This phrase came out by accident while writing a comment on my friend Mike’s blog, and I immediately recognized it for what it was: one of those pithy, bumper-sticker slogans that you hate, but at the same time think they’re kind of cool.
Feel free to make your own signs for the next free speech rally… (that would not, by the way, be at either the Republican or Democrat conventions…).
There’s been a whole lot of b.s. written about Expelled, the soon-to-be-released documentary starring Ben Stein which investigates the problems that questioners of materialistic evolution are having on our college campuses. As I’ve written before (here and here) after I had a chance to talk to Mr. Stein, the controversy reached absurd proportions, even before the movie was finished. Most of the flap has been generated by the infamous ID-haters, P.Z. Myers and Richard Dawkins, who are apparently afraid that they’ll be made to look foolish in the movie. It’s been pretty funny over the last few months, to be honest. Both Dawkins and Myers have reminded me of schoolyard bullies, who … well, you can figure it out.
Tom Gilson over at Thinking Christian has posted the first of a series dealing with the film’s pre-release controversy, and does a pretty good job of putting it in context, with plenty of quotes and links (so you can read Myers from his own blog).
Again, it seems obvious to me that the anti-ID folks are protesting too much. I personally think it’s amusing, as in the big picture I believe it really doesn’t matter. The real issue, of course, has never been Darwinism or Intelligent Design, it’s always been about God. And, I suspect that He isn’t nearly as concerned about our science curriculum as we are. And, perhaps I am wrong to find so much amusement in the debate; but, it’s more intellectually stimulating than football (and “Go Vikings!” seems like such a waste of effort).
If you are at all concerned (or amused) by the Expelled controversy, I recommend you check out Thinking Christian and follow the various links.
On another note, if you’re interested in what Ben Stein has to say about the reality of politicians and change, check this out.
Part three of The Divine Embrace is entitled “The Challenge: Returning Spirituality to the Divine Embrace,” which is an excellent encapsulation of Webber’s point: we don’t need to find anything new, we simply need to recapture the church’s original understanding of spirituality, rooted in God’s Story, in God’s Divine Embrace of us and the rest of creation. Crucial to this understanding is the concept of the Incarnation, of God fully embracing humanity. This is a 180-degree turn from much of the evangelical church today. Webber states
… Christian spirituality is not an escape from this world, rather it is the discovery and the experience of spiritual purpose in this world.
This morning I was reading a magazine devoted to church planting issues, and as is typical, the issue of being missional was addressed. As I read the discussion, it occurred to me that the reason that the issue of missional is such a hot topic today is that much of the evangelical and emerging church does not have a clear understanding of God’s story. If our lives are merely focused on “getting saved,” getting others saved, and getting to Heaven, we’re missing the big picture. This is something that the liturgical, confessional traditions have not forgotten. As Richard commented the other day, the liturgy is “the enactment of the story of God, of creation, incarnation, and re-creation, and of the reality of God’s kingdom, on Earth as it is in Heaven.” This is also what we, the Church, are all about.
Spirituality, or our mission, is to reenact God’s story of creation, incarnation and re-creation. This is “what the Father’s doing” as it’s put in the gospel of John; it is rooted firmly in our understanding of God’s incarnational embrace of us. This is God’s story.
The Bible presents 3 clear types or images that demonstrate God’s story:
God’s incarnational embrace recapitulates the human condition; He is re-creating us, and will re-create his creation. He is making all things new.
As we can see, the central concept of the Incarnation, of God fully embracing humanity, without any implication that the physical is in any way less holy than the “spiritual,” is essential to understanding not only God’s story, but our story.
So how do we respond? In Acts 2, Peter preaches 1) repent, 2) be baptized and 3) receive the Holy Spirit. Setting aside the common transactional interpretation, both repentance and baptism reflect a rejection of an identity with the world, and an ongoing identification with the story and purposes of God. Receiving the Holy Spirit, as we know, is the seal, or guarantee, of that identity. As opposed to a typical evangelical understanding, even our repentance – our identifying with God and his purposes – is a response to God’s embrace. Baptism, then, also is not a testimony of our action, but a testimony of the Incarnation, of God’s embrace.
This, then, is our part of the story. God embraces his creation (us), and we respond daily, continuously to that embrace. In this ancient (pre-modern) understanding of the Gospel, the focus is not on us, but on God. If you have been raised with a modern Evangelical worldview, you can perhaps see that this way of thinking changes everything. As Webber states,
… the baptized life has a mission in the world. It is not life-denying or life-escaping. Rather, living the baptized life is a participation in God’s vision within the life of the world.
I heard yesterday that they are planning a 4th Bourne movie. The article I read questioned what they’d do, since Robert Ludlum only wrote 3 Bourne novels. However, if that author had ever read any of the novels, they’d have known that that wouldn’t matter, as the 2nd and 3rd movies had nothing whatsoever to do with the books.
I never could figure out why they used the book titles for the movies – even rereleasing the books with new covers that said “soon to be a motion picure!” – when they completely ignored the book plots. In fact, they managed to kill off 2 of the main characters of the latter 2 books in the first movie, and Bourne’s arch enemy, Carlos, the Jackal, never appears at all. They could have come up with new, unrelated titles, like Bourne to be Wild, or something. How about a little creativity?
Now, I really enjoyed the first movie, and thought the 2nd movie wasn’t too bad, either. It was after seeing both movies that I decided to read the 3rd book (thinking, stupidly, that they had at least stuck to the same general plot). I then went back and read the 1st two books. Ludlum isn’t my favorite author, by a long shot, but he did create some very interesting characters, and very tight, extremely complicated plots. It’s too bad that the movies ignored them.
The changes that they made in The Bourne Identity, such as the different items in Bourne’s safe deposit box, were good. However, killing off Alex Conklin (who becomes Bourne’s best friend in the later books) was stupid. The major change in Bourne’s real identity and the nature of his original mission (which really comes to play in the 3rd movie) really bugged me. And, killing off Marie in the 2nd movie was, in my opinion, a major mistake.
I had heard from a number of people that The Bourne Ultimatum, the 3rd move, was the best of them all. However, I was very disappointed in that it didn’t really have a new plot… it was just a continuation of the same un-plot. And, what they revealed about Bourne’s past, as I mentioned, was a 180 from his character in the book. I just didn’t think it was good.
A 4th Bourne movie could now at least borrow parts of the plots of the original books, since they haven’t been used yet. Or, they could use a plot (or at least a title) from one of the 2 (soon to be 3) Bourne novels written by Eric Van Lustbader, which as books go, are pretty lousy. Lustbader is a hack, who took a decent character, and stripped him of everything that made him interesting. First, he didn’t know how to deal with Marie (Bourne’s wife in the 3 original books) so he ignored her in one book, while he killed off 2 other main characters that he didn’t know how to deal with. Then, he simply kills off Marie. Overall, everyting that made Jason Bourne a good, complicated character is gone. They are a couple of the more underwhelming action novels I’ve read, and I will resist the temptation to read the next one when it comes out.
So, we’ll see what is next for Jason Bourne. Maybe he’ll find out that Marie isn’t dead after all. Or, perhaps he’ll finally find the Jackal. Let’s hope he at least finds a plot. That would be a really nice surprise.
