The failure of 21st century Hollywood

In a nutshell, film directors have forgotten how to tell a story.

Because of dependence upon CGI and gore that would disturb a coroner and sex that would shock a hooker, not to filming with a leftist slant that makes LBJ look conservative, movie makers provide us little reason to want to shell out big coin and take our families to the multiplex.

Christian Toto, in a piece for Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood (here, with a great video about Robert Shaw), made these very points as he reviewed the Blu-Ray release of Jaws.

If "Jaws" came out today, and it's a miracle some thick-headed studio exec hasn't already greenlit a remake, the shark would look so realistic audiences wouldn't be able to tell the movie shark from the real McCoy. And, most likely, the film's storytelling would suffer as a result.

Why bother writing a great script or indelible characters when all movie goers will be talking about are the special effects long after the lights turn back on in the theater?

Heck, Spielberg himself admits as much during the release's copious "making of" features. The director couldn't rely on "Bruce" the shark for extended closeups or elaborate poses. So he showed less of it, and the result was far more frightening than any CGI shark.

Great CGI + lame story + lame characters + lame dialogue = 2012 Hollywood.

The door's wide open for any who care to craft a good story. Don't tell me. Show me. Toto highlights a great line of dialogue that captures that essence. As Richard Dreyfus' character gets ready to be a diver-in-a-can lunch snack for Bruce the Shark, rather than state the obvious, "I'm scared to death and pre-wet my wetsuit" he states simply, "I got no spit" as he tries to defog his swim mask. Scared. To. Death.

Interesting, too, that 1970's Steven Spielberg removed the graphic adultery of Peter Benchley's novel in crafting the screenplay for the movie. Minus the shadowed girl running naked into the waves at the start of the movie, there is little to object to in Jaws. A terrifying story told with exquisite mastery.

Are you ready to go back into the water?

The aged Lady

Ah, Madam,

What has become of you?

That was then, this is now. Yes, certainly. But the fabric of the gown you wore when you were young, the one woven of titanium, indestructible, but with a delicacy that revealed your natural beauty, is a tattered mess. You seem stooped. The years have begun to catch up.

Having just past a birthday, I cannot help but think back, and really, your birth was a miracle. Disparate colonies. What did Massachusetts have in common with Virginia beyond a tyrant king? Nothing like a common enemy to drive together a people so different.  And yet, not so different. A biblical Christianity stood as the foundation for the lives of the majority of citizens from north to south. Agrarian livelihoods dominated your young limbs, and even those in the cities--hamlets, really--had extensive ties to the country. Your people read well, read often, read much, and read broadly. Today we read very little unless it's in text shorthand.

Four score and five years into your existence, it seemed that your body would rip itself in two at the navel. The Civil War should have killed you. Consider France. A beautiful country if you look at her skin. Beneath the surface she's schizophrenic and rotted to the core. Seems to have always been that way. Every time she tries to set things right, her own self-interest ruins the day. No principle. No foundation. But, Madam, when your lower extremities began to pull away from your upper, you destroyed the disease, and quite miraculously left both your body and it's soul intact. Extraordinary.

We now stand 150 years removed from that time. For most today, the War Between the States compels our attention if a movie enacts what happened, and then only if they twist history to include vampires. The greatest tragedies and lessons from our past become a backdrop for a horror story.

Today, your atrophied muscles and fragile frame seem to be more like those of France than the strong stature with which you stood as you hurtled toward the Civil War. I believe you stand more starkly divided today than you did then. In 1860, your division was linear, along Mason and Dixon. Now your division seems total with neighboring fingers at war with one another. When we talk red and blue, there does seem to be some polarity along the coasts with moles of blue within the cities dotting the deep red of your midsection, but on the whole, your body is a checkerboard of oil and water, Hatfield and McCoy.

Today, you are racially divided. Back then, the conflict raged between white Anglos in the north and white Anglos in the south. There did not exist a racial hostility or hatred. Yes, there was prejudice and bigotry where many felt light skin superior to dark, European ancestry superior to African, but it was not so much that white hated black or black hated white. The seeds of racial hatred--sowed where?--have blossomed into a hemlock rash that has covered your body. It seems that there is a political element to this disease, too, as the lion's share of animosity seems to come from blue toward red. Go figure, considering the red fought so passionately against the blue to end slavery.

Today, you are morally divided. Some consider the killing of a baby in the womb an issue of personal liberty. "Who are you to tell me what I am to do with my body?" as though ending a life in the sanctuary of the womb were no different than getting a flower or butterfly tattoo. On another moral front, many hold to the God-given institution of marriage between one man and one woman while others suggest that the government should let any mix or multiplicity of partners be considered a marriage.

Today, you are economically divided. In all honesty, you're not, but those with the loudest microphones have convinced the masses that you are a nation of lords and serfs and that the oppression of the lords is far worse than anything seen throughout the Middle Ages. Looking at your economic situation, your people are far better off than they have ever been in history. Your people have more wealth, especially in the lower economic stratus, than has ever been known on this planet. There is not a want of food. Rare is the instance of starvation. None serve under the whip. None have hours mandated by a cruel boss that they cannot quit or cannot leave. None are manacled to the machine. And yet, the idea of unfair, unjust division between rich and poor is as rampant as racial hatred.

Today, you are spiritually divided. Despite the disagreements about the Bible (dizzying to think that some actually advocated slavery as practiced in 19th Century America as a good from the pages of Scripture), the country of the 1800's could appeal to the word of God to discern the way of righteousness. By and large, America has rejected the Bible as an authority for really anything to include spiritual things. Few read it. Fewer heed it. Few preachers, pastors and priests believe it to be the inspired, inerrant word of God. What then do they preach? And why bother? Might as well go to the lake on Sunday. And really, we are largely secular, espousing no religion or embracing a non-offensive, impotent, pick-your-god spirituality. You want to appeal to a moral authority? You'll not find an American consensus in the heavenlies.

Today, you are culturally divided. The only taboo that remains is stating that there is a taboo. No sexual boundaries remain. The only language considered profane is stating anything positive about Jesus Christ or his church. Regarding violence, the human body has been tortured, exploded, slashed, gashed, flayed, slayed, dissolved, dissected, burned, poked, prodded, maimed--you get the idea. Gone are the days when it is clearly a stuffed dummy tumbling down the cliff. No longer will the cowboy grip his chest and fall to the ground. No, we need to see the slow motion spray of blood and matter from the exit wound on his head from seven different angles. Thanks so much.  Many long for good story-telling coupled with discretion, telling more with less. Others long for more of the profane.

Today, you are constitutionally divided. I would say "politically divided," but it's not about politics, the art of compromise. It's about how your government should function. Do we follow the Constitution as the Founders intended, or do we follow the Constitution as it suits us in 2012--no, 2013--no, wait, 2014? If the latter, then you are France, and God help you. I do not believe that even the staunchest Federalist of the late 1700's could imagine the massive and horrifying tumor that would become the Federal government of the 21st century and how it would be destroying your soul. And yet, many today think it should be bigger and have greater control over our lives. Others think it should be razed and rebuilt, brick by brick, upon the very documents that gave you life at the beginning. Which is it?

So back to my opening salvo, what has become of you? And more troubling, what will become of you?

With each of these divisions, there seems to be little to no common ground upon which to stand or even grab some footing. We do not even agree upon a common enemy. Is it poverty? Is it sloth? Is it corporate America? Is it government intrusion? Is it Christian fundamentalists? Or is it Islamic fundamentalists? Is what's happening in Europe good or bad? Is it the Yankees or the Red Sox? We might hope for a common enemy, but even when we were brutally attacked, we lacked the courage to declare that enemy by name.

Your face has grown ashen and it seems that your pulse has weakened. I would love to see you stand tall again, hale and robust, full of color and the glory of a people submitted to the principles woven into your Declaration and your Constitution. Will another election matter? Will it change anything? Can such wide chasms be closed? Or will you finally tear yourself apart?

It seems you have a malignance beyond healing. We see the problem, we feel the problem, but we are powerless to stop the demise. Can anyone from Bangor to Burbank reassemble this crystalline structure shattered into 300 million pieces? It is beyond our reach.

And so I plead with the One who heals to turn your heart back to him. Only God can restore to you a richer and purer beauty than you once had.

I pray to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for that day.

Politically incorrect: Motherhood & living together

Among my daily reads, I came across two articles, both from National Review, that fly in the face of post-modernism, an ethic that says, "Anyway is a good way as long as it's your way."

The first deals with working moms.  It's sure to ignite a firestorm.  You'll find it here.

The second peaks beneath the covers of cohabitation (sorry), and the damage unmarried parents inflicts upon the children.  More fuel for the flames.  Read it here.

Bottom line to both:  Doing it 'my way' ends in misery.

I'll never forget the great advice my friend Brian Rath once gave me.  I was stewing in the misery of a job failure when he told me, "If we could orchestrate our lives exactly as we wanted them to be, we would be the most miserable people." The heart of the matter? God knows what's best. He has a plan. We must trust and obey.

Will we ever get it?

What makes money in Hollywood? Who cares!

A buried article in The Hollywood Reporter yielded this ruby:

Movies with pro-atheism messages in 2010, for example, earned an average $6.6 million while movies portraying "very strong Biblical morality" earned $78 million. Movies with lots of profanity earned $23 million and movies without profanity earned $50 million. Movies with messages advocating a "Christian" worldview earned $105 million and those advocating "miscellaneous morality" earned $10 million, according to the study.

Imagine if Hollywood were a restaurant. Your menu earned raves in the middle 1900's and folks flocked to feast upon your fare. Your success made you proud. Rather than continue to crank out the food the masses liked and the food that made you famous, you began experimenting. From time to time you crafted a tasty morsel, but most of the trials were terrible.  You kept cramming the menu full of your culinary failures because you and a few of your cooks in the back room thought them sophisticated.  But the masses ignored them. They smelled putrid, looked worse, and left the diner cramping for days afterward. To pay the bills, you maintained a few old-style specialties on the menu buried in between the fried spiders and sea-horses-on-a-stick.

Still folks came.  Call it nostalgia. You kept raising prices to make it look like more folks enjoyed your product but the dwindling numbers coming through and walking past your doors told the true story.

Then you began to award yourself. The Best Plate of the Year goes to "Maggoty Meatloaf in the Shape of a Cross." Even with the award, nobody wanted it. When you put it on the to-go menu, still it languished.

How does such a corporation succeed? Any other business to use so ludicrous a model would have bankrupted itself.

What I wouldn't give for a love story that doesn't start with two individuals sleeping with someone else who ultimately sleep with one another, face a crisis and find "true love" in the end.  How about a love story about folks with moral fiber and about the consequences for folks who lack such?

What about a real-life tale of heroism like "Sergeant York." They're out there. A great movie and Gary Cooper doesn't drop a single f-bomb. Would it have been better if he had?

Think of this.  Had Ford stuck with the Edsel and continued gagging up modifications of the same unwanted clunker year after year, Henry's company would have faced fiscal finality long before George Bush took office.

Hey, Hollywood! Serve us up a hamburger and fries.  From time to time, we'll even order a filet with some unpronounceable vegetable side, but you can take the spiders, sea-horses and "Black Swans" off the menu. Yesterday.

So what did we vote for?

There's been a video bouncing around the internet the last few days. O'Reilly showed it on The Factor last night. The interviewer asks those who voted for Obama a few relevant current events questions. Who is Nancy Pelosi? Barney Frank? Joe Biden? Who currently controls the House of Representatives?

The Obama supporters bombed. Truth be told, if such a poll were to be taken of McCain supporters, I doubt the performance would be any less pitiful.

We are dopes about our own country. This election highlighted that fact like a supernova. Here's your chance to see how well you understand American civics. Cal Thomas did his column today on the tragic ignorance of the American populace about the nation in which they live.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has fashioned a quiz to test one's civics savvy. The average score of those who have completed a Bachelor's degree? 57%. That's an 'F' if you're keeping score.

But be encouraged, elected officials score markedly lower than the general public.

Give it a whirl. 33-questions. No linking to other sites. See what you know. Then let me know how you scored using the voting buttons in the column at the right. Click here to take the quiz.

(BTW, I don't know everything. 88% - B+ ... I need some brush up, too)

Call it what it is: Fireproof

Question: If you're going to see a neurologist, do you want a mediocre doctor who is a Christian or do you want an exceptional doctor who is a Hindu (an Hindu?)?

How about your mechanic? He's not so good, but he's a believer or the guy who gets it right every time but makes Christopher Hitchens look like an altar boy?

I was saddened to come across a review of "Fireproof" at WorldontheWeb.com (I'll link the review at the end of the post). To sum it up, the reviewer walked out of the film after twenty minutes. And he was a Christian.

Ouch.

Many will revile a film made by Christians because it was made by Christians or has Christian themes. "The Passion of the Christ" exemplifies such attitudes. But the quality of "The Passion" is outstanding, and because of that, it received wide acclaim and a wide and diverse viewing.

The reason contemporary Christian music, for the most part, has had so little airplay on stations not blatantly Christian is because as an art form, CCM stinks (broad-brush, general statement...yes, there are exceptions). The lyrics aren't lyrical, and the music goes down like lumpy, unseasoned mashed potatoes. Christian film, likewise, has had the subtlety and nuance of 10-grit sandpaper and the quality of a high school play.

Truth told, I read every "Left Behind" book. Was it the compelling story lines? No. Was it the flesh and blood characters Jerry Jenkins created? No. Was it his deft prose? No. He has written some good stuff ("Rookie" and "Hedges" for two, the latter a non-fiction work)but the Left Behind series was bubble-gum literature. What then put it on the best-seller list? It drafted a plausible scenario for the future as prophesied in Scripture. That was interesting. Had it been written well, those works might very well have been classics. Now, they are largely forgotten.

It's sibling, "Left Behind: The Movie," made the book look Pulitzer worthy.

Ouch.

Superb art, be it film, music, paint, prose, poetry, architecture or sculpture, honors God because the creative God imbued man with creativity. When man exercises that creativity with excellence, Christian or not, intending to honor God or not, he does honor God. The Christian of all people should recognize that and declare it before the those blind to God's glory.

Excellence in craftsmanship, excellence in vocation, excellence in family and society, all these point to and honor the God who has created us. Such excellence provides us an opportunity to introduce the lost to the One who aches to have them found. The majesty of God's temple reflected the beauty of His holiness in the beauty of its design, its materials and its craftsmanship. Today, we raise tin-sided warehouses and slap a cross on them.

And so another Christian movie has been made. Will we, as the review challenges (here), call a spade a spade in hopes that Christians will continue to hone their craft, polish their vocation, and strive as citizens, parishioners, and family members to the glory and honor of God?

Let's not settle for mediocrity in the name of Christ.

Just another day: The Beijing version

The Olympics concluded. Maybe now I can get something done.

• No, they didn't win the most medals, but the Chinese shwacked everyone when it came to gold medals (51 to 36 for the next nearest (us)).


• Oops? Did anyone else hear Chris Collinsworth during the closing ceremony state that the national anthem that moved him the most during the two weeks of the Olympiad was China's? Even in context, I recoiled.


• Architecture. Lots of folks lauding the Chinese for the "Bird's Nest" and the "Water Cube." Their communications building is something, too. Too bad nobody (few) took the time to point out how their architecture and infrastructure fared when struck by an earthquake. The Olympic structures were meant to be beheld by the world distracting the eyes from what was going on behind the curtain.


• Fay. The remnants of the beast are now drenching the lower Mississippi River valley. Good riddance. Now can someone explain to me the twisters in Colorado in August? (not Fay at right)
  


• Global warming. Minnesota and Wisconsin should receive frost tonight.


• Georgia. Anybody heard anything from Jaw-jah? Anyone? Bueller? Cricket...cricket...


• Left. With the addition to Joe Biden to his ticket, Barack Obama can quit with the "bridge-builder," "common-ground" rhetoric. Neither one has a moderate corpuscle in their body. When I heard that Al Gore was being attached to Clinton's campaign, I had at least seen some conservative hope from he and Tipper and their loathing of our culture's rot. That was before he sold his soul to the enviro-friendly devil. With the gauntlet thrown (with the force of a Nolan Ryan fastball), will McCain vacillate to the center or will he hold to principle? Stay tuned...


• Fear of flying. Ten dead in a plane crash in Guatemala. 68 dead in a plane crash in Kyrgyzstan. 154 dead in the takeoff crash in Madrid, Spain. I think I'll pay the $3.50 per gallon.


• The bottom of the barrel. Madonna's back on tour.


• Deeper still. Bill Maher, "comedian," has produced a movie titled "Religulous" (you know, like "ridiculous") where he monologues on the horrifying effect religion has on society, culture, politics, etc. For those of you who have never heard the man, he makes George Carlin seem destined for sainthood. Paul got turned around. Pray for Bill.

Ending on the positive side of sin (?!?), my pastor gave a great message on repentance from Matthew 5:4. You can listen to it here ("SotM: Blessed for Mourning??"). It'll run you about 45 minutes.

Miss-ed Manners

Am I Type-A? That is pretty much undeniable. My highs apex at altitudes tropospheric; the lows bottom out at depths abyssal. Garnish the mix with a bit of passion and you get quite the volatile mix.

Unfortunately, sometimes that passion gets laser-beam focused on matters minuscule. You may find that the case with the current pebble in my shoe.

Our manners stink! My manners stink.

Consider the lady that took the call after her cell phone rang loudly in the middle of the first-weekend showing of the most talked about movie of the year. No apparent embarrassment on her part despite the ocular daggers from all patrons within fifty feet. She must have missed the fifteen prods that flashed across the screen to turn the ear-tumors off so as not to disturb other folks. Bad manners epitomized.

Remember back to high school, the lovely brunette that sat right behind you in biology with the common sense of that which oozed in your petri dish? She sat there and clicked her pen. Non-stop. Throughout the teacher's lecture. And she was gifted with the rhythm of Navin R. Johnson. Arrggghhh!

Perhaps you have kids. You ever have one of them insert half a side of beef into their pie-hole and sit there trying to chew it like it was a normal sized-bite? You fervently pray that they not choke because you still can't figure out how it got in their mouth in the first place, you doubt seriously that it will come back out again. Then there's the milk slurper.

You might get to work with an individual who finds bodily noises funnier than Bill Cosby and does everything in their power to amplify them like a rock concert. Ha, ha, ha. You might ride the bus next to the person whose tongue defines (or maybe surpasses) foulness. They cannot complete a sentence without some reproductive or scatological adjective.

Why do some folks (me) get so bent about manners? Manners reflect Christ-likeness. When one exhibits manners, they defer to their fellow creatures. They consider your situation above their own. Romans 12:10 puts the cookies out there for all to grab,

"Be kindly affectionate to one another in brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another."

This is the crux of love. It is the crux of civilization. The only way we can live side-by-side is if I don't party like it's 1999 in my backyard until two in the morning. I recognize that you are waiting for that parking spot and even though I could nose in before you because of the way the other guy backed out, I let you have that spot, and I'll walk ten feet further. I suppress my belch. I swallow before I ask for the mashed potatoes. I let you merge rather than riding the bumper of the guy in front of me so you cannot enter the flow, scoffing at your pitiful situation as I drive on by.

Manners have become a lost art in America as we grow coarser and coarser toward one another. Tragic. To stem the tide, perhaps I'll silence my cell phone next movie. Perhaps I'll take my kids and myself to the bathroom before the start of the next sermon. Perhaps I'll choose my color metaphors more carefully within our conversation. Perhaps I'll listen to your story, really listen, instead of interrupting you with my own.

Perhaps.

Sadly, we (I) oft have no clue that we've (I've) become self-absorbed boors. We get lost in our own private Idaho. It's my comfort and my way. Oh, are you here, too? Sometimes you just need to take me aside and point out my bull elephant behavior. If I listen to Christ in my life at all, I should listen to you, too, and try to tighten the reins on my character. If I don't, you've at least shown your love for me by trying to stem the tide of entropy in my life.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, you just might dampen the peaks and valleys of my Type-A personality, and that couldn't hurt.

Racism rears its ugly head

"There aren't enough purple managers in baseball."

"There aren't enough purple players in the NBA."

"There are too many purple men in prison."

"The military has an inordinate number of purple people in its ranks."

Anybody out there besides me ready to retch?

Comments like all of the above indicate that race-based conduct is alive and well today. We have bit so deeply upon the barbed hook of the post-modern mindset that we have ensnared ourselves into the point of apologizing to anybody and everybody for any cruelty that happened to any of their ancestors, any of like national origin, or any of like "racial" makeup. Our nation has gone so ludicrously overboard that reverse discrimination is now the norm and is accepted.

Do we have racists out there? You bet; red and yellow, black and white (by the way, nobody is really any of those colors. We're all variations on brown). Which people group in America has the largest per capita cluster of racists, those folks who think things should happen to themselves or other folks because of skin-color or ethnicity? I don't know. I have a hunch, but that might construe me as racist.

How about we try this: merit. Who's the best player? Pick him. Doesn't matter if the other guy is purple and you have the lowest percentage of purple players on your team. Pick the best guy. If the best guy is purple, grab him and sign him lickety split. If the next eight best guys are purple, sign them, too. If they're green, sign 'em up.

Will there be racist coaches? Yep. Managers? Yep. Company presidents? Yep. What's great, though, is usually these knuckleheads will open their trap in front of an open microphone at just the right moment and 'BAM', they'll be out of work faster than you can say "David Duke."

It's not Barack Obama's skin that drives me batty; it's his inane socialist policies, his meager political experience, and his appalling history of associations with folk that would get any other politician forever dismissed from public service. He is far and away the best orator I've seen run for president in my lifetime.

Would anyone except the cockroaches of our culture have any problem if we had (ethnicity/race of your choice)-Americans as President, Vice-President, SECDEF and Secretary of State? Who cares??? It's what's inside the head and heart that make the man (ooh, now I'm sexist).

Paul had to hammer this point to the Galatians when he said:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).

And the folks at Corinth:

For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13).

And the Colossians:

...There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all (Colossians 3:11).

The nails He took were steely gray and what He shed was blood red. For God so loved the world. Not the purples, not the greens. Not even the blues. Christ alone can raze such barriers. One day it will not matter. To the glory of God.

Until then, by the power of the Holy Spirit, could we please drop the "shade of melanin" from discussions about folks and get down to what's ticking in the head and heart?

Photos from coopervision.com and thepassionofthechrist.com

QotD: America's spiritual temperature

Religion. To our Founders, religion meant what denomination means to us today. Religion was some form of orthodox Christianity. Today, when we hear the term religion, our minds race over every bizarre thought form used to explain the supernatural, biblical or not, deity or not.

USA Today has not ignored the spiritual aspect of man. In their News/Opinion section, they dip into the pool of religion twenty-first century style hitting the nail on the head from time to time but usually denting the wood or blistering their thumb.

I came across a letter to the editor from a gent in Venice, Florida asserting that "as people become less religious, they sow peace." Here's the letter. Here's the quote that spilled my coffee:

It won't be until the Vatican contacts the Shas Party in Israel as well as the Shiite and Sunni leadership, and they form a joint council for peace that we can claim that religion is now a progenitor of peace.

A joint council for peace? I have no doubt such a council will one day form. Who the players will be is unknown, but it will have nothing to do with peace. More and more folks have been duped into thinking all religions are reconcilable, that they are nothing more than an extension of the same religion.

God seems to think otherwise:

For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Acts 4:12b

Go figure.

Bigoted bakers?

An article on Fox News yesterday had me shaking my head in disbelief. Were there really such people on the earth?

During a meeting of the county commissioners in Dallas, Texas, one commissioner used the term "black hole." He said, "It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole," meaning that the county's collection office had become like that celestial object you can't see (hence the term "black"... because you can't see black against the inky blackness of the universe's backdrop) that sucks things in never to be seen again.

Another commissioner was offended by the term and demanded an apology (I'm not making this up).

You would expect the other commissioners present to stare in disbelief and politely suggest, "Get a grip!" Not so much. Another commissioner chimed in that such language was unacceptable. How you get from black holes to racism is beyond me. But it got even more bizarre.

"So if it's 'angel food cake,' it's white. If it's 'devil's food cake,' it's black. If you're the 'black sheep of the family,' then you gotta be bad, you know. 'White sheep,' you're okay. You know?"

Excuse me? Angel food, devil's food, white sheep and black sheep are racist? Is it racist that white has always been symbolic of purity and cleanliness? Do we gripe at God that the redeemed in heaven wear white robes? Do we gripe at God that the majority of sheep born are white and that the odd sheep is black? There are few better descriptors of the odd-man-out than the proverbial black sheep. None of these correlate to man's skin color. None of them.

Our hyper-sensitive political correctness has gotten WAY out of hand. Pretty soon America's vertically challenged red-heads will be griping about strawberry shortcake.

Lighten up, Francis!

Scottish Muslims

Photo from Scottish Tayside Police

When I first saw the headline on FoxNews.com, I couldn't help but giggle:

Ad Featuring Popular Police Pup Sparks Anger in Scottish Muslim Communities.

Muslims in Scotland. Hmmmm... I'd always considered England, Scotland, and Ireland hotbeds for confrontation between Protestants and Catholics. With the inundation within Europe from the Middle East, these nations find more and more they must deal with those who don't want to play by the rules of Western civilization.

The article details the offense taken by Muslim immigrants over postcards sent out to let folks know the new phone numbers for the local police. The problem: the pooch in the picture above. Dogs are to Muslims what pigs are to Jews (or Muslims, for that matter), pinstripes are to a Red Sox fan, or cheeseheads to a Viking fan. Horror!

Now wait a minute. Whatever happened to "when in Rome?" I'm not calling for Muslims to breed poodles or chihuahuas (considered torture in any culture), but when you move to a land that serves tripe and haggis, what do you expect?

Here is the problem with tolerance: you lose your cultural identity. Nature abhors a vacuum. You cannot be so tolerant of everything that you stand for nothing. The power that then asserts itself will rule the day as Islam is doing in Europe (ref. America Alone by Mark Steyn). It has gotten so bad that in England, a recently constructed cemetery has all the graves pointing toward Mecca in accordance with Islamic law (link here), and it is not even a Muslim cemetery! The Brits simply feared offending Islamic corpses.

In our history, did Jews boycott Piggly Wiggly? Did Asians push for chopsticks in all restaurants or pudgy Buddhas in all our parks? It's time to stem the tide of accommodation. If you don't like it here, don't come here (a used-t0-be Christian nation). If my puppy postcard offends you, pitch it or amscray! If you're coming to America, learn the language!

If I were to gripe about anything Scottish, it would be dudes wearing skirts and tams with long chops playing bagpipes (unless of course it's Amazing Grace which is phenomenal with the pipes).

Know your audience

Know your audience. It is rule number one in public speaking. The astrophysicist can lay completely different lingo on his brothers down at the astrolab than he can on the parents of his son's Little League team.

Knowing your audience is one thing. Altering your message to satisfy your audience is something completely different. Such would be something we would expect of a comedian, not a doctor. This is wholly unacceptable to pastors and Christians responsible for handling the word of God rightly.

A friend dropped this Time Magazine article in my lap. The gist: many Christians have come to believe that avenues exist to heaven apart from Christ. The Pew Foundation which does a great deal of polling to determine our nation's religious temperature came to that conclusion. 57% of Evangelical Christian respondents were willing to concede that their might be other paths to heaven.

Time's closing paragraph dumps the load right in the lap of pastors:

The (Pew Foundation) survey's biggest challenge is to the theologians and pastors who will have to reconcile their flocks' acceptance of a new, polyglot heaven with the strict admission criteria to the gated community that preceded it.

If pastors are reconciling the survey, they care too much about audience opinion. They become no better than clowns or motivational speakers when the Audience they need to impress will be neither motivated or amused.

(This, too, is why I believe it is imperative for Christians to reason through the issues with other Christians from the perspective of God's word. In a world that rejects any moral authority, it is the only authority to which we can appeal, especially with others who identify themselves as Christians. If they will not hear the appeal of God's word, that is a grievous thing, but we have done what God has asked of us.)

Who speaks for God?

I received this question here recently, but it's not the first time I've heard it. Most often, the question comes from non-Christians trying to back down Christians from their moral certainty. The Christian ends up associated with Falwell or Robertson* because these two men used the pulpits God gave them to expose moral bankruptcy where it touched the church and the community. The weapon? God's word.

To counter another man who has unsheathed God's word to an increasingly godless culture, some pastors have started a website titled "Dobson doesn't speak for us." Charming. If you'd like to go there, Google it.

Here's the rub: if Dr. Dobson does speak for God regarding particular issues, then these pastors defiantly stand opposed to God. Let's buy Enron. Let's vote for McGovern or Dole. Let's play for the Kansas City Royals. But don't get on the team opposed to God.

So who does speak for God?

I do.

The audacity! The arrogance! Typical pig-headed, closed-minded, soda-straw-visioned Christian. Yep, that's me.

But understand, this is my identity and for any who are reading this and know Jesus Christ as Savior, this is your identity, too.

• We are called ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20). The purpose of an abmassador? To represent his Leader in word and deed.
• When on trial, God will speak through the believer (Mark 13:11).
• We are to proclaim the praises of what He did in and through us (1 Peter 2:9).
• The Gospel will bring conviction (Matthew 24:14).
• We are to witness what we see and what we know (John 15:27, Acts 1:8).
• Our presence (the presence of the Holy Spirit within us) becomes the stench of death to the unsaved (2 Corinthians 2:15-16).

Do I always speak for God? Well, no. When I act upon my own and contrary to His word, I become an unfaithful servant and an ambassador worthy of recall (thankfully He doesn't do that; He certainly does reassign, though).

When do I speak for God? When I proclaim His word truly. As Christians, we must know God's word for the time has come when many do not endure sound doctrine, and they heap up for themselves teachers to tickle their ears; they turn from truth and turn toward fables (2 Timothy 4:3-4). The Christian must know the truth so he is not deceived.

Peter declared, "But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction" (2 Peter 2:1). They are here. They are among us.

How do we know when the Christian is speaking for God? Like the Bereans in Acts 17 we compare the speaker's words with God's words. If we find consistency, winner! If not, as is the case with Senator Obama's voting record, we must expose the biblical inconsistency.

This will make you no friends. Good luck finding any with a liberal slant willing to discuss the issues from a biblical perspective. The platforms are untenable. This ought not dissuade us from applying God's word to the issues of the world and to pray that blindness will cease.

So now and with boldness the Christian must speak the truth of God's word in and to a people that is perishing.

Christians, speak on! And expect the spears to fly.

*I have found little to disagree with regarding the doctrine and teaching of Jerry Falwell. While I appreciate his outspokenness on moral issues, Pat Robertson tends to be far less careful with his biblical scholarship.

You really want change?

My boss had us all watch this at work today. Forgive the double double entendre at the beginning and in the title. The video is all words, words about how the world is changing and has changed regarding technology and information. That aside, it'll give you the shivers.

Much has changed since the days of Bobby Brady...

"Did You Know?" is the title (If Irish-sounding music comes up, you'll know you're in the right place. 6 minutes).

Toss me my frisbee...

E'08: Vogue

Madonna Louise Ciccone (not pictured here), known by most simply as Madonna, released a song titled "Vogue" in 1990. A testimony to the magazine of the same name, it spotlit the 8x10 glossy nature of Hollywood. All that mattered was what was "on the cover of a magazine." Gobs of glitz, but makeup can only cover so much.

Such has become our nation, I fear. If that is in fact the case, Barack Obama will dance like Fred Astaire into the White House. On the night of the final primaries, when Hillary Clinton was feeling the stake penetrate deep into the heart of her presidential run, Obama delivered a speech of conquest with lyrical panache. What he said was mostly drivel, but he said it so well, I nearly registered Democrat.

On the flip side, I flipped stations and saw John McCain trying to rally the masses with the grace of Boris Karloff. Trying. Blah, blah, blah...smile...smile bigger...blah, blah, blah...gesture... smile ... nod ...blah, blah, blah. Yikes. Take me back to Iola Kludt's 10th grade English class and there I found far greater enthusiasm and zeal from that schoolmarm than John McCain forced last week. What was his message? I don't remember.

Therein is the problem. Obama, with all of his baggage, will sachet into the Oval Office with a message no one will challenge, a message (see his voting record) that would make Cold War America cringe. McCain will stomp and thump into the history books as an also-ran (see "Bob Dole") with a message no one will hear.

It's all about giving "good face." Barack gives it. John, well, John tries. But this ain't T-ball. Despite the better message (note: not great message), the face prevails.

Pat Sajak has sworn off the talking heads of television recently and only assesses the candidates in the coming election through the printed media. His article is a refreshing look at one who seeks to scrape away the Maybelline to see the real deal.

He, sadly, will be a mere pixel within the 300 million pixel picture.

Aberrant

This morning on the Drudge Report, the e-news outlet assaulted its viewership with a profile nude picture of a young lady who has altered her anatomy. She "felt" herself to be a man and so had her breasts surgically removed and began taking testosterone. Hair began to grow on her face.

Below the waist her anatomy remained the same. Ultimately, she became pregnant. The headline on Drudge (and the headline being vaunted throughout the media)?

World's first pregnant 'man'--four weeks from birth!

I'm not including a link. It's not worth the travel. I will give kudos to Drudge, though, for at least putting man in quotations.

This is not a man! The woman was beautiful before she began to mangle her anatomy. What has happened? The song from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame, "Topsy-Turvy," applies here in spades.

With our society continuing to jettison its historical moral foundation, anything goes. Homosexuality? It's a constitutional right, don't you know. Polygamy? Who's to say that that style of parenting is any worse than two-parent families? Sexuality? It's fluid; just ask institutions of higher learning and US government offices that are now mandating gender and tolerance training.

The Christian who holds to "God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27) can anticipate greater and greater hostility from a society intolerant toward those who hold to the absolute, unchanging, inalterable word of God. To speak out against conduct contrary to God and His nature will soon invite punitive action by the state and society at large. Prison and lost jobs loom on our horizon.

In Canada, hate-crime legislation has already led to muscle being applied to the Christian community. Here is another doozy from north of the border (no, not Oklahoma) dealing with the dissolution of a Christian ministry that could not survive the storm. Europe is worse.

From an era where sexual aberration could not be found (the 50's and 60's) to today where it is the foundation upon which sitcoms and prime-time dramas are built, the tidal wave of no restrictions will bring our nation to its knees.

Just another day? June 5th

More tornadoes across the plain today. I know, old hat.

China's got more aftershocks. Only 5-point-something.

Then there's the big to-do in Seattle about lesbians kissing during a Mariners' game, but the to-do is over the "up tight" heteros who felt it necessary to complain to a ballpark employee. Yikes.

Then there was this little gem this afternoon. CNN's website ran this headline:

Video shows man hit by car, no one helping

The catch ran as follows. For those familiar with Francis Schaeffer's indictment of our era as one with only two values, personal peace and affluence, factor that in as you read what took place and note especially the police chief's blistering explanation:

A 78-year-old man is tossed like a rag doll by a hit-and-run driver and lies motionless on a busy city street as car after car goes by. Pedestrians gawk but do nothing. One driver stops briefly but then pulls back into traffic. The chilling scene -- captured by a surveillance camera -- prompted a police chief to lament: "We no longer have a moral compass."

I'm not surprised that I came across this declaration the day before yesterday...

You have wearied the LORD with your words;
Yet you say,

" In what way have we wearied Him?"
In that you say,

" Everyone who does evil
Is good in the sight of the LORD,
And He delights in them,"
Or, "Where is the God of justice?"

Malachi 2:17

Cheap imitations

As I read through Augustine's Confessions, my soul stirred reading so intimate and passionate a love letter of one man to His God.

My mind had been released--from dreams that ate at it, dreams of pride, of greed, of filth, of lusts inflamed with scratching. I was giddy with addressing you, my purity, my riches, my rescue, my Lord God.

Wow. Within the pages of Confessions, Augustine explodes with adoration for God and what He has done in his life. He experiences, and shares, the deepest love a human can know, the restored intimacy between the creature and his Creator. It is a love that surpasses the familial, the fraternal, and the marital. There is no draught as deep, as delicious, and as satisfying.

And it is only a glimpse of what we will know when we see our God and Savior face to face.

That is why I am disappointed with the end of the film version of Prince Caspian. Most reviews have been favorable (to include those of my chil'uns). Some have not. In full disclosure, I have not yet seen the film but most certainly will.

I have read The Chronicles to my children a number of times. If you are a parent, you will thrill the hearts of your kids if you read these wondrous tales to them (be sure to use different voices). While Prince Caspian is not the best in the series, the end of the book is superb behind only The Last Battle and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

**SPOILER WARNING** For those who have plowed through these books, you know full well that after the climax, the most poignant part of the book follows, the home-going of the Pevensie children. The heart-ripper is that Peter and Susan know that they will not return to Narnia. With that knowledge, departing from the majestic Lion is more than they can bear. As they are about to cross over to their own land, they stop and tear back to the mighty King and embrace Him with their whole being. I've not read a more vivid account of wholesale agape love than this.

The problem is that it is missing from Prince Caspian. In its place? The consummation of flirtations between Susan and Caspian throughout the film. Before stepping through to her dimension, she runs back and plants a big wet one on Caspian.

When I heard that, my heart broke. Once again, we have substituted a cheap imitation for the real thing. Our appetite for Turkish Delight is never satisfied, and that is the problem.

Muzzling the freedom of speech

Six miles south of McConnell AFB, just southeast of Wichita, Kansas, sits Mulvane, population 5,155. It seems Mulvane, in keeping up with the Joneses, is looking to erect a casino in or near their township.

As would seem prudent, the town's leadership called a townhall meeting about the proposal. Problem was, citizens weren't allowed to voice concerns. They could only ask questions about the proposal. Seems the deal was already done.

Check out what went down from this Alliance Defense Fund article:

When Jacque Farnsworth, a resident of Mulvane, attempted to address the city council about her economic concerns about the casino’s impact on her town, she was told by the mayor that her question was out of order. When she inquired as to why she was out of order, the mayor ordered that she be escorted out of the meeting by two armed police officers. Later, when another resident tried to speak against the casino, she was silenced by the mayor as well. Residents in favor of the casino were allowed to present their viewpoints without interruption.

Seems like a bit of syndicate strong-arm in middle America. Who says casinos aren't good for the community???

By the way, the proposal was put on by Harrah's and MGM, to of the establishments that light up the Vegas strip and various other increasingly (sadly) similar locales throughout our nation.