My One Major Problem With the "Noah" Movie

 I loved the first 2 hours of Darren Aronofsky's?Noah. I have no problem with the creative liberties Mr. Aronofsky takes with the source material--in fact I loved his creativity. Below, I'll tell you what I appreciated. But first....Here's My Problem With?Noah?(no spoilers here):In a masterful way, the film's message couldn't be more?clear, true, or terrifying: humans are a violent, selfish, sinful race, and there is no hope for us. We cannot save ourselves.And then the final 18 minutes makes this point: "After the Flood, the good news is that humanity--led by Noah--now gets to save itself."See the problem?

• Minutes 0-120: humanity is a mess and cannot save itself.
• Minutes 121-138: humanity will now save itself.

Even artistically, the ending doesn't fit with the rest of the movie.In a very sad way, Darren Aronofsky's conclusion undermines what he has been trying to tell us and proves how deeply our delusion goes. "We are a mess and we will never be able to save ourselves....Unless we try really hard and save ourselves." This is the extent of our wisdom.The Great War began 100 years ago this summer. The best and the brightest of European culture and society were convinced that such a war was impossible, because humankind was now enlightened and rational. And then came the Somme.The last 100 years ought to have caused Mr. Aronofsky to be more cautious in his movie's conclusion, but the sad story of humanity is that we never learn.As I mentioned, I have no problem whatsoever with the major creative liberties Mr. Aronofsky took with the Genesis material. But, I do have a major theological problem with Mr. Aronofsky's ultimate conclusion. The Genesis account couldn't be clearer: humanity is just as messed up after the Flood as before.If the last 18 minutes were different (and it wouldn't have required much to change the final message),?Aronofky's?Noah would have been a great movie. As it is, I think it's one more example of humanity's problem. Here's What I Loved About the Movie (Spoiler Warning):

• Noah's retelling of Genesis 1 to his family. The visuals that go along with his retelling are beautiful, interpreting the deep theology and poetry of the Creation account in ways I've never seen before.
• "The Watchers." The Watchers are fallen angels, and though I was initially skeptical when they appeared on the screen, I quickly appreciated their part in the story. The Watchers are fallen angels not because they rebelled against God by wanting to take his place, but because they rebelled against God by wanting to help humanity too much. There is a lot of wisdom in that understanding of sin. Their curse is to become part of the earth, and so they appear as rock giants.
• Noah's self-understanding. Noah sees himself as totally flawed and unrighteous and believes his only role is to steward creation, and then die.
• Noah's family dynamic. I think the tension that Noah's devotion--obsession?--causes in his family rang true.
• The Flood itself. Terrifying and utterly believable.
• All the small, human details. The scene where Noah's family is in the Ark and hears the screams of those bereft outside? Wow.
• Actually, I loved pretty much everything about the first 120 minutes of the movie....

 UPDATE:?Over at?First Things, Wesley Hill has the same problem with?Noah that I do, but says it better.

3 Things I Learned From a Week Without Screens

As part of?our church's Lenten campaign, my family and I just spent the last week abstaining from screens for purposes of entertainment. (No tv, blogs, streaming video, etc. Unfortunately, I still had to use email for work, etc. Wouldn't that be nice?....)Here are 3 things I learned from the experience. The 1st is obvious and expected, the 2nd and 3rd surprised me:

1. I'm a lot more productive when I'm not tied to my phone or computer.
2. My stress level is lower when I'm not absorbing content from the internet, because
3. Much internet content focuses on fomenting outrage. We are a people of grievance and offense. A friend of mine called me midweek and asked me about something that had occurred that had gotten the internet outraged and it was a relief to say that I knew nothing about it and didn't care. I don't need more petty outrage in my life. If you took away tweets and blog posts and articles that express offense or outrage--and took away pornography, sadly--how much of the internet would be left?

It's startling how quickly something that's clearly not a necessity--screens for entertainment--can shape our ways of living and interacting. What about you--how are screens shaping how you live, work, or parent? 

The Problem of the Breaking Bad Pastor

 Question: Is it okay for pastors to get rich by doing the work of ministry?Over at First Things, James Duncan has written a brief essay with a provocative title: "Celebrity Pastors' Walter White Problem." He summarizes the problem for many celebrity pastors, namely that they make a lot of money from their churches, but then have a difficult time spending it, as no congregation likes the idea of a lavish pastoral lifestyle. Their situations are similar to that of Walter White, the anti-hero of the television show "Breaking Bad," who made millions from dealing drugs, only to find himself unable to spend the money without clearly advertising his illegal activity. The post is worth reading. On the One Hand, Yes: They Are Talented, Hard-Working GuysI don't know any celebrity pastors, but I do know a little bit about the pastoral ministry, and it's obvious to me that the celebrity pastor church-growth types are enormously talented entrepreneurial individuals. Were they not in the ministry, they would be very effective leaders of other large organizations. Also, it's impossible to be a celebrity pastor and not be an excellent public speaker. All of these guys, had they been generals or C-level executives, would be earning a lucrative living on the speaking circuit. Additionally, the celebrity pastor is almost always a best-selling author. It's hard work to write a best-selling book--shouldn't that hard work be rewarded?It seems unfair to restrict their earning potential just because they chose to work for the church. On The Other Hand, No: Pastoral Ministry Shouldn't Be About Making MoneyThe talent of the celebrity pastor is not the issue--the issue is integrity. It is hard not to question the integrity of a celebrity pastor who becomes wealthy through the work of ministry. Some Observations About Wealth and the Church

• The pastor's authority is mainly a moral authority, authority that is enhanced when the pastor is seen to be living more simply than his or her peers, authority that is diminished when the congregation sees the pastor living at a standard far above most of them. I think the appeal of Pope Francis is due in large part to his well-publicized simplicity.
• It's easy to criticize people who are in situations different than your own. Would I be able to resist the temptations to wealth that so many celebrity pastors face? I'm not sure.
• The vast majority of pastors in the world are faithful people who sacrifice for years, doing difficult work for very little pay.
• Compared to many (most?) pastors in the world, I am extraordinarily well-paid. My lifestyle and that of my grandfather, who pastored a rural church on the Eastern Shore of Virginia during the Great Depression, are vastly different; mine is much more comfortable than his ever was. It would be the height of hypocrisy for me to throw stones at wealthy celebrity pastors while justifying my own lifestyle.
• On the other hand, it is not hypocritical for me to admit that both I and the celebrity pastor have a problem with money.
• But this problem is not exclusive to those of us in the pastoral ministry: anyone reading this is many times more wealthy than the majority of the people on this planet. We need to beware the self-righteousness that comes from comparing ourselves to a few wealthy outliers while ignoring our own unseen and suffocating materialism.

 Conclusion: It's All About MeI don't know any celebrity pastors, and so I can't speak to the condition of their hearts. What I do know is my own heart, and it is a greedy thing, and materialism is my disease. It's easy for me to criticize others' financial choices, but much harder for me to live at a lower standard of living than I can afford. Maybe the benefit of the recent attention paid to the lifestyles of celebrity pastors is that it forces me to ask: "Lord, what do you want me to do with what I've been given?" One day, I'll have to answer only for myself. I'll let God be the judge of the others. 

Words I Can Believe in on Valentine's Day

Though I may speak with bravest fire,And have the gift to all inspire,And have not love, my words are vain,As sounding brass, and hopeless gain. Though I may give all I possess,And striving so my love profess,But not be given by love within,The profit soon turns strangely thin. Come, Spirit, come, our hearts control,Our spirits long to be made whole.Let inward love guide every deed;By this we worship, and are freed.--Hal Hopson, 1972

Are Miracles Possible? [Science & Faith, part 2 of 3]

 My fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson liked Jesus but wasn't sold on all the miracles in the Gospels. So, he cut them out, leaving his Bible full of holes.Was he right? Are miracles impossible?Option 2In answering the question, "Can Science and Faith Be Reconciled?," some people take option #2 and reply, "No, because faith is based on the miraculous, and we know that miracles cannot happen." Circular ReasoningThe problem, if you're not careful, in stating categorically that miracles cannot happen is that it can lead you into a circular argument. When pressed, many of us would have to say that miracles cannot happen because we know that they don't happen. But, that's not really much of an argument.Before we can be certain that miracles?cannot happen, we have to do the hard work of investigating claims of the miraculous. For example, before we can be sure that the Resurrection--the most famous miracle in history--did not happen, we need to examine it.What About David Hume?The great 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume made some very effective arguments against the possibility of the miraculous, and his critique effectively kept generations of free-thinking Westerners from accepting the miraculous. But, although much of Hume's work has held up well, his argument against miracles has been discredited by modern philosophers. For example, the philosopher John Earman even wrote a book called?Hume's Abject Failure: the Argument Against Miracles.There are many reasons not to believe in a particular miracle, or even in all miracles, but categorically declaring that the miraculous?cannot?happen goes too far. Blind FaithMany religious people have gone in another direction. Admitting rationally that miracles don't happen--accepting the Enlightenment bias against the miraculous--they have white-knuckled-forced themselves to believe. Along this route, faith is what you are supposed to believe even though you know the things you are supposed to believe are impossible. This version of blind faith is dangerous and is one reason many people raised in rigidly fundamentalist churches and homes often completely reject their faith when they leave home: they encounter intelligent arguments against what they previously held in blind faith, and, at a loss, everything they once believed unravels. SummaryWe can't categorically reject miracles, and we also shouldn't accept some version of faith that is completely irrational and unthinking. When it comes to the question, "Can science and faith be reconciled," we need another option....  

Can Science and Faith be Reconciled? [part 1 of 3]

I've been interested recently in some of the questions that 21st century Americans have about the Christian faith. One question that comes up frequently is, "Can science and faith be reconciled?"In researching this question, I've discovered three main answers.Option 1:No, because science and faith are and have been at war.This option is widely-held among modern people. But there is one problem with it: it is historically false.Without the Church, No ScienceAndrew Dickson White?(1832-1918) was one of the co-founders of Cornell University. In 1896 he published a 2 volume work called?A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom,?which put forward the idea that the Christian faith was responsible for interfering and holding back scientific achievement. White's work was extremely influential in the first part of the 20th century, and his argument did much to convince many that faith and science were at war, despite the obvious problems with his argument.The first problem with claiming that science and faith are at war is that, as many historians now argue, the culture of Christianity was directly responsible for the development of science in the West. Christians believe in a rational God who created the universe according to rational principles, a belief that is necessary to science. Rather than being antagonistic to science, the Christian faith allowed it to flourish. The greatest universities of the first 17 centuries of the last 2 millennia were virtually all developed by the Church to be places where faith could seek understanding, and most of the greatest scientific minds up until the Enlightenment were devout Christians.Second, A.D. White had an obvious bias against orthodox Christianity. For some reason, modern people, so quick (and rightly so) to be skeptical of many authoritative claims accept as gospel the claims of those who are obviously biased against the Church; many of us accept those arguments unthinkingly. In a culture that values science (as ours does), you can greatly undermine the faith by claiming the Church is anti-science, and A.D. White and many people have successfully done so. It says a lot about our modern anti-Church bias that we are eager to embrace any arguments that make the Church look badly. But What About Galileo?"That sounds great," some readers are thinking, "but what about Galileo?"The Galileo episode is not one that makes the Church look very good and I wish the Church had been wiser. However, I've learned some interesting facts about Galileo.First, the episode was less about science versus faith but more (in David Bentley Hart's phrase) about what happens when two men of "titanic egos" clash. The two men were Galileo Galilei and Pope Urban VIII. They had once been friends, but Galileo had deliberately insulted the Pope and his holiness was miffed. The whole sorry affair was, in some ways, a big personality conflict.Second, the Galileo episode took place within the context of the Protestant Reformation and the Roman catholic Counter-Reformation. It was a climate in which Rome was eager to maintain whatever control it could. Provoked by Galileo, Rome wanted to be sure that the arrogant scientist knew his place.The facts above don't explain away the church's foolishness in the Galileo episode, but they do help show it's not quite as bad as the pop culture version of the story goes. Plus, when speaking of Christianity, it's important for us to have a little humility and remember that the Church has been in existence for 2,000 years. Yes, there have been times in the last 2,000 years when Christians have seemed to be deliberately anti-intellectual and reactionary, but those times are, by far, the exceptions rather than the norm.ConclusionPut simply, Option 1 doesn't work because it's historically false: the Church is not and has never been at war with Science.To be continued in Part 2.... 

Chris Christie and the Problem With Our Media Culture

(I'm very interested in American politics. This is a new blog, so you should know that though I plan on refraining from telling you why your political opinions are wrong and mine are right, I do plan on writing about trends I see in American politics and culture. Such as the following....)The way our media covers American politics is one of the main problems in American politics, as the coverage of the Chris Christie bridge scandal makes clear.This week, documents were published that show that top aides to the NJ Governor deliberately snarled traffic leading from the George Washington Bridge into Fort Lee, NJ. Christie denies any knowledge of their actions.I'm not concerned with parsing out the truth of the scandal or in Governor Christie's fitness for public office. Rather, I'm much more concerned with how the media has covered this and other political scandals: like spectators at a sporting event.I've read very little coverage of the Christie scandal that addresses the morality of the issue, what it means when public officials use their official positions in unethical ways. Instead, almost all the coverage is interested in questions like:

• how will this hurt Governor Christie's 2016 presidential chances?
• did Governor Christie respond quickly enough to diffuse the situation?
• was the tone that Governor Christie struck in his press conference the right one?

Notice that all these (and many other) angles on the story make the story about how the politician plays the game, not about the substance of the actions of the people involved. This tendency is not unique to this story, but is the way the American media covers modern politics.As a citizen, I'm much less concerned with how our political representatives play the game and spin the story than in the substance of their actions. What about you? 

My Not-Too-Impressive 2013 Reading List (& Why You Need a Reading Plan for 2014).

My goal was to read 50 books in 2013 ; I didn't come even close: 23. I had read somewhere about some guy wanting to read 50 books in the coming year, so I decided to adopt his goal, and I'm glad I did, even though I fell so far short. I learned last year that I need to be more intentional in my reading. I've never looked back on an evening spent watching tv or browsing online and thought, "I'm SO glad I spent my time like that," but I have definitely been blessed by turning off my screens and focusing on a book. So, this year, I'm going for it again: I want to read 50 books in 2014. What about you? If you don't set a goal, you are GUARANTEED not to achieve it. Why not try to intentionally read more in 2014?

My 2013 reading list is below. (Reading over it now, I know I'd like to include more fiction and literature in my 2014 reading diet.)

Highly Recommended

What it Takes: The Way to the White House, by Richard Ben Cramer.

Comment: If you love politics (as I do), you must read this. Over 1,000 pages on the 1988 presidential campaign. Cramer had unprecedented access to the 8 leading candidates, and the book is just remarkable. Worth pushing through all the way to the end. I read it on summer vacation, and am so glad I did.

The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller.

Comment: Violent, terrifying, brutal, beautiful. I think about this novel all the time. Highly recommended (but don't read before bedtime--you won't want to put it down, and then you won't be able to sleep).

The Circle Maker, by Mark Batterson.

Comment: recommended for sure, particularly if you are struggling a bit in your faith. His basic argument: we should pray passionately and persistently, asking the Lord for big things. Who doesn't need to hear that?

Mr. Ives' Christmas, by Oscar Hijuelos.

Comment: I read it the weekend before Christmas, after seeing it mentioned on Rod Dreher's blog.

Others, in no particular order

One Word That Will Change Your Life, by Dan Britton, Jimmy Page, and Jon Gordon. Comment: see previous post here.

Scouting the Divine, by Margaret Feinberg.

The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg. Comment: really interesting stuff, particularly the historical and social examples. (I'm thinking of the stuff about Paul O'Neil at Alcoa and the kebab vendors in Iraq.) I think the stuff about "keystone habits" is particularly useful. The book is a bit too long, but I recommend it.

Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, by Adam Grant.

Who Is This Man? by John Ortberg. Comment: Loved the simplicity and power of Ortberg's central question: "How did an unknown Galilean carpenter, who didn't lead and army, write a book, or rule a kingdom, become the most influential person in history?

24/6, by Matthew Sleeth. Comment: you get the point from the title, but it never hurts to think more about sabbath.

The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman.

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. Comment: I knew nothing about the book, but hearing that the movie was coming out, I wanted to read it. The first 3/4 are excellent. The stuff about his siblings is a distraction, and I don't think the final 1/4 is that great, but I'd still recommend it if you are interested in science-fiction.

Deep & Wide, by Andy Stanley. Comment: If you are involved in church leadership at any level, definitely recommended.

The King Jesus Gospel, by Scot McKnight.

Paris in the Fifties, by Stanley Karnow. Comment: title says it all. Really interesting sketches of French life in a time that will never return. A bit too long, but I enjoyed it.

Entreleadership, by Dave Ramsey.

11: Indispensable Relationships You Can't Live Without, by Len Sweet. Comment: not recommended, though I did get a sermon series idea out of it.

The Treasure Principle, by Randy Alcorn.

The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield.

How Do You Kill 11 Million People? by Andy Andrews.

Willpower, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney.

The Virtual Assistant Solution, by Michael Hyatt.

Why Men Hate Going to Church, by David Murrow.

What's Your One Word for 2014?

Resolutions don't work. So, rather than focusing on all the ways we want to live differently in 2014, a little book?I read recently suggests we'd be better off focusing on a one word theme for the year and live into it.What's your one word?For 2014, mine is "early."I want to:

• wake up early
• pray early
• workout early
• finish tasks early
• get to appointments early
• finish my sermon early (this would be life-changing!)
• get to bed early

What about you? Leave comments below.