The Storm and Thunder of Hollywood Adolescence: Or, Why Many Movies Bore Me

Over the last month I've watched several movies that have suffered from a common flaw. It is this: their directors build their stories around adult characters who behave like adolescents. They then stylize their films with all kinds of jump cuts, colorful photos, eye-catching clothing, use of music and sound, and so on. In general, there seems to be a new breed of director in Hollywood, one who expects his audience to be endlessly fascinated by adolescent emotions and experiences and to be tricked by cinematic bells and whistles into thinking that style is substance.

In watching "Atonement" and "The Darjeeling Limited" (okay, give me hipster points for that one), and in reading reviews of "The Wackness" (just out), it became clear to me that the current generation of filmmaker seems personally trapped in adolescence. Why else would so many directors pour their lives into films that chronicle the ups and downs of the pre-adult years? Yet there's the catch--these films, while capturing the struggles of pre-adult life, are actually about adults. Furthermore, our moviemakers seem to think that it will be meaningful for audiences to watch their creations which attempt to ennoble adolescence, to baptize its rather small concerns and focuses as substantive and engrossing.

Here's the thing, though: while it can be fun to watch an occasional chronicle of adolescence (think "The Wonder Years" before it went off the rails), the stuff of true drama and comedy is found in the adult world, where people tackle real struggle and hardship. Heavy questions confront the adult. Difficult decisions besiege the adult. No such struggle exists for most adolescents. Beyond this, it is simply far more interesting to watch adults acting like adults attempt to handle the pathos of life. Think quickly: what would you rather watch--Russell Crowe trying to escape gladiator life to save his wife and son (in Gladiator), or Owen Wilson annoyingly bossing his brothers around on an Indian train (in The Darjeeling Limited)? It is amusing to watch Wilson, for sure (I think he can be hilarious), but it is far more meaningful to watch an adult acting like an adult try to handle the challenges of life.

"Atonement" suffered from the same problem. It presented us with two rather shallow characters living rather vacuous lives, threw a bunch of style into the mix, and then cooked everything in the surefire dramatic oven of World War Two. What was the result? Profound rumination on the sadness of life? Well, there was some of that, to be sure. But there was also a strong lack of concern on the viewer's part for the protagonists (played by James McAvoy and Keira Knightley). Put simply, they didn't do much except sit around on an English manor. Their drama was the drama of adolescents--will he ask her out? I don't know!!--of the sort that is whispered in high school hallways. Yes, the second half of the picture was poetic, but as a whole, the movie's adolescent characters, with their adolescent attitudes, failed to convey any real weight.

What does this all suggest? It suggests that the culture of the adolescent is no great thing for art. I've found the same is true in music. I don't know about you, but as one who sometimes listens to secular music, I find most of it simply boring. Not horrifyingly debauched (though much of it, particularly rap and r&b, is), not scarily nihilistic, but boring. Much of what's avant-garde and much of what's popular today centers thematically around things like breaking up and setting out in life and handling a cheating lover. Boooorrrriiiinnnngg. These are the concerns of adolescents. This is high school stuff. The true power of art is in its depiction of the deeper realities of life, the stuff that you can't plumb in a text message or a conversation on the bus. It's in showing what it looks like for a man to love his Alzheimer's-afflicted wife, or a lost soul to grapple with question of God's existence, or a father to ruminate on his legacy, or a woman to reflect on her empty nest, or a poet to delve into the causes of war. I could go on. This is the sort of thing that compels the artist to make great art.

Don't get me wrong. I found parts of the above movies engrossing and enjoyable. But both of them--and so many others--suffer from characters who are boys in men's bodies and girls in woman's bodies. They are immature, narcissistic, foolish, impetuous, and shallow. They possess little of the depth of an adult, and they are consumed by small things. They avoid the great matters of life and trivialize them when they cannot avoid them. Here is hoping for Christians to seize the day and to make a bunch of art that is meaningful and populated with mature people and mature, compelling existences.

In a culture that is making art that is both secular and boring, we have a chance to be neither.

Maureen Dowd, a Catholic Priest, and Marriage: It's Actually Pretty Helpful

This post is, I mean. It's entitled "An Ideal Husband" and it's written by notable (and single) columnist Maureen Dowd and published in today's New York Times. In the piece, Dowd cites at length the wisdom of a 79-year-old celibate Catholic priest who speaks annually to groups of schoolgirls on the subject of the ideal husband. If this all sounds a bit strange and irony-laden, it is: a Catholic priest who's never been married giving advice on marriage in a column written by a single (and very untraditional) columnist. Somehow, though, it works.

Here are some thoughts to chew on from Father Pat Connor:

“Never marry a man who has no friends,” he starts. “This usually means that he will be incapable of the intimacy that marriage demands. I am always amazed at the number of men I have counseled who have no friends. Since, as the Hebrew Scriptures say, ‘Iron shapes iron and friend shapes friend,’ what are his friends like? What do your friends and family members think of him? Sometimes, your friends can’t render an impartial judgment because they are envious that you are beating them in the race to the altar. Envy beclouds judgment."

“Steer clear of someone whose life you can run, who never makes demands counter to yours. It’s good to have a doormat in the home, but not if it’s your husband.

“Does he have a sense of humor? That covers a multitude of sins. My mother was once asked how she managed to live harmoniously with three men — my father, brother and me. Her answer, delivered with awesome arrogance, was: ‘You simply operate on the assumption that no man matures after the age of 11.’ My father fell about laughing.

“A therapist friend insists that ‘more marriages are killed by silence than by violence.’ The strong, silent type can be charming but ultimately destructive. That world-class misogynist, Paul of Tarsus, got it right when he said, ‘In all your dealings with one another, speak the truth to one another in love that you may grow up.’

In sum, I think that Father Pat has a number of things right. He blasphemes (and undermines his religion's teaching) when he calls the apostle Paul a "misogynist", but it's clear that he has keenly observed marriage over the course of his life. It is indeed difficult to trust a man, or a person, who has no friends. Some people are shy, but after a while, you have to wonder if there's something deeper going on. Either the person is too picky to actually befriend anyone, or they don't want to be known on a close level that will invite helpful scrutiny. That's not a good trait, and Christians of all people should be known as those who open up their lives to others for analysis and examination.

When the priest mentions that a man who can be dominated is no good, well, that's also common-sense, itself derived from "biblical-sense", to invent a phrase. I'm guessing that for some women, it sounds good to marry a guy you can control. Sooner or later, though, you realize that this is not such a good thing, particularly when some sort of character is required in life (as it is once or twice in the course of life).

Having a sense of humor seems very helpful for navigation of the ups and downs of life. There are times in a marriage, I would contend, when nothing but laughter will help. Husbands and wives who take themselves too seriously end up crashing and burning on a relational level. The ability to laugh at oneself--and the situations one ends up in--signals the presence of humility. If you want to marry a certain guy, and he can never laugh at himself, think hard before you marry him.

Even more important than humor is communication, and specifically, communication that comes out of a desire to create a marriage that fits into the Creator's cosmic plan for this world and reflects the love of Christ for the church. It's good, after all, to talk things through, but it's way better to talk things through from the perspective of a redeemed heart. When God has saved us, we are freed up by the power of the Spirit to not simply say what's on our mind, and get communication going (which is much better than silence on the part of either or both husband or wife), but to communicate lovingly, carefully, helpfully. I don't know about you, but I often laugh--not unkindly--at the way cultural media often depicts marriage. It defines marital love almost exclusively in terms of sex and marital communication almost entirely in terms of total honesty. This is simply not realistic on either front. Communication has to be a careful blend of honesty, thoughtfulness, desire to edify and build up, and love. Leaving one of these aspects out will result in a blend that, like a poorly mixed cake, means well but tastes bad.

Father Pat has some good insights, and I'm glad when anyone out there wants to strengthen and ennoble the institution of marriage. But for a truly strong marriage, one has to turn to the Bible, not out of religious arrogance, but out of genuine desire to know the mind of God for the betterment of one's life, one's home, one's marriage.

Comments on God Delighting in Small (New England) Churches

From Paul Buckley in Methuen, MA (check out his excellent, Christ-exalting blog)--

"I pastor a Sovereign Grace Ministries Church in New England, King of Grace Church. Thanks for your encouraging post! Pastoring in New England has been a wonderful adventure of learning to glory in Christ and the precious folks he does give us and not in our relative church size. It is one thing to say I am pastoring for God's glory, it is another to be tested with small success yet still labor. There are many here as Josh said who have labored faithfully for years (far beyond mine). They are my heroes.

I trust their faithful prayers and labors will indeed be answered in time with new converts, new church plants and a region full of disciples who will surpass them in zeal, knowledge and faithfulness. We intend to labor for Christ and His glory regardless of outcome yet we continue to ask for a greater harvest."

From Mike Freeman in Ohio (formerly of Maine)--

"Having grown up in a Maine small church, I agree with Owen. Additionally, I have labored as a lay youth leader for the past six years at at a church in southwest Ohio. I can say with certainty that the folks in Maine, by and large, "get it." In Ohio, the bible belt, many people go to church because that's what you are supposed to do- even fundamental evangelical churches. In Maine, most people don't go to church; the ones that do come actually seem to want to be there."

Are there other pastors out there who want to comment on the original blog I wrote? I would love more testimony on what it is like to pastor a small church and how you handle it.

To my knowledge, this subject is not often talked about. Small churches are something of the elephant in the room in many evangelical circles. We all know they're there (in large numbers), but as our environment is suffused with notions of success and grandiosity, we don't want to talk about them much or really even acknowledge they're around. We'd much rather talk about the "success stories" than the churches who are, in their quest for faithfulness, achieving a certain numerical mediocrity.

This (extended) blog is no attempt to demonize large churches. Far, far from it. I give thanks to God for large churches that are faithful to the gospel. God often uses them in special ways. God blesses many, many people through them. For Bethlehem and Covenant Life and other churches of similar size and gospel focus, I am thankful to God. But we must not think that these churches alone are faithful and glorifying to God. If our definition of God's glory is measured along metric lines, we are surely off. If faithfulness must in some way equal numerical prosperity, we are certainly wrong. The very message of the Bible is that God takes pleasure in the few. God, unlike men, does not need recognizable size and prosperity--in terms of His followers--to be delighted. The message of the Bible is that God loves His people. He loves the few. He loves the remnant. He delights in the faithful, self-sacrificial lives of His people. It is not massive size that He searches the earth for. He searches it for faithfulness.

The Bible is rife with stories that support this basic idea. Try it out--test this theme out. Read through your Bible, and see how often God delights in a people who are small in number but great in devotion. See how little emphasis there is on the mere size of things. Tiny Israel, puny David, Gideon's 300, the faithful remnant, the mustard seed, the scattered disciples, the overmatched apostles, the slain martyrs--this is just a tiny selection of biblical matters that show with clarity the joy God takes in the few. In so many of these things, in fact, it is God's explicit design for His numbers to be small.

When a church is small, then, we must not rush to feel bad for it, or wonder what has gone wrong, or contrive many ways to fix it. Perhaps change is needed. But it may well be that God is delighting in the small size of the congregation, taking joy in their gathered worship, smiling as they evangelize and celebrate His supper and struggle to fill an oversized room. Knowing God's character from the Bible, wouldn't it be just like Him to do so?

Does God, Perhaps, Delight in the Small?

Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

--Matthew 7:13-14

I think that God delights in the small.

--Mark Dever, June 2008


Ministry in New England is notoriously difficult. I was recently talking with my father about this. In a place where faithful Christians often see very little fruit produced from their evangelistic and ecclesial efforts, discouragement can come easily. I've been challenged to pray hard for the pastors and churches of New England, knowing that they face a hard road of ministry.

Most churches in New England are very small. Many see very few people come to Christ, even over the span of decades. There's little triumphalism in this region, little sense that if things shift just a little bit, the culture wars will be won. The church is not about to win the culture wars in New England. It is a city on a hill, but it is a city that few choose to visit, and most choose to ignore. It is not that the majority of pastors and churches of the area are strategically challenged, or lacking in passion, or outdated in methodology. Many Christians pour themselves into their churches and give sacrificially of their time and energy to advance the kingdom and preach the gospel. Many Christians pray ardently for their towns and cities and yearn for their families and friends to come to Christ. Most of these Christians see little visible fruit from their efforts, few desired answers to their prayers. To be a Christian in New England is, in short and in general, to live a life of frustration. One must continually go back to the promises of God for encouragement. Otherwise, one will grow discouraged and lose faith and confidence in the power and goodness of God. In New England Christianity, discouragement comes easily.

Some of this discouragement is natural. Some of it, though, comes from a culture within American Christianity in which it is assumed that large congregational size is an unquestionably sure sign of God's blessing. In the same way that many Americans seek grandiose riches and oversized homes as a symbol of fundamental life achievement, many Christian Americans seek massive churches and oversized congregations as a symbol of fundamental providential achievement. Put more simply, we don't want to be small. No one in America wants to be small. We want to be large. Large equals blessing, achievement, status, respect, validation that cannot be taken away. Once our business--or church, or college, or denomination, or home, or wallet, or car, or whatever--gets large, then we'll never have to look stupid and insignificant. We'll never be a nobody again. We'll be someone, and no one will be able to take that away from us. We will win our significance, and we will never lose it.

There's a fundamental biblical problem with such thinking: it's not what God tells us will be the case with Christianity in its cultural forms. There is certainly room for exceptions in passages like Matthew 7:13-14, but the general rule is that Christianity will be marked throughout history as a religion of the few. Now, someone out there is saying that Christianity has had the most adherents of any religion throughout history. That's likely true. But with a few exceptions, the number of truly converted, biblically concerned and faithful Christians in any given culture has been small. Yes, Europe existed in a state of Christendom for hundreds of years, and yes, America was founded in part by Christians, and sure, some countries today have large populations of evangelical Christians, but by and large, Christians are and have been the decided minority in the countries and civilizations of the world. The remnant, not the reigning, has been the rule.

Christ's words in Matthew seven, then, ring very, very true. Though we should believe passionately and actionably in God's desire to save many, yet the fundamental reality of Christianity is that few will believe in it. Few, in the end, will be saved. This idea rubs harshly against our success-obsessed American culture in which size is legitimacy, no, size is existence. So many evangelicals want so desperately to see people saved, a desire that is genuine, but they also want to be culturally significant. We don't want to be weird and small and cultish, like the kid on the playground nobody wants to talk to. We want to see people saved--we earnestly and passionately do--but we also want to be a cool kid. For too many of us, it's not enough that we are accepted by God. We want also to be accepted by man. Our thinking, our methodology, even our understanding of the Bible itself is regularly driven by such a concern.

When a Christian lives in a largely pagan culture, though, such notions--which all of us fall prey to in some form, myself included--are easily scrubbed away. The focus becomes not getting people saved and glorifying God through the life of the church and attaining impressive size and cultural legitimacy, but getting people saved and glorifying God through the life of the church. This is not to idealize the church in New England or any other paganized region. Christians in these places certainly have their struggles and weaknesses, lack of vision and passion sometimes among them. It is to say, though, that in such places the temptation to work hard for cultural legitimacy is strongly diminished. It does not disappear, but it is by necessity diminished. When you labor faithfully in gospel ministry for 25 years and see five people come to Christ, you acquire a different economy of scale in your faith. Of course, it is no bad thing at all to pray for growth and work for growth and think strategically and act with great faith and vision. These are the right things to do. But they must not become ends in themselves. If they do, they will fail in places where God's Spirit is not granting new life to the lost.

This certainly sounds morose and sad. But here's the thing: what if God does not merely tolerate the small, or put up with it while other ecclesial investments flourish? What if God--in a way that is very difficult for our American senses to comprehend--actually delights in the small? What if the thirty-person church in New Hampshire (or South Carolina, or Oregon, or Zaire, or Siberia) actually brings Him great joy? What if, unlike so many of our American peers, God isn't ashamed by the little church, but is delighted by it? Maybe He doesn't look sternly at the pastor of the little church, wondering when he's going to get his act together and grow his church. Maybe He looks lovingly on Him, joyful that he is obeying His Word, evangelizing his area, building up his people in the faith week by week, year by year. I don't claim to speak for God, and I certainly cannot comprehend His mind. But as I search the Scripture, it seems to me that perhaps it is true that God delights in the small.

My mind was led to this track by a comment I heard pastor Mark Dever make a little while back. As I've reflected on Mark's offhand comment, I've considered it in light of my future pastoral ministry, if the Lord does indeed give it. Will I be happy if my church is small and my baptisms are low? Will I grow depressed and angry? Will I snap at my wife and ignore my children and work strenuously to drive up my church's numbers? I pray that I won't. But because I'm a sinner, and an American sinner, I see the potential for such behavior. At this juncture in my life, though, I want to avoid it.

I want to embrace the biblical reality that Christianity will often be small, often marginalized, often ignored, often hated. In spots, it will win huge acceptance. In most, it will not. Some churches will legitimately and by God's grace become very large in number and use this size for God's glory. Most will not. Most New England churches will not, I would guess (though I cannot know). Most New England pastors will labor for year upon year and see few people come to Christ. Most New England congregations will survive budgetarily but rarely flourish. If this is indeed true, is this a sign of failure? It could be, I suppose. But it also could be a reflection of biblical teaching. The hearts of men are hard, and in God's providence and mysterious plan, they are harder in some places than others. New England is such a place at this time.

Yet though our consciences and minds tell us otherwise, perhaps this situation is no stain on God's robe, no embarrassment to His reputation. Perhaps it is, in a way quite inscrutable to us, a joy to Him. Perhaps He loves the little and delights in the small. If so (and I think it is so), what an encouragement to the church of any region and country that is small and struggling. Christians in such places need to work hard and not lose faith. They need to pray for great things and attempt great works for God. But in the midst of difficult and even "unsuccessful" ministry, they need to remember the great love of God, and to find their identity not in their numbers, but in the delight of God which graces their ministries and stamps their lives.

Hong Kong Travelogue, Day One: Discovery and Jetlag

I'm in Hong Kong with the Henry Center, my employer, as we're hosting an international conference on evangelical identity. I'll be blogging about the conference on the Henry Center blog and will cross-post here.

The Henry Center has gone international. Director Doug Sweeney and Managing Director Owen Strachan (the author) are hosting an international conference in Hong Kong, China this week that covers the topic of Christian identity in diverse situations. A number of faculty from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL are joining, as are scholars from Westmont College, Beeson Divinity School, Christar in India, Alliance Bible Seminary of China, Evangel Seminary in Hong Kong, and China Graduate School of Theology. Students from TEDS and local seminaries will attend, as will area pastors and interested laypeople. The conference will be on May 29-31 (see here for more details), but most of the conference speakers are here.

It is my privilege to give you just a little taste of this exciting event through a blog series. I don't have a lot of time, and there's a great deal going on, but my posts should give you a window into what we're doing. We are really excited by this conference, as it's not common for Christians from East and West to gather together for such meaningful and productive fellowship. This is a very unique part of the privilege it is to labor for Christ in a world of increasing connection.
Without further ado, my humble little travelogue.

Day One (and Two): Discovery and Jetlag

(Sunday) 9:00am--Say goodbye to wife. Brave the wilds of O'Hare Airport. Check-in goes surprisingly well.
9:30am--11:35am--Wander O'Hare in search of vitals. Debate on which magazine to buy when confronted with 13,000 choices.
11:35am--Board plane for flight to Hong Kong. Sit for an hour. Am aware of what it is like to be a distinct ethnic minority. Think to myself that this experience is going to be very good for me.
12:35pm--Fifteen hour flight to Hong Kong commences. Ponder the fact that I've only once been on a flight longer than eight hours. Begin reading book (one).
1:15pm--First movie (of five!) begins screening.
3:45pm--Start reading book (two).
6:45pm--Lunch is served. A little plate of noodles and chicken with a microwaved roll never tasted so good.
1:15am--Both seatmates are asleep, as is most of the plane. I'm staying up so that I can sleep once we arrive in Hong Kong (we will arrive at 4:30pm their time--HK is 13 hours ahead of Chicago time (CT)). Realize that this means I have to stop reading. Commence watching of "27 Dresses."
1:25am--End watching of "27 Dresses."
2:30am Chicago Time, 4:30pm HK time--Arrive at HK. Connect with fellow TEDS folks. Find our escort. Drive into Hong Kong.

I'm going to break in here and talk for a bit about my first impressions of the city. For those who don't know, it's a port city. In addition, though the city stretches over many miles, the terrain is quite hilly, even mountainous. There is not a great deal of actual real estate in the city. Thus, there are skyscrapers everywhere. The roads are narrow. The city is very clean. It is utterly baffling to be in such a tightly constructed area. Not a spare inch is wasted. After we arrived at our hotel, we went out for a bite to eat. Along the way, we entered a mall whose ceilings could not have been higher than 7.5 feet. Little tiny shops proliferated, and people were almost back to back. I noticed a number of real estate shops--places advertising apartment housing. The rooms in these apartments boggle the mind, as they're nothing less than tiny. Yet if one wants to live in the city, it appears that this is standard--less than 800 square feet for whole families is quite normal. For many Americans (outside of New York), such an apartment would be quaint. Here, it is standard.

The city is crawling with red taxis. At one stoplight, roughly thirty cars were stopped. Over half were taxis. Big rectangular buses swoop in from out of nowhere and park on a dime. It's interesting to ponder what it would be like to live in a city like this all of one's life. One gets used to simple things like seeing thousands of people per day. In general, people seem to move in their own isolated trajectories with little sense of the larger flow of others. Chinese pop music is everywhere. It throws me off, because I expect to hear American voices. In just a few blocks, we pass five banks. The market here seems to be exploding. Little noodle shops are also everywhere. Some smell good to my American nose, others hint of strange foods I've never encountered and couldn't imagine.

I have never felt like more of an outsider in this world than these moments. I don't say this in a negative sense, as if I think that people are excluding me. No, I mean more what is cold, hard fact: I am an outsider. All around me are people speaking words I can't understand. Language appears now more of a unifier than ever before. Walking along, I yearn to be able to connect with others through language. It is perhaps the simplest means of communication, one we take for granted, and I have no access to it, and am thus something of a shadow in the city, a passing presence who might as well not be there.

Back at the hotel, we ready for rest. We're all flagging, and jetlag is working its stupor-inducing magic. Before I fall asleep, I look out my window. A place like this reminds one of the bigness of God. He oversees all of this, all of the madness, the controlled chaos, the billions of people who live and walk and buy noodles in places just like this. I am overwhelmed by this city--though I've seen probably 1/50th of it--and discover that it is in places like this, places that overwhelm the senses and boggle the mind, that God's sovereignty and presence becomes very real. In a natural sense, there seems to be no center, no common point around which this all coheres and takes shape. Life is anonymous, moving at light-speed, insignificant. With God, though, there is a center. Better than this, there is a personal center. God is here. He is ruling. He is caring for His people and His world. To eyes struggling to take it all in, His transcendence emerges clearest. It is not simply in the pastures and meadows that we find God, and our need for Him. It is in the city, walking on sidewalks, surrounded by ten thousand people who do not know my name, do not speak my language, and do not even know I exist.

That concludes day one (and two). I put this all under day one because our flight and arrival was of a piece, though it stretched over two days. The value of this experience will, I know, be immense, and I am thankful for the opportunity to be here, to go outside of myself, to fellowship with fellow Christians of foreign background, and to learn lessons of faith in a new land. Tomorrow, I'll give you a snapshot of our sightseeing, and the next few days, I'll take you into the conference, and give you some highlights.

Spike Lee on Death and Dignity

I've watched some of Spike Lee's films, and usually find them interesting, and sometimes revealing about the realities of life in a fallen world. When I came across a Lee comment spoken at the Cannes film festival from a piece in the Washington Post, I had to comment on it:

"I always treat life and death with respect, but most people don't," Lee said at a news conference Tuesday. "Look, I love the Coen brothers; we all studied at NYU. But they treat life like a joke. Ha ha ha. A joke. It's like, 'Look how they killed that guy! Look how blood squirts out the side of his head!' I see things different than that."

This comment reveals something about the way Lee sees the world. He believes that human life has inherent dignity. Accordingly, he believes that films that depict the processes of life, including death, should treat the matter with dignity. The filmmakers to whom Lee refers, the Coen brothers, just won the Academy Award for Best Picture with their film No Country for Old Men. This picture, like others in the Coen corpus, approaches life and death as macabre realities. Fargo, also directed by the Coens, had a notoriously dark sense of humor. The brothers make films that invite viewers to view the nastiest aspects of life from a lightly comedic viewpoint. It is this cinematic tendency to which Lee refers. People do not simply die in Coen films, as they do in those of many other directors; they die in particularly twisted ways at the hands of gleefully strange characters. Though I don't know the exact worldview of the Coens, I can say from a limited engagement with their films that Lee is to some extent correct in his analysis of the brothers' filmmaking. For them, death is one part of a twisted comic tragedy.

Lee, for his part, declares a desire to treat death in a more respectful light in his films. Though he certainly is no role model for overly moral filmmaking, Spike Lee is onto something here. He recognizes the biblical reality that life is fashioned by God to an inherently dignified enterprise. The fact that humanity en masse carries the image of God reveals that we are naturally "little gods", made with care, invested with worth and meaning. Though it does some have dark moments, and some textual details that seem darkly comic, the Bible does not present life as an exercise in comedic tragedy. Ecclesiastes does portray life as purposeless outside of God, and Job's questions do reveal the desperateness of a life lived in opposition to God, but the biblical authors nowhere encourage us to view life as darkly comedic and God as a twisted puppeteer in the sense that the Coen films certainly do not. As far as I can tell, the brothers seem exceptionally gifted at portraying a world where God does not exist. Watch No Country for Old Men. You'll see a world where evil is stronger than good, where desperation and folly reigns, where providence runs in favor of the darkness, not the light. If this is not a world without God, and without the dignity of humanity, show me what is.

Spike Lee is not a Christian to my knowledge. But he has lighted on a Christian concept in his Cannes speech. God has given dignity to the lives and deaths of his creatures. He has a special place in His economy for His children, whose lives and deaths are precious to Him. He superintends our lives with care and love. He has given us souls, and He teaches us in His word that the souls of men are the most precious of all things in the created realm. Spike Lee has unwittingly wandered into territory that Scripture has staked out as its own. We commend him for not wanting to present death in an undignified light, for wanting to preserve a sense of beauty and worth even in the moment when a person's life is taken from him. Yet we as Christians note that there is a ground for this impulse. There is a reason for this desire as expressed in Lee's comment. It is not simply that it "makes sense", or "follows naturally" from living. It does not. No, it proceeds directly from the Christian worldview as delineated by the Bible. We who have a reason for faith also have a foundation for dignity. It is the image of God given us to by our Creator.

We ought not to think that there is some kind of massive principle to be implemented here which will then revolutionize society. We do need filmmakers who will show a watching world that life is precious. But humanity will likely always struggle with the question of inherent dignity. Why is it, people will ask, that though I do not like the idea of God, or the biblical God, that I nonetheless want to treat life and people as precious? Why do I care when I hear of a child being murdered, when I read of a terrible civil war, when I learn of massive social injustice at the hands of totalitarian governments? Where does this instinct come from? Why do I tenaciously protect the life of my child when I am pro-choice? Why do I think it is wrong for people to treat death in undignified ways? Why do I dress up at funerals, and talk softly, and sometimes cry?

People will ask these questions. We can see from the Coen brothers' films and Spike Lee's comments that this is a live issue for the unbelieving among us. How great is the need for local churches that stand as lighthouses in their communities that provide on a week-by-week basis the true ground for dignity and hope. How much do we need Christians not to bury their light by avoiding unbelievers, but to be among them, salting their speech, telling the truth about dignity and hope and salvation in Christ. Will we speak truth to the lost? Or will we leave it to honest but lost folk like Spike Lee to accomplish this task?

A Reflection On What It Is Like to Live in the Stream of God's Blessing (To Live as a Christian)

I don't count myself especially sentimental, and I don't like it when preachers or others let poignancy substitute for exegesis and application. Once in a while, though, you come across a story that hits you at your core. I love writing original content for this blog, but in doing a review I came across a particularly powerful story of gospel-driven character that I had to share with my readers: "Berry Mauve or Muted Wine" by T. Suzanne Eller.

Readers who take the five to ten minutes to read the whole thing will come away freshly encouraged to live self-sacrificially for those they love. As one reads, one marvels at the awesome power of the gospel, the message that has clearly shaped this husband's approach to his wife.

"He found me weeping bitterly in the hospital room.

“What’s wrong?” Richard asked, knowing that we both had reason to cry.

In the past forty-eight hours, I learned that I had a cancerous lump in my breast that had spread to my lymph nodes, and there was a possible spot on my brain. We were both thirty-two with three young children.

Richard pulled me tight and tried to comfort me. Our friends and family had been amazed at the peace that had overwhelmed us. Jesus was our Savior and comfort before I found out I had cancer, and he remained the same after my diagnosis. But it seemed to Richard that the terrifying reality of my situation had finally crashed in on me in the few moments he was out of the room.

As he held me tight, Richard tried to comfort me. “It’s all been too much, hasn’t it, Suz?” he said.

“That’s not it,” I cried and held up the hand mirror I had just found in the drawer. Richard looked puzzled.

“I didn’t know it would be like this,” I cried, as I stared in shock at my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t recognize myself. I was horribly swollen. After the surgery, I had groaned as I lay asleep and well-meaning friends had freely pushed the self-dispensing medication to ease what they thought was pain. Unfortunately I was allergic to morphine and had swelled like a sausage. Betadine from the surgery stained my neck, shoulder and chest and it was too soon for a bath. A tube hung out of my side draining the fluid from the surgical site. My left shoulder and chest were wrapped tightly in gauze where I had lost a portion of my breast. My long, curly hair was matted into one big wad. More than one hundred people had come to see me over the past forty-eight hours, and they had all seen this brown-and-white, swollen, makeup-less, matted-haired, gray-gowned woman who used to be me.

Where had I gone?

Richard laid me back on the pillow and left the room. Within moments he came back, his arms laden with small bottles of shampoo and conditioner that he confiscated from the cart in the hall. He pulled pillows out of the closet and dragged a chair over to the sink. Unraveling my IV, he tucked the long tube from my side in his shirt pocket. Then he reached down, picked me up and carried me - IV stand and all - over to the chair. He sat me down gently on his lap, cradled my head in his arms over the sink and began to run warm water through my hair. He poured the bottles over my hair, washing and conditioning my long curls. He wrapped my hair in a towel and carried me, the tube, and the IV stand back over to the bed. He did this so gently that not one stitch was disturbed.

Next came the mascara, blush, and lipstick…

My husband, who had never blow-dried his hair in his life, took out a blow-dryer and dried my hair, the whole while entertaining me as he pretended to give beauty tips. He then proceeded, based on the experience of watching me for the past twelve years, to fix my hair. I laughed as he bit his lip, more serious than any beauty-school student. He bathed my shoulder and neck with a warm washcloth, careful to not disturb the area around the surgery, and rubbed lotion into my skin.

Then he opened my makeup bag and began to apply makeup. I will never forget our laughter as he tried to apply my mascara and blush. I opened my eyes wide and held my breath as he brushed the mascara on my lashes with shaking hands. He rubbed my cheeks with tissue to blend in the blush. With the last touch, he held up two lipsticks.

”Which one? Berry mauve or muted wine?” he asked. He applied the lipstick like an artist painting on a canvas and then held the little mirror in front of me.

I was human again. A little swollen, but I smelled clean, my hair hung softly over my

shoulders and I recognized myself.

“What do you think?” he asked. I began to cry again, this time because I was grateful.

“No, baby. You’ll mess up my makeup job,” he said and I burst into laughter.

During that difficult time in our lives, I was given only a 40 percent chance of survival over five years. That was sixteen years ago. I made it through those years with laughter, God’s comfort and the help of my wonderful husband. We will celebrate our nineteenth anniversary this year, and our children are now in their teens. Richard understood what must have seemed like vanity and silliness in the midst of tragedy.

Everything I had ever taken for granted had been shaken in those hours - the fact that I would watch my children grow, my health, my future. With one small act of kindness, Richard gave me normalcy.

I will always see that moment as one of the most loving gestures of our marriage." (From Danny Akin's God on Sex, 111-14)

On today, my twenty-seventh birthday, I am so thankful for those close to me who have loved me in self-sacrificial, gospel-driven ways. For my parents and the happy, healthy childhood they gave me, the regular sacrifices and uninterrupted love, I give thanks; for my wife, whose beautiful face is exceeded only by her beautiful character, I give thanks; for my Lord and Savior, who has saved me and is in the process of transforming me from a selfish, narcissistic, vain, disobedient, jealous, hell-bound man to a vessel fitted to praise Him, I give thanks. Though I can see great work to be done in my heart, I hope to glorify Jesus Christ by a life marked over and over again by expressions of love like that presented above, acts that capture in snapshot form, in momentary display, the great reality of Christ's cruciform love.

Women, Contact Sports, and the Mix of the Two in a Gender-Confused Age

In response to my blog from Thursday on the New York Times piece covering the extreme risks many girls face in playing high-contact sports, I drew some strong responses, and wanted to comment on them in today's post.

Let me first encourage you to check out the article by Michael Sokolove that appeared in this past weekend's NYT magazine. In addition, surf the comments related to the article. There are now 285 (as of this posting), so this piece, "The Uneven Playing Field", has clearly touched on a hot-button cultural issue of critical importance. The paper is to be commended for publishing a piece this controversial precisely because its central assertion works so strenuously and compellingly against gender-neutral myths.

I won't rehash much from Thursday's blog, but I will give you one snapshot quotation that sums up the general drift of Sokolove's writing:

"If girls and young women ruptured their A.C.L.’s at just twice the rate of boys and young men, it would be notable. Three times the rate would be astounding. But some researchers believe that in sports that both sexes play, and with similar rules — soccer, basketball, volleyball — female athletes rupture their A.C.L.’s at rates as high as five times that of males."

This is clearly a situation of grave importance to those who have athletically minded daughters and, beyond this, to those who are raising daughters in an age of supposed physical parity between the sexes. When Gatorade, for example, tells viewers that Michael Jordan and Mia Hamm are athletically and physically of equal gifting, strength, and agility, it is no surprise that the culture at large would begin to accept this notion and put it into practice in the form of their own familial decisions. This mindset has led many parents in our era to plunge their daughters headlong into high-contact sports, oblivious to the dangers (the word is carefully chosen) their daughters face from this decision.

This is not to say, though, that girls are weak, or that every girl will get injured. Sometimes people read the former statement into the biblical principle that women are to be treated as the weaker vessel. Nowhere did I say that women are weak. I noted instead that compared to men, women are weaker in a physical sense. There are of course exceptions to this principle; one can find weak men and very strong women. But these exceptions do not overturn the principle that men are generally stronger than women. I should say that in my life, I have been surrounded by women of considerable agency and ability. My mother was and is a dynamo, always working, always redeeming the time, even when relaxing. She couldn't even watch a television show without knitting! My own wife is in the same mold. She is a very capable woman, and I married her in part because I saw biblical industry and agency in her. She never ceases to amaze me in what she accomplishes around our home. Though she is a good deal less strong than me, I would not characterize her as weak, and I am continually stunned by what she accomplishes. I should not be read to be saying, then, that women are weak. That is an uncharitable and inaccurate reading, one that I cannot affirm based on the Word and my own life experience.

Neither will every girl who competes in a high-contact sport get injured. There are probably many girls who compete in a contact sport who, for a variety of reasons, evade injury. As the NYT article shows, there are also exercises that women can perform that lower the risk of serious injury. With this caution noted, though, we return to the above research finding. Some who study women's athletics very closely think that women tear their ACL's at five times the rate that men do. This statistic--and others--must be reckoned with. The personal angle of the magazine piece add a dreadful personal dimension to this statistic. Girls--and they are girls--playing with two blown knees, all for the "love of the game". This is a horrific reality.

Our sports-obsessed, gender-neutral society exhorts many girls to do nothing less than to sacrifice their bodies for games. No one will remember these contests in the years to come. The women who go on to the activities and responsibilities of adulthood will find that their athletic experience, however large it loomed in their teenage minds, suddenly has precious little importance compared to the duties of the family, the home, and for those who feel compelled to enter it, the workforce. Think of the reality of childbearing and raising. These are tremendously engrossing callings, challenging for the most physically strong and capable woman. They will be many times more challenging, however, with a blown knee and the other results of a career--that's what it is, a career--in youth sports. In women's sports, and in some that boys play, namely, football, the parents of our country are allowing or even leading their children to a path of physical disability and even destruction. This is not simply sad--it is sick.

As Christians, we need to seriously question the sports culture. We need to make sure that if our boys play sports that we watch their hearts and their bodies very carefully to make sure that they are not idolizing athletics and, in doing so, causing great harm to their bodies. There is nothing smart or biblical or romantic in a boy suffering considerable physical damage in youth sports, no matter what the sports legends or the television shows or the Nike commercials tell us. We need to make sure that if our girls play sports that they avoid the dangerous idea that they need to do what boys do. In some cases, they cannot, and to try to do so will be to bring lasting harm to themselves. We should steer them away from sports that threaten to compromise their bodies and their femininity. Unlike modern culture, the Bible celebrates a dignified, distinct womanhood that is quite different from many masculine qualities. In our homes and our churches, we must work to celebrate this femininity, to embrace it, and to train our daughters that it is absolutely beautiful and biblically right for a woman to be just that: a woman, distinct from a man.

To summarize, then, we must stop buying into the myths that the feminist-influenced society feeds us as Christians. Women and men are different. They have been given different gifts and bodies. A woman's body is not less muscled and differently shaped from a man's by accident; God did not make men and women with the exact same physical capabilities but with different shapes, as if He simply got aesthetically creative with the bodies of Adam and Eve. He made men to be strong because he wanted them to be those who led, protected, and provided for women and children. He made women to be able to nurture children not simply in a figurative sense through their instincts, but in a literal sense, through hips that can stand childbirth and breasts that can feed children. To speak frankly, though a husband justly delights in it, this part of a woman's body was not made for fashion, for the fetishes of unmarried men or the interest of boys, but for function, despite what our sex-obsessed, female-fixated culture says by way of advertising and entertainment. If a man's body is attuned to the tasks of provision and protection, a woman's is geared for physical nurturing. We do not have to derive our understanding of gender roles by some mystical divination of the Creator's will, but through the plain testimony of Scripture and, indeed, the anatomical realities in which we find ourselves.

This sounds to postmodern ears like caveman talk. The funny part is, it's actually older than that. The roles of men and women proceed from the mind of God, who made men and women to carry out fundamentally different roles through fundamentally different physical realities. This is not to say that there is never overlap between the duties of the sexes; there often is. Yet as men live at home with their parents, and treat women well only for the purpose of seducing them, and leave them to fight their wars, and do substantive work, and assume positions of leadership due to a shortage of available (and capable) men, a suspicion might just creep its way into their minds. As fathers watch their daughters brutalize their bodies in order that these dads might live out their athletic dreams through them, a thought may come quietly to mind. As another girl falls in agony on the soccer field, or the basketball court, as a researcher crunches statistic after frightening statistic, a realization dawns. Perhaps the gender-neutral experiment is flawed. Perhaps our whole program is awry. Maybe, just maybe, in seeking our daughter's "liberation", we are watching nothing less than their downfall, right before our eyes, with our permission, under our watch.

A Gripping and Sobering Tale: Ron Chernow's Biography of Rockefeller and the Lessons it Holds

About four years ago, economic historian Ron Chernow completed his multi-year work, Titan (Vintage, 2004). The book's title mirrors its heft. This is nothing short of a titanic feat. In his capstone text, Chernow has delivered a rich, engrossing, exhaustively detailed portrait of one of history's most fascinating economic figures, the oilman, John D. Rockefeller, Sr. A lifelong Baptist, Rockefeller represents a complex figure of contrasting qualities. Driven to bend the rules by his need to dominate the oil market, Rockefeller gave hundreds of millions of dollars to philanthropic causes. His biography, though daunting in size, thus contains important lessons for Christians and thinkers alike.

I won't attempt to cover Rockefeller's life here. If you would like such a summary, check out Wikipedia or some such source. I will say that one sees in Chernow's portrait of Rockefeller a man who made it his life business to master his market and bring his competitors to submission. Beginning life under an undependable father and a doting mother, it seems that Rockefeller's life was an exercise in exorcising the ghost of his untrustworthy father and the poverty into which his father's vagrancy plunged the family. As Chernow describes him, Rockefeller acquired a fixation with the balance sheet of his companies and used the hard data of his businesses to fuel all of his decisions. With a scale of calculation seldom seen in economic history, Rockefeller cleared his way through the Cleveland oil trade in the second half of the nineteenth century, buying up refinery after refinery, amassing a fortune in the process.

Unfortunately, Chernow makes clear that as time wore on, Rockefeller and his associates engaged in questionable practices to advance the company now known to history as the Standard Oil Company (Rockefeller always called it this, even years after his retirement). By colluding with the railroad industry and paying off politicians, Standard Oil was able to able to achieve the status of a trust for decades before Teddy Roosevelt's men brought it to heel in the early twentieth century. By then, of course, it was far too late. Rockefeller and his fellow leaders were multi-millionaires, Standard Oil was the world's largest kerosene producer, and even when broken up, Standard Oil subsidiaries formed three of the twentieth century's largest global companies--Texaco, Shell, Amoco among them.

Rockefeller's life teaches us many important lessons, as all good biographies do. Though Chernow is far too psychological in his read of Rockefeller, his chronicle reveals the importance of choosing one's associates carefully. This is a biblical truth--the Proverbs emphasize it--but sometimes we Christians gloss over it. Because Rockefeller allowed liberal-minded Christians to disperse the riches of his fortune, an appraisal of his legacy reveals that it accomplished good, but often not necessarily Christian, ends. The Cleveland native's millions endowed, for example, the Rockefeller Institute, a medical think-tank responsible for many twentieth-century advances in science that benefited humanity writ large--the virtual elimination of hookworm comes to mind.

Yet while it is surely good for Christians to contribute to the common good--biblical, in fact--we may also say that it seems best for the money of wealthy Christians to go toward primarily Christian causes, in order that it might leave a legacy that stretches past this age into the next. Because Rockefeller's money was given out by men like Frederick Gates, a lapsed Baptist, it clearly did not accomplish the kingdom work it might have, though it did benefit millions of people in the end.

In addition, though Rockefeller was a devout Christian, it seems that very few of his children and descendants adhered to any form of evangelical Christianity. Rockefeller was no theologian, and would never have claimed to be, but one wonders about the reasons behind this sad family history. He instructed the children in the things of the Lord, as did his wife, but little of it seemed to stick with them. Indeed, his beloved son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., took his stand besides combatively liberal Christians, Harry Emerson Fosdick the most prominent of them. It is of course true that there is no one-to-one correspondence between the faith of parents and their children, but the paucity of biblically minded Christians among the Rockefeller dynasty leaves one puzzled, sadly puzzled, as to how this came to be. Surely Rockefeller's story serves as a reminder to parents that biblical faith must be lived on every level. It is not enough to teach, for one must live what one teaches. Also, it is not enough to live, for one must teach what one lives. We cannot err on one side or the other, but must combine both in a vital embrace of the gospel that radiates before the watching eyes of our children.

The final note one would make on the titan's life involves his business ethics. We cannot speculate as to whether Rockefeller's children fell out of favor with Christianity because of their discovery of the nature of the ill-gotten gains of his fortune, but we can say that it is clear that Rockefeller repeatedly bent the rules to make his millions. His fiscal empire was not rapacious, and it was often fair, and he himself was routinely generous to those whose firms he bought, but there are still blights on his economic record. As a leader, Rockefeller often distanced himself from the directly questionable (or outright wrong) decisions that secured his company's wealth, but the record shows that he led all the way, whether he signed the note or not. His example calls us to merge our faith with our day-to-day work. Faith and work are not mutually exclusive, and do not occupy self-contained realms. No, faith is to be poured into work, and biblical teachings and ethics are to shape how we live. How sad to see one example of a clear Christian who compromised his ethics in order to serve his ambition. Leadership is leadership, whether it is exercised from a distance or in the heat of the decision.

Titan teaches the Christian a familiar lesson. As much as the world calls to us to sample its delights, we must seek to be great not in earthly things but in God's kingdom. We may never achieve what some around us do, but in the end, we will have our character. On the last day, that will be a legacy that will not blow away with the wind. Rockefeller was a great man, a man who accomplished incredible things, and we will see him on the other side, where ambition for self and for glory has died and only righteousness lives on.

Contemplate Heaven with Me for a Minute: Edward's "Heaven Is a World of Love", Pt. 3

I'm glad that some of you are enjoying these quotations from "Heaven Is a World of Love." Here's the final one you'll see on this blog. It encapsulates the themes seen in the previous quotations and paints a beautiful metaphysical, emotional, and spiritual picture of the realm to come. Wherever you are, take just four minutes to read it. Then give yourself just a moment to consider what you've read.

The reason Edwards could write jewels like this was, in part, that he cultivated the habit--and it is a habit--of theological meditation. He did not simply read and then rush away. He read and then took a long horse-ride through the lush New England countryside to think on what he had read. As his horse canted softly through a fall forest scene, Edwards was mulling over the doctrine of original sin. As he rode past a lively stream, Edwards was transporting himself to the heavenly realm, pondering the relationships found there between God and God, God and man, man and man. Life for Edwards was not merely an exercise in study, then. It was also an exercise in meditation, in the refinement of thought, the cultivation of expression, such that when he wrote to instruct the saints, the riches flowed liberally, as they still do.

A Closing Picture of Heaven’s Beauty--And they shall know that they themselves shall ever live to love God, and love the saints, and to enjoy their love in all its fulness and sweetness forever. They shall be in no fear of any end to this happiness, or of any abatement from its fulness and blessedness, or that they shall ever be weary of its exercises and expressions, or cloyed with its enjoyments, or that the beloved objects shall ever grow old or disagreeable, so that their love shall at last die away. All in heaven shall flourish in immortal youth and freshness. Age will not there diminish anyone's beauty or vigor; and their love shall abide in everyone's heart, as a living spring perpetually springing up in the soul, or as a flame that never dies away. And the holy pleasure of this love shall be as a river that is forever flowing clear and full, and increasing continually. The heavenly paradise of love shall always be kept as in a perpetual spring, without autumn or winter, where no frosts shall blight, or leaves decay and fall, but where every plant shall be in perpetual freshness, and bloom, and fragrance, and beauty, always springing forth, and always blossoming, and always bearing fruit. The leaf of the righteous shall not wither (Psa. 1:3). And in the midst of the streets of heaven, and on either side of the river, grows the tree of life, which bears twelve manner of fruits, and yields her fruit every month (Rev. 22:2). Everything in the heavenly world shall contribute to the joy of the saints, and every joy of heaven shall be eternal. No night shall settle down with its darkness upon the brightness of their everlasting day.

Read more in The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Wilson Kimnach, Kenneth Minkema, and Doug Sweeney (Yale, 1999). You'll find in it this sermon and several other treasures that will, if you commit to reading them, transform your understanding of Edwards and, I'm confident, the Christian faith. The book is not long and is an inexpensive paperback. Wonderful reference tool, as well, for pastors and those looking to mine Edwards for their ministry.

Also, see the following accessible works related to Edwards:

• A Jonathan Edwards Reader, ed. John Smith, Harry Stout, and Kenneth Minkema. Another very useful Edwards work--a paperback collection of some of the key texts of the Edwards corpus, with readable sections from some of Edwards's most important philosophical-theological writings.
• Jonathan Edwards: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought. By Stephen Nichols. A very quick little paperback introducing readers to the ideas and events of Edwards's life. Excellent resource, though if you want a really substantive, enriching read, get Marsden's magisterial biography (Jonathan Edwards: A Life).

Contemplate Heaven with Me for a Minute: Edward's "Heaven Is a World of Love", Pt. 1

This sermon is an absolute masterpiece. Unfortunately, most Christians have not and never will encounter it. I encourage you to read this section and to check out the sermon. You'll see why if you read it.

The Reality of God’s Unending Love for His People--"As the saints will love God with an inconceivable ardency of heart, and to the utmost of their capacity, so they will know that he has loved them from all eternity, and still loves them, and will continue to love them forever. And God will then gloriously manifest himself to them, and they shall know that all that happiness and glory which they are possessed of, are the fruits of his love. And with the same ardor and fervency will the saints love the Lord Jesus Christ; and their love will be accepted; and they shall know that he has loved them with a faithful, yea, even with a dying love. They shall then be more sensible than now they are, what great love it manifested in Christ that he should lay down his life for them; and then will Christ open to their view the great fountain of love in his heart for them, beyond all that they ever saw before. Hereby the love of the saints to God and Christ is seen to he reciprocated, and that declaration fulfilled, "I love them that love me;" and though the love of God to them cannot properly be called the return of love, because he loved them first, yet the sight of his love will, on that very account, the more fill them with joy and admiration, and love to him."

--From "Heaven Is a World of Love," The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards

I recently taught on this at a local church in the Chicago area and was absolutely transported by Edwards's words. The central point of this passage is that God's love in heaven is something like a rushing force that unstoppably flows into the hearts and souls of His people. Like a sea churning with fury, God's love pours into the hearts of His people such that they are so full, so satiated with God's love, that there is no room for any other emotion or feeling. I do not know, of course, is this is the way heaven is, exactly, but I do commend Edwards for taking a stab at comprehending the reality of an uninhibited divine love. How often do you and I honestly stop to consider what it is like to experience the rushing, surging, overwhelming force of God's love as mediated through Christ in heaven? How much do we struggle to sense flickers of Christ's love while on earth, so cold and sinful are our hearts? Heaven, I am confident, will be very different, and whether it is just like Edwards pictures it in this sermon or not, it is clear from the biblical text that Christians have a great rushing sea of love in which to swim in the next life. Edwards lifts our gazes to think about this coming reality, and it will be worth reflecting on these next few days in order that we might train ourselves to allow our doctrine of heaven to transcend mere abstraction, mere intellectual exercise, and to warm our hearts as the Bible so clearly intends it to.

Teens, Television, and the Befuddling Mix of the Two

A thoughtful anonymous reader posted this in response to my Monday piece on television watching by evangelicals:

"We don't miss it, but our teenage son is somewhat of a prodigal and resents us for "imposing" our beliefs on him. Of course, we have explained the obvious to him and he is refusing to see reason in the true fashion of teenage rebellion. What would you do in that situation? Just curious. We are not budging, since we have 5younger children, but wonder if we are missing some form of reasonable compromise."

I always read comments to my posts, which is not usually terribly taxing. But that should encourage some of you fence-sitters out there to write in with your thoughts. At any rate, I thought that this was a great question, and so I decided to give it a hack. Let me first say that I am not a parent of children who exist in physical form outside of their mother's womb. I do in fact have a child, but it is presently hanging out in its mother's womb, learning to punch her in all sorts of interesting ways. I am not a parenting authority, then, and do not present myself as one. With that said, I think on a personal level that parents have to set a tone in their home in which they are recognized as the authority. They do not need to apologize for being such and should in fact claim the role of leader as a God-given station in life. They should seek to set a tone for the home, though, in which authority is mixed with grace and love. In other words, children in Christian homes should be happy, inasmuch as parents can make this happen. They should experience life in happy, joyful terms. They should not grow up with a view of the Christian home that sees it only in terms of what it is against, but rather that sees it as being clearly rooted in joy that flows forth from a rich understanding of the doctrines of election, atonement, and providence.

This means that we strive to make our homes happy, that we give our children that happiest childhood we can, and that we root all our parenting in a vision of the Christian life that is not legalistic or stingy. However, we will also have to make difficult choices that our children, particularly our teens, may disagree with. Hopefully, when this happens, we can look back and see that we have trained our teens to trust our authority and follow our leadership, even if they disagree with certain decisions we make. Without such a foundation, I really don't know what one would do in the situation described above. With it, though, we can point our children to the duty to obey their parents, clearly and graciously articulate the reasons for our decision, and instruct them to seek to live joyfully under our rule.

In this particular instance, it sounds like this young person could have a hard heart. I don't think it's the parent's duty to give in here, as it often is not. Way more often, it's going to be the child's duty to follow their parents. Were I in the above situation, I would do what I've already written and stand my ground. Of course, I'm not sure that I would necessarily outlaw all tv, and that's not what I stated in my post. If you have made that decision, however, I would stick to your guns, love your son boldly, and attempt to show him that you're not making this decision to stick it to him but to usher him to holiness. If he rebels against you, that shows that his heart is hard. Again, he can well choose to watch tv when he's on his own, but as long as he's in your house, it is his biblical responsibility to joyfully submit to your leadership and follow you as his God-given authority, one put there for his own health and flourishing. It will naturally only help if this response is given in the context of a home in which a full, happy, rich Christian life is celebrated.

But even still, your son may reject your wisdom, and rebel against you. In such a case, you must not relinquish your authority as a parent and bend to his will, but stand firm and seek to love him.

Those are my thoughts--do other readers have their own? This is a sticky question, I must admit. I gave it my best shot, but as I said, I'm no authority here!

August Rush: Another Movie Searches for Transcendence and Finds it in Music, and Family

The movie August Rush, which debuted in November 2007, presents an uneven but inspiring tale of one sweet boy's search for transcendence in a world of isolation and evil. The movie is not flawless, but its depiction of the power of music alone makes the film well worth watching.

The plot centers in two musicians (played ably by Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) who chance upon one another, sleep together, and then lose touch completely with one another, despite the fact that they developed an incredible bond with one another (yes, in one brief night of passion; cue eye-rolling now). Russell's character ends up pregnant and gives birth to a boy she never meets (you'll have to watch the film to see why). The boy, "Evan Taylor" (played by Freddie Highmore of Lost in Neverland), ends up in a miserable home for boys. Sweet-spirited and mystically in touch with music, which he hears in even the most ordinary of sounds, he escapes from the home, ends up in New York, and embarks upon an adventure in which he trains himself to play a number of instruments at a lyrical level. The plot, as noted above, is a bit uneven and seems half-heartedly devoted to aping the story of Oliver Twist. In addition, some of the characters are less than plausible (Robin Williams shows up for several scenes of extended, and unneeded, histrionics).

These factors, and the act of fornication that drives the movie, are regrettable, but the movie has significant strengths as well. This is a film that quite simply is in love with music. As one who loves music (a rather broad statement), I resonated with its appreciation of harmonic beauty. The film, though not Christian, does also pick up on elements of common grace (though it would not call them such). Though little Evan is mired in a painful station in life, he finds beauty all around him, and maintains a disposition of hope and good cheer. It's touching and challenging to watch. Most of us are far too swallowed up in our own selfish little existences to notice the beauty of the world, let alone to draw others into it through creation and celebration. The movie further succeeds in representing man realistically. He is not inherently satisfied with life as it is placed in front of him. No, he searches, and quests, and storms until he finds that which he deems transcendent. For Evan (or "August", as he is renamed), the search ends with music, and also with a reunited family. These same ends bring transcendence to Evan's parents; throughout their young lives, they wrestle with music as Jacob with the angel, and even when musically accomplished search for their other family members. There are two insights here: one, music elevates our earthly existence, and two, family does the same. Without these two goods, we are impoverished, living isolated, hopeless lives.

As Christians, we can resonate with these points. As I've very recently said (in writing on the movie Once, which carries some similar themes), music is imbued with transcendence. It is not cheap and small; it was given us by God to explore the moral and spiritual complexity of the universe. Though music is not God--and thus August Rush fatally overreaches in ascribing it such significance--yet we can say that music is a strange and magical thing. It is another language, a way of speaking about our lives and experiences and the truths and mysteries of this world that defies verbal communication. Music is not Transcendence, then, but it is a transcendent art form, capable of reaching across structures and thought patterns to grab hold of our soul and plunge us into pools of mysterious and beautiful reality. I love that August Rush believes this and seeks to communicate it. Though it strains in this endeavor, and misses the truth that music points us to--that God alone is Transcendence--yet it succeeds in capturing something of the essence of music. It is a beautiful film, and there are several scenes that moved me on a deeply emotional level and made me thankful that people take up cameras and attempt to capture aspects of human existence such as music.

The film, as noted, also shows a powerful belief in the family, and perhaps unintentionally, the nuclear family (dad, mom, child). This is a great insight as well. Though the family is also not ultimately transcendent, as August Rush might lead us to think, we may say that the family is perhaps God's greatest earthly gift to us. It is simply impossible to enumerate the ways in which we are blessed on a daily, even hourly, basis by our families, even if they are not families of considerable health. Just having a family is immensely meaningful. The support that one has in being part of a family is not often consciously thought of but is precious beyond quantification. The film knows this, and shows us what it means for people to live without the structures of family--and most clearly to live without parents as an abandoned boy. One can have talent, and beauty, and joy, but without a family, one is ultimately unhappy. We Christians would of course go beyond this to say that God alone is our greatest need, that it is our most urgent necessity to enter into not an earthly family but a spiritual family that transcends this earth. On an earthly level, though, it is clear that God has structured the family to be the central part of our earthly existence. He has done so, I would argue, to show us something of the taste of familial perfection as expressed in the Trinity, the union of Father, Son, and Spirit, of which our families are but a type and shadow.

August Rush seeks true transcendence and fails to find it. But we may commend it for its pursuit and enjoy for its depiction of two of the choicest gifts God has given humanity: music and family. This movie shows us for the hundredth time that the people around us are not living atomistic lives, at least not all of the time. No, they are looking for something; something greater, something higher, something unified, something beautiful. Though they may discover numerous gifts of common grace in their search, we know that until they find the Christ, the salvation-giver, this search will prove fruitless in the end. We must be around them, then, to tell them where transcendence, and joy, and true hope may be found. It is not in music, but the One who created music; not in the family, but in the One who created the family; it is not found in the gift, but only in the Giver.

Daniel Day-Lewis, Oliver Twist, and the Mysterious Spectacle of Acting

A recent interview with Irish actor Daniel Day-Lewis in London's Telegraph Magazine prompted some reflection on the nature of acting.

"Because of his commitment to a character, he has a very difficult time disengaging from a part. 'There's a terrible sadness,' he told me. 'The last day of shooting is surreal. Your mind, your body, your spirit are not prepared to accept that this experience is coming to an end. You've devoted so much of your time to unleashing, in an unconscious way, some sort of spiritual turmoil, and even if it's uncomfortable, no part of you wishes to leave that character behind. The sense of bereavement is such that it can take years before you can put it to rest.'"

I recently watched the masterpiece "There Will Be Blood" and loved it. The film showcases Day-Lewis's performance and reveals the actor to be probably the finest of his time. Acting is something of a mystery, a mysterious spectacle, and Day-Lewis is the embodiment of this enigma. Though he often struggles to get out exactly what it is that allows him to power through his performances, the above quotation explains a bit of his magic. For Day-Lewis, acting is a spiritual exercise, an attempt to find the soul of the character he is charged with portraying. No mere act of mirroring, acting for Day-Lewis signifies an assumption of the personality of another. It is for this reason that his performances draw your eyes like a burning sun.

My wife recently endured (well, I think she actually enjoyed it) a round of Day-Lewis films due to a slightly obsessive desire on my part to watch the actor portray other characters. My favorite film of the few we've watched was the 1997 drama "The Boxer", a tale of tragic love set against the backdrop of bloody 1990s Ireland. Don't watch the film if you want lots of fireworks and crazy plot twists. The film itself is moving and well-made, but the thing to watch is Day-Lewis's portrayal of a once-imprisoned boxer who seeks not vengeance but peace in the midst of a hometown torn apart by feuds between the Protestants and Catholics. The actor glides quietly through scenes washed in dark colors and carves out a man who is simultaneously capable of ferocity in the ring and tenderness with the street children he trains in his boxing club. One is moved not so much by swelling music or emotional outbursts but by Day-Lewis's profound humanity. In a town where men recruit boys to blow other men up, "Danny" devotes his life to living for others, to helping those around him in a self-sacrificial way. His character is nuanced, emotionally etched as if with the finest of brushes, and awes the viewer for the good he is able to accomplish by his gentle but stubborn will. In a world where so many men are worthy only of epithets, Danny's goodness considered as a whole puts tears in one's eyes. I've rarely been motivated to live more for the Lord by an invented person, but I was by this character as played flawlessly by Day-Lewis.

I remember playing the character Oliver Twist many years ago, back when I was the world's smallest eighth-grader. I have no illusions that I burrowed deeply into that character, though I can still make my mother and sister cry by singing "Where Is Love?". That useful talent aside, there is something in me that yearns to emulate Day-Lewis in disappearing into a character and bringing it to life. I don't think that I ever will, and I'm not sure that I ever could, but perhaps some out there understand this desire to probe the magic of drama. Is there not something almost unearthly about playing another person? I recall my limited drama experience with great happiness, and I suppose I'll carry a bit of a sadness with me until the end due to my inability to act. We all carry bits of sadness with us, I suppose, and that's one of mine.

But I can't stay melancholy for long, much as my current musical accompaniment (the Cranberries' "Empty", chosen in honor of Day-Lewis) seeks to do. It is a joy that though I do not now act, others do, others of great talent and insight. Perhaps more than this, though, this brief reflection on this "mysterious spectacle" that we call acting takes us to something beyond, something higher, something quite magical and mysterious, but something also real. One recalls a performance that involved the assumption of another nature, but this assumption was no fictional exercise, but one of authentic reality. Jesus Christ took on flesh and entered into a drama of positively cosmic proportions. The drama's climax, the death of the God-man, does not merely move us by its example. No, it has changed we who love Christ to our very core. Never was anything so real, so transformingly real, as this act. Held up against this figure, all our acting appears as vanity, for what is it that we strive for in our acting but the assumption of a second personality and the transformation of our audience? Daniel Day-Lewis may move us, but in Jesus Christ, we have found a performer, a dramatic figure, whose very real crucifixion has not simply touched us, or awed us, but has made us nothing less than a new creation. That, friends, is a mysterious spectacle we cannot quite comprehend, a genuine performance we cannot ever reproduce.

When a Trailer Park is Just Right: On Manhood and the Duty to Provide

"A man who really gets Ephesians 5 is the kind of man who will be willing to work two jobs and live in a trailer to enable his wife to be the primary caregiver of his children."

This line comes from a recent blog post and CBMW journal contribution by Dr. Russ Moore. I appreciated Dr. Moore's post, entitled "Pastoral Leadership and the Gender Issue: What Does Courage Look Like?" Moore raised a number of good points in the brief post, but none affected me more than that made in the line quoted above. In our milieu, I would imagine that this comment would sound strange to many ears. Why on earth would anyone live in a trailer park if they don't (absolutely) have to? In a materialistic society (and a materialistic church, maybe?), there is perhaps no sharper ideological razor to be applied in making familial decisions than that of economic concerns. Ockham would (not) be proud.

What do I mean here? Simply this: many of us in American evangelicalism so prize material comfort that we will allow almost nothing to impede our pursuit of it. So, for example, when it comes down to determining such basic questions like where we will live and how we will live, we are often quite ready to sacrifice things like family time, home life, and discipleship with things like a nicer home, more cars, better accouterments. I am not against these things or a nice standard of living on their own terms, but I am against them when they compromise the quality of our family life. Somehow, we have allowed the culture to whisper into our ear and convince us that it is better to be wealthy--on whatever scale and by whatever measurement--than it is to be together. We don't realize in making this exchange that we have taken the culture and its ideals as our guide. Accordingly, we have left the Word and its wisdom behind. The Scripture teaches us that the things that truly matter cannot be measured in dollars and cents, even though many--the Proverbs famously groups the materialistic masses under the moniker "fool"--believe the opposite. They think, in their fallen condition, that it is actually better to have cars than laughs, toys than time, renovated bathrooms than healthy marriages. The result? Husbands and wives alike work themselves into the ground, and the children suffer and grow angry, and the family slowly falls apart, the cycle to be damningly repeated again a generation later.

It is in the backdrop of such tragedy that Dr. Moore makes his point, and that I concur. If we could accept a little less luxury, many of our families would know far more health than they do. If we would accept a lower standard of living, more of our mothers could mother, more of our children could flourish, and more of our churches could know a fresh level of quality by the investment of older women in the lives of young women. If we could reject the American "dream" of material prosperity and see a trailer-park or an apartment complex through gospel lenses, we would see that it is no horrible thing to live as poor people when we have a joyful, gospel-centered, God-glorifying family that pulses with love and hope. Nowhere do the biblical authors instruct us to see such circumstances as a curse. No, if God is the Lord of the home, and the husband and wife fill their roles, and the children obey their parents, then the family is rich, rich beyond the wildest dreams of the wealthy secularists up the street who has great wealth in the bank but tragically little in the heart.

Again, this is not to say that wealth is wrong. It is not, and some Christians have a great deal of it and do not allow it to compromise a healthy home. Sadly, though, many do allow earthly values to drive their decision-making and home life. This problem--and its solution--begins with the husband. If he will commit to taking on the burden of the family's finances, to providing for his home though it may cost him much, then he sets his family up to flourish. If he gives them a vision of life together that is not driven and dictated by the culture and its ideals, but a biblical vision that prizes the principles of God's Word as they relate to the home, then he charts for them a course of great blessing. With his family, he may know times of great hardship and trial. He will have difficult nights, and sleepless days. He will see others entertaining themselves more and exhausting themselves less, and he may even question the wisdom of his path. But he will turn over and over to God's Word and its vision for masculine leadership and provision, and he will know, if only by the mustard seed of faith, that if it must be, a trailer park is not only enough--it is just right.

Get to Know a Puritan: The Puritan Reading Challenge

I have been meaning to tell readers of this blog about a great program going on over at my friend Timmy Brister's blog, Provocations & Pantings. Timmy is an MDiv student at Southern Seminary with a great passion for church health, evangelism, and the glorification of God. He's a good friend and an encouragement to me. His program is called the Puritan Reading Challenge. Basically, Timmy has come up with the idea of reading one paperback by one Puritan each month of this year. He's invited people to join with him in reading the paperback and in discussing the work together. He's got the whole thing worked out so that those who participate in the Challenge receive a massive discount from a couple of booksellers. He's also got interviews with men like Mark Dever on the Puritans. I highly encourage you to check the Challenge out over at Timmy's blog.

I'm excited about this program because it is designed to acquaint people with the Puritans, authors of a treasure trove of literature that is largely undiscovered in many Christian circles today. The Puritans have a wide variety of reputations, with some saying that they're detached prudes, others saying that they're legalist doctrinaires, but in the end, they were godly people who lived with a big view of their Lord and who sought to honor Him on a daily basis. They were not perfect, but they did have a healthy view of God, man, and the Christian life, and for this reason I would encourage most anyone to pick up a Puritan paperback and read it. The books in Timmy's series aren't that long, and they're full of rich doctrinal meditation and searching practical application.

I'll close with the blurb from the Challenge project blog, answering why one should study the Puritans:

First, the Puritans had a relentless pursuit of God. In their writings you will find believers who knew their God deeply through a rich God-centeredness that affected every area of their lives. We are living in a day where it is hard to find folks who know their God well. Second, the Puritans were physicians of souls. These men studied themselves and had a real, experimental knowledge of Christianity. Nowhere will you find more “uses” and applications for your life than in their writings. Not only did they know God well, they knew the minds, hearts, and consciences of men well. Third, the Puritans possessed genuine piety because they knew how to fight the fight of faith. These men took direct aim at indwelling sin and fought hard for their personal sanctification. Their writings are incredibly pastoral and at the same time intimately convicting. Fourth, the Puritans were pacesetters in church history. They ran in such a way to win, and whether it is their study of Scripture, commitment to family worship, personal devotion to prayer, or caring for the souls in their community, these men ran and ran hard. Fifthly, reading the Puritans will provide you a healthy perspective so as to prevent chronological snobbery. Let’s face it. It is tempting to read only what is novel, trendy, and popular. Yet it is worthwhile to read books 100 years or older to understand how Christians lived, face struggles, dealt with issues (doctrinal, ecclesiological, ethical, etc.), and experienced God. Frankly speaking, you will not find anything close to Owen, Watson, Brooks, and Baxter on the front shelves of your local bookstore.

If you're interested, leave a comment for Timmy at his blog and he'll get back to you with more info.

Bruce Ware on Christ and a Spirit-Empowered Ministry

We are all blessed in many and different ways, but a personal joy for me is the fact that I have a theologian for a father-in-law. Deep question come up? Write an email. Theological incongruity emerge? Ask your in-law. Mysterious doctrine baffle the mind and heart? Pull up a chair after dinner. I don't often publicly mention how blessed I am to be the son-in-law of the humble, gifted, godly Bruce Ware, but I want to today. It is a privilege and a great help to me--I am so thankful for my father-in-law, for his ministry to church, academy, and world, and for his great personal kindness to his family. I don't deserve to be related to him, but I am honored to be so.

I say all this because my friend, "JV," (also known as Josh Vincent, a Florida pastor and SBTS grad) asked a great question in reference to my blog last week about the role of the Spirit in Christ's life prior to his anointing by the Spirit at His baptism. Here is JV's series of questions in full: "What are your thoughts on the presence of the Spirit with Jesus prior to his descending upon Jesus. Was Jesus without the Spirit prior to this? Also, do you think there is a qualitative or quantitative difference in the way that we have the Spirit or the communion enjoyed and that which Christ himself lived in?"

I found this a difficult and thoughtful question, and so wrote Dr. Ware for his thoughts on the matter, which I sought to present as he teaches (though if I made any errors, they are my own, not his). I present his answer here with his consent in hopes that it will help others as it has helped me to understand the relationship between Christ and the Spirit in Christ's lifetime. Here goes:

"Since the OT predicts, among other things, that the coming Messiah would have the Spirit upon him, the Spirit who would manifest in him understanding, wisdom, and the fear of the Lord (e.g., Isa 11:1-2), I take it that he would have had the Spirit from the very first instant of his life as the God-man. So, Luke 1:35 means, among other things, that when the Holy Spirit brought about the miraculous conception in Mary of this God-man, Jesus the Christ, the Spirit would have indwelt him from the instant he was conceived. A couple other reason for thinking so are: 1) if John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah, was filled with the Spirit while in his mother's womb (Luke 1:15, 41), wouldn't the Messiah even more so be filled from the start? 2) the reference in Luke 2:40 that Jesus grew in wisdom and that the grace of God was upon him is best understood, in my view, as a reference to the Spirit upon Jesus enabling him to have the wisdom and understanding that he had, even to the point of marvelling the teachers of the law at the temple as a 12 yr old boy (Luke 2:41-52).

So, what happened at his baptism? I understand this as a special and powerful anointing of the Spirit, much as the Spirit came upon prophets or judges or civil rulers in the Old Testament, and as he came upon Peter or other apostles even after Pentecost when they had already permanently and previously received the Spirit. Jesus' baptism marked the beginning of Jesus' public ministry wherein his teaching, miracles, resisting more severe temptations, etc, were all about to start. So, while Jesus was already indwelt with the Spirit from the moment of conception, the Spirit came upon him in a special way for the outward ministry to which he was embarking. Also, the public display of the Spirit coming on him as a dove was an empirical marker to others that he was none other than the Spirit-anointed Messiah (John 1:29-34).

All of this upholds the thrust of what you argued in your blog -- that Jesus lived his life in the power of the Spirit, and as such, he truly is an example for how we too are to live. As Packer has put it, "Jesus the Spirit-bearer became the Spirit-giver." The empowerment for his obedience and resistance of temptation is the empowerment given to his followers -- note: see the obvious and intended (I think) connection between Acts 1:8 about how we are enabled to fulfill God's mission, and the description of how Jesus lived his life in Acts 10:38. And so, yes, Jesus' first 30 years were also lived in the power of the Spirit, while his last years of ministry, teaching, cross, and resurrection evidenced even greater outpouring of Spirit-empowerment. Well, it is a great and glorious truth: we are to follow in his steps (1 Pet 2:21ff) and have the same attitude in ourselves that was in Christ Jesus (Phil 2:5ff). This is only possible because the Spirit-indwelling and empowerment in us was the same that was in Jesus.

By the way, Sam Storms has also written about this recently (in the past month), and an excellent book on this subject is Gerald Hawthorne's The Presence and the Power."

There you have it--the words of a master theologian on a difficult but important topic. I hope that this information encourages you by helping you to realize the depth of access you have to the might of God, and that this realization fuels a life of courage, boldness, and humble dependence on the Spirit.