clarity might have saved her. Or, is Lara a victim of coincidence: the same day she has a fight with her boss a homeless person mugs the boss, and rain washes away the evidence which would corroborate her defence.
There is some small irony that filmmakers chose to tackle issues of control and coincidence when everything in every movie happens for a reason – because the filmmaker wanted it there. Christianity would say that God stands in a similar relation to the universe as a filmmaker stands to a movie: He creates, he upholds, establishes governments in their place, and guides history to achieve his purposes. Unique among the worldviews is that God is also working all things for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28-29).
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
All circumstances, including suffering, for the Christian are meaningful even if we don’t see it at the time. The challenge for us is to see and use our circumstances wisely. The death and resurrection of Jesus shows us what patience, forgiveness and love towards our enemies looks like – as irrational and backwards that may appear from the outside, but that is a reasonable response to Jesus (Romans 12:1-2). At the same time, a large part of loving our world is gaining a rational awareness and understanding of each others’ needs, and in so doing we might just save someone from a life of despair. We can’t control everything but we can control how we respond.
Posted in faith, film, movies, philosophy, religion, spirituality
Tagged choice, coincidence, control, russell crowe, sovereignty, the next three days
Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the greatest adventure movies of all time. I was inspired to rewatch Raiders after Love Your Movies post reminded me of all the great things about it. Raiders is full of memorable action setpieces from the temple escape, the basket game in Cairo, the fight at the airstrip, and memorable supporting characters like Marion and Major Toht, witty dialog and an unforgettable score.
Raiders is also full of history, Biblical and occult references which others have no doubt analyzed, but it’s the raiders’ approach to archaeology that is worth exploring. In a bar in Cairo, Belloq an archaeologist assisting the Nazis, seeks to persuade Indy to help out with the search for the Ark:
Belloq: You and I are very much alike. Archeology is our religion, yet we have both fallen from the pure faith. Our methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me. To push you out of the light.
Indiana: Now you’re getting nasty.
The religion of archaeology in Raiders wonders primarily in the discovery of artifacts from times and places long forgotten. Belloq remarks about his watch, that even though it is only worth $10, if he buries it today, in 1000 years someone will dig it up as a priceless artifact.
But Indy and Belloq seek objects much more significant than clocks: religious artifacts. The Nazis seek the Ark of the Covenant believing it wields great power and can help them in their pursuit of world domination. Indy tends to see such things as treasures to be hunted and stored in museums or at least in his personal collection.
And perhaps this is what Belloq means that they have both fallen. When Belloq says “History!”, he reminds Indy of his fallen-ness, persuading Indy to relent from destroying the Ark, and tempting him to be a part of the history that is his obsession.
The wonder surrounding certain objects like the Ark in Raiders initially appears to reside within the object itself. We see a similar response to archaeological finds such as the Shroud of Turin in which the wonder ends at the object, and not in the one whose face (is purported to have) left the imprints on it. And similarly, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy uses the cup without reference to the one who, according to the movie, provided it.
Events in Raiders, though, are consistent with Biblical ideas about the ark in that there were bad consequences for those who should not have possessed the ark:
The Philistines took the Ark to several places in their country, and at each place misfortune befell them (1 Sam. 5:1-6). At Ashdod it was placed in the temple of Dagon. The next morning Dagon was found prostrate, bowed down, before it; and on being restored to his place, he was on the following morning again found prostrate and broken. The people of Ashdod were smitten with hemorrhoids; a plague of rats was sent over the land (1 Sam. 6:5). The affliction of boils was also visited upon the people of Gath and of Ekron, whither the Ark was successively removed (1 Sam. 5:8-12).
The ark itself, though, doesn’t rend these judgements, but rather the One who gave the ark (and who owns it). And we see this distinction in Raiders in the spectacular conclusion, even if the raiders primary interest is the object itself.
In the Old Testament, God chose to reveal himself to Moses on a mountain, in tents, and then in the temple system, but he is by no means constrained by those locations, or warehouses for that matter. God created the universe, including the materials from which an ark is made. Then in the New Testament, we meet Jesus, the Word of God tabernacling with us in human form (see John 1). Then as the Holy Spirit is poured out, following the death and resurrection of Jesus, God comes to people and begins to act in and through them. The evidence of God’s power is not in spectacular acts of judgement but in spectacular acts of love, joy, peace and patience (Galatians 5:22-25, Ephesians 2:8-10). And it all begins with events that happened in real history, recorded by eyewitnesses and passed down through generations.
In the end, Indy doesn’t save the world from the Nazis. God does. Indy is smart enough to know that no-one can see God and live (Exodus 33:20). But if you really want to get a glimpse of God’s judgement, the Bible says look to Jesus on the cross. If you want to see how much God loves, the Bible says look to Jesus on the cross. For there, Jesus bears the punishment which our sins deserve. All of us. Nazi or not.
Posted in faith, movies, philosophy, religion, reviews, spirituality
Tagged archaeology, ark of the covenant, indiana jones, moses
Recent news reports confirm that Russell Crowe has been signed for Darren Aronofsky’s take on the biblical epic of Noah’s Ark, nine years after Peter Weir’s sea-faring epic Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Director Aronofsky says:
“I think it’s really timely because it’s about environmental apocalypse which is the biggest theme, for me, right now for what’s going on on this planet,” Aronofsky told SlashFilm.com in 2008. “So I think it’s got these big, big themes that connect with us. Noah was the first environmentalist. He’s a really interesting character.” (Christianity Today)
Yes, the environment was certainly a big concern of Noah – not in the way Aronofsky suggests of course, but rather when the rains would start. According to the Bible, Noah preaches repentance to escape a coming judgement, like Jonah and Jesus and Paul after him, because “the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” (Genesis 6:5)
While the movie will be an interesting addition to the biblical epic genre, I really just want to know whether the movie will show a local flood or a global flood! And how and when those pesky fossils were formed! But just as I shouldn’t expect the Noah movie to answer all of my specific questions, we should approach the study of the book of Genesis with some degree of care. Over on Theologica, Danny offers a helpful list of common assumptions we should take into account when studying Genesis. Here’s one such highlight:
It’s not about me and my questions. We expect this to be addressed to us and answer our questions and the big questions of our time. But it that wasn’t its purpose. The age of the universe and methodology of creation are key questions for us. But it isn’t giving us the answer to our questions. It’s addressing the questions and needs of someone else.
It’s not written in MY time. It isn’t in easy to understand modern English. It’s in a dead form of Hebrew. And whether that is convenient to admit or not, it isn’t as clear as we’d like with what we’d like it to say. And we don’t just have the debate over the genre and context of chapters, but debate over the narrow or broad understandings of specific words as well.
I probably don’t “land” where Danny does on all issues of creation, but the list is certainly worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the creation/evolution debate. The movie is sure to generate much more debate as the March 2014 release date approaches.
Posted in faith, movies, religion, science
Tagged age of the earth, flood, genesis, noah, russell crowe
