All posts by Phil

Fiction, Non-fiction

Hamilton Resonates, Shapes Our Political Imaginations

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Millennials must heed the Founders’ warning when voting in 2016. They explicitly warned us about inflammatory candidates (read: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders), and endeavored to structure a system that would protect the angry masses from themselves. In “Federalist No. 1,” Hamilton cautions against men gaining power through igniting the public’s fury, warning that they start by “paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.”

Kayla Nguyen, a fellow at the John William Pope Foundation, writes about the popular musical Hamilton and how it could speak to her generation and inspire them to believe in the American Experiment.

Religion

Church of England Shouts “He Is Risen!”

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Central panel of Titian’s "Triptych of the Resurrection"
Central panel of Titian’s “Triptych of the Resurrection”

Beginning with words from Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me,” a new video from The Church of England puts Jesus’ words in the mouths of today’s rejected people before turning to celebrate our Lord’s resurrection.

“What this film shows is that God is with us in those struggles and Easter represents the triumph of Jesus over those struggles,” says the Church’s Director of Communications.

Here’s hoping all of England will hear the full meaning of the gospel this year and be transformed, not by their good wishes and sentimentality, but by the Living Word of God. Because Christ didn’t come into this world to merely sympathize with us and tell us to keep our hopes up and be nice to each other. He came to deliver us from bondage, from the hatred and lies that come from living on our own. He came to give us new life, which is literally new life, not some tired, exaggerated metaphor.

What we have on our own doesn’t work. Both subtly and overtly, we’ve earned God’s condemnation. We’re like filthy farmhands crashing an upscale wedding. We think the wedding host and guests are supposed to be loving, accepting people, so we should be able to walk in off the field and be ourselves. The doormen said if we washed up and put on the formal apparel they would give us, we could join the party, but we said we didn’t need that. We were kicked out.

Now, it might take a while to talk through the reasons we were kicked out, but Easter celebrates the fact that we will be accepted, if we will accept the washing and clothing the host offers. No one will be turned away if he is willing to be made clean.

To paraphrase Tim Keller, the problem many churches have is that they say add a little Jesus to your life and everything will be good in the end. No need to change your life. Just keep your hopes up. But such a message short-changes the gospel, which is intended to change us completely. New life is totally new, beyond our old expectations. Just as Jesus went into the grave dead and returned alive, so he wants to take our old lives into the grave and bring us out gloriously renewed.

(Image: Iconography of the Resurrection – Bursting From the Tomb)

Religion

Freedom of What Exactly?

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The [current] debate over religious freedom has generally assumed that the primary contest is over defining freedom, not religion. We assume that we more or less know what we are talking about when we say ‘religion’ . . . [I want to] question the assumption that Christianity is a religion to begin with, and examine both the advantages and the problems with claiming religious freedom for the church.

On the face of it, the question I’m raising seems ridiculous. Of course Christianity is a religion. A deeper look at the recent government arguments about the free exercise of religion, however, makes clear that what does and what does not count as religion is at the heart of the matter.

William Cavanaugh, quoted on the site for Mars Hill Audio Journal, from his book Field Hospital: The Church’s Engagement with a Wounded World.

Non-fiction, Religion

Abuse in Complementary Marriages

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Are egalitarian marriages the biblical form for marriage, and are complementarians at risk for abuse? Professor Ruth Tucker has written a book arguing in favor of egalitarianism, saying, “There is little evidence that proponents of male headship are seriously grappling with [wives’ stories of abuse] and speaking out publicly, and most women in such marriages are not being correctly counseled on matters of domestic violence.”

“Egalitarianism,” Tucker states, “asserts that there should be no gender-based role distinctions or limitations placed on women in the home, church, or society. According to this view, women can serve as pastors in light of passages like Galatians 3:28.”

Tim Challies praises the personal story side of the book (“I believe it will help me grow in compassion and understanding”) but firmly disagrees with her interpretation of the Bible.

Her understanding of complementarianism is inextricably bound up with her own experience, yet I found her marriage unrecognizable as a truly complementarian union. Her ex-husband was an abuser, manipulator, and pervert, a man who interpreted the Bible in black and white ways so he could justify abusing his wife. She gives no reason for us to believe that he was even a true Christian.

Tucker responds with a post on Scot McKnight’s blog:

You take strong issue with one particular “emotional” statement I make in the book: “Imagine saying that African Americans are fully equal to whites before God, but they are not permitted to hold church office and must be subject to Caucasians. The claim would be ludicrous. And so it is regarding gender.” You go on to say: “But unless race and gender are the same category, this is an invalid means to advance her argument. It succeeds emotionally but fails biblically.” Well, gee, thanks, Tim, for saying it succeeds emotionally. And if you would say that women are fully equal, it would also succeed emotionally.

Publisher Zondervan links to all of this on their blog and draws several comments from their readers. “Let’s not make this about doctrine,” one reader says, “but rather about what it is. It is abuse of scripture – what I have seen, experienced and refer to as ‘twisted scripture.'”

Uncategorized

Knight of Zootopia

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Knight of Cups: “Man must be willing to commit to love and open himself to new life. More specifically, he must cleave to a woman and be ready to have a child. . . . [Terrence Malick’s] Knight of Cups not only states this truth, it dramatizes our resistance to it. ”

Zootopia: “The beautiful bit is that despite the heavy themes, Zootopia never comes off as preachy or pandering. This is one of the strongest bits of Mouse House storytelling since the first Toy Story. Every scene works, the tension is effective and the payoff is more than satisfying. In the process, kids might not even notice the “good-for-you” messages throughout. But they are likely to experience the emotions that surround issues of racism, sexism and community.”

 

Fiction

“Nothing drives people to the church faster”

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The second season of Netflix’s “Daredevil” was released today. Aaron Earls of “The Wardrobe Door” talks about the themes of the series.

“Nothing drives people to the church faster than the thought of the Devil snapping at their heels. Maybe that was God’s plan all along,” Father Lantom, Matt Murdock’s priest, says, “why he created him, allowed him to fall from grace to become a symbol to be feared, warning us all to tread the path of the righteous.”

Netflix’s “Daredevil” confronts the problem of evil in the world and challenges viewers to consider how they can be part of the solution. And it does it through the life of a blind Catholic superhero. . . .

When wrestling with the problem of evil, “Daredevil” gives an answer that may not address all of the philosophical wonderings, but addresses a much more practical issue. We see evil in the world and we wonder what God is doing about it. As those created in His image, we have to once again look in the mirror. “Daredevil” reminds us that God is there in the midst of the suffering, able to serve, because we are there.

I’m looking forward to this season. One image from the first season that sticks with me is that while the hero takes up the metaphor of the devil, the villain sees himself as a savior, at least until the very end when he spins another metaphor for himself. Unlike Jessica Jones, Daredevil wants to team up with God in this fight.

Religion

When Guinness Heard Wesley

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Guinness lived at a time when no one understood micro-organisms and how disease is spread. They routinely drank from the same waters in which they dumped their garbage and their sewage. Unknowingly, they polluted the rivers and lakes around their cities. People died as a result, and this made nearly everyone in Guinness’ day avoid water entirely. Instead, they drank alcoholic beverages.

Their drinking led to public drunkenness and crime, so some businessmen began brewing beer, which had less alcohol and was far healthier than homemade whiskey.

So as Arthur Guinness sat in church on the day we are imagining, he was a successful brewer in Dublin, selling a drink throughout the city that made people healthier and helped them avoid the excesses of the hard liquor that had done so much damage for so many decades.

Stephen Mansfield goes on to describe what happened when Arthur Guinness heard the great John Wesley in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Fiction, Writing

Jeeves Was Scarcely Mentioned

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In Wodehouse’s first story of the exploits of Bertie Wooster and his man Jeeves, many of the familiar details are present: the language, Bertie’s aunts, and the predicament that needs resolving.

But there was one notable exception: Jeeves scarcely got a mention. “I still blush to think of the off-hand way I treated him at our first encounter,” wrote Wodehouse. He would flesh him out later. “[A] tallish man, with one those dark, shrewd faces” who brings order to the scrape-ridden world of Bertie and his friends with noiseless omniscience. In that first story, however, there is no hint that we are in the presence of a “bird of the ripest intelligence”, who “From the collar upward…stands alone.”

I don’t believe I’ve ever gotten around to this story. My first foray into this part of Wodehouse’s world was with one or two stories from Very Good, Jeeves, which being written in the late 20s was beyond establishing many of the principles. When I saw that another book, Carry On, Jeeves, began with what you might call an origin story (originally published in 1916), I read through that one before returning to the other. I like to keep things in order.

Jeeves and Wooster came into play for Glenn Fisher the other day when he praised these habit of two writers he admires. “Both JG Ballard and PG Wodehouse challenged themselves to write 1,000 words a day.”

That may be just the idea I need to press ahead with my own goals.