Why I Changed The Title

This blog used to be called “TRUTH – Christ To A Post-Christian Culture (v. 3.0)”  Even before that, it was called “Seeking the Truth”.  I recently (in case you’re a new visitor or someone who spent hours wondering why the title had changed) re-titled it so it’s become “Christ To A Post-Christian Culture – Shifting Paradigms”  Because I’m casting about desperately for content since the ill-conceived H. Jackson Brown fiasco, I decided to spend this post on the very inane ‘why I changed the title’ subject.

A very pessimistic young man once wrote in his journal ‘life is change’.  In the years since I wrote it I’ve come to some pretty startling understandings about what it actually means, understandings which I hope that I can redeem from the culture that produced them and that you can receive as valid and worthwhile.

First – it qualifies nothing.  Yes, life is change, and when I was thinking about it I was also reading Dan Simmons’ Endymion, and his messiah for the human race condensed her message to two words – choose again, which probably influenced my thinking at the time.  I wanted to be concise in my understanding of the world. but that conciseness has been at the expense of a number of other things.  So to simply say ‘life is change’ is simply saying that things need not affect you, nor need you take them as formative or destructive. This opens the doors to some very strange understandings.

Second – It alleviates one from the responsibility to try and effect change, because it nullifies causality, distancing oneself from it.  Change happens, but what do you do about it?  How is it started?  Is it for the good or for the bad?

Lately, this belief has been coming back to haunt me.  But I’m going to use it for good, now.  Because life is change is also a very concise message of optimism.  You’re never anywhere, or in anything for long, and that can be very liberating.  I think of Tristran Thorne in Stardust, whose statement “I”m not a shopboy” is the rallying cry for taking the steps you need to take in order to effect that change.  And to truly believe that life is change is to truly believe that the condition in which we find ourselves is not a permanent one.

And that brings me ’round to why I changed the title.  “Paradigm’ means two things.  First, a paradigm is an example that serves as a model or standard by which to measure.  Secondly, it means a set of assumptions, concepts, values and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality.  These are very limited Wiktionary definitions, but their essence is important.  I’ve given this blog the title “Christ to a Post Christian Culture – Shifting Paradigms” for two main reasons.  First, it intimates that the message of Christ necessitates radical change.  The assumptions by which we govern the world must be altered to have as their foundation the call to take up our cross daily, to come from labour and heavy drudgery and receive rest.  The call to deny mother and father so that we might be counted worthy of Him, to count everything as loss that we might gain Christ.  Yes, even the call to suffer and rejoice that we have been counted worthy to do so in his name.  The call to do greater works than these.  The call to go out in the world and make disciples of all men.  We must demand of ourselves adherence to the new standard of Christ, by which we must measure all things.

Second, the understanding of shifting paradigms that I hold is that life is change for this reason – we are always in motion, at the physical, at the molecular, and at the spiritual levels.  We are always in the movement of sanctification, we are always changing.  But the object of that change must be Christ-likeness, and the fitting for the glory for which we hope.  Thus to bring Christ to a post-Christian culture means that we must be so different as to be intolerable to a world that already tolerates so much.  That we must be party to collapsing worldviews (even our own) and be there to preserve the hearts and minds of those who emerge afterwards.  And finally, to bring Christ to a post-Christian culture means that we need to understand that everyone else is always moving, too.  Or at least, always being moved.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Facebook Flipside – What You Consider Valuable.

I can’t really leave Facebook alone just yet, because you need to consider what it does to relationships outside of the computer screen and keyboard.  Sure, you can send Muppets or throw sheep.  But what happens when this becomes the only form of contact you have with people?  In my experience, it leads to a terrible isolation.  When you publish your status for others to read, it’s writing down how you feel, or something quirky, or inviting questions.  But how does that make up for time spent with friends?  How does that make up for going out for a coffee or some lunch and really taking the time to talk?

The direction that we’re taking is a dangerous one.  I can’t help but think of the desperate need for something to unify us that Facebook pretends to fill.  I can’t help but think of what it means when we no longer know how to interact with one another outside of, for example, playing meaningless games or ‘poking’.  I could go on a very long time about the nature of translating physical realities into digital languages.  Or about shorthand emotions, which eventually lead to us cutting off any wide-ranging passions.  In fact, I probably will go on a bit about that one soon.

The question really is, then…what kind of time do you consider valuable, and is it a correct assumption?

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

The Facebook Phenomenon

I was just thinking today about the meteoric rise of Facebook.  It seems to have literally come out of nowhere, and now dominates the lives of millions of people.  Games and apps seem to come out on a daily basis, and they range from the silly to the sublime.  For example, who wouldn’t want to send Muppets to people?  I mean, c’mon folks.  They’re fuzzy, they’re cool, they’re trendy.  They’re a North American icon.  Who do you know, for example, who hasn’t heard of Kermit the Frog?  Or how about throwing a sheep?  I’m good with that!  What really makes Facebook successful, however, is that it builds a different type of community.  It replaces quality time with feeds.  Bite-sized pieces of life.  And in a world that seems to really be looking for some sort of connection, something to bring us closer together, Facebook gives at least the semblance of fellowship to a content-driven society.

The thing with Facebook, however, is that you can reach such a wide number of people in such a short time.  Your profile updates with your status, links posted, what people have written you or what you have responded to them with.  It gives you a news reader for the personal lives of your friends.  But it also gives you a witnessing tool, if used effectively.  Not necessarily overhanded, swingeing statements about your beliefs, but something a little bit more subtle.  For example, I have a lot of friends who’ve taken to using a Bible verse-a-day application.  It’s not anything wild, just a little box that publishes, generally out of context (unfortunately) a Bible passage a day.  What’s really important to remember about this, however, is that it gets something of the word of the Lord out there.  Facebook friends are of all sorts, and if you can’t always spend time in fellowship with them, you can at least be a form of witness through simple tools such as this.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Making Magic Matter – The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Although the movie is a few years old, I said that I’d be doing a review of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe for this week’s entry, as Prince Caspian is slated to open in a little over two weeks. Regrettably, I wasn’t able to complete it Friday due to a number of circumstances, but here it is, now two days late.

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A few years down the road from the theatrical release of Walden Media’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, we’ve seen the release of a four disc extended edition – I haven’t seen it yet, but I’d like to compare at some point – and the long awaited production of Prince Caspian, set for release on May 16. I thought I’d take the opportunity to revisit Narnia on film, and look at some of the important points of the first installment of The Chonicles of Narnia.

The Chronicles of Narnia : The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe follows the four Pevensie children, Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Peter (William Moseley) from London after the Blitz to the country estate of Professor Digory Kirke (Jim Broadbent). Playing a game of hide and seek, Lucy stumbles on a wardrobe that opens to the magical land of Narnia. There she meets a faun, Mr. Tumnus (James AcAvoy) and sets in motion a chain of events that promises the fulfillment of a prophecy long present in the land, that two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve will come from a far land and sit in the four empty thornes of Cair Paravel, there to rule Narnia. Determined to stop the prophecy from being fulfilled, Jadis, The White Witch (Tilda Swinton) seeks to capture or kill the children at all costs and ensure her continued dominion of the land.

Arguably the most competently organized and faithfully representative allegory of Christianity aside from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, C.S. Lewis’ children’s story has been given due treatment on the screen by Walden Media and Walt Disney Pictures. While the movie does not enter as deeply in to the Christian story as Lewis’ book does, the key elements and the visual representations of those elements are there. The CG elements of the film – and there are many – do a surprisingly good job of visually focusing one’s attention on important points and subtly cuing audience reception of the message. One of the most prominent examples of visual storytelling here is actually the knighting of Peter Pevensie by Aslan the lion, the rightful ruler of Narnia,  as the film builds to its climactic battle scenes.  It struck me in theatres and strikes me again every time I watch the film.  Here, Aslan is surrounded by a bright golden light, highlighting his colouring and the obvious weight of import that this scene holds.

One other scene to point out is the expertly-filmed self-sacrifice of Aslan at the Stone Table.  This scene succeeds as few others have in visually and aurally representing the cruelty of evil when faced with the humility of good.  The scene evokes, no matter what religious affiliation, a sense of evil exalting in the defeat of good.  We have been carried along a rising tide of emotional response to the film, and this scene succeeds in bringing its audience in to the film as few others do, allowing its audience to truly identify with the story being played out on the screen.

In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the performance of the children is everything.  For Director Andrew Adamson, it was important to show the audience the wonder of a child in finding a magic world in a wardrobe.  Lucy Pevensie was his vehicle for doing this, and the innocence and excitement of her first trip into Narnia is captured extremely well in the film by Georgie Henley.  Edmund, the traitor, is well-played by Skandar Keynes, but his performance is lacklustre in a few places.  William Moseley’s Peter is well-played as the reluctant leader transformed, and the logical, reasoning Susan is apparent in Anna Popplewell’s rather stiff performance.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, releasing on the heels of the Lord of the Rings trilogy as it did, capitalized on the resurgence of the fantasy epic genre but stands on its own as a lovingly translated form of Lewis’ singular story.  Watching it now in preparation for Prince Caspian, the magic and the meaning of the story is completely renewed for me.  I look forward to Prince Caspian with the eager expectation of Lucy, wanting the fantastic to again make a memorable appearance.

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Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

New Tribes

When you think about it, all of our vaunted civilization is really just a series of tribal definitions. Looking at the face of any major city, you’ll find neighbourhoods. The Chinatowns, the Bronxes, the Heights crowd, the Hills. In Newfoundland, the baymen. Cities are collections of men and women who have identifying characteristics and tribal costumes. Whole societies have sprung up around cultural events and codes of behaviour. You’ve got your drinking buddies, your classmates, your elders, your professionals; Each one has things which identify them. Being a Christian, however, means that you stand outside tribes in one sense, in the thick of one in another. Part of the reason I believe that there’s such a communication gap between generations, especially, but even between people, is that we don’t understand that the tribal mentality still rules. We have to be aware of traditions, of ceremonies and taboos in order to bring Jesus to those who need him without transgressing the soul of a people and in order to redeem what the Lord has placed in our path for His glory. But more importantly, we need to be aware that the intent is not to impose as a command from ‘us’ to ‘you’ that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; Rather, it is to hold on to the hope that that statement gives us, living in the assurance of that hope. I think I’ll do one more on new tribes a little bit later on.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

What’s Our Inspiration? – Nim’s Island

Welcome to the first of my biweekly movie reviews. I hope, as I’ve mentioned before, to take a Christian perspective on movies playing in the theater or from my own collection once every two weeks. After all, the way a culture chooses to represent itself speaks volumes about the spirituality of that culture. And movies are probably one of the most widely-distributed forms of representation in this culture at least. So, without further ado, Nim’s Island:

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The tagline for Nim’s Island, recently released in theatres, is “Be the hero of your own story.” In one way, that frightens me as a Christian. But the movie has a number of redemptive points that make it worth the watch, despite the celebration of the triumphant self that defines it.

Walden Media seems to be gearing itself towards the production of movies that work on a few levels. If you head over to their webpage, you’ll see that their mission is to make films that are both educational and entertaining, films that will recapture imagination and rekindle curiosity, as their tags suggest. It’s a good mission to have when you’re trying to position yourself as a major player in the market, and I’m going to comment on their success a little later on. So Nim’s Island is almost mandated to provide some food for thought in its presentation. This it does quite well, both from a secular and from a Christian perspective.

The movie tells the story of eleven-year-old Nim (Abigail Breslin), who lives with her father, a marine biologist named Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler and we’ll say thankya Daniel Defoe for the name) in a little slice of South Pacific paradise, a remote island. They receive monthly supply orders from the mainland, and in those supply orders are often included novels about the great Alex Rover (also played by Butler), adventurer extraordinaire. Nim’s imagination takes her alongside Rover as he battles wild hordes on jungle islands, is captured by evil Arabs (no political commentary there, whatsoever) and faces (dum, dum, dum) certain death every time. But when her father is lost while out in a storm, Nim has no choice but to become the hero in her own story. What really kicks the message home is the parallel story of Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), the agoraphobic novelist who has created Alex Rover as an alter-ego through whom she may live vicariously. While doing research for her latest novel, Alexandra manages to get in contact with Nim and begins an adventure that will put to shame anything she’s written about Alex.

Foster brings a genuine charm to the screen in Alexandra Rover, and her return to humour is well-played. She has just the right sense of where things need to go to bring the laughs out, and takes us there every time. Gerard Butler brings a rugged Scots good-naturedness to Alex Rover, and the interplay between Foster and Butler in some scenes is priceless. Breslin’s Nim is every bit as innocent and joyous as she needs to be, whether she’s launching lizards from catapults to drive away marauding vacationers or huddling beside her sea lion friend in the midst of a storm. And it’s this innocence that we really need to pay attention to in order to see where we might find the imprint of Christ in this.

It says in Matthew 19:13-15

“Then children were brought to him [Jesus] that he might lay his hands on them and pray. the disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away.

In Mark 10:13-16, this is added to:

“And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them
, “let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.”

Spoiler alert!!!

In both places we’re directed towards the reality and the necessity of ‘faith like a child’ in the face of our hero Jesus Christ, and in Nim’s Island we find the same necessity of having faith like a child in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. We need to be willing to suspend our disbelief at some of the events (Fred’s drum playing, for instance) in order to enter into the experience of the story we’re following. The same holds true in the Christian life.  The prayer ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief’ is every bit as necessary to the Christian in their day to day walk as ‘I’m the hero of my own story” is to Alex Rover when he’s sitting blindfolded on a camel being led away to the Pit of Spiders.  And in a few crucial scenes, it’s the innocence and optimism of childhood that wins out, that beats the odds and accepts the help of something far greater.  Look for intimations of the Lord “God [who] thunders wondrously with his voice; [who] does great things that we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5) as the vacationers are driven away from the island in one of the film’s pivotal moments.  Cheer for Alexandra’s triumphant victory in grabbing the doorknob and opening the door to a grand adventure.  But remember in all of it to recognize that Alexandra begins to overcome her fears and go to Nim because she feels responsible for her, and because she’s a lonely and frightened little girl.  And that’s the same thing God did for us in Christ.

I’ll just close by mentioning a bit about Walden.  These are the guys that did The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, the subject of my next review (preparation for Prince Caspian on May 15) and Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.  They’re in a position to provide some quality entertainment to families and have prepared themselves to support their movies with class discussions and educational materials.  I say they’re someone to watch as the next generation of films takes shape.  Furthermore, that they’re someone to pay attention to for discussing how the Lord can function in filmed entertainment without being too ‘preachy’.  But that’s for the next time.

Instants of Culture

In thinking about what I enjoy seeing in the movies these days as opposed to what I used to look for, I’m pretty amazed at where I’m headed.  I have a few friends who won’t watch any movies that have even a hint of swearing, sexuality or ‘worldliness’ in them, and it strikes me that they may have a point.  Hardlining like that can be limiting, but in another way it really helps others to see that there’s something different in the lives of these people.  Now, I’m not going to agree with them on this particular point of their faith, because I believe that intentionally blinding ourselves to what the world does with the sins of the flesh – the exaltation of immorality, for example, and the religion of self – is wrong.  By grace we have been removed from these, to live in them no longer.

Getting back to my original point, however, I say that I’m amazed at where I’m headed because I’m heading towards movies that engage and challenge the soul rather than the mind exclusively.  I still do, and will always enjoy the movies that plumb the nature of existence, examine perception and reality, and point to something outside of themselves – I am a child of the Matrix generation.  But I’ve started to look at movies as objects and products of the culture from which they emerge, preserving instants of cultural definition in a timeless suspension.  And I’ve started to see what frightening things that culture holds for those outside of Christ.  That’s why I want to start pulling these things out for you as I see them.

Enough heavy for a little while now, I think.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

God [,] No

I’m going to stick it to the language tonight, mates! A bit of a departure from A World Apart, but I felt I had to make it. Don’t worry too much about the conceits that I display here…I hope I’m allowed a little indulgence once in a while.

I hear it all the time, mostly from my non-Christian friends…’God no’. An innocuous little phrase that springs up at the oddest of times, usually adding emphasis to a denial or an emphatic focus to a selling point. In plain English, the phrase “God no” serves infrequently but always plainly as a way of adding weight to a point. So this naturally leads me to think about what people are really saying when they use the phrase ‘God no’.

As I hear it, ‘God no’ is not usually heavy on theological content, but its inclusion in the language as an emphatic adjective leads me to wonder about its use. People are obviously trying really hard to stress either the incorrect assumptions of a statement or, in a twisted sense, affirming that an assumption is false and providing access to a true one. Either way, the phrase is meant to add a thrust of meaning to a statement that would otherwise not be present. What I want to get you thinking about is the reason that people have for saying things in that way…to emphasize a claim, which, to my mind, suggests a true awareness of the emphasis required to weight any claim as true, to make it a truth claim.

That’s a dense and repetitive way of saying one thing. The phrase ‘God no’ suggests a weight of conviction that many feel they need in order to make their claim effective. So why use the name of God, and what might we really be saying in the use of such phrasing?

I think that the phrase ‘God no’ in its use as an emphasis leads to only one conclusion…that people feel that God emphasizes truth, even though they may not know it. And furthermore, because I want to make the argument, the phrase is useful in both of its meanings to speak to the truth of the condition we find ourselves in as we take or leave Christ. ‘God no’ – an emphatic denial of a claim, a shamelessly self-absorbed assessment of our own condition, but also a fervent affirmation of our sinfulness and an incredible testimony to the weight of redemption. Let me leave you with an example of each:

‘God no’ – As God as my witness, there’s no way that that shirt will shrink.

‘God no’ – God, I really don’t feel like giving you permission to enter my life. I really don’t feel like you need to be my Lord. I like it just the way it is. No responsibility, no claims to truth and falsehood, just me. No, God.

‘God no’ – God, how is it possible that You have done so much for one so wretched? God, how is it that you could send your Son as an atoning sacrifice? God, I can’t believe that you did that!

Think hard about what you’re saying next time you call on God to give weight to your denial.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

A World Apart – Justification

I promised last time that I would spend a post each on justification and salvation. This is the first of those two posts, and I’ll try and give it some qualification for the post-Christian mind.

Justification is essentially the gift of freedom, offered by Christ in His death and resurrection. It is not automatic in the life of every human being, and must be accepted in the heart – which is itself a tricky understanding – in order to have any effect. That freedom is not an immoral one, and it is an effective one. If you are in Christ, as the Bible declares in Galatians 5, you are free. Specifically, the verse declares “For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1). The freedom we possess in Christ’s justification is not one that we can live under without acting in it. Worldly understandings of freedom are very different from the Christian understanding of the same word, and I would suggest that they are incredibly shortsighted. Freedom to non-Christians is often through wealth, power, celebrity, or rebellion, and seldom leads to any lasting changes in the lives of those who embrace it. You can certainly call me out on such a statement, but from what I have seen, freedom in the sense of the world is merely a different set of slaver’s chains. Interest rates on credit cards, for example, penalize the freedom of lent cash. Partying, sexual promiscuity – these enslave the mind and the body by destroying recollections, ending lives, imprisoning anger and dissatisfaction in a web of light, sound, emotion and oblivion. The natural inclination of the enslaved, however, is to escape, to be set free. And so the curse buries itself ever deeper in the mind of the hedonist.

Justification is not an end. but a means to an end. It is the access to salvation, and it is the way in which Christians can claim to be Christian.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

A World Apart – The Implanted Word

If the Word of God is truth and fact, and if Christ is at work in it and through it, then the passage as found in James 1:19:25 takes on new relevance. Here’s the passage:

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”

Now, this passage inclusion comes to you on the heels of me listening to John Piper’s Desiring God sermon audio messages on the new birth, and in fact this passage was at the core of one of them. Specifically, he talked about the implanted word, which I believe is a fact of life. It gives the moral law argument some real credence Biblically. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, I summarize the effects thusly: One central, unassailable fact of human existence is that every code of behaviour, every society, is ultimately subject to the constraint of morality. There are always permissions and taboos which guide acts and thoughts within that culture, and which exist as inherent points of development from childhood. Call me on it if I’m wrong, clarify if I’m not presenting it accurately, but this is the essence of the argument. That’s a bunny trail for another time, however. My object now is to look briefly at what ‘the implanted word’ means.

As I’ve said, I believe that the implanted word of God is a fact. I articulated, a long time ago, my own understanding of how predestination and free will work together, and this passage, looked at now with older eyes, really reminds me of that meditation. I reconciled these seemingly opposing points of view by saying to myself that predestination is the outworking of the choice to accept providence in one’s life (in more words than that, mind you!) Actually, what I should say is that this passage makes the mental leap to accept that possibility an achievable thing. To accept that the Word of God in morality, in myth and in practices is already present within every culture and every human being suggests a fascinating understanding of what mission should consist of; not a preaching of the Word to a collection of new hearers, but an awakening of the understanding within a culture of where the Word of God has already touched the lives of nonbelievers. My minister here calls it the traces of the Spirit, and I can think of no better phrase for it. Truly, the Word has gone before.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.