Thinking Like Christians in this Financial Crisis

Did you see the numbers on the DOW JONES lately? I did--even though I really don't know what they mean other than high is good and low is bad. This morning the stock market slide even further after a week of consistent descent -- from what I hear it recovered a bit since this morning.

How should a Christian think about this "Financial Crisis"? Is it just greed? Is capitalism a system of corruption that needs to go?

I suggest you read the follow two articles by Charles Colson and Albert Mohler.

"God Is in Control of the Financial Crisis" by Charles Colson

"A Christian View of the Economic Crisis" by Albert Mohler

Saddleback, Al Mohler and the Presidency

I did not get to watch the presidential forum that took place last week at Saddleback Church in CA but I have started watching the forum by means of youtube (see below).

I found this article about the forum by Al Mohler very helpful.

I thought Rick Warren asked some good questions that relate to character and faith. Of course, both gave very political answers.

McCain made it very clear that he believes life begins at conception and Obama thinks its above his pay grade to answer that question (big time cop out).

You can watch the first clip from the forum below:

Pray at the Pump?

[HT - Lucas Pehoski]
According to the Associated Press:

ST. LOUIS - Two prayer services will be held at St. Louis gas stations to thank God for lower fuel prices
and to ask that they continue to drop. Darrell Alexander, Midwest co-chair of the Pray at the Pump movement, says prayer gatherings will be held Monday afternoon and evening at a Mobil station west of downtown St. Louis.

Participants say they plan to buy gas, pray and then sing "We Shall Overcome" with a new verse, "We'll have lower gas prices."

An activist from the Washington D.C. area, Rocky Twyman, started the effort, saying if politicians couldn't lower gas prices, it was time to ask God to intervene.

The group thinks the prayer is helping, saying prices are starting to fall below $4 a gallon.

I thought Michael Spencer had some good thoughts on this approach:

For example, one evangelical has taken his particular view of rising gas prices and started a movement called “Pray at the Pump.” Somehow, the rise of gas prices is a sign of the end times and praying at the pump for God to lower prices will apparently prove that he’s in charge.

Of course, one wonders if it ever occurred to anyone that the inconvenience to the American lifestyle of mobility and affluence isn’t really something that God would respond to as an act of mercy. Most Americans are inconvenienced by gas prices because of the value they place on mobility and the decisions they’ve made about the kind of life they want to live, decisions made with the assumption of cheap gas in the background.

So somewhere a homeless man or a family struggling to put food on the table will see a group of middle class suburban Christians gathered around a gas pump, praying that God will have mercy and get things back to where we can all go about our business.

I don’t have to spend much time asking if Jesus would join such a prayer meeting.

This is the imagination and mindset of American Christians: God is committed to our lives as we imagine them. He is committed to the gas, the SUVs, the economics, the houses, the conveniences, the investments, the stability, the politics, the military and the religion that maintain the lives we lead.

And if you question this, you risk going down a hole labelled “Fanaticism.”

Independence Day Reading (the Day After)

Here are some articles or blurbs to read as you reflect on Independence Day. The day after is when to read them because there is no time with all the parades, hot dogs, swimming, and fireworks.

Al Mohler -- AN ARGUMENT WORTH DEFENDING

Thomas Sowell -- DOES PATRIOTISM MATTER?

William Kristol -- THE CHOICE THEY MADE (HT: John McCormick)

Andrew Ferguson -- LINCOLN AND THE WILL OF GOD (HT: John McCormick)

Wall-E

Wall-E a Disney and Pixar movie is now out and I think I will go see it during my vacation. Here are two things that I read about this movie and found interesting.

Seth Godin (great blog to check out) on "Bravery and Wall-e"

and

Paul Edward's (from Townhall) "Wall-E's Indictment on Liberalism"


Here is a trailer

Food Is a Big Deal in Scripture

I like Douglas Wilson's wit and wisdom as he talks about food and a Christian perspective. It will not surprise you that he is a portly, jolly fellow.

Here is his article entitled: "MAKING THE SPOON TASTE GOOD"

I have already noted that fussers over food are driven by father hunger. Other common motivations in this cluster of food confusions include guilt, fear, acceptance of manipulative doctrines, not to mention acceptance of slanders against the goodness of God.

"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their consciences seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth" (1 Tim. 4:1-3).

Food really is a big deal in Scripture, but oddly the direction this importance takes is 180 out from what the hyper-scrupulous want to require of us. What is the bottom line in Scripture? Saying grace with a full and sincere heart sanctifies the whole smorgasbord, even if it is the kind you find under a line of heat lamps in a cheap restaurant, and even if there is enough MSG in the pans there to make your spoon taste pretty good. Those who believe and know the truth understand that God created food -- including the weird stuff -- to be received with thanksgiving.

What would a devil teach, given the opportunity? What doctrine might you expect to get from a teacher whose conscience is sporting that tell-tale Lazy R brand? Well, the first thing a devil would want to teach is a prohibition of marriage. Too much sex involved. Second on his demonic killjoy list would be a whole host of banned foodstuffs, and given the state of the Church in the West today, it is not surprising that various food fads, allergies, diets, loathings and phobias are rampaging around in our midst. Because we live in fatherless times, no one appears to care enough for these poor people to say something simple, like "God is not like that." At the bottom of a lot of this is the inability to believe that God is a good Father. Fathers provide good things.

Like I said in a previous post, there are such afflictions as lactose intolerance. But you can't catch it from your friends, and if you find that more and more of your companions are fellow lactards, then something funny is happening. And that happening has more to do with picking up false doctrine from the zeitgeist than it has to do with some odd medical coincidence.

What may we receive with thanksgiving? Over what kind of meal may we bow our heads in true and reverent gratitude? Kraft macaroni in a box. Sirloin steak off the grill. Baked potatoes. Baked Alaska. Baked beans. Baked beans from a can. Clams and oysters. Blackened catfish. Marbled beef. Honeynut Cheerios. Chocolate-covered Sugar Blams. Green salad, Caesar salad, and art salad. Quarter-pounders. Strawberries. Whole milk. Goat cheese. Cabernet-Savignon. Kool-Aid. Green jello. Food straight out of my garden. Food fresh from the factory. Skippy peanut butter. Apple jelly. Cinnamon toast. Wonder bread. Shredded Wheat. Garbonzo beans. Gouda cheese. Velveeta. Roast duck. Rye bread. Krispy Kremes. Diet Pepsi. Creamed corn. Corn on the cob, picked fifteen minutes ago, and boiled five minutes ago. Almond chicken. An Arby's regular roast beef. Oatmeal stout. Real butter. Clotted cream. Bud Lite. Cream of wheat. Cold watermelon. Oreo cookies. Green beans. Green beans with pistachio nuts in them. Soy beans. Tofu. Yes, tofu. Swallow that reductio, and the tofu. Chicago-style hot dogs. St. Louis-style pizza. Movie theater popcorn. Enchiladas. Salt and vinegar potato chips. Cookie dough ice cream. Roast beast and gravy. Glazed ham. Cheese potatoes. And apple pie.

And why? Because God is our Father. In these our postmodern times, the relativists in the Church want to mix the Apostles' Creed up with about five gallons of paint thinner. But we must learn to take the Creed thick. "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." He made it, and arranged for it to come to your plate the way it has. So bow your head over it, full of gratitude, no matter what it is. And as you do, you are learning more and more . . . what God is like.

John Piper and Guns and a Rebuttal

On Sunday Piper wrote on his blog about guns:

What do the supreme court ruling on guns and the martyrdom of missionaries have to do with each other?

Noël and I watched Beyond Gates of Splendor, the documentary version of End of the Spear, the story of the martyrdom of Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Nate Saint in Ecuador in 1956. That same day we heard that the Supreme Court decided in favor of the right of Americans to keep firearms at home for self-defense.

Here’s the connection. The missionaries had guns when they were speared to death. One of them shot the gun into the air, it appears, as he was killed, rather than shooting the natives. They had agreed to do this. The reason was simple and staggeringly Christlike:

The natives are not ready for heaven. We are.

I suspect the same could be said for almost anyone who breaks into my house. There are other reasons why I have never owned a firearm and do not have one in my house. But that reason moves me deeply. I hope you don’t use your economic stimulus check to buy a gun. Better to find some missionaries like this and support them.

Here is a Rebuttal to Piper's argument by the "Thirsty Theologian."

Here is what he has to say:

Before I begin, I want to say that I appreciate John Piper’s ministry immensely. I have listened to him preach, and, deo volente, will again. I have read some of his books, and there are a couple still on my shelf that I am eager to read. Nothing I am about to say should be taken as a slight to his character or ministry.

However . . .

Today I must strenuously disagree with John Piper. I’ve disagreed with him before, but never like this. In most other disagreements, I’ve at least had some empathy with his position. In this case, I have none; his logic is badly flawed.

If it was almost anyone else, I’d probably ignore it; but John Piper has a following of bloggers who run to their keyboards every time he moves, gasping breathlessly at the profundity of his latest twitch. So I expect to see his latest statement spread virally all over the blogosphere in this and following weeks. In fact, I’m seeing it start already, and it was only posted this morning (it’s Sunday as I write this). And, though his sentiments are noble, I think they are completely wrong-headed, and deserve a rebuttal.

I’m referring to his statement on the Desiring God blog concerning the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the 2nd Amendment was properly (though narrowly) upheld.

Dr. Piper made no statement on the court’s decision per se. His statement addressed why he would not use a gun to defend his home, and expressed his hope that no one else would, either. He used, as his example, Jim Elliot and his fellow missionaries, who chose not to defend themselves against the spears of their attackers because “The natives are not ready for heaven. We are.”

I tend to believe that those young missionaries made the right choice. However, I don’t believe their reasoning applies in the vast majority of home-defense situations. My reasons are as follows (none of them would have applied in the jungles of Ecuador):

• In the majority of instances of defensive firearms use, no shots are fired. The threat is enough to subdue or put to flight the perpetrators. Yet being confronted with a violent response increases their fear of other potential victims, most of whom “are not ready for heaven.”
• The knowledge that potential victims, most of whom “are not ready for heaven,” might be armed is a known deterrent to criminals. Violent crime is highest in unarmed cities, and is known to decrease when citizens of those cities arm themselves.
• When an assailant is shot, more is accomplished than stopping the immediate crime: his future crimes — primarily against people who “are not ready for heaven” — are prevented; and a societal atmosphere is created in which criminals are more likely to think twice before attacking.
• While you can be sure that an intruder in your home is “not ready for heaven,” neither are most of his past and future victims — and you can be sure that there are, or will be, others. Sacrificing yourself only leaves him free to move on to his next victim, who is most likely — say it with me, now — “not ready for heaven.”

Piper’s goal of saving the lives of those who “are not ready for heaven,” though noble, is misdirected. It would be better served by doing whatever is necessary to stop the violent criminals who kill them.

Postscript: That was to be the end of this post, but a couple of additional points have crossed my mind.

• I realize that John Piper’s children are all grown and it’s just he and his wife at home. But many of us have children at home, and I am not one who assumes my children are “ready for heaven” just because they say they believe in Jesus. Shall I not protect them? Shall I value the soul of a murderer above theirs?
• Can a Calvinist really believe that evil must be allowed to go unchecked because God hasn’t had a chance to save the evildoers yet? In other words, is this really a dilemma at all?

The Kindergarchy - Beware of Child-Centeredness

If you have kids or once upon a time you were a kid yourself, I would recommend reading Joseph Epstein's latest feature article in the Weekly Standard called "The Kindergarchy."

Epstein highlights the child-centeredness of our culture in comparison to how he was raised in the late 30s and 40s.

Although I do not agree with some of his conclusions or solutions, I think he highlights a dangerous attitude and sinful parental trend that has permeated our culture including Christian parents. He continually points out what he diagnoses as a over-attentiveness to children (our own children) that in the long run does more harm than good. It teaches them to think that they are significant in themselves and that they are the center of the universe.

Although Epstein conclusions and observations are not always biblically informed, and although I think he fails to acknowledge the sinful and negative tendencies and ways of his parent's generation (who raised the parents of the children of the sixties and seventies), he provides the modern day (or should I say -- "post modern") parent and former-child with a rather scary mirror and self-portrait. I encourage you to take a look and see how the culture of Kindergarchy has influenced you and your parenting.

Here is his article:

In America we are currently living in a Kindergarchy, under rule by children. People who are raising, or have recently raised, or have even been around children a fair amount in recent years will, I think, immediately sense what I have in mind. Children have gone from background to foreground figures in domestic life, with more and more attention centered on them, their upbringing, their small accomplishments, their right relationship with parents and grandparents. For the past 30 years at least, we have been lavishing vast expense and anxiety on our children in ways that are unprecedented in American and in perhaps any other national life. Such has been the weight of all this concern about children that it has exercised a subtle but pervasive tyranny of its own. This is what I call Kindergarchy: dreary, boring, sadly misguided Kindergarchy.

For the entire article, click here.

American Idol and the 2008 Presidential Election

OK, I usually mock people who watch American Idol. Almost everything about the popular Fox hit repulses me. I guess I have to admit I haven't given the show a try, but I don't care to anytime soon. However, I thought this blog from the Weekly Standard was interested and amusing as it compares the winner of the American Idol to John McCain. Sadly, by the time November comes around the campaign will have wore us all out and we will be ready for an American Idol showdown between the two front runners.

American Idol and the 2008 Election

The American Idol finale last night provided a ray of hope for the McCain campaign. How is that, you ask? Follow along with me on the most tortured political analogy of the decade. If. You. Dare!

Okay, so the Idol final pitted David Cook against David Archuleta. For non-Idol watchers, Cook is a 25-year-old (which is ancient in Idol years) semi-professional rocker who was making ends meet as a bartender. He's got a very interesting voice and a ton of stage presence. He's also in possession of some fine musicianship, with a good eye for arrangements and a taste for the sometimes off-beat.

Read the entire article here.

Consumerism and the Church

I am preparing a sermon on "Functioning as a Part of the Body of Christ" for this Sunday and I have been thinking and reading about the concept of how many in the church (including Grace Church) are consumeristic in their approach to the church. What do I mean? Many people view the church in terms of what I can get for myself from the church, be it spiritual food or good feelings about God. Many, without realizing it, ask themselves -- "what can I get for my tithe or use of a Sunday morning? This church or that church?"

Paul David Tripp writes:

I am persuaded that the church today has many more consumers than committed participants. Sure, Joe and Sheila may volunteer for a specific activity like VBS or a diaconal project, but this frequently falls woefully short of the “everyone, all the time” model of the New Testament. Our tendency toward ecclesiastical consumerism has seriously weakened the church. For most of us, church is merely an event we attend or an organization we belong to. We do not see it as a calling that shapes our entire life. (Paul David Tripp – Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands, p. XII)

I came across this article today from Leadership Magazine by Skye Jethani that you can read here.

Here are a few quotes that stood out to me:

When we approach Christianity as consumers rather than seeing it as a comprehensive way of life, an interpretive set of beliefs and values, Christianity becomes just one more brand we consume along with Gap, Apple, and Starbucks to express identity. And the demotion of Jesus Christ from Lord to label means to live as a Christian no longer carries an expectation of obedience and good works, but rather the perpetual consumption of Christian merchandise and experiences—music, books, t-shirts, conferences, and jewelry....

Approaching Christianity as a brand (rather than a worldview) explains why the majority of people who identify themselves as born-again Christians live no differently than other Americans. According to George Barna, most churchgoers have not adopted a biblical worldview, they have simply added a Jesus fish on the bumper of their unregenerate consumer identities. As Mark Riddle observes, "Conversion in the U.S. seems to mean we've exchanged some of our shopping at Wal-Mart, Blockbuster, and Borders for the Christian bookstore down the street. We've taken our lack of purchasing control to God's store, where we buy our office supplies in Jesus name."

Ultimately we shouldn't be surprised that American Christianity has succumbed to the pervasive power of consumerism. Alan Wolf, a leading sociologist and the director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, has concluded that, "In the United States culture has transformed Christ, as well as all other religions found within these shores. In every aspect of the religious life, American faith has met American culture—and American culture has triumphed."

I also would recommend the reading of this article -- "The Danger of Consumerism"

Prince Caspian -- Your Thoughts?

It has been 2 1/2 years since the first Chronicles of Narnia movie came out. It was December 9th to be exact and I didn't have to look that up, not because I am a movie fanatic but because I (and many at Grace Church) remember the night with much grief. On December 9th, 2005, the night of the release of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," Bethany and Hannah Pearson and Angie Carlson (teen in the Grace Church youth group) were involved in car accident that took the life of Hannah and severely injured the bodies of Bethany and Angie. Their recoveries are miracles of God to this day!

Today (May 16th) is the release of the second move -- "Prince Caspian." (here are the local listings of show times for this movie)

I guess that many of your will go and see this move in the next few weeks and I would like to get your thoughts and observations about the movie. Here are some suggested questions:

Did you like it? Dislike it? Why?
Do you think the movie gives an accurate portrayal of Lewis' book?
What lessons do you think it teaches us?
How does it point us to follow Jesus? Or not?
What was your favorite part?
Where did they mess up in the theatrical version?
etc.

Please write your thoughts in the "post a comment" section below. I would love to hear your observations.

Below is the trailer of the movie from Youtube.

Do Plants Have Rights?

I read this article yesterday in the Weekly Standard about the Swiss government who are looking into the protection of the "dignity" of plant life.

Wesley Smith brings up some good points that relate to the nature of man (what does the Bible say about man in relationship to beasts and plants?), there difference from animals, what defines humanity, etc. Here is the article in the link below:

"The Silent Scream of the Asparagus"

Psalms 8:3-9 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, (4) what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? (5) Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. (6) You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, (7) all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, (8) the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. (9) O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalms 104:14-15 You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth (15) and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart.

The "slightly hyperactive male adolescent" in us all

Andrew Furgeson in the Weekly Standard wrote a piece on the brand new "Newseum" that just opened this April in Washington D. C. He describes the new style of museums and I couldn't but think how that relates to how many "do church" on Sunday morning with the "primary goal of seizing and holding the attention of a slightly hyperactive male adolescent, that cheerful, vacant fellow who has just clambered down from the school bus and has detached himself from the ear buds of his iPod and is in danger of growing fidgety from the sudden lack of stimulation."
Heres is the quote:

The wow experience has now become mandatory in the design of modern museums. A museum visitor no longer just visits a museum and sees stuff: He is given a visitor experience--a sequence of sensations that can be packaged, advertised, and controlled by the curators. If the visitor experience is interactive, that's terrific; if it's immersive--well, you're going to have one wowed visitor on your hands. For the great enemy of the museum designer today is not ignorance but boredom. Like most public institutions in American life, from movies to libraries to baseball parks, museums are designed with the primary goal of seizing and holding the attention of a slightly hyperactive male adolescent, that cheerful, vacant fellow who has just clambered down from the school bus and has detached himself from the ear buds of his iPod and is in danger of growing fidgety from the sudden lack of stimulation. His discomfort must be avoided at all costs. Sometimes I picture the entire educo-entertainment industry as one of those villagers in the old horror movie Children of the Damned, utterly terrified of offending the alien children lest they turn their scary X-ray eyes on them and .  .  . poof! Displease the kids and your museum (movie, theme park, retail store, school) is a goner.

If you click here, you can read the entire article online.

Do You Watch Movies Like a 12 Year Old?

If you have not read the CREDENDA AGENDA, I highly recommend subscribing to this free cultural/theological magazine led by Douglas Wilson and gang. You can read older articles online at there website right here. If you want to subscribe to this magazine you can call them at 208-882-2034.

The following is an article I recently read from the latest issue. The title itself is provoking enough to make you read it. If you are like me, you may have to read it more than once.

How Not to Watch a Film Like a Twelve-Year-Old

By Douglas Jones

(From the Credenda Agenda – Vol. 20, Issue 1, pp. 13-18)

Don't get me wrong—some of my favorite people are twelve-year-olds. I appreciate their zeal for bike riding, their devotion to pizza., and their keen insights about fairness. I even confess to having been a twelve-year-old for a short period of time. But their taste in film can be a bit, let's say, tiresome.

Now I'm not a perfectionist. There is a time for silliness; there is a time for stupid movies. But sometimes we should want more than twelve-year-old satisfaction. Life is more. Trinitarian life is even more than that.

The problem with twelve-year olds—let's admit it—is that, well, they're a bit self-focused. No matter how good their upbringing, they're only interested in their own interests. They're not really interested in other people as people. To a twelve-year old, other people tend to be obstacles to get around. Other people supply things, provide boundaries, or give rides, but they're just tools, not ends.

The best films and plays, though, are about enjoying other people, even living through other people. You have to enjoy seeing how people overcome life's challenges in a million different ways to enjoy film.

Film aside, novels, short stories, and poetry all tend to focus on people, too. Each has its own glory, its own way of doing it. They're each trying to do what every art aims to do, namely, to capture the big story in a bit of matter in order to move human bodies. That's one way of characterizing this strange effort we call the arts. Whether music, sculpture, poetry, or painting, each aims to capture the meaning of life in a chunk of matter. Sculpture can do this in stone, music in organized pitches, poetry in the fewest black marks on a page, and painting by juxtaposing shapes of color. Plays and film capture it in bits of human action and dialogue.

And they all want to end up moving a human body to laugh, cry, rage, rejoice, or be satisfied and make an audience say, "Yes, that's it; that captures the big story of life in a surprising way."

At least, that's an answer we could give to a group visiting us from southern Neptune, if they asked why we sometimes stare at moving pictures on a big white wall or why we follow lines of black marks for pages and pages. "We forget the big picture all the time," we could say. "All is vanity and grasping for the wind." We get tied up in knots about unimportant, petty things. These stories and music and paintings remind us in bodily form that "nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor." These art projects are a ritual we use to help remind our bodies what's important—grace, mercy, truth, people, guilt, betrayal, beauty, ugliness, Christ on His throne. Worship does this most importantly, in a special revelation manner, but the arts are a ritual of natural revelation, the way God reveals Himself indirectly through icebergs, cactus, thin wings, and monkey butts.

People, People, People

For Christians, for Trinitarians, the core of our big story is personality, persons in communion, Father-Son-Holy Spirit. There is nothing more profound than Triune life, and Triune life is all about Persons in relation, Persons in loyalty and love and tension, striving and sacrificing for goals. "Not My will but Yours." For anyone, the highest or deepest part of life is the most interesting. For us, the highest and deepest is personality. People. People. People. In a Trinitarian universe people should arrest our attention far more than anything else, far more than formulas, abstractions, physical implosions, bricks through windows, and the fading of summer. People. Those other things can be fun and interesting, but they can't or shouldn't be ultimately satisfying to us. Ultimacy in a Trinitarian universe always comes back to persons in communion. Nothing should be more intriguing. Us—"things which angels desire to look into." We are films for angels. Even God Himself is intrigued with persons. "You.. .set your heart on him What is man.. .that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment?"

God and angels are intrigued with the actions and character of persons, but twelve-year olds? Not so much. They're like little Unitarians roaming the earth, concerned with just one person, focused on their own individuality and goals and power. And the truth is, it's not just twelve-year olds.

To be fair to twelve-year olds, most males of any age have very little interest in other people.

There, I said it. We're all practical Unitarians, walking about trying to get around other people. We live most of our lives like twelve-year olds, and the women around us stand about confused. Men are allegedly busy. Fiction and poetry? Plays and film? Those are for people with too much free time. Such men have no practice in studying people or interpreting human interaction. They have no practice in empathy, the key to Christian living. They disdain fiction and then wonder why their marriages fall apart, why they have no friends. Of course, some "men" go the other direction and only have TV friends and video-game comrades, for hours and hours. That's just a rival brand of unitarianism, only more pathetic.

Avoiding People

Like twelve-year olds, then, if we enjoy stories at all, we prefer plot-heavy stories, stories not so interested in character and other people (somewhat like Aristotle, that ancient Unitarian). We want spectacle and car chases. And those have their place. I love a good chase. If not plot

stories, then we like idea stories, some abstract truth forced through actors' mouths like they were robots. Not real characters. Ideas to satisfy some intellectual needs, not ideas incarnated through real people. Ideas and Spectacle. That's what we closet Unitarians like. We also like intellectual puzzles over people, hence, the detective mystery. Of course, there's a place for mysteries, but they tend just to be a cheat. They seem to be confessions that the writer couldn't show anything interesting about people so we get diverted to solve some murder puzzle. You could get the same entertainment if you omitted just about every person in the story. People tend to be obstacles in these sorts of stories. An audience could just as easily sort through the courtroom evidence for fun, without the artifice of the story slowly sneaking us bits of evidence. But TV is full of these intellectual puzzle shows—courtrooms, hospitals, crime scenes, and

_ more, because it's easier to make puzzles than reveal ( character. I'd rather read a book on logic puzzles or watch NBC Dateline than pretend we have a real story at work. Detective mysteries surely have their place in the hall of entertainment, but these shouldn't be deeply satisfying for us (a few do interesting character work). But overall, they're not really about people. Plots. Spectacles. Puzzles.

Films and stories, however, are rituals at heart. They follow a specific pattern, a nice liturgy. And if a liturgy over and over avoids people for plots-only and ideas and puzzles, then we're not truly enjoying a Trinitarian universe. For us, personality in action is the center of life. "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others."

Stuck in Pleasure

A twelve-year-old vision of film not only minimizes other people, it also stays in one place, demanding its personal pleasures be satisfied. The twelve-year old wants to be given happiness, wants excitement that pleases. And that's fine for a twelve-year old. It's understandable. I might be a bit weirded-out if they wanted anything else. But in an adult, just demanding pleasure from an artwork seems odd. Life isn't like that. Art that just gives pleasure lies about a Trinitarian universe. In an adult, this sounds a bit like Paul's warning against itching ears. We listen only to

what satisfies our easy desires. We don't want painful truth. Solomon saw beyond this sort of pleasure obsession.

"Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting—sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better." Pleasure doesn't teach as well as sorrow. Mourning somehow shows us the deeper things. Setting aside pleasure viewing can open the bigger story for us. Again, that doesn't mean we should only watch grim tragedies. There's a time to laugh. But we'll certainly miss the deeper satisfactions of life if we live only

for our pleasure, if we choose films and plays and novels that only please us, if we watch films that only give us what we want. We should learn to see the glory in other people's interests. Men should see the glory in women's films, and women in men's.

To put it differently, entering a good story is primarily about learning to love some ugly person. That's the gospel isn't it? "Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." God shows His love by loving the ungodly. The ungodly. The unlovable. Those full of sin. Those we don't really want to look at. Well-made character films offer us this angle. The story starts with someone with a huge flaw, some crazy obsession, some debilitating sin. We don't like them. We wouldn't want them as a friend. If we knew them in our day-to-day lives, we'd probably not go near them. A good film shows us how to love the unlovely, how to want to side with the ungodly. In short, insightful character films can try to show us people the way God might see them.

Admittedly, those are very strange words. We don't pick a film for those reasons. Christians generally want to see nice people doing nice things with pretty clothes. There's a place for that. But it can't deeply satisfy. We should also be able to say, let's get a film that persuades us to like some •wretch of a human. That's what most stories aim to do. Now, I'm not saying that we should

call evil, good and good, evil. Plenty of films sin in that way. They want us to sympathize with an unrepentant adulterer or cheer for an unrepentant assassin. I'm not advocating that. We should be able to do what the gospel does, though: love a gross sinner on the road to change. That's hard enough. Love covers a multitude of sins. A film can exercise us to weigh people more subtly, the way Christ Himself does. Films can also reveal the hidden pettinesses that drag us all down. Some stories don't invite us to love a sinner but instead to understand how they destroy themselves. Christians have to understand many paths of sinners. But it's not all about fulfilling my personal interests and pleasures.

The apostle Paul provides the necessary frame for this sort of film watching, this sort of appreciation of people:

And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My

strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly

I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ

may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities,

in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for

Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Good character films "take pleasure" in "infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake." That's what we need to look for in a film if we're not stuck at age twelve. Films are natural revelation sermons via human action, with little or no narrator, just

like the life of faith.

Triune Personality and Style

But we still have to judge righteously, as Christ says. Even if we're interested in people because of the Trinity, even if we love sinners as God does, we have only taken baby steps. If the arts capture the big picture in matter, then, of course, persons and personality will be central in a Trinitarian world. But it doesn't stop there. The Triune Persons are not generic, they're not just any old bland personalities. Father, Son, and Spirit reveal a unique style. And it's this unique style we need to find incarnated in any work of art if we're to be deeply satisfied. But that takes care and discernment—not something twelve-year olds care much about.

And yet discerning Trinitarian style is an easy yoke, too. It's what life is all about. We're surrounded in Trinitarian style. Think of style as that personal fingerprint that distinguishes

one person from every other person, one artist from every other artist. It's what makes Bach always sound different from Vivaldi and Handel. It distinguishes Tolstoy from Dostoevsky, Hemingway from Faulkner. You from everyone around you. And the Father, Son, and Spirit from Zeus, Nammu, Baal, Allah, Karma, Natural Law, and the American Civic god. It's that uniqueness of Trinitarian style we want to see captured in a story. Christians are sometimes satisfied just to find some hint of sacrifice and redemption in a story, or even some specific symbolism of the cross. That's nice but very superficial. Symbolism-hunting can be a cheap way to avoid persons again. From the writer's side, inserting symbolism is pretty easy and not always very profound.

Spotting Trinitarian style is much more satisfying. We learn Trinitarian style from Scripture and natural revelation. In Scripture, we find Triune glory, Triune uniqueness in expressions like we saw above: "My strength is made perfect in weakness." You can spend a lifetime figuring that one out and trying to trace its permutations. It's rich, and some stories show it while some deny it. Those that show it image the Trinity better. Or similarly, we find Triune style in biblical phrases like, "how long will you love simplicity?" "He who sits in the heavens shall laugh," "Go eat your bread with joy," "I have seen servants on horses," "money answers everything," "childhood and youth are vanity," "Do not be overly righteous," "the first shall be last," "this is My body," "you

are not under law but under grace," "from glory to glory," "God deprived the ostrich of wisdom," "have you clothed the horse's neck with thunder?" "He is not ashamed to call them brethren," "behold I make all things new," and many more riches.

Natural revelation reveals Triune style more indirectly. We see a gray mountain or an ocean or the interior of a plant, and they don't come with labels. They don't have big banners pasted on them that say "The persons who made this are majestic and surprising." No. We have to infer that from God's works of arts. We have to infer divine style via the hints and indirectness of nature. Natural revelation shows us that Triune style overflows, wastes, and loves detail. Some of God's best handiwork is hidden in ocean depths we'll never see. God reveals His comic style in walruses and orangutans, his ugly style in hyenas and eels, his elegant style in hawks and horses. "Can you hunt prey for the lion? Or satisfy the appetite of young lions Who provides food for the raven?" Triune style loves and shouts out to us through all these. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech." Speech, and yet it doesn't speak like special revelation. Pines and palms speak without words, without labels. We have to work to understand Triune personality. We have to infer and interpret and conclude. We don't get a narrator explaining most of God's revelation. Just hints, and we're expected to gird up our imaginations.

But we do know that He is the epitome of interesting personality. In fact, we might define interesting as the Trinity, because reading off Triune life from nature we have to conclude that

Father, Son, and Spirit are surprising, unique, tense, paradoxical, unified, different, communal, precise, hilarious, frightening, and "ugly." And it's the (somehow) simultaneous combination of all of these that captures Christian divine style. That's what we look for in ourselves, in others, and in films. That is the image of God in man.

Notice also that pursuing Trinitarian personality reveals other cheap moves in contemporary cinema. It not only reveals the thinness of mere spectacle, easy plots, and intellectual puzzle

movies; Trinitarian style reveals that public, explicit nudity in a film is really an imaginative failure. We should see explicit sexuality as a filmmaker's confession of story botch. For some reason, the filmmaker/writer can't convince us with character, so he or she just gives up and shows us someone's private parts to fill the personality gap. They can't convince our imaginations, so they make up for it by appealing to our loins. The art has failed, so fill in with drugs and a pacifier.

Obviously, then, most stories can never achieve Trinitarian heights. Most stories, especially secular stories, are satisfied to be one-dimensional. But the search for profound and satisfying

character stories is part of the fun. It shouldn't be so hard to capture Trinitarian style, but it is. Does the film show us interesting (i.e., Trinitarian-style) people? Does it reveal them in a Trinitarian universe overcoming ugliness and flaws, rising and transforming through the vanity of life?

Triune vs. Mardukian Style

Films naturally focus on action, people striving and reaching goals through doing things. Triune personality reveals itself primarily through action, too: "Remember His marvelous works which He has done, His wonders . . . He sent darkness . . .He gave them hail for rain. . . .He struck their vines also, and their fig trees . . . He opened the rock, and water gushed out. . . He brought out His people with joy." "God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit. . . Received up in glory."

But action works in different ways in different theologies. Not all action expresses a Christian universe. Some action shows us the dark heart of other gods. Watching a film like a Trinitarian means delighting in a Triune way of acting and overcoming. Some films overcome in Triune ways and some don't. What's the difference?

Twelve-year-olds are particularly drawn to Mardukian action and solutions. What is that? Well, sons, especially, tend to believe that almost every problem can be solved by beating and wrestling; they're thick enough to think that domination actually works, especially over younger

brothers. They live in a Mardukian universe. Consider the story of the Babylonian god, Marduk. In one telling of the Babylonian creation account, Enuma Elis, we find Father and Mother gods, Apsu and Tiamat, parenting lesser gods, but they are unruly kids with plenty of infighting. Dad

plans to kill some of his children and grandchildren, and this doesn't go over well with the kids, so Dad ends up dead in return. After more infighting, the kids are at odds with Mom Tiamat, too. The lesser gods, the kids, finally select Marduk, a great grandchild and mighty god, to take on Mom, the goddess of salt water. And it's through this battle that we get the creation of the earth: "After subduing the rest of [Tiamat's] host, he [Marduk] took his club and split Tiamat's water-laden body in half like a clam shell. Half he put in the sky and made the heavens, and he posted guards there to make sure that Tiamat's salt waters could not escape. Across the heavens he made stations inthe stars for the gods, and he made the moon and set it forth on its schedule across the heavens. From the other half of Tiamat's body he made the land, which he placed over Apsu's fresh waters, which now arise in wells and springs. From her eyes he made flow the Tigris and Euphrates. Across this land he made the grains and herbs, the pastures and fields, the rains and the seeds, the cows and ewes, and the forests and the orchards." In short, Marduk cuts up his greatish grandmother in an act of war violence and uses her torn body to create the earth. A bit grim, to say the least.

What we get, though, is a cosmos where violence is natural, a universe interwoven with acts of bloodshed. Violence permeates the created order. Violence frames reality. Violence is the norm.

In that sort of Babylonian universe, it's no surprise then that violence is a good solution to problems. If violence is built into creation, then we naturally use violence to return things to normal. We overcome obstacles and resolve antagonisms by conforming to the natural law of violence... if Mardukianism is true.

Most action films are Mardukian rituals - Alien, Star Wars, The Matrix, Gladiator, Terminators, James Bonds, The Incredibles, Braveheart (ooh, ouch), Die Hards, Kill Bills. In such films, we

usually have a protagonist at odds with some flat, wholly evil villain. The protagonist gets smacked around at first and fails at several attempts to overcome the evil one, but in the end the protagonist fulfills Babylonian ritual by overcoming the enemy by acts of greater violence. The

protagonist generally gets the girl. Everyone is happy. The world resolves itself in high Babylonian style. Twelve-year olds express their glee. Christians clap and note the faint gospel symbolism in the final act.

How did this happen? How have Christians become so easily satisfied by a Babylonian universe? Our creation account certainly doesn't frame the universe in violence. Before and after creation, God is love—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in harmony, in loyalty, with no infighting or conspiracies.

From this Sabbath, God speaks the created order into existence. It is an act of love, of overflowing grace. Creation is an artwork. God judges it to be very good. It is not an act of violence or derived from violence. Violence there is unnatural, contrary to divine life. Problems are not successfully resolved by violence. Violence works contrary to Trinitarian life; it is alien to the relations of Father, Son, and Spirit. They live and move in grace; they are grace.

In a Trinitarian world, violence doesn't truly resolve things. In a Trinitarian world, violence doesn't truly resolve things. Even in Old Covenant immaturity (Gal. 3:24) where violence seems to have a larger place than in the New, we find the Lord repeatedly denouncing violence: "The Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates" (Ps. 11:5); "Wisdom is better than weapons of war" (Eccl. 9:18). "Violence covers them like a garment" (Ps. 73:6). "The mouth of the righteous is a well of life, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked" (Prov. 10:11). "But God said to me [David], 'You shall not build a house for My name, because you have been a man of war and have shed blood'" (1 Chron. 28:3).

Then, of course, when redemptive history rises into its maturity, Christ presents a new world where violence loses its glamour. It's interesting that we find the greater presumption against violence at that point in history where the Son and the Spirit reveal themselves in the fullness of Trinitarian life. '"My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight'" (John 18:36). "But I tell you not to resist an evil person" (Matt. 5:39). "He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword" (Matt. 26:52). "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you" (Matt. 20:25). "Do not return evil for evil" (Rom. 12:17; 1 Pet. 3:9; 1 Thess. 5:15). "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty" (2 Cor. 10:3-4).

That's life in a Trinitarian universe. The greater the revelation of Trinitarian life, the further we move from violence. That's not pacifism, since pacifism is absolutistic and has no sense of development. In a very important sense, God is the king of violence, and He reserves violence for Himself, largely forbidding it to the people of His new kingdom (Rom. 12:19).

In short, we don't live in a Mardukian cosmos and shouldn't be satisfied by Mardukian solutions. Again, no perfectionism. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy a Bruce Willis movie. I can and do. But I can't find them deeply satisfying. I enjoy them at a distance, watching like a twelve-year-old. I can enjoy them like God enjoyed King David. David is a man after God's own heart, and we can see some good in his violence, but in the end God doesn't let him build the Temple. I can enjoy

Babylonian films because they don't threaten the gospel; Christ has triumphed over His enemies. I can enjoy Mardukian resolutions they way I might enjoy Homer—at arm's length. They are not the story of rny people, the Church, but I can see how those alien stories sometimes work well.

Again, they are no threat to Christ since they're conquered. Babylonianism is just quaint now, not deep, not satisfying. Violent solutions don't really work or last in a Trinitarian universe. We get a great picture of this in Tolkien's work, a work rich in character. There, violence plays a part, but in the end, violence is failing and the good are being overwhelmed in their desperate attempt at violence. What really counts is the triumph of divine weakness. Violence distracts the enemy

from the mountain, where a hobbit finally drops the ring into the mountain furnace. That's how a Christian universe operates. "My strength is made perfect in weakness."

To really enjoy the best films/plays, you have to be fascinated with people, fascinated with human life, how communities of persons work and fail, how we conflict and reconcile, how we're unique and the same, how we change, mature, and grow. Twelve-year-olds have to grow into that.

Now, of course, I've reflected on what it takes to appreciate and identify a good film, and I've done it in a priori fashion, without examining any positive recommendations. Life is mean like that sometimes. I have plenty of wonderful character films I'd like to recommend and that would be easy (certainly Jhe Queen [2006], The Dresser [1983], A Soldier's Story [1984] rank very high), but I'm afraid that feels a bit like cheating. It seems too direct and flat. Rather un-Trinitarian. I'd rather wave and wish you well on your own film journey. And don't forget, sometimes, to just watch films like a twelve-year old.