I first wrote this post for the E100 Bible Reading Challenge. It was first published on the E100 blog in 2011.

‘See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the LORD Almighty. - Malachi 3:1

Central to the prophecy of Malachi, the last Old Testament prophet (a century after the exile in Babylon; probably around the time of Ezra and Nehemiah) is the concept of covenant. In a series of ‘debates’ or disputations, Malachi accuses the people of being unfaithful to the covenant which God made with their ancestors at Sinai.

They clearly think God doesn’t love them, but he points them back to the fact that he chose them to be his special covenant people (1:2–3). The problem, in fact, is not with God but with them. Malachi challenges their half-heartedness, expressed in their second-rate offerings and their lack of commitment to human covenants, particularly marriage.

Malachi also points forward to a day when God would be worshipped around the world (1:11) and to the coming of the One who would bring that about (3:1). After the exile, the Jerusalem temple had been rebuilt, but the people sensed that God had not returned to it. Malachi sees his coming as great news for those who trust God (4:2), but judgment for those who don’t. So the Old Testament closes with a sense of great expectation, which would be fulfilled by the coming of Jesus four centuries later.

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I first wrote this post for the E100 Bible Reading Challenge. It was first published on the E100 blog in 2011.

Daniel was a teenager when he was exiled to Babylon in 605 BC. Seven decades later, he could look back on a lifetime of God enabling him to thrive in a pagan context. He had even become one of King Nebuchadnezzar’s most important advisors. Then the Babylonian empire was seized by the Persians, and a new face ruled Babylon: Darius.

Darius’s plan to promote Daniel to the highest level provoked a hostile reaction from the old man’s colleagues. Was is simply jealousy, or did they find his absolute integrity a threat to their own behaviour? Either way, Daniel’s scrupulousness yielded no mud for them to sling at him.

Daniel’s response to their strategy of exploiting his faithfulness to God reveals the source of his character. He was utterly trustworthy because God had the first place in his heart. Nothing, not even the certainty of death, would deflect Daniel from his devotion to God. And nothing would make him hide his spirituality; it was a life of godliness lived in full view of others. This had been the pattern of Daniel’s life since he arrived in Babylon, and God had honoured his wholehearted commitment by making him a powerful blessing in a pagan world. He’s a fantastic model for Christians in contemporary society.

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I first wrote this post for the E100 Bible Reading Challenge. It was first published on the E100 blog in 2011.

Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. – Jonah 2:8

God told Jonah to take a message far beyond the borders of Israel, to Nineveh, one of the greatest cities of the ancient world. But Jonah didn’t want this assignment, for reasons which only become apparent later. We assume it’s fear which made him board a ship heading in the wrong direction. But it’s not.

After being thrown overboard and swallowed alive by a huge fish, Jonah prayed from within its belly. He praised God’s compassion in rescuing him – even though it couldn’t yet have felt very much like deliverance (2:5–6). Jonah realised that God is at work since his new circumstances were clearly miraculous. More importantly, he understood that God is gracious, even towards those who deserve his anger.

Ironically, this was precisely his problem with his mission. He recognised that his announcement of judgment on pagan Nineveh was conditional on his hearers’ response. Jonah knew that, if they repented, God would show them grace and relent from destroying them. But Jonah clearly resented the idea of pagans receiving mercy and was furious when that is precisely what happened.

Jonah claimed to know God, who is ‘gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love,’ yet there seems to have been little sign of these qualities in his own life. He tragically failed to comprehend that the very reason God had blessed Israel was for that blessing to extend to every nation.

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I first wrote this post for the E100 Bible Reading Challenge. It was first published on the E100 blog in 2011.

My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. – Jeremiah 2:13

God called Jeremiah to be a prophet while he was still a youth, probably around 627 BC. These were the dying days of the dynasty that began with King David four centuries previously. Jeremiah announced, and experienced, the devastation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BC (1:15). He was to say whatever God commanded (1:7,17), however hard that might be, and not to be afraid of his audience – though he had good reason to be (1:19).

Jeremiah’s message was unsparingly critical. The heart of it was that the people had abandoned God, despite everything he had done for them. Several centuries previously, the Lord had miraculously rescued them from slavery in Egypt, established a covenant relationship with them, protected them and given them the promised land of Canaan.

And yet it had all turned so sour. The people had turned their backs on God and embraced worthless idols (2:11). Jeremiah graphically compares them with prostitutes and animals on heat. The perversity of their behaviour is enough, says God, to make the universe shudder with disgust (2:12). Yet we, too, commit idolatry whenever we look to something other than God to meet our deepest needs. In our cravings for other things, we, too, forget God. Jeremiah forcefully reminds us that to do so is the height of stupidity.

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I first wrote this post for the E100 Bible Reading Challenge. It was first published on the E100 blog in 2011.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. – Isaiah 53:6

By the eighth century BC, Judah (the southern kingdom following Israel’s split into two) was in a moral mess. Isaiah announced that they would therefore face severe judgment at the hands of the Assyrians and, later, the Babylonians, including exile for many. But a remarkable reversal comes in the second part of the book, when Isaiah starts promising liberation.

In a series of intensely moving passages known as the Servant Songs, Isaiah reveals that God will rescue his people through his Servant. It becomes increasingly clear that he is also talking about something much bigger than rehabilitating the nation. Isaiah has in view both a liberator in the not-too-distant future, when God will once again comfort his people (51:3,12; 52:9) and bring them home (51:11), and a greater saviour through whom God will eventually do something far more remarkable (52:13ff).

Astonishingly, Isaiah anticipates the Servant dealing with the fundamental problem of human sin. Even more unexpectedly, Isaiah sees this Servant actually bearing the punishment deserved by those who have asserted their independence from God. It’s a rescue which goes way beyond Judah to embrace all nations (52:9–10,15). As the New Testament writers recognised, (e.g. 1 Peter 2:22–25) it is an extraordinary prophecy of Jesus who came to bear our sin on the cross.

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Earlier this year, I posted a video about Richard Dawkins’s refusal to debate with Christian philospher William Lane Craig during Craig’s Reasonable Faith tour this autumn. Dawkins is a vice-president of the British Humanist Association, which allegedly encourages debate. I say ‘allegedly’ because another vice-president of the BHA, A.C. Grayling, has also refused to debate Craig, as has its president, Polly Toynbee. It’s very strange, given that they all think Christian claims can be easily dismissed. Now, Stephen Law has agreed to debate Craig instead. Law is lecturer in Philosophy at Heythrop College, London and Editor of the magazine of the Royal Institute of Philosophy THINK. Here’s a newer video about Dawkins, Grayling and Toynbee refusing to square up to Craig:

HT Pete Byrom for pointing me to this new video. See also the press release from bethinking.org

William Lane Craig’s tour is not long away (17-26, October, 2011). It’s sponsored by UCCF, Damaris and Premier Radio. His programme is:

Monday 17th October 2011, 7.30pm “Does God Exist?”
Public Debate with Stephen Law, lecturer in Philosophy at Heythrop College, London and Editor of the magazine of the Royal Institute of Philosophy THINK. Arranged by Premier Radio.
Westminster Central Hall, Storeys Gate, London, SW1H 9NH

Wednesday 19th October 2011, 7.30pm Public lecture on Stephen Hawking’s The Grand Design followed by a panel response
St. Andrew the Great, Cambridge

Friday 21st October 2011, 7.30pm “Does God Exist?”
Debate with Professor Peter Millican, Gilbert Ryle Fellow and Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford University
The Great Hall, Birmingham University, Edgbaston, B15 2TT

Saturday 22nd October 2011, 9.30am – 5.30pm Bethinking National Apologetics Day Conference
Westminster Chapel, London
Opening and closing lectures from William Lane Craig
Further lectures from Gary Habermas, John Lennox and Peter J. Williams

Monday 24th October 2011, 7.30pm Lecture “The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection”
Southampton Guildhall, Southampton SO14 7LP

Tuesday 25th October 2011, 7.30pm Lecture “Is God a Delusion?” A Critique of Dawkins’s The God Delusion
[or a debate with Richard Dawkins if he should accept the invitation]
Sheldonian Theatre, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3AZ

Wednesday 26th October 2011, 7.30pm “Does God Exist?”
Debate with Dr Peter Atkins, former Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University
University Place Lecture Theatre, Manchester University, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL

Make sure you get tickets as it’s a great opportunity to hear someone of his calibre in debate with others who challenge his views. There is more information here.

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It’s taken me a while to get round to it, what with holidays and teaching in Norway, but I’ve now produced pdf and epub versions of my recent series of posts on films and worldviews.

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A little while ago I was filmed for version 2 of Glad You Asked, a DVD-based series of 8 sessions exploring the big questions of life, produced by the excellent Innovista. The first version was excellent, so I was delighted to be involved in version 2. It will be on sale very soon, but samples of the videos are available on the Glad You Asked, as well as on the Innovista YouTube channel.

Glad You Asked tackles hard spiritual questions with intelligence, passion and respect. It uses enquiry to help people explore their own beliefs, and invites them to engage minds and hearts with answers offered in the 8 DVD sessions. Glad You Asked does not just tell people what to think. It helps them to think for themselves, starting right where they are with their questions.

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Read the rest of this series.

Why use film in Christian communication?

Although aspects of the Christian worldview still do hang on in western culture, it’s all too obvious that very few films communicate much of it clearly. As I have already noted, films are primarily about telling a story, and often the worldview aspects provide the framework for that story rather than being part of it. And it’s also blindingly obvious that many films are expressing other worldviews altogether. Perhaps surprisingly, all this does not create a barrier to using films when communicating. Ironically, at some levels, it’s a positive advantage. The reality is that just about everyone is already thoroughly immersed in a culture which is full of competing worldviews. The mediascape is such a part of our lives that we are constantly exposed to a wide variety of influences. In this context, using film does two very important things.

Itchen Bridge, Southampton. © steve9091, used under a Creative Commons licence

First, it creates an extremely effective bridge into people’s lives because it is so familiar to them, just as altars and Greek poets were an effective bridge for Paul in Athens.[1. Acts 17:16–34; See Lars Dahle, Acts 17 as an apologetic model] Using examples from the media world immediately connects with people, especially younger people. This is very often true even when the film is not one which is particularly popular. There clearly are films which barely connect, but younger generations generally have such a high level of media literacy that they respond to the medium of film itself, as well as to the content. As Marshall McCluhan famously said, ‘The medium is the message.’ When we do use films which are already relevant to our audience, the sense of connection is even greater.

Second, films deal with the big issues of life: subjects like relationships, sexuality, religion, politics, society, the environment, spirituality, meaning, purpose, love, happiness, identity or fulfilment. Any film is always, to some extent, about one of these issues, or something similarly significant. So if we can use film material which deals with one of these weighty themes, we are likely to be in a good position to stimulate some lively conversation. There is a Christian perspective on all these issues, which becomes easy to talk about once we have actually started talking about the issue in a way that engages people. We need to think carefully about what a film is saying about these big themes in terms of the worldview aspect we have considered above. Then we need to ask how this compares with a Christian worldview.

It is important that we try to use films with integrity. If we just want to use a clip rather than an entire film, we need to put that clip in context and use it in a way that is fair to its context within the film as a whole. Don’t focus primarily on finding film clips which illustrate (whether positive or negative) some aspect of Christian truth. Instead focus on exploring how the big themes (which are at the heart of all narratives) are worked out, and on how the five worldview aspects are expressed. It does take practice.

If we are going to use films as a positive way of engaging with people, we will need to be careful not to keep responding critically to the films. It seems very easy for Christians to condemn aspects of contemporary culture, sometimes with good justification. But Paul in Athens was very careful to be positive about some aspects of his audience’s culture, as well as being negative about others. We must learn to affirm ways in which films express right beliefs, and right values, show right behaviour, explore the right issues and ask the right questions. It is also important to be clear about ways in which films express wrong beliefs and wrong values, show inappropriate behaviour or neglect important issues. So we need to celebrate the good, but graciously challenge the bad. We need to maintain the biblical perspective of seeing human beings as image-bearing rebels, and the films they make as manifestations of both sides of human nature.

Most importantly of all, we need to be alert for how films illuminate the deepest longings of the human heart, whether for love or freedom or happiness or fulfilment. And we need to recognise that these are just reflections of the deepest longing of all, the yearning for peace with God – a yearning which many people in western culture don’t recognise for what it is.

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Worldview dimensions, continued

Morality

Image from iStockphoto.com

Some of the issues which I raised in the previous post, in relation to human nature are profoundly moral questions. What does it mean when we say that darkness and evil reside in the human heart, and that genuine goodness can be found there too? What makes for a good person, or a bad person? What makes things like courage and honour good, and cowardice and self-interest bad?

There are moral questions in most films, and they are often linked with the motivations of the main characters. Why is this character making that particular moral choice? We need to think about what their basis for ethical decisions is. One of the most common approaches to ethics in the west, and which is reflected in many films, is called consequentialist ethics. It is about making choices on the basis of what the outcome will be. In The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, 2009), Mr. Fox is interested in only one thing: self-preservation. Every choice he makes is motivated by his drive to achieve this one outcome.

The main alternative to consequentialism is deontological ethics, which stresses doing the right thing according to underlying moral principles, rather than according to what achieves the desired result. A powerful example of this is found in The Road (John Hillcoat, 2009). It is set in a post-cataclysmic  world which is now dying, and is the story of a man (Viggo Mortensen) taking his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) on a long walk to try to find somewhere warmer. Along the way they face dangers from the few survivors who will stop at nothing to eke out their existence. Yet despite facing such extreme circumstances that any action seems justifiable (in consequentialist terms), the man insists that they should continue to behave morally. By that he means, behaving in accordance with moral principles which transcend time, place and circumstances.

For a Judeo-Christian worldview, ethics are always primarily to do with what is right before God, rather than with what is expedient. Christian ethics are deontological, not consequentialist, which suggests that there are moral absolutes. Within a naturalist worldview, some kind of consequentialism is the only ethical approach that really makes sense since there is no possibility of transcendent moral values without God.¹ Yet people still instinctively feel that some things are absolutely, in principle, right or wrong.

Some films tackle the difficulties of making moral decisions head on. In Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affleck, 2007), Patrick (Casey Affleck) must make a tough choice. He can follow principles of truth and justice, which is likely to lead to unhappiness, or he can ignore the principles in favour of a happier outcome. But Patrick realises that it’s not that simple. Whose happiness should he consider? Who has rights that should be upheld? He can only guess how the future might unfold, and the option that appears to offer happiness may turn out to be a disaster. Good (Vicente Amorim, 2008) shows this inability to predict the future starkly in a story of a German professor before the war who abandons his principles in favour of pragmatic considerations, but with devastating results.

Knowledge

image from iStockphoto

The fourth aspect of worldviews is to do with what we know and how we know it. The films that explore this directly tend to be somewhat philosophical or or rather quirky, such as I ♥ Huckabees (David O. Russell, 2004). But the process of investigating and weighing evidence is something which comes up in many films, especially crime dramas. Within a naturalist worldview, the only legitimate sources of knowledge are empirical evidence and logic, both exemplified by Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr. in Guy Ritchie’s 2009 film). But if the worldview underlying a film allows for a spiritual dimension, then other ways of knowing become possible. Intuition is particularly valued in nature-based spiritualities, and revelation is an important idea in many religions. In Knowing (Alex Proyas, 2009), Nicolas Cage plays a professor who discerns a pattern in a series of apparently random numbers written fifty years previously – a pattern which predicts major disasters. It shakes his hard-nosed scientific rationalism to its core, and it eventually leads to reconciliation with his father, a pastor.

In contrast to the pursuit of certain knowledge, some films emphasise just how problematic the business of knowing things can be. John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt (2008) is all about the difficulty, if not impossibility of knowing anything for certain.

Salvation

Image from iStockphoto.com

The final aspect of worldviews is the question of what human beings most need in life. We face many problems, but what is the most fundamental of all human problems? And what is the solution to that problem? How can we be saved, in other words? Where can redemption be found?

Salvation and redemption are rarely seen in films within specifically Christian ways, though it may be in the background. In Amazing Grace (Michael Apted, 2007), for example, it is clear that the faith of William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) is what motivates him to fight slavery. Similarly, in The Blind Side (John Lee Hancock, 2009) it is Christian convictions which prompts a mother (Sandra Bullock) to give a home to a disadvantaged African-American boy. But in both of these films, the focus is primarily on what the central characters do to change the world, rather than the faith which motivates them.

Some films deny the possibility of redemption at all. Martin Scorsese was brought up a Catholic and constantly explores religious ideas in his films, but he seems to have turned his back on Christian beliefs and values. Speaking about his film The Departed (2006) he says:

Good and bad become very blurred. That is something I know I’m attracted to. It’s a world where morality doesn’t exist, good doesn’t exist, so you can’t even sin any more as there’s nothing to sin against. There’s no redemption of any kind.²

However, at some levels, redemption is what all films are about, as Brian Godawa argues in Hollywood Worldviews. They show us characters who have hope restored or relationships mended or all kinds of other limited redemptions. These resolutions inevitably suggest that certain things in life are good, even essential. It may be apparently something as simple as finding a good place to live and bring up a family, as in Away We Go (Sam Mendes, 2009), though even here the real focus is on having a good loving relationship.

Love is frequently held up as the thing that human beings need more than anything else. There are countless romantic comedies and melodramas which indicate that once someone has found true love, they have found everything they need. Other films suggest that we need to embrace freedom, perhaps especially films that come out of a worldview which denies any accountability to God, as in The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998). Some films encourage us to find our true purpose in life which will give true fulfilment, as in Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) or Stranger Than Fiction (Marc Forster, 2006) or The Soloist (Joe Wright, 2009). Underlying all these is the longing for ultimate peace – a reflection of the fact that we were created to live in relationship with God.

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