Movie Review: God's Not Dead

Two movies of interest for Christian viewers are being touted and critiqued these days. Rather than attend the blockbuster about the big boat that saved the animals from all the evil humans with the help of the mythical rock monsters, I took the wife to see God's Not Dead, a well-produced evangelistic film that touches on a variety of themes close to the hearts of both churched and un-churched moviegoers.

Jeff Wheaton, the protagonist of the picture, wants to major in pre-law at a prestigious college. His parents and his highly-charged girlfriend have ambitious plans for his future. But danger looms for Jeff the T-shirt wearing Christian when he enters his Intro to Philosophy class: the professor throws down the gauntlet to the entire class when he more or less requires everyone to "officially" deny God's existence by handing in a signed piece of paper with the words "God is dead." The prof does this so that by consensus the class can forego the tiresome debate about the theism question at the outset and get on with the more important parts of philosophy (whatever they are?).

Much to the teacher's chagrin (as well as that of his hot girlfriend and his ambitious parents), Jeff decides that he will refuse to follow the crowd and deny his own personal faith in God. "I can't sign that...I'm a Christian," he whispers to the prof, to which the prof replies, "Fine. Go ahead and pray and follow your Jesus on your own time. But for the purposes of this class, either sign the statement or I will make your life miserable and fail you for one third of your grade in my class" (or words to that effect).

Jeff insists that he can't sign, so the teacher challenges him to lecture the class for twenty minutes at the end of the next three class sessions concerning why he is sure God exists. As Jeff feverishly prepares his arguments and deals with the fallout of his decision with both parents and girlfriend...

Several related dramas are taking place:

1. A young woman (later revealed as the professor's former student/significant other) is desperately dealing with her dementia-stricken mother;
2. The young woman's brother (who seems too preoccupied with his career to care about their mom) is planning to marry a well-known journalist who is planning a "hit" piece on one of the Duck Dynasty family members;
3. This journalist finds out that she is dying of cancer, and the news causes her fiancé to split up with her;
4. A young middle-eastern college woman is hiding her Christian faith from her family members, and she overhears Jeff and his girlfriend arguing about his convictions and upcoming debate;
5. Another student, this one from mainland China, expresses his own interest in the reasons Jeff would not sign the statement of denial. This student's father insists that the professor's beliefs should have ended the matter.
6. A local church pastor is trying to leave on a Florida vacation with a visiting missionary from Africa, but none of the cars they are seeking to leave in are willing to start, for some mysterious reason that seems very "providential," as several of the above people keep showing up in the pastor's study for counseling help.

These various vignettes unfold along with Jeff's dilemma in the classroom, all of them challenging the people involved to confront their weaknesses and their need to trust in Christ, or at least to look for answers outside of themselves.

Each of the characters lives out a gripping scenario in his or her own right, several of them experiencing painful rejection, two of them hearing haunting messages from the past, some of them experiencing the crucible of faith's refining fire, and one of them experiencing a deathbed conversion.

Although God Isn't Dead has been critiqued and ridiculed as predictable and simplistic, I found it rewarding on several fronts. For one thing, the general mood of the academic world was, I think, realistically portrayed as knowingly dismissive of people of faith, maintaining the assumption that God is (or might just as well be) dead. Jeff's encounter with his atheistic teacher left the strong point behind that there are strong-minded Christian thinkers out there, whose viewpoints deserve consideration in an academic setting.

I appreciated the fact that the Christian world was portrayed as one that transcends nationality and culture: Middle-easterners, Chinese, Africans, etc. were included with skill and sensitivity. I also enjoyed the unifying force provided by the culminating Newsboys concert toward the end of the film. Rather than leave the band purely in the fantasy realm of pop-Christian superstars, they were integral to helping tie up several of the story's loose ends, providing much-needed spiritual support.

Finally, the gospel was, I believe, as fairly and fully presented as I have witnessed in a religious film for some time. In addition, the cost of discipleship was belabored several times, as well as the warning that we risk our Lord denying us before His Father in heaven, if we choose to deny Him here on earth.

Here is another viewpoint about the movie:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/25/gods-not-dead-producer-answers-critics-who-say-film-is-too-over-the-top/

Book Review: The Giver

The Giver, a 1993 novel by Lois Lowry, I would classify as a work of speculative fiction. It is an engrossing and beautifully written tale aimed mainly at youth and young adult readers. And yet it succeeds in touching the hearts and challenging the minds of mature readers as well.

The Giver was recommended to me (and bought for me at a Salvation Army thrift store by my sweet daughter, BTW) very highly as a story that would captivate and expand my imagination; it certainly did that. The storyline made me compare it to such films as The Island as well as books I've enjoyed such as Brave New World and That Hideous Strength. However, this book has the advantage of being exceedingly readable and inviting in its straightforward style and accessible characters.

Jonas, the hero of the tale, is a 12-year-old member of a centuries-old future society. His is a community that has been thoroughly planned and controlled for countless generations. Children are named and assigned to particular family units by the dictates of the community's ruling body. Every child is raised by his or her parents according to highly structured and enforced rules, and when each child reaches the age of 12 (adulthood), the community leaders assign him or her to the particular role in society best suited to his or her abilities. Everyone in the community seems content, healthy, well provided-for and secure. But...

Jonas, unlike any of the other 12-year-olds in his group, has been singled out for a unique and dubious "honor" of becoming the community's new Receiver of Memory. What exactly this entails and what it means for Jonas in particular, is what the book is really all about.

The old Receiver of Memory is nearing the age when he will retire--or "be released" in the book's terminology. He becomes Jonas's mentor and eventually a kind of grandfather figure who opens his eyes to realities that Jonas never imagined. Realities that society at large has, with the passage of time and its own complacency with the status quo, forgotten about entirely.

Another book that comes to mind when considering The Giver is Flowers for Algernon, which charts the journey of a man named Charley, who is given a surgical procedure that increases his mental abilities to that of a genius. Jonas's journey introduces him to new information that increases both his pleasure and his pain exponentially and, at the same time, makes him, in the reader's mind and heart, more fully human.

The Giver took me on a journey along with the main character--one that explored the contours and composition of what it means to be human. It asks serious questions about why we value the things we do, why the experiences of pleasure and pain are so important to us, the ethical implications of an overly controlled society, and many others. It forced me to ask once again "what do I really want, expect, and long for in life here on earth...and in the life to come?"

Jonas's previous life, the changes that occur to him, and the heroic choices he is forced to make at the end of his journey, involve freedom and bondage, responsibility and conscience, life and death, and a force he finally comes to reckon with...love.

Here is a link for Lois Lowry's book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Giver-Readers-Circle-Laurel-Leaf/dp/0440237688

Philosophy and Christian Thought - Part 4

From Aristotle to Augustine

Aristotle’s philosophy led him to a belief in a “god” who has been compared to the sovereign of the British nation: a “do-nothing king who reigns, but doesn’t rule.” He concluded that his god was the ultimate form of eternal matter (Remember, form and matter were both in the nature of all things to Aristotle.), and that he caused all other things to be and to do what they were and did. His god came to be known as the “unmoved mover.” He governed the universe by way of a kind of magnetic attractive force.

As false as Aristotle’s concept of god seems to Christians, it is a concept that people have come to take for granted in many systems of thought since Aristotle’s day. And even today, men and women tend to see God as an aloof, uninvolved supreme Being who doesn’t actively care for the creatures in His universe, but simply governs us by way of impersonal, mechanistic natural laws. How different this is from the testimony of the Bible, which reveals Yahweh as a God of loving providence who leaves nothing to chance, but causes all things to work out according to His eternal, divine decree.

Just as the impasse between the thinking of Heraclitus and Parmenides led to a period of skepticism that was answered by Socrates and Plato, so the disagreement between the philosophy of Plato and that of Aristotle led to a new skeptical age in the thinking of ancient Greece. A skepticism that continued into the first century with the advent of Christianity and the writing of the New Testament. Two competing schools of thought arose out of this period that are mentioned in the book of Acts: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

Both of these movements showed little interest in metaphysics (the study and consideration of what lies beyond the physical realm). The Stoics concentrated on moral philosophy, the question of what is involved in living a virtuous life. Their ultimate answer to this was to achieve what they called “imperturbability”--the ability to accept one’s fate as determined by a fatalistic universe. A peace of mind and soul that refused to be rattled or disturbed by any of the forces that are beyond one’s control. Their ultimate hero was Socrates, who accepted his fate by willingly drinking the hemlock when he was condemned to death.

The Epicureans didn’t accept the fatalistic materialism of the Stoics; rather, they saw philosophy as a path to human freedom from religious bondage. Epicurean philosophy sought more of a hedonistic goal: the enjoyment of pleasure and the rejection of pain. Not that they were crass “party animals” who engaged in orgies and the like. They realized that unbridled pleasure-seeking can lead to ultimate misery and pain. So they sought to balance pleasures of the body and the mind with the practice of moderation. Rather than “going for the gusto” and maximum pleasure, they sought a more refined path: optimum pleasure. For them, this was the good life.

These Greek ways of thinking were eventually challenged and replaced with the worldview of Christianity. The teachings of Jesus’ apostles swept over the Roman world in an amazingly short time span. By the third century A.D. Christianity was the dominant thinking of the empire. However, an Egyptian-born thinker named Plotinus came along during that century and sought to create an alternative to Christianity by reviving and improving on the philosophy of Plato. This Neoplatonism viewed God as “the One,” an ultimately unknowable Being out of which all things flow like the rays of the sun. To Plotinus, the farther from the One something had radiated, the more material it became. Again, the material world was seen as lower, less significant, detached from God, who was so high and lofty one could really know or say nothing about Him.

It was into this age of competing philosophies that God raised up possibly the greatest philosopher/theologian of all time--certainly the greatest during the first millenium since the Apostle Paul. His name was Augustine, and he lived from A.D. 354 to 430. After going through several distinct periods of philosophical change, young Augustine became a Christian. Ten years later, he was a bishop in the church and was writing brilliant works of biblical thought that have had powerful influence in the church and the world that continue to this day.

It is important to know that many of the early battles and disputes the church of Christ fought in the early centuries of its existence were won because of the depth of study in the Scriptures themselves, as well as the familiarity with the philosophies of the day by those who studied them. Augustine was well-prepared by God’s providence to become a champion and doctor of grace. And because of Augustine’s writings, future champions of the faith such as Martin Luther, John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards would be stirred with passion for the same doctrines of grace.

Part 3 of this series:
http://markaikins.blogspot.com/2014/03/philosophy-and-christian-truth-part-3.html
Part 2 of this series:
http://markaikins.blogspot.com/2014/02/philosophy-and-christian-truth-part-2.html
Part 1 of this series:
http://markaikins.blogspot.com/2014/01/early-greek-ideas-and-christian.html

A poem about Anticipation

The Spring

It means much more than waiting,

waiting for minutes and days
that seem like years and millenia.
More than weeks that weaken one with waiting,
wearing and wearying petrifying bones.
Time bombards well-bolstered buildings,
roofs rickety upon pillars of patience,
but shifting temporal Saharas--
all that grit grinding through the glass--
that isn’t all we mean.

Beneath, an Artesian ocean

ripples, sloshes, bubbles up and beckons.
Seeping up through dry-as-dust landscapes,
filling up water-table wastelands,
finding latent seeds and spores to drink it in,
the unresting reservoir brings life to dead waiting.

Celebration comes at lazy clocks’ chiming,
travelers return as soon as sojourns subside...
victims are vindicated when wheels of justice jar to a halt,
and lost pets and lost souls all reach the welcome mat.
In short...in long...interminal...waiting...
is not in vain. Not when promises can be trusted.
Not when a King of Love is on His throne.

Not when there is Hope.

MNA

3.14.14

A Hymn for Christ's Bride

(This hymn may be sung to a number of familiar tunes, such as "Abide with Me," "God of Our Fathers," and
"I Greet Thee Who My Sure Redeemer Art.")

Father above, accept the praise we bring;
Your grace and love draw forth the songs we sing!
Holy Creator, Source of all things good,
Help us to serve and worship as we should.

In reverent awe Your church is gathered in,
In humble faith, repenting of our sin,
Blessing the crucified and risen Lamb--
Jesus the King who bore our cross and shame.

His Bride, the temple of the living God,
Cleansed by Your Spirit, with our Savior's blood,
Radiant and free from any willful flaws,
We would be pure and faithful to Your cause!

Hearts, hands and voices honor You this day.
Your sovereign choice turned lost ones from their way
To trust and follow Your beloved Son--
Like Him, we pray that all Your will be done.

We trust each word Your Spirit has breathed out,
Showing Your holy will beyond all doubt;
Each sacred page brings learning, prayer and praise:
Wisdom to guide our worship and our ways.

Unite us, Lord, like You, the Three-in-One,
Sharing the love with which You loved the Son!
Through His own Body, reach a word in need;
Renew Your people, build Your church indeed!

Gladly our spirits join with saints on high,
Echoing angel songs beyond the sky:
"Blessing and honor, glory, pow'r and love
Be to our God and Christ who reigns above!"

MNA
3.9.14
Inspired by messages on the nature of the church by Pastor Jon Hueni

Philosophy and Christian Truth - Part 3

Aristotle and Christian Truth

 

When the philosophers' baton was passed on to the next generation of thinkers, it was handed off to a man who came to be known as THE Philosopher of ancient times: Plato's most gifted and influential student, Aristotle. This Greek thinker was responsible for much of what we take for granted both in theological thought and in scientific thought generally.

 

Recalling that Plato's system of thought assumed both a non-physical, "ideal" world of pure forms, and a physical, imperfect world of observable objects, this resulted in the necessity of a "two-story" kind of system, a dualistic reality. Aristotle came to question this kind of thinking, and eventually rejected it, believing in a reality that is ultimately unified. Both the forms and the matter of all the objects around us, he concluded, are real and inherent within the objects themselves.

 

When Aristotle observed the world, he gathered that if he observed a particular form, that form always had matter--a material of some kind--along with the form. And when he saw any kind of matter, that matter wasn't an amorphous blob, but it had some kind of form along with it. Form and matter always combine to make up the reality of any object--the object's substance.

 

This idea of substance is basic to his thought, along with the laws of logic, which determine how we can and cannot think and speak about various objects we observe. In other words, our knowledge of the world around us has to conform to categories of rational thought. On the basis of those categories, we are able to identify, distinguish, describe and correlate the objects we encounter in reality. The categories Aristotle considered included quantity (physical dimensions), quality (color, texture, shape), relations, place, date, posture, possession, action, and passivity.

 

The basic reality of a thing is the thing's substance. Once a thing is determined to be real--to have substance--we can begin to make statements about the thing, statements that fit into one of the nine categories. These categorical statements are used to address the observable qualities of the object. These qualities are what Aristotle called the object's accidens as opposed to its substance (that which is assumed about the object but not directly observable). An object's substance, he insisted, generates these outward qualities simply by being what it is. For him, a thing's form and matter make up its substance, which can only be described by observing its accidens.

 

When I look at a chair, I can see its form and appearance, but not the atoms or materials that lie beneath its surface. I have to assume that the chair has substance--material reality--without directly observing it, but I can make additional statements about its accidens--the chair's observable qualities such as its size, shape, color, structure, style, etc. This, in a nutshell, is the way science functions. Scientists observe reality as closely and exhaustively as possible, and seek to make categorical statements about what they observe. Then they put those discoveries to use in (hopefully) intelligent and beneficial ways.

 

It's important for Christians to remember that Aristotle didn't invent or create science or logical categories. God is the one who did that. In a way, Aristotle (as well as all other philosophers) are in the business of "thinking God's thoughts after Him." All human thinkers who use their minds to identify, discover, determine, differentiate, categorize the reality around us, are merely using their God-given powers of reason to describe His orderly, intelligently designed creation. Of course, fallen men misuse their powers of reason for evil purposes and routinely fail to use their discoveries for the glory of God. But they should be reminded that all scientific inquiry owes its possibility and its beneficial potential to the One who designed and generated all things.

 

Aristotle came to the conclusion that there had to be a god of some kind that governs the universe, but his concept of god in no way resembles the God of the Bible. Let us praise the Lord that He has revealed Himself in the Book so clearly and miraculously and savingly. We thank Him that that revelation came most clearly in the form of the God-man, Jesus Christ, the true wisdom from on high!

Part 2 of this series:
http://markaikins.blogspot.com/2014/02/philosophy-and-christian-truth-part-2.html
Part 1 of this series:
http://markaikins.blogspot.com/2014/01/early-greek-ideas-and-christian.html