wcc is podcasting

Next time you are in iTunes, search for Washington Christian Church and you will find our podcast. My most recent sermon is there and is entitled "RSVP - come as you are." Check it out and let me know what you think.

If you have trouble finding our podcast page, here is the URL:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=298774314

and the second is like it

An awesome Breakpoint broadcast on my birthday
(for more Breakpoint, visit http://www.breakpoint.org/):

WALL-E
What It Means to Be Human
December 18, 2008

The fact that the hit movie WALL-E has a plot that even a child can follow doesn’t mean it’s juvenile. Released earlier this year, the Pixar film follows the story of a little robot named WALL-E. While the rest of Earth’s inhabitants have embarked on a 700-year cruise-like vacation aboard a space station, this little robot is left behind to clean up the planet.

As WALL-E sifts through the trash, he begins to learn what it’s like to be human. A Rubik’s Cube says something about the human capacity for logic and play; an old VHS tape of Hello Dolly teaches him about the human capacity for creativity. One hand-holding scene, which WALL-E plays over and over, teaches him about love.

The little robot continues, day in and day out, to do his task of cleaning up the earth, until a “female” robot, aptly named EVE, comes along. EVE, or Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, is on a mission to see if the earth can once again sustain life. If so, humans can one day return to it.

Ironically, while WALL-E is trying to learn about what is to be human, humans adrift in the cosmic space station have grown robot-like, tethered to machines and out of touch with each other and their own creative impulses.

Many critics saw the film as an environmental movie. But while WALL-E has a lot to say about the stewardship of the creation, it is ultimately about much more. Filmmaker Andrew Stanton, an outspoken Christian, recently explained to World Magazine that what really interested him in the story line was “the idea of the most human thing in the universe being a machine, because it has more interest in finding out what the point of living is than actual people.”

“The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love,” Stanton says, “but that's not always our priority. So I came up with this premise that . . . irrational love defeats the world's programming.” That’s why Stanton created WALL-E and EVE to work literally against their own robotic programming to demonstrate love, first for each other, and then for humanity.

In contrast to robots learning to love, Stanton wanted to show how humans had become machinelike. Our routines and habits, he argues, have programmed us “to the point that we're not really making connections to the people next to us. We're not engaging in relationships, which are the point of living—relationship with God and relationship with other people.”
I couldn’t agree more.

Another thing you’ll notice about the film is that all the humans are enormously obese. This was the result of Stanton’s imaginative logic of what would happen to humans as the result of living long term in zero-gravity conditions. But, Stanton told Christianity Today, it’s also what humans would look like when we become “big babies with no reason to grow up.” Stanton explains, “I was going with the logic of what would happen if you were in a perpetual vacation with no real purpose in life.”

Through the stark depiction of such perpetual laziness, viewers rediscover something that all of us can easily lose sight of: the value and beauty of meaningful work.

Sacrifice, love, logic, playfulness, creativity, connection, work—take some time this Christmas and let a little robot remind you what it means to be human, created in God’s image.

engaging culture

Excellent article. Read it.

http://www.abpnews.com/3206.article

expelled

The following is a posting I made to Brett McCracken's blog (visit Brett's blog at http://stillsearching.wordpress.com/ ) about the new Ben Stein documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. People were really mercilessly bad-mouthing well-meaning Christians so I had to say something...

What makes the likelihood of an intelligent designer any crazier a filter for explaining the unbelievable statistical unlikelihood of DNA and other apparently irreducibly complex systems than the currently popular cosmological explanation that there are an infinite number of parallel universes that make every outcome equally likely? This is just whimsy. It is no more intelligently dishonest to say, “God must be behind it,” than to say, “Infinite multiple universes are behind it.”

Nobody knows the mechanism behind the astronomically complex makings of life. The annoying thing about this whole argument is that those in the scientific community say they do. If they would just admit that they might be wrong, maybe the argument would go away and real scientific inquiry could take place on both sides. Instead, the underpaid scientists in our nation can only get funding to do evolution-centric biological research. Let’s see…feed my kids or buck the system. I’ll feed my kids. There’s a natural selection.

Also, somebody made the point earlier that scientific explanations for supernatural events undermine faith in some way. Not in a Christian worldview, they don’t. Christianity is the basis of all scientific inquiry. It is only because of the insistence on a rational created order that science ever sprung from the muck of superstition and magic in the first place. Without Christianity, there would be no science and we would still be throwing bones to make decisions and casting demons out of epileptics.

Order is a God thing.

movie trends

It has been suggested that these days there are too many movies that are dark for darkness’ sake. Most cite this year’s best picture nominees as proof. Juno is most assuredly NOT a dark tale, but while I have yet to see Michael Clayton, or Atonement, it is my understanding that both are a bit on the brooding side; but the crown jewels of the new noir cinema are this year’s best picture winner, No Country for Old Men and nominee There Will Be Blood. These films are about as dark as you can get, but they are not devoid of redemptive themes. On the contrary, their crystal clear portrayal of sin and its wages make them akin to the great cautionary tales of the Bible (e.g., the fate of Herod or the David/Bathsheba/Uriah triangle or the miserable end of the reign of Pharaoh).

Much has been made about the lack of closure in No Country, but that is actually the point. It is a movie about whether or not fate is fickle or directed, whether our destiny is determined by our choices or is completely out of our control, and whether we are spiraling downward or just reaping the ever present crop of a fallen world. The movie ends by trying to make both points equally and letting you decide which is most true or which will win out or whether it even matters in the grand scheme of things. It is both chilling and thought provoking that the Coen brothers leave that up to you to decide. That took some real guts. Javier Bardem’s portrayal of Anton Chigurh was the most quietly menacing performance I can remember, and the coin toss scene in the gas station will positively turn your blood to ice.

There’s really no question about anything that happens in There Will Be Blood. It’s a pretty straightforward cautionary tale about what happens when you worship mammon and scale the dead bodies of your competitors to get to the “top.” As soon as things become more important than people, you end up like Daniel Plainview and/or Eli Sunday. The movie does not hammer you with this message, however. You are required to do the heavy lifting to discern who is worse, Eli or Daniel, and to some degree, it is left to your imagination how they got there, but where they end up is no mystery, and that arrival forms the centerpiece of the final act - a most dreadful dance of greed, self-interest, and madness, leading to perhaps the most shocking ending in film history. Not to mention that this movie contains the single most amazing acting performance I have ever seen; I think Daniel Day Lewis is possessed.

Finally, here are two movies that might have flown in under your RADAR and that you should not miss:

Once is a 21st century musical. That is, it is a story told predominantly with song, but it is not contrived or unrealistic; no one breaks into song for no reason. It is quiet, moving, and beautiful, contains amazing musical performances by its leads, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, and tells a real story about real people devoid of tidy Hollywood conventions and predictable endings. It is a movie that sometimes soars and sometimes floats and sometimes sits quietly; in other words, it is a lot like life. I love this movie.

Lars and the Real Girl will turn some off because of its premise, which is, simply stated, a story about a troubled young man who falls in love with a mail-order sex doll. If that had been the end of it, I would never have watched it, but fortunately someone I trusted recommended I ignore the premise and give Lars a fair shake. To call this film uplifting and heartwarming would be a gross understatement. Sexual questions are totally immaterial to this story because it is not about the doll; it is about relationships, unconditional love, the nature of mental illness, and the way a community responds to it. And it is also quite funny without being crass or uncaring.

As an added benefit, Lars has wonderful things to say about the church and would offer a great lesson to its members if they could overlook their surface objections to the premise. Let’s say a Christian watching Lars would be much like a Christian actually welcoming someone who comes to the church looking for God but looking too odd. Could you extend the hand of Christian fellowship to a guy who brought his plastic fiancée to church? Well then how about the guy who brings his “partner” or the guy with tattoos and piercings or girl dressed inappropriately or the older woman who has not showered or, or, or… Lars and the Real Girl will warm your heart and maybe change it a little. Watch it. Trust me.

the man in the mirror

Many of you may have received an email that goes something like this:

--------------------

At the Emmy awards, Kathy Griffin's acceptance speech said, "A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus." She went on to say, “Suck it, Jesus. This is my God now!” referring to the Emmy.

As a Christian, I am offended by her hate speech. What do you think might have happened if she had made the hate speech against Muhammad???? Kathy Griffin has the right as an American to say what she thinks. As a Christian-American, so do I.

Today I will refuse to watch any show that she may be on or purchase tickets to any event at which she would perform. What will you do? If you delete this, nothing bad will happen to you, but if you pass this on, you will truly have stood up for Jesus Christ. Let’s see what Christians can do.

------------------------

This really happened, but it was censored from the E! Network broadcast of the awards show. Have you ever heard Kathy Griffin? She’s pretty funny, pretty smart, and probably right; I seriously doubt Jesus had anything to do with her award or her life in general. Jesus is knocking, but Griffin must be in the shower or something (she says she’s an ex-Catholic atheist).

Rather than talk boycott (the Christian's first reaction to everything these days), I think this should be a wake-up call; we need to take a serious look at how people are looking at us.

Why did Griffin think this was a good idea? What cultural environment have we created that would find this funny? I don’t see hatred here, only ignorance and probably a gut reaction to what she sees as holier-than-thou “Christian” hypocrites putting on airs. What could be more hypocritical than an angry, foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed, rap singer giving “props” to Jesus? But should we expect anything else from the world? (“The things of God are foolishness to the unbeliever, for they are spiritually discerned” - Paul, paraphrased)

Perhaps Christians need to do something, but perhaps we should start by looking in the mirror. Individual Christians (especially Christian leaders) need to start asking themselves the hard questions: When was the last time I helped the poor? Who is the last widow or orphan I fed? How long has it been since I visited someone in prison? Am I following Christ or running from the world? What is my fruit? Is it just doctrine and dogma, or is it faith, hope, and love?

There's a reason Ms. Griffin sees us as another target, similar to Joan Rivers or Paris Hilton. We need to figure out what that reason is, or there will be no one to blame for the slander of our Savior but ourselves.

We cannot proclaim our Lord to the world if we cannot even relate to it. In order to reach this culture, we cannot rely on the reasoned arguments of the recent past, but instead, like the first-century Christians, we must be humble, transparent, and compassionate; anything less and today's youth will see right though it. Remember, Jesus was a friend of sinners and came to save the lost not embolden the saved. We must do likewise.

I say take a moment today to pray for Kathy Griffin and others who feel the same. Pray that God will open doors for you to show them God's grace and love. Pray that we never become so comfortable in our Christian fortress that we forget the hordes starving for hope outside our walls.