Who is the Antichrist? According to the Bible, how can we know who to watch for? This is the first post in my series on the End of Days.
Continue readingFilm Review: Sucker Punch
We might applaud Snyder for making a film that’s fun to watch and has a lot more brains than most of this genre. But ultimately, his film fails to empower. It only furthers the cycle of violence and oppression it claims to fight against.
Continue readingA Christian Response to bin Laden’s Death
Last night, the world learned that the US Military successfully executed Osama bin Laden at a compound in Pakistan. Immediately, the Social Media universe exploded in a flurry of celebratory, nationalistic self-congratulation. Within minutes, #Osama bin Laden was leading Twitter’s trends (narrowly beating out Hermione Granger). If you weren’t paying close attention, you’d think that those of us behind the keyboards were responsible for killing him single-handedly.
I found most disturbing the celebration coming from the Christian camp. Many of us were celebrating his death.
One of the more moderate Facebook comments I read a Facebook read, “Toast that our enemy is dead; sad though that anyone goes to hell.” Too many of us have been raising our glasses and cheering bin Laden’s death. And when we’re asked about it, we’ll begrudgingly admit that we’re sad in the abstract that a human being is now in Hell. But our tone and the tenor of our posts and comments make it clear that if anyone deserves to be in Hell, it’s bin Laden – apparently he’s been placed right next to Hitler.
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Continue readingAllah by Miroslav Volf
Miroslav Volf asks, Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? He answers a qualified, Yes, and that we should be able to work together for peace in this world. Excellent read.
Continue readingLove Wins by Rob Bell
Bell’s book is a lot to chew on; it’ll certainly reward several close readings. But it is well within the bounds of Orthodox Christianity, and asks some very good questions (it’s far outside the bounds of Orthodox New Calvinism, and some people mistake that for the whole of the Christian tradition, but rest assured they’re deluded). We need to be talking about Heaven, Hell and the picture of God that lies behind them. It’s a fun read and very accessible.
Continue readingFilm Reflections: Growing Old without Growing Up
The Best Picture nominees shine an interesting light on what’s happening in our culture right now. It touches on a deep apprehension we have towards growing up… which isn’t the same thing as growing old.
Continue readingThe Best Picture: What Should’ve Won
Everyone knows by now that “The King’s Speech” won Best Picture 2010. But it shouldn’t have. Here’s my take on which film deserved to take home the Oscar, and why… I’d love to hear what you think.
Continue readingEpilogue
This series of posts is my attempt to demonstrate that the language of the Revelation was actually symbolic code that was very intelligible to a first-century Jewish Christian living in the Roman Empire. I’m re-writing the Revelation to communicate the same message, but to a twenty-first century American Christian audience, using symbols we understand. This particular section parallels Revelation chapter 22. If you want to catch up, here’s a PDF of the entire series so far: The Revelation to JR.
Look! I’m coming soon! The person who takes the words of this prophecy to heart is blessed.
I, JR., am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I put my hand over my heart and began to pledge my allegiance to the angel who was showing me all this but he stopped me, saying,
You can’t do that! I am a fellow citizen with you and your compatriots the prophets and everyone who takes the words of this prophecy to heart! Pledge allegiance to God!
Then he said,
Don’t hide these prophetic words; put them on your blog! Get them out as fast as you can because it’s almost time! So if you’re evil, keep it up. And if you’re an abomination, keep it up. If you’re just and righteous, keep it up! If you’re holy, keep it up! Because I’m coming soon, and I’m bringing your pay day with me. You’ll get what you’ve earned.
I’m the A and the Z, the first and last. The starting gun and the finish line. Everyone who washes their robes is blessed; they’ll be able to enter the City through my gates and eat from the Tree of Life. But outside? You’ll find the dogs and pagans, the promiscious and murders, the idolaters – everyone who loves falsehood and lives falsely.
I, Jesus, sent my messenger to you with this message for the churches. I am the ancestor and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.
The Spirit and the Bride both call to you,
Come!
Let everyone who hears their call echo it:
Come!
Let everyone who’s thirsty come. Let anyone who wants it take the water of life as a free gift. And here’s a warning to everyone who hears the prophetic word in this book:
You might think you have something to add; try it and God will add all the plagues in this book to your life.
You might want to skip over some of it, leave some stuff out; try it and God will take away your share in the Tree of Life and the holy City described in this book.
The one who sent this message says,
I’m coming soon. You can count on it.
It’s true! Come, Lord Jesus!
The grace and peace of the Lord Jesus be with all those who follow him. Let it be true.
The Social Network
If I’d reviewed this film when I first saw it, my quest to review all the 2010 Best Picture nominees would be a lot further along. Here we go anyway… Oh yes, and spoiler alerts.
The Social Network is David Fincher’s latest film (Se7en, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and is penned by Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, Sports Night, The West Wing, Studio 60). It chronicles the creation of Facebook (if you don’t know what Facebook is, then you’re probably either reading a printout of this review or you are an alien preparing an invasion and I don’t want to give you any more advantages than you clearly already have). The entire story is an adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires, which he wrote relying mainly on Eduardo Saverin (played in the film by Andrew Garfield), Mark Zuckerberg’s best friend at Harvard, who in the present is one of two groups suing Zuckerberg for stealing Facebook. As such, you’d expect the film to be more critical of Zuckerberg, but it’s not. Even still, much has been made about how fictitious the Zuckerberg in the film actually is. Jesse Eisenberg didn’t ever meet Mark Zuckerberg. From all accounts, the awkward, anti-social misanthrope we see in the film is light-years from the warm, funny (and maybe still slightly awkward) Zuckerberg who actually runs Facebook.
Sorkin tells the story in flashbacks cut between deposition hearings with Zuckerberg and either Saverin or the Winklevoss twins – two hulking Harvard rowers who were seniors when sophomore Zuckerberg started the Facebook. Both Saverin and the Winklevoss twins claim that at some point Zuckerberg stole Facebook from them, so we are taken back to Harvard of 2002-2003 to see for ourselves. The twins claim to have came up with the original idea to make Facebook available only to select colleges through a dating website called Harvard Connect they contacted Zuckerberg to build for them. Saverin was the original CFO (and sole financier) of Facebook, and was tricked (though, according to the flim, legally tricked) into signing away his shares by Zuckerberg and Sean Parker (the Napster founder who had wormed his way into the Facebook inner circle).
The story itself is pretty straight forward and fun to watch. Sorkin’s dialogue brings the characters to life. His script keeps the characters from becoming parodies of themselves while allowing us to experience the thrill of watching underdog-nobody-dork Zuckerberg triumph over the nefarious Winklevi who clearly have everything – money, smarts and good looks to spare. But you don’t completely hate the twins and you can’t completely love Zuckerberg. Saverin is the betrayed friend while Parker is the self-destructive cool-kid whose too immature for his own good.
As the movie poster hints, the movie’s central theme is the false intimacy Facebook promises. The film opens with Zuckerberg getting dumped by his girlfriend, Erica Albright, in a bar and going home in a drunken pity party. His drive to become cool led him to put the entire college social experience online in the form of Facebook. The irony is that as the popularity of Facebook grew, Zuckerberg became more and more of a celebrity, but didn’t connect with anyone on a meaninful level. In fact, he grew futher and further apart from his best – and only – friend, Eduardo Saverin. The film ends with Zuckerberg alone in the deposition room refreshing Erica’s Facebook page, waiting to see if she’ll accept his friend request. Mark might have over 1,000,000 friends, but he’s completely alone.
The real question is this, though: is the film a commentary on the false intimacy social networking offers us, or on the false reality film offers? Because the real Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t bear much resemblance to the film at all. The real Mark Zuckerberg has had the same girlfriend since he founded Facebook, and everyone who knows him describes him as a warm, friendly person. So while The Social Network is an interesting parable about the dangers of false intimacy, we would do well to remember that film is just as fickle a mistress.