Oh God, I think I'm a fundamentalist

Announcing Mad Young Thing

2007-01-13T16:07:00.000+13:00

I did it. I integrated my blogging into one blog - http://madyoungthing.blogspot.com/ - so this will likely be the last post on Oh God, I think I'm a fundamentalist.

But don't worry. I'll still be talking about God a whole lot! And asking the questions that should keep us all awake at night, have we the ears to listen.

See you at Mad Young Thing; read my posts on philosophy, spirituality and my personal journey. And much, much more!

Another thing...

2007-01-12T20:31:00.000+13:00

...I enjoyed about A Generous Orthodoxy was the feeling that:

I haven't bought a book,
I've bought a conversation.

That was exciting and completely in keeping with the trends I see in the "secular" world of business.

Along those lines, I got all excited the other day over Open Source Theology. I'll no doubt dip into that in more detail later.

Amazing holiday

2007-01-12T17:55:00.000+13:00

Well. My apologies for such a lengthy time in between posts. I'm actually considering amalgamating all my blogs into one, considering how infrequently I post on any of them!

It's been an amazing holiday season though. I finished How Now Shall We Live, no mean feat when you see the size of that book (491 pages minues endnotes and appendices). Then I read - in three days flat (it was the holidays!) - A Generous Orthodoxy, which was in some ways a magnificent complement, in other ways a jagged counterpoint to How Now...

Both books deserve much thought and meditation. My fluttering surface perceptions:

How Now Shall We Live gave me a lot of confidence in the intellectual rigour of Christianity. It gave me alternative perspectives on cultural "givens" such as evolution, the role of art in society, and the idea that popular culture is a reflection of what's really going on in society. Not to say I take everything this book says on board, but it gave me some interesting points of view that I had never heard intelligently argued before.
However, the tone of How Now Shall We Live tended to come across as combative. It made me feel angry at the seeming monopoly of Freudian, Marxist and Darwinian ideas that are presented with great dogmatism in academia and the arts. But I, and every other Christian trying to present their case, need to get over that anger, or risk appearing as another defensive conservative thinker who just can't adjust to the present.
A lot of How Now Shall We Live is devoted to debunking other philosophies. While this was really interesting and valuable, I didn't see it as part of presenting the Christian worldview. Instead, it can lead to the dangerous intellectual practice of assuming what we believe is the exact opposite of what "they" believe. So because we don't believe in Darwinism we reject innovation and progress; because we don't believe in Marxism, we embrace market-led capitalism; and so on. Particularly this book didn't do enough for me to address the world of business that I live in. And perhaps that was not its job.
A Generous Orthodoxy, on the other hand, made me deliriously happy in parts, because here was someone asking the same questions I have asked, and sometimes answering them a mischievous sense of humour I would love to have. It helped me get over some of the questions of life and doctrine that are really just mental masturbation or worse, an attempt to create an intellectual system of understanding God that leaves out the need for God to explain it all!
However, A Generous Orthodoxy didn't go anywhere near the fundamental questions of is there a God, how do we know we've got the right one, is Jesus God and is the Bible God's word? Well, it did touch on the last question, but only in asking what that means. So the fundamentals were taken as given, and that's probably right for this book - otherwise it would've been a huge volume!

What I loved about A Generous Orthodoxy was its big picture of God's work in creation. This was a theme also in How Now... but Orthodoxy put it in a way that grabbed my imagination more.

It also arrived at a joyously unfinished conclusion, stating that, while objective truth is out there (and in here), we will never have it all. How Now... gives a sense of finality, which is at once comforting and profoundly disturbing. I think I prefer the state of deliriously relaxed uncertainty in Orthodoxy, and its description of our journey of discovery which we go on together, in community. The need for that was the greatest lesson learnt and desire of my heart in the past three years.

A risky God

2006-12-10T14:27:00.000+13:00

Great quote on the Prodigal Kiwi blog, and one that echoes my feelings after seeing The Nativity with my mate Darrell on Friday.

It struck me that Jesus was such a risk-taker. Of all children born, he had a choice, and he put himself into the most dire and risky environment. And also risked Joseph and Mary's lives too.

It's a call to adventure. Too often it seems like simply a call to the oppressively impossible. It's impossible sure enough, but that should give us inspiration. Not despair.

Are we ready to welcome the Church of the Mongrel Mob?

2006-12-04T12:55:00.000+13:00

Are we ready to welcome the Church of the Mongrel Mob?

Very cool. And very challenging. Sam Chapman, whom I have met, has lived his life in community for as long as I've heard of him. This is not mere talk, this is shared life. And it's working, as this article shows. I thank God for what He's doing through Sam et al, and ask, what can/should I do?

Slate blogs the Bible. - By David Plotz - Slate Magazine

2006-11-16T17:23:00.000+13:00

Slate blogs the Bible. - By David Plotz - Slate Magazine

This is very cool. Just heard about this on NPR's On the Media podcast. David Plotz is going through the Bible, verse by verse, and blogging about it.

Sounds like he's taken some flak for reading and interpreting the Bible unmediated, mostly from rabbis. However I believe the Bible - mysterious as it is - speaks for itself. I hope David finds the Bible reading him as he reads it.

Walkies

2006-11-13T09:28:00.000+13:00

Got some fancy new shoes on the weekend after my other ones fell to pieces. They're nice - they measured my feet and how I stood beforehand. Good feeling, knowing you're stepping into something that's made for you.

Made me think about how the Christian life is referred to as a walk. It takes persistence, but it also means God has prepared my path. I don't know if He's given me cushioned soles though!

What repentance looks like

2006-11-08T18:39:00.000+13:00

You can read Ted Haggard's apology to his congregation here.

I didn't know much about Ted Haggard except that he was high profile in the US Christian community and also featured in Jesus Camp.

It was really sad to hear of another Christian leader's fall, and hypocrisy. Sad because of the harm it does to Christianity's image, but sad too because it makes me think of the things not yet sorted in my life. There but for the grace of God go I - even if not in the same way.

But what gives me hope is the truly repentant tone of Haggard's letter. There is no PR spin here, nor is there deflection of blame. This is what repentance looks like, and although it's scandalous that this has happened at such a high level of leadership and therefore responsibility, truth is we are all very broken people. It'll be interesting to see the church's response to this, although at the same time that's best kept behind closed doors and not made into a media circus.

Interesting and insightful analysis from Gordon McDonald here.

Quote

2006-11-04T10:05:00.000+13:00

Just spring-cleaning my desk and found a quote I'd scribbled down. I don't remember who said it but it was a guest on In the Studio with Michael Card:

"We wouldn't know Him (God) for all that He is, if we didn't see Him in and through all that He made."

More thoughts on "The New Atheism"

2006-11-02T09:07:00.000+13:00

Continuing from the last post, a few more thoughts.

"Everything you hinge your life upon is false"
According to the article, a lot of self-identified agnostics are really "polite atheists" who are shy of declaring their atheism because, in effect, it says to their believing friends: "Everything you hinge your life upon is false."

That may seem a bit on the nose, but it didn't faze me. Because, in effect, that's what I'm doing to people with a naturalistic worldview when I present Christianity - real Christianity - as a coherent, rational worldview with moral consequences. That's why I don't present it unsolicited too often - because if it's real, sorry, if Christ is real, then He will change your whole life and belief system, not just become an add-on to your life.

Yet how many people have not heard this? They make a commitment expecting it to be X, and then hear later that it's supposed to be Y. No wonder it's hard going for some, and many have been turned off church forever.

Why Wired?
I heard an excellent podcast (which I got through iTunes' feed, and can't find on Wired's podcast blog!) in which Wired's managing editor (I think?) interviewed Gary Wolf, the author of the article. In it, the managing editor asked, "Why is this a Wired article?"

Wolf answered along the lines that the Wired economy is built on technology, which in turn is built on science, and that these Intelligent Design people are standing in the way of true science.

It's an easy statement to make, but it's utter bollocks.

Another podcast I've been listening to, Intelligent Design the Future, seems to be a lone voice trying to remind the media that:

Intelligent design is as fair a conclusion to draw from nature as evolution
Scientists who believe in ID are still scientists
Intelligence in design doesn't necessarily mean the designer is supernatural
These scientists often face censure from their colleagues for not toeing the Darwinist line
It's Galileo all over again, but this time the Darwinist majority takes the place of the Catholic Church, getting really mad with those who dispute their dogma

On that third point, intelligence in design doesn't necessarily mean the designer is supernatural, sometimes words get in the way of real understanding.

If you're an atheist or an agnostic reading this, how about we substitute the word "supernatural" with "extradimensional"? Does that make the picture any more plausible to your scientific understanding?

Interesting article on "The New Atheism"

2006-10-31T06:00:00.000+13:00

A very thought-provoking read from Wired Magazine on "The New Atheism". I admire the author's honesty with the shortcomings of the anti-faith and its proponents. As expected, the article didn't go very deep into the "other side", instead simply paying a visit to a charismatic, not very intellectually rigorous church.

Still, even with that, this article doesn't give me cause to worry about my faith. The logic is impeccable - if God is not real, then don't act like God is real, be an atheist. And the counterargument should give religious people food for thought: if God is real, live like it, don't just play at it.

People like Dawkins pour scorn on agnosticism, yet I believe agnosticism is also a viable, if uncomfortable, place to be. I'm realising myself that, as Henry Blackaby says in Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing His Will, Truth is revealed, not discovered. I'm learning stuff in the past few weeks that I thought I knew for 15 years.

Ultimately, my personal argument against atheism is my relationship with my Creator. It's not empirically verifiable, and that's okay. But it is something I need to walk out every day, otherwise I undermine what I'm saying here.

The world's best-selling book, minus the main character

2006-10-26T13:25:00.000+13:00

I think modern, secular Western culture doesn't quite know what to do with God. We have two millennia of Christianity's undeniable influence and yet, in intellectual circles anyway, we have banished him or explained him away.

Perhaps this is part of the thinking behind The Honey and the Fires: Ancient Stories retold for our Times.

It's "a modern, secular retelling of some of the most powerful stories from the Bible", according to its publisher the ABC.

On one hand, I'm pleased. People who may otherwise ignore the immense spiritual and cultural heritage available in the Bible will get a glimpse of the exciting tales told between its covers.

On the other hand, something very important is missing here. God!

It begs the question: can you have the Bible without God? And in many places the author, playwright Roger Pulver, does a beautiful God. But the heroes of the Bible included here: Joseph, Daniel, Esther ... all did their acts of courage because of a belief and a relationship with their Creator.

Mixed feelings. But the best thing you can say about anything is that it makes you think. It makes me think, how often have I tried to live life without God - it appears a lot less complicated, after all!

But inevitably his Reality comes crashing into my life, full of grace and mercy. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Checking in: cartoons, PK, and Worldview

2006-10-14T17:15:00.000+13:00

Just a brief hello, more to come soon (hopefully!)

I've finished Derek Prince's War in Heaven (review to come), read and finished Arthur Katz' Ben Israel - veeeeeery interesting - been to Promise Keepers, and begun reading How Now Shall We Live? Also very interesting.

I also met Brendan aka Jim the cartoonist at a recent PR event. Lots of overlapping experiences and different perspectives - hope to keep in touch with him regularly.

Fodder for Christian writers and artists

2006-09-05T17:09:00.000+12:00

Some food for thought for Christians who want to write and create art that touches people of all persuasions.

First up, an interview with screenwriter and professor Craig Detweiler about film, and a 2-part interview with CS Lewis, possibly the last he ever gave, here and here.

Some gems:

What lessons would you most like to see Christian filmmakers learn?

Detweiler: We surely don't need any more End Times films. We don't need any more films that mean what they say and say what they mean. I think we have to discover the lost art of subtlety and subtext.

At Biola, we start our filmmakers with visual aesthetics. We let them know that film is not meant to be an illuminated Bible. This is an art form that is visual by design. It does not need words to convey the message. What I'd like us to do is figure out what lighting, sound, color, props, and set design say. I'd like us to discover the power of silent film, to discover how Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc worked and continues to work, how Sunrise continues to work, how The Last Laugh continues to work.

---

Wirt: Can you suggest an approach that would spark the creation of a body of Christian literature strong enough to influence our generation?

Lewis: There is no formula in these matters. I have no recipe, no tablets. Writers are trained in so many individual ways that it is not for us to prescribe. Scripture itself is not systematic; the New Testament shows the greatest variety. God has shown us that he can use any instrument. Balaam’s ass, you remember, preached a very effective sermon in the midst of his ‘hee-haws.’

---

Lewis: There is a character in one of my children’s stories named Aslan, who says, ‘I never tell anyone any story except his own.’ I cannot speak for the way God deals with others; I only know how he deals with me personally

---

Wirt: Do you believe that the Holy Spirit can speak to the world through Christian writers today?

Lewis: “I prefer to make no judgment concerning a writer’s direct ‘illumination’ by the Holy Spirit. I have no way of knowing whether what is written is from heaven or not. I do believe that God is the Father of lights -- natural lights as well as spiritual lights (James 1:17). That is, God is not interested only in Christian writers as such. He is concerned with all kinds of writing. In the same way a sacred calling is not limited to ecclesiastical functions. The man who is weeding a field of turnips is also serving God.”

Prayer in Parliament

2006-09-05T11:30:00.000+12:00

I was checking out TVNZ's live Parliament video feed the other day, and was taken aback by the beautiful words of the prayer uttered when Parliament begins:

Almighty God, humbly acknowledging our need for thy guidance in all things, and laying aside all private and personal interests, we beseech thee to grant that we may conduct the affairs of this House and of our country to the glory of thy holy name, the maintenance of true religion and justice, the honour of the Queen and the public welfare, peace and tranquillity of New Zealand, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Wouldn't that be a fantastic prayer to pray, if people meant it?

I was also surprised at the explicit reference to Jesus Christ. This is a deity-specific prayer, as opposed to the usual "Oh my God" you may hear sometimes.

Apparently, there's a move afoot to remove Christ's name from the prayer, and predictably there's opposition, as this article details.

It's an interview with David Major, who's had a lot of influence in the political world. A quote:

In the 1990s Mr. Major was chief executive of the National Party under Prime Ministers Jim Bolger and Jenny Shipley. He said saying grace was a regular feature of dinner parties at Premier House, whereas now grace was not even said at a state banquet.

“All that’s come to a halt, and we’ve let it happen.”

I'm concerned at this attitude. As Christians, shouldn't we be more concerned that the prayer is being spoken and assented to by people who mostly don't have any relationship with God? Isn't that taking the Lord's name in vain?

So if there's a move to take Christ's name out of the official prayer, I would support it. Sadly, because the ideal is that everyone may know Christ for who He really is. But sadly, I suspect all this prayer will remind people of is New Zealand's historical roots, and a religion that used to make sense.

Lessons from my cat

2006-09-04T11:36:00.000+12:00

Millie's a boy with a girl's name. Long story.

But he teaches us a lot about God.

I used to read the Psalms and hear songs where it says, "I seek your face, O God."

It was one of those phrases that just washes over you unless you think about it.

Until one cold night, when Millie wanted to cuddle up in bed. He literally sought my face, tickling my nose with his whiskers in the process.

Why does he like my face? It's probably not as warm as my armpit, or as soft as my belly. But Millie seems to understand how I'm feeling when he looks at my face.

Communicative creature, isn't he?

And I guess that's what we're all about too. Communication. Connection. I've even written about it today on my other blog.

But how often do I forget that my relationship with God is a relationship? Because I deal with information all the time, sometimes I feel the answer to my spiritual needs comes from more information. It's not so.

Just relaxing and realising that I am always in the presence of a Friend is all it takes.

Capes Fear

2006-08-31T10:46:00.000+12:00

(Not a misprint; I'm talking in plural, like the womens).

For Marie's psycho studies, we had to analyse several films and get some psychological themes from them.

An ideal assignment! I was glad to offer my two cents with this.

First one was Finding Forrester, the next one was Martin Scorcese's 1991 remake of Cape Fear (1962).

Both of these movies are so well-made, and Scorcese's version (or let's say writer Wesley Strick's version) so deeply layered, that it was very disappointing for me to feel that the story is ultimately unprofitable on a philosophical or personal level.

I guess that's a roundabout way of saying that both Marie and I felt a bit like we'd wasted two good hours after watching this. It was certainly exciting, terrifying, plumbed the depths of the human psyche, but ultimately it had nothing to redeem it, not even a protagonist we can sympathise with.

In the behind-the-scenes featurette, Nick Nolte says that it's about stripping away the masks we wear, and sometimes violent suffering is the only way to do that. I guess so, Nick, but I'd prefer to get that message from a film like Sideways, which does it in a much gentler but still powerful way.

Strick's version of Cape Fear is achingly empty of hope. Danielle's voiceover at the end is a message of stoicism, a message of just pressing on.

From a how-to-make-a-movie department, there were some great touches. Layering the Max Cady character as a psychotic, Bible-quoting avenging angel was an interesting touch that made his character really, really scary, as well as his superhuman strength.

Using the original music from 1962 was inspired, but also made the movie idiosyncratic, perhaps too much for mainstream audiences in 1991. However, Scorcese says it was the movie that earned him the most money of all his films.

Psychological themes aplenty here, though:

Fear
Obsession
Sexuality
Repression
Deception
Dysfunctional families

That's just a few.

Because we were so dissatisfied with the remake, we thought we'd check out the original. What a difference 30 years makes!

Not that we really liked the original that much, but it's very telling about the acceptable standards of culture at the time. The original can't even say the word "rape", yet the remake shows some pretty gruesome verbal and visual violence (nothing explicit though, except Robert de Niro taking a bite out of Illeana Douglas' cheek).

The original was much simpler and more straightforward than the remake, but the acting was top notch. Robert Mitchum especially is such a great actor. Was, rather. Shame.

However, again with this one I wondered why? It's another entertaining, terrifying wild ride, but at the end the only message I get out of it is that some people are so bad they should be locked in a cage forever. What's so great about that?

Maybe I should stop looking for the transcendent or the uplifting in every movie, and just see how well they've designed their roller-coaster ride. However, knowing a tiny bit about how hard it is to make a movie, I really wonder what's in some people's heads who just go crazy over this sort of story.

Politics and Christians

2006-08-27T21:50:00.000+12:00

I don't understand why so-called liberal people, who would no doubt like to be thought of as open-minded, have only one category for evangelical Christians: people like George W Bush.

Over on the Journz email list that I'm part of, the conversation steered towards the current debate in NZ schools about religion vs. spirituality. It didn't take long before the discussion turned towards state religion, and fear and loathing of evangelicals.

On the one hand, they have a point. Christians have a bad track record when you give us power. Point taken.

On the other hand, I asked people to explain their fear and loathing of Christians - particularly ones who take the Bible literally, particularly if they come from America.

It makes me mad - but that's not likely to help.

My theory is, most of these people - and I'm generalising here - have some form of Christian background. May have been Sunday School lessons as a child, or a Christian grandparent, or whatever.

Whatever their exposure to cultural Christianity, they feel it is a thorough enough exploration of the faith and therefore warrants no further investigation. Their early experiences - often unpleasant - effectively immunises them against the true gospel.

What's the true Gospel? How long have you got?

Seriously, though, I've come to realise that while doctrine is fairly important here, what's most important is to see the message incarnated. Lived out by a real person. Otherwise it makes very little sense.

I'm helped in understanding this emergent viewpoint by What's So Amazing About Grace, particularly its chapter on Christians in politics. Some quotes:

"The church... is not the master or servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

"A coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church."
G.K.Chesterton

So my sense of mission this week - every week - is to seek opportunities to courageously live out my faith, choosing actions that will be backed up by the words of God.

Christianity & Islam - religions of peace?

2006-08-27T11:07:00.000+12:00

I often hear people - Muslim and non-Muslim - saying that Islam should not be judged by its extremists like Osama bin Laden, any more than Christians should be judged by the Crusades, the Inquisitions or even the current US Government.

Is that a fair comparison? This article in Christianity Today draws on primarily Islamic scholarship to contrast the two belief systems' approach to war.

Sex-crazed culture

2006-08-24T07:31:00.000+12:00

Breasts are wonderful things. But the main street of Auckland's largest city is not really an appropriate place for them.

What's strange is the overwhelmingly good publicity the mainstream media has given the "Boobs on Bikes" parade. From the NZ Herald to Newstalk ZB, the coverage has been nominally neutral, but has made opposition to the parade sound hypocritical. This interview with city councillor Noeleen Raffils makes her sound stupid (although she didn't help much by citing an anecdote that seemed irrelevant), and then a follow-up interview with parade organiser Steve Crow is on very friendly terms.

People talked about the parade as if it weren't linked into the Erotica Lifestyles Expo, a promotional tool for the porn industry. Steve Crow is full of it when he talks about freedom of speech. Porn is not about freedom of choice any more than smoking is about freedom of choice. You choose to get in, and it's a very hard choice to get out.

Instead of championing the Larry Flynts and Steve Crows of this world, let's recognise them for what they are: misled people misleading others to indulge their desires and fulfil their needs in an inappropriate way. Their attempts to normalise porn makes a mockery of the sacredness of sex and sexuality. Why don't we see this?

Who says no one goes to church?

2006-08-21T17:03:00.000+12:00

Who says no one goes to church? - an interesting article from Challenge Weekly.

Particularly sad and interesting was this quote:

"Wayne Kirkland, of Signpost Communications, says there is little doubt that people are responding to Jesus’ invitation to be his disciples.

“However, for every one of these new disciples, perhaps six or seven others have either failed to become established or have dropped out after some time. Regardless of how many of these ‘dropouts’ were ‘genuinely converted’ in the first place, we have a tragedy of major proportions.

“Thousands of New Zealanders are tasting something of Christianity and rejecting it. Thus, thousands are becoming inoculated against genuine attempts to reach them in the future.”

That's echoing the thoughts going through my head about how many people don't get a chance to really know what the Gospel is really about; instead, they get exposed to something that is close enough to fool an outside observer, but lacks the credibility which the 1st century Gospel had.

It's not because the Gospel's changed, it's just that its proponents - people like me - have not lived out the Message in all its fulness.

What is Worldview?

2006-08-16T13:25:00.000+12:00

I recently bought a copy of Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearsey's How Now Shall We Live? It's all about worldview, a term I used to hear frequently during my time in Christian radio. I never gave it much thought back then, because I was working with people whose worldview is similar to mine.

In recent years as I got more philosophical in my thinking, I resisted the idea of learning a "Christian worldview". It sounded like brainwashing, sort of, "you can't think for yourself, let us tell you what The Church thinks about this, and don't bother thinking for yourself."

But that's an easy caricature to paint, and one that plays into the hands of a secular humanistic worldview, which is often just as dogmatic.

Instead, I've discovered a need, a hunger in myself to know what a Biblical worldview is. Why can't I just read the Bible and figure it out for myself? Well, I could, but it might take my whole life. Why not stand on the shoulders of others, and get a bigger picture?

For me, worldview is about connecting the dots. I know where I stand on issues like abortion, marriage and homosexuality. But how about the areas I regularly write about for a living, like marketing, technology and business?

I can form my own opinions, but reading on worldview helps guide my thinking. It's not about dictating, but it is about presenting the evidence so I can decide.

I haven't started the book yet; I'll let you know how it goes!

Let's talk about sex

2006-07-31T12:12:00.000+12:00

Our sexuality is central to who we are, so it's no wonder that the media and advertising uses it so much to get our attention.

Well, Christians are no different from the rest of the world in that respect, and I was part of a packed house at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Saturday to talk about sex - specifically healing from sexual brokenness - at a meeting organised by Living Waters NZ.

It's so encouraging that there are many people willing to discuss this whole issue at the core of who we are, openly.

More later on this, but I was really really challenged by the words of Tony Dolph-something (my apologies, can't find his name and I didn't write it down properly).

He said we buy into the world's way of thinking when we seek happiness as the highest good. God never calls us to happiness necessarily, but to a relationship with Him.

When I put it like that it seems very bald and unattractive, but at the time it was very compelling. And still is; I just struggle to explain what a profound change of my thinking this represents.

Like I say, more on this later.

So someone reads this!

2006-07-25T15:50:00.000+12:00

I got an email from someone who actually reads this! Wow. And not just someone, the editor of NZ Netguide, Nige Horrocks.

Made my day, and encouraged me to post again. But what to write about...?

It's not like there's not a lot going on on the spiritual front - in fact God's very busy doing stuff in me... but where to start?

I'll start with what I'm reading right now: What's so amazing about grace?

It's a classic. When I was working at Rhema many years ago I heard about it all the time, yet I haven't read it. Until now.

It's good, very good. Re-emphasising the lessons on God's grace - which is a word in danger of losing its meaning, because when you understand grace, it is crazy. It is amazing.

That's it for now, tune in next time for more...

Thoughts on truth

2006-07-10T12:27:00.000+12:00

I recently finished partly reading Why Truth Matters, an exhausting philosophical look at why our society urgently needs objective truth.

What puzzled me was that I was reading familiar arguments for absolute objective truth, from a secular humanistic point of view.

Tres strange!

In particular this quote caught my attention:

"...[E]nquiry, curiosity, interest, investigation, explanation-seeking, are hugely important components of human happiness. This doesn't seem to be a terribly popular thought right now. Public rhetoric tends to aim much lower, for some reason. It seems to see us all as hunkered down, and settling. Settling for minimal, parochial, almost biological satisfactions - family, safety, money. But that underestimates us. We want more than that. We want to ask questions, we want to learn, we want to understand. That's a very human taste and pleasure. ... It seems a waste not to use human capacities and abilities. Anyone can settle for just survival and reproduction and comfort, but we can do more. That's a privilege - and it seems a kind of sacrilege not to use it."

They're facing the same problem faced by philosophers in the 19th century. Remove God from the equation, you can do that with your head, but your heart still wants something sacred. And if you're removed the source of all sacredness, all you have are more questions. And questions only get you so far.

Truth or lack thereof

2006-06-01T11:48:00.000+12:00

I sat in a room at the top of the building with a woman yesterday.

Well, actually it was three women - well, two women, one girl - and a man.

The room was one of the Disputes Tribunal rooms at Auckland District Court. The man was a referee, or arbiter, or I don't actually know his title.

One woman was my mum, witness to the event that brought us there.

The other woman was Brenda, driver of "the other car". The girl was her daughter, witness to her side of the story.

It was an interesting experience.

I said Brenda's car hit mine. She said my car hit hers.

It made me think ... how do I deal with people of different belief systems from my own?

My family members, my wife, my friends at church, my work colleagues... all believe some things at odds with what I believe.

Most times, those beliefs are not that important.

But in this case, the belief had consequences. My belief meant I shouldn't pay for the damage (her car was undamaged). Her belief meant I should.

I wanted to get along with her, be on the same page, etc. But I could not accept her truth.

How about the many people I come across every day whose opinions differ from mine on key issues, like:

whether God exists
whether Jesus is the messiah
whether Jesus is God
whether Jesus rose from the dead
whether there is an objective Truth or just many truths
a whole host of other stuff coming out of that...

?

I'm learning the difference between communicating in an understanding way... and agreeing with, celebrating or championing the beliefs of the other.

Understanding is a whole lot different from agreement.

Many of my fellow Christians need to learn the understanding side; too often I've heard people who appear good arguers but that's only because they don't really hear what the other side is saying. They pick holes and technicalities and win the war of words, but not of hearts.

I'm kind of coming from the other end of the spectrum.

I'm learning to be steadfast in my own beliefs, still seeking to understand, but not violating my beliefs by leaving assumptions unchallenged.

Church Shopping

2006-05-16T07:35:00.000+12:00

Strange Culture: Church Shopping on King of the Hill

LOL

Constantine

2006-05-15T13:33:00.000+12:00

That book says Constantine is the mastermind behind what we know as orthodox Christianity. Here's a brief bio:

Christian History - Constantine - 131 Christians Everyone Should Know

Another theme that's coming up with all the DVC discussion is who cares if Jesus got married?

Good point. I know it does matter, and I'm going to do some thinking about that and post some stuff here.

Another Da Vinci resource

2006-05-15T12:43:00.000+12:00

The Da Vinci Code: A Biblical Response -- CBN.com

What's great about this is the at-a-glance refutation of points made in the book.

I am so renting this movie when it comes out on DVD. I'm not going to bother going to the cinema to see it though.

The da Vinci-ing continues...

2006-05-15T12:39:00.000+12:00

Christians crack | Movies | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (15-05-2006)

In the above story, the last quote says it all...

Adds Lutzer of Chicago's Moody Church: "There is a huge battle going on today on who has the best telling of the Christian story.
"People want to believe the Da Vinci Code so badly because they want a Christ who is manageable, a Jesus that is not going to challenge you or threaten your lifestyle."

Ain't that the truth!

The inevitable da Vinci code post

2006-05-12T14:33:00.000+12:00

I haven't read the book, I haven't seen the movie (obviously, since it hasn't come out yet!) ... but it's pretty much impossible to avoid the da Vinci Code....

On the one hand there are those who claim to be open minded, insisting Christians should see it - what do we have to fear?

Then there are Christians saying we should see it so we're informed of what's going on.

Then there are Christians saying don't support it, it's not worth it!

Here's what I posted to an email discussion group recently:

"The da Vinci Code is compelling because who wouldn't want to challenge the authority figures that have dominated western european history? But the history behind it to my understanding is very flimsy.

No I haven't read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and yes I am a born again Christian, so I am probably biased.

But I'd also contend that many of those who really love the idea behind dVC are also biased against traditional Christianity, and relishing a chance to "get back" at it, feeling threatened by the perceived danger of "the Christian right".

What's great though is that it has got many people on all levels communicating about the subject matter. There's a whole smattering of Christian websites that have come up since the movie was announced, including:

http://pcgmedia.org/davincianswers.html

http://www.thetruthaboutdavinci.com/

http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/special/davincicode.html

Hopefully people who fear all evangelical Christians are rabid proselytes who can't handle a bit of digging for the truth, will see that not all Christians are fanatics and are, in fact, quite human. "

News story: Woman dies of starvation trying to emulate Christ

2006-05-11T11:55:00.000+12:00

Woman dies of starvation trying to emulate Christ - 11 May 2006 - World News

An example of a sensationalist headline that makes Christians sound and look like weirdos.

When I actually read the story I discovered:

* They haven't determined the cause of death - so it's not certain that starvation was the reason
* She comes from a family who encouraged her in her faith, didn't see fasting as unusual
* She sounds like a normal, well-adjusted person: "she was a 'bubbly' person, who always dressed fashionably and was good with children."

Strange things to point out, but proof that Rosaline Gilbert was not a kook, nevertheless.

starving jesus

2006-05-09T13:37:00.000+12:00

starving jesus

I'm kinda liking this!

Nice verse in a rocky chapter

2006-05-09T06:43:00.000+12:00

There are some Bible chapters that are quite rough because they ... well, they disagree with me.

Quite a problem, I know. You get this view of how life should be, and then along comes a chapter like Acts 20.

Here I am with my paradigm of what our calling should be like - kinda warm and fuzzy, and fun, lots of fun.

Then here's the apostle Paul telling a group of his friends that he has served them with "humility" and "tears". That he's looking forward to "prison" and "hardships". That he'll "never see" his friends again.

It's a bit grim, to say the least.

But in the midst of it, there's a gem. Paul blesses his friends, and I want to grab this verse and ask God for the same kind of blessing today:

Now I'm turning you over to God, our marvelous God whose gracious Word can make you into what he wants you to be and give you everything you could possibly need in this community of holy friends.

There's a phrase I've heard twice in the last week: "If it's to be, it's up to me." This is only half true. I'm on a journey of knowing the real God - the God who can make me into what he wants me to be.

It's less comfortable than the mere idea of God, but I'd rather have the genuine article than a cheap copy any day.

God is a multi-dimensional character

2006-05-04T11:39:00.000+12:00

Excellent musing from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) about how God is not a flat character, but sometimes we would like him to be. Particularly of interest to me because of my learnings in filmmaking and drama.

Excerpt:

"A flat character merely exists to embody a particular quality or personify and abstract idea. These are the characters that serve as plot devices or provide a foil to the round characters. The very best writing includes very few flat characters.

I believe that one of the reasons many readers are puzzled by the actions of God portrayed in the Bible is that they really expect God to be a flat character rather than a round one. Many of us consider the existence of God to be a logical necessity, but this does not mean that God is an impersonal "first cause." It can be easy to think of God as the abstract sum of his attributes, but the Scriptures portray Him as having emotions and motivations."

Testing

2006-04-24T22:11:00.000+12:00

Blogger seems to be acting up.

Brands: The new faith?

2006-04-24T19:47:00.000+12:00

On B&T Sally Robertson is talking about brands being the new version of religious faith.

It's not the first time I've thought of this. There's definitely a crossover between the general secularisation of society, and businesses trying to fill the gap left behind.

That's why movies like Kingdom of Heaven didn't do well. They're trying to make something epic, something transcendental, yet the core value of that movie is secularism. Honour without God. It just doesn't work - even for viewers who agree in their heads.

I was talking with a new friend on the weekend about my time of questioning and searching in the past few years. I told him a philosophy of agnosticism is attractive because you don't have to worry about whether God exists, what he requires, how he communicates and which holy book is the truth. You just figure out what works for you, and let everyone get on with their lives.

It's so appealing, and so simple. But it's not founded in reality. Truth is, I couldn't stay in that space. I still knew God existed, and it's rude to ignore someone when you know they're right there in the room with you.

Happy Belated Easter!

2006-04-19T19:51:00.000+12:00

(I've never been much for keeping dates and times... just as well Colossians says "do not let anyone judge you ... with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day"!)

Easter weekend was good. Friday - Good Friday - was a day spent in deep discussion with Marie about our hopes, dreams and goals.

Saturday night we went to church. Because theSanctuary meets in a church building that's shared by multiple congregations, they couldn't do a Good Friday or Easter Sunday service, so Saturday was everything rolled into one.

There was supposed to be an Easter message, but circumstances beyond our control etc. meant that it was just an extended worship service.

What am I saying... there's no such thing as 'just' a worship service these days.

It was an interactive worship service, with the symbols out, and us being encouraged to go and contemplate the stations of the cross.

My mum came with us - she'd been wanting to come along for a long time, but struggles with her energy levels. She really enjoyed it.

It was interesting how all this activity not only propelled us closer to our relationship with God, it also made us aware of each other. I think that's what God's trying to do. Take the blinkers off, and learn how to live in community.

Should be fun! :-0

Interview with an Iranian Christian playwright, filmmaker

2006-03-30T16:21:00.000+12:00

Y'know, I just yesterday had the idea of an Iraqui Christian refugee as a character in a film. Not that Iraquis and Iranians are the same, any more than Kiwis or Aussies. Just interesting though.

---

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

THE IRANIAN NEW YEAR, THREATS TO BOMB IRAN, AND A CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY WHO GAVE HIS LIFE FOR THE COUNTRY THAT WAS THEN CALLED PERSIA
Noted Iranian playwright, noted poet and filmmaker, Ata Servati, discusses all three of these topics

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

TARZANA, CA (ANS) -- The Iranian New Year celebration called Norooz is symbolic of representations of two ancient concepts - the End and the Rebirth; or Good and Evil.

Ata Servati being interviewed at his home by Dan Wooding

The number of Iranian-Americans now living in the United States tops some 2,000,000 and one of them, noted Iranian playwright, poet and filmmaker, Ata Servati, invited me to his home in Tarzana, California, which is in the San Fernando Valley, to take part in the celebration and also talk about a number of topics.

He began by talking about the new year’s "Norooz" and also a second celebration. “We celebrate twice,” said Ata. “This one is called Norooz which is the beginning of spring and the other is at the start of the fall which is called Mehregan and marks the first day of the ‘cold’ year (autumn and winter). We celebrate both because it means new – the nature is new – both inside and outside. Everything is new. It is a time for us to be happy, not sad.”

Despite this being a time to be happy, Ata, who had to leave Iran, confessed to being saddened with reports that he had heard about that it would be good to bomb Iran.

Ata Servati took a deep breath and then told me, “I didn’t really want to comment about something like this when we are celebrating our New Year, but some people are suggesting that the USA should bomb Iran and kill and destroy the people there. I believe that making such comments is as radical as what the Iranian president [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] said about Israel.

“I hope all those who are thinking of killing people and destroying a nation, will stop for a second and think about another course of action -- following the path of peace and love that Jesus Christ talked about; the path that Gandhi and Mother Teresa also followed. Killing and destroying the people of Iran doesn’t resolve anything. It will make it worse.

“Therefore, I believe that we have to have a philosophy of love and respect and only then can we get something out of this situation. But killing and bombing the Iranian people is not going to resolve anything. So I believe that the media has to be responsible when tackling this situation.”

He then singled out another American media personality, Oprah Winfrey, for praise. “I have to take my hat off to her,” he said. “I really respect her for how she has made it in the media. I consider her to be a responsible entertainer and as somebody who can change live in a good way. And she does. We, as entertainers, have to believe in peace and love and we have to do something nice and good for the people. We should help them to be happy and make difference in their lives to become better and more peace human beings. Oprah Winfrey is my hero in this case.”

I then asked Ata what he would like people around the world to know about his people back home.

“The Iranians were from the beginning peaceful and spiritual people,” he said. “We are peaceful people. We really love to love people and also be loved. We don’t like war and my people do not want a nuclear program. Forget about what you see in the media.

“Recently there was a survey in Iran, and over 75 percent of Iranians said that they love America and only 10 percent said they followed the Mullahs who have taken over 90% of the Iranian people hostage and do not represent the majority of the Iranian people. To remove such a headache, the answer is not to bomb Iran and kill everyone. If the international community really wants to do something important, it is very easy; they should not allow the relatives of the rulers or Iran live in their countries and bring out the wealth of Iran and invest it there, especially while over 90% of the Iranian people are suffering of hunger and lack of medical services.”

He then spoke about his new book called “In Search of Heaven” which tells the story of the American missionary, Howard Conklin Baskerville, who in 1907 went to Iran, and the following year sacrificed himself for Iranian freedom, after the Russians had bombed and destroyed the Iranian parliament and killed all it representatives.

“He is known as ‘The son of Iranian freedom.’ I really wanted to say ‘thank you’ to this man and I want him to also be ‘the son of American and world freedom as well. I want him to be a symbol for living with honor,’” he said.

He said that he hoped those who have suggested that Iran must be bombed would read the book. “I would like them to look at the life of Mr. Baskerville. He was a Christian man and he decided that he had to help people that he didn’t even know. He went and sacrificed his life in 1908 for the people who some people seem to want to bomb and kill.

“Howard Baskerville believed that God has given the right for freedom that the Iranian people needed to have. When I heard about his story, I felt that I had to let people know about him and his bravery and heroism. He is a hero to me. Thinking about what he did is really beyond my imagination. His heart was full of love, just like Jesus was also full of love for the people of the world.

“I have to say thank you to this man, and I want the people back in Iran, particularly the youth, to understand what he did for their country. I believe by remembering what Howard did at that time, they will possibly rise up and get their God-given freedom back from the religious radicals that are in power right now. We know that these men are not representative of the Iranian people. But Dan, I must say, this is an internal problem for the Iranian people who will and will take care of their own affairs and will bring freedom to their nation. But without bloodshed. It will be a peaceful change.

“At the front of this change will be the brave women of Iran and as well by the younger generation who have more anger and passion. You know it seems when you pass over 35 your anger and passion will replace with greed and power hungry.”

“You know, the Los Angeles-based Iranian Cable TV ‘Channel One’ has suggested a few points that the international community must follow to help Iranians take their government and freedom back. They were great suggestions and are being mass emailed and faxed to the White House and the international community. Maybe you should print them too.”

Ata Servati concluded by recounting an extraordinary event that took place in his homeland hours after the terrible attack on America by the Al Qaeda terrorists.

“On September 11, 2001, many of the Iranian people came into the streets and held candlelight vigils for those that had died,” he said. “They did so under the threat of guns from the government. They also came to the street on the anniversary of September 11; despite knowing they are going to be batten up by the government forces. And they were. Some were jailed, and tortured. Some disappeared. I call that also bravery by Iranian people. People in no other country that I know of outside of America, did that. That was a very brave and radical statement for these people to make. It shows that they love the American people. And these are the people that some are suggesting to be bombed and killed.”

With the interview over, Ata rejoined his American and Iranian friends to continue with the New Year’s party!

Dan Wooding is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. Wooding is the author of some 42 books, the latest of which is his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, go to www.fromtabloidtotruth.com. danjuma1@aol.com. (Ata Servati makes a point during the interview)

** You may republish this story with proper attribution.
Send this story to a friend.

ASSIST News Service is brought to you in part by Gospel for Asia (GFA). Gospel for Asia's passion is to plant churches among the world's most unreached peoples - those who have never heard a Gospel message. More than 15,000 native missionaries are now on the field with more than 29,000 churches planted in 10 Asian nations. You can help sponsor a native missionary for less than a dollar a day. Gospel for Asia is currently working to relieve the poverty and hopelessness of the Dalit communities by reaching out to Dalit children with food, clothing, and an education - all through the love of Jesus Christ. To learn more about GFA and their work among the Dalits (Untouchables) of India please go to their website at www.gfa.org or in North America call 1-800-WIN-ASIA.

ASSIST News Service is brought to you free of charge and is supported by friends like yourself. If you would like to make a donation (tax-deductible in the US) to help us continue this service around the world, you can do so by logging onto our website -- www.assistnews.net -- and making the donation by credit card or by sending a check to ASSIST, PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA .

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Prayer meeting

2006-03-29T14:19:00.000+12:00

We walked into absolute silence, my jandals making the loudest echo in the wooden cathedral. I slipped them off, thinking of Moses in front of the burning bush.

The silence continued as we joined the group - some seated, some kneeling, some prostrate on their faces - at the front. Eventually someone spoke. She read a passage of Scripture where Jesus is greeted by a crowd. "What would you do if Jesus walked in the door tonight?"

Long, slightly uncomfortable pause as we realised this would take real thought, and the courage to express what was in our hearts as individuals. There were no rules here. Real dangerous territory.

Gradually the responses came. A song, a phrase. One person ran towards the door, thanking Jesus and bowing down to him.

For me, my response was shock and awe. Words would be so cheap if the creator of the universe walked in the door. I just gave him the biggest smile I could, and thanked him quietly.

Later on, if anyone had a message from the Lord to share, they were encouraged to share it. One person felt that not only did Jesus want to come in and be with us, he also wanted to bring gifts.

Then - this is funny - Luke, the pastor, picked up a plastic bag and started handing fruit out. Their neighbours had given them this big bag of fruit, and this is what it was for. What a brilliant moment. God has such a cool sense of humour. I got an apple.

It's funny; we'd resisted going along to these Tuesday night prayer meetings because we felt we needed something more like a homegroup, something with community. But here we found such wonderful, real, vulnerable community. Sometimes we don't appreciate what's right in front of us.

Do you know Jesus?

2006-03-29T14:18:00.000+12:00

Do you know Jesus?

For her humility and small size, Grace is an amazing woman.

We first heard about her in a church newsletter last year; she was on a missionary trip to Hawaii and then Japan. Not knowing much more about her, we prayed that God would bless her trip.

Fast forward to last Sunday. Marie's mum, going through some struggles of her own, goes to Christian Life Centre, meets Grace out of the blue, and takes her home for lunch.

Lunch turns into dinner, dinner turns into the spare room for the night, and so on until today. Freeloader? No! Blessing? Yes!

Not only has Grace helped Marie's mum with some of the areas she was struggling with, she also advised Marie on her studies, having come from a very similar background herself. That was something only God could arrange.

Grace has this question she asks people - Do you know Jesus? It's a real cut-through-the-crap sort of question. People usually answer "I'm not religious" or "I used to go to church" but she points out that's not what she asks. Then she tells them Jesus loves them and that's it. No pressure, no hassle.

It's really nice to have some simplicity in your life sometimes. Maybe one day I'll learn how to be that simple.

Is Ministry Leadership Different?

2006-03-29T14:02:00.000+12:00

LeadershipJournal.net - Leader's Insight: Is Ministry Leadership Different?

Interesting article featuring comments from Pastor Andy Stanley and Jim Collins, author of Good to Great.

I'm a fan of Collins' words on leadership, but definitely not a fan of the corporate mega-church fad.

In the article, Andy Stanley says:

"One of the criticisms I get is 'Your church is so corporate...' And I say, 'Ok, you're right. Now why is that a bad model?"

Here's why:

* Church is not business. They have fundamentally different purposes: business exists primarily to make money; churches exist to reflect the character of God. Sure, they overlap - you can have a business that also reflects aspects of God's character if it's run well, and you can have a prosperous church, but it's harmful to confuse the primary purpose of the two.

* People are crying out for a church that supports them in doing what God has called them to do - being salt of the earth, wherever they find themselves - rather than being cajoled, pushed and pulled into various administrative positions to maintain the machinery that is 'church', while making those who aren't 'serving the Lord in full time ministry' feel less spiritual.

* Businesses of necessity have to have a strong brand identity to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. A church should be very careful about their own brand. Nothing should be more important to us than our Lord Jesus. He's the one that gives us our identity, we don't have to go creating our own religious brand.

* Businesses are goal-oriented, both short-term and long-term. People are paid to work in businesses toward these goals. I believe churches should not be goal-oriented. Yes that's right; I know that flies in the face of much current teaching but I have thought about this over many years. Churches should aim not to do but to be - to be a facilitator for the fantastic potential God has given individuals and groups of people within the church. Trying to channel everything through 'church' leads to wasted resources and burnout among the leadership.

So what am I saying? It's not that churches can't learn anything from the business world, but they have to have a relevant, contemporary AND biblical understanding of what church is for. And I believe that is to equip God's people for works of service - and releasing them into it. So that means flatter management structures, looser structures altogether, and a laser-sharp focus on the church's reason for being.

On the one hand this should take the pressure off pastors, I mean elders. They don't have to do everything or be some visionary who's going to change the world.

On the other hand it introduces different pressures for ministers. They have to be very emotionally aware of their people, and available to them. I guess what I'm talking about is the old idea of a vicar.

I see true pastoring in our pastors at theSanctuary, Luke and Marieta. I've never heard them talk about Vision with a capital V, or going out and changing the world. Instead, their actions speak very loudly when they recognise us laggards, who only attend once every three months, and still welcome us with open arms. When they know their people by name and always have an encouraging word that's not generic, but specific to that person.

Sad to say, this is the first time in my life I've seen genuine pastors like that. May there be more in our time, Lord.

One of my hobby horses

2006-03-27T21:05:00.000+12:00

...Churches treating businesspeople as ATMs, that is. Ministry happens as often - in fact, oftener - outside the walls of a church as inside them.

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com

Sunday, March 26, 2006

BUSINESS FOLK NEED A HAND UP, TOO
CEO says the only thing anyone ever seems to want from businessmen in the churches is money

By Lavinia Ngatoko, in Challenge Weekly, New Zealand
Special to ASSIST News Service

OUTSIDER: Dick Brunton outside his Takapuna office ... “It would have felt really great if sometimes pastors said ‘right we’re going to pray for an anointing on businesspeople.’”

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND (ANS) -- Dick Brunton, co-founder and chairman of New Zealand’s leading market research company, Colmar Brunton, wants to see the Church provide more support for businesspeople.

In an interview with Challenge Weekly, Mr. Brunton revealed a deep hurt at what he said was the Church not recognizing and ministering to the needs of businessmen.

Mr. Brunton has been at the helm of the company since it was established in 1981. It is now the largest independent, employee-owned market research company in Australasia.

But for this highly successful businessman, who in April will turn 59, life can get very lonely at the top.

He recalls how in early 1984 God worked in his life overnight.

Although as a teenager he had felt quite moved when he received his first communion at a Presbyterian Church in Hawkes Bay, when he went to university he fell into a bad way of life, which would last for many years.

Then one night in February, 1984, suffering from an addiction that he would prefer not to talk about, he asked God for help.

“I’d been able to give up other things like smoking and drinking, but this particular thing I couldn’t. I was at a low ebb and I sat on my bed one night and I said: ‘God, if you’re for real, please show me.’

“I looked back down my life and realized that I’d been in charge of it, and that I’d totally screwed it up ... The next morning when I woke up everything was new. The addiction had gone and that was a great miracle in itself.

“But on top of that I felt this love and this peace and a great hunger to read the Bible. I don’t even know if I had one, but I got one somewhere. And I began to read it wherever I went - what a staggering thing.”

Mr. Brunton says, however, that although he had managed to through his new-found faith overcome most of his demons, he began to question his role in life.

“Because it was such a dramatic change, I thought I was the only person that had gone through this. I thought ‘gosh people need to know about this, and here I am working away on business - I really should be an evangelist.

“For years I labored under the idea that I was really in the wrong place. God did show me in a quiet sort of way that I was in fact an evangelist but it was in the marketplace.”

Although he knew that in his head, he did not feel it in his heart.

“And I think this aggrieved me without ever really realizing it. I read a book that addresses this very point and I do think that Christians are hated by the devil – hated with a vengeance and attacked with a vengeance in their marriages; their businesses, everything and it can be a truly lonely place sometimes.

“If you’re the CEO of a business, you’re the boss and you can’t really wear your heart on your sleeve with the staff. It can be a lonely place.

“It would have felt really great if sometimes pastors said ‘right we’re going to pray for an anointing on businesspeople, for wisdom, or for all the things that business people need and to honor them that way.’

“It’s the evangelists, the helpers, the missionaries who seem to get honored and prayed for and blessed and sent forth and the only thing anyone ever seems to want from businessmen is money.”

Mr. Brunton said it was significant that a Massey University survey done not long ago had revealed that one person in two said that business was a necessary evil.

“Now that means that probably one church person in two, or one pastor in two, feels that business is a necessary evil.”

But his faith in the Lord, he points out, has never wavered and he has pieces of Scripture, especially Psalm 91, that he feels God has given him.

“I treasure them as little letters that God has written to me, if you like. One rock in my life is the love of God and I can tune into that anytime I want and I almost feel the anointing come over me very quickly - it’s beautiful.

“Sometimes I’ve just been working away doing little things and I get a ‘divine cuddle.’ It might last for about five minutes and then it goes away.”

Mr. Brunton says his plans for the company at the moment are for it to be much more customer-focused. He is open to exploring other options in his life now and although is committed to being with the company for another two years as part of his contract, is thinking of cutting down his hours.

“I’ve been a very goal-oriented person most of my life. But I think God’s going to let me have some fun, and a lot of love. I think one can be too earnest and too serious.

“I do feel that a door is going to open up for me and then I think it will be made clear to me how I’m going to be fruitful in my latter years, because it’s not clear now.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lavinia Ngatoko reports for Challenge Weekly, New Zealand’s independent and non-denominational Christian newspaper.

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ASSIST News Service is brought to you in part by Gospel for Asia (GFA). Gospel for Asia's passion is to plant churches among the world's most unreached peoples - those who have never heard a Gospel message. More than 15,000 native missionaries are now on the field with more than 29,000 churches planted in 10 Asian nations. You can help sponsor a native missionary for less than a dollar a day. Gospel for Asia is currently working to relieve the poverty and hopelessness of the Dalit communities by reaching out to Dalit children with food, clothing, and an education - all through the love of Jesus Christ. To learn more about GFA and their work among the Dalits (Untouchables) of India please go to their website at www.gfa.org or in North America call 1-800-WIN-ASIA.
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ASSIST News Service is brought to you free of charge and is supported by friends like yourself. If you would like to make a donation (tax-deductible in the US) to help us continue this service around the world, you can do so by logging onto our website -- www.assistnews.net -- and making the donation by credit card or by sending a check to ASSIST, PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA .
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Fantastic words from an advertising wizard

2006-03-21T11:21:00.000+12:00

I suspected it long before it was confirmed; Roy H Williams, the Wizard of Ads, is a Christian. It sneaks through in his writing from time to time; I admire how his faith is just a natural part of his business. Perhaps America is an easier place to do that... who knows. Anyway, this from his latest newsletter:

The Origin of Creativity

I like to think God said, "Let there be…" and then paused to think for a moment. Suddenly it came to him, "Light!"

If you accept the book of Genesis, then God is a creator by nature. And he created us in his image, little miniatures of himself. That means we're creators by nature, too. Creativity is our heritage. It's in our DNA. When we create, we're being Godlike. We're doing what we're supposed to do. Musicians, inventors, landscapers, cooks, beauticians and actors and writers of books are just following the call of a creative plan and fulfilling the destiny of a thing called Man.

What do you create?

In the fifty-fifth chapter of his book, Isaiah reports God as saying, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

Now back to the nature of God for a moment. When he said, "Let there be light," we can be sure he didn't use vocal cords to create vibrations that traveled through air. The fourth part of the letter to the Hebrews tells us "the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

Did you catch that first part, about how God's statements are "living," alive?

John's gospel skips Bethlehem and the begats. John takes us back to the big bang, "Let there be… Light!" Here's how he puts it: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him [the Word,] and without Him nothing was made that was made… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

Writers, like God, speak worlds into existence. Likewise, every artist takes visitors to a world that isn't there. Photographers take us to long-ago moments by freezing a frame in this filmstrip we call the space-time continuum. Painters take us to places we've never been. Actors introduce us to people that don't exist. Landscapers create moods and feelings we didn't have before, as do musicians and interior decorators. Video games create emotion in us by allowing us to star in our very own movie. They are an art form like every other.

What is the form of your art? Into what moist clay are you leaving your fingerprints? Are you molding the minds of young men and women? Are you, like Alberto Mendieta, causing buildings to rise from piles of materials? Are you able to swing his hammer?

Please don't insult God by telling me you aren't creative. You are creative. And every creative effort brings a rich reward.

Read the first chapter of Genesis. And then create something. Do it so the thing will exist. Fling it into existence from the fingertips of your mind.

And then watch what happens.

Roy H. Williams

What kind of a protagonist is Jesus?

2006-03-13T12:45:00.000+13:00

Last week I was on a screenwriting workshop with Paul Margolis from LA. One of the many, many things we discussed was the need for a fascinating hero - someone with something missing.

I thought about my personal hero, Jesus. Does he have anything missing? Not obviously. He's perfect - and you can't say that about anyone else.

But does perfect equal boring? Or is Jesus fascinating despite it all.

After mulling it over for a while, the thought came to me that Jesus is in fact missing something. Us. The human race. He feels the need and the longing for us like we can't even imagine. That is love. That is the grand drama.

Great Fast Company quote

2006-03-06T11:31:00.000+13:00

This just in from Fast Company's First Impression daily quote email thing:

"If you have a belief, you espouse your belief. If you don't act on it, your belief is moot."

—Dave Ulrich, management consultant

Read the article

Upon skimming the article, Dave Ulrich is a mormon, so it's not surprising he would quote something virtually direct from the Bible, but still, it's great to read something like that in a non-religious context.

Along the same lines, this morning when Marie and I were praying, I was just going through the concepts, not the words, of the Lord's Prayer ... Marie said it was good to do that, because we easily forget the meaning behind the words.

FUEL e-newsletter - metrospirituals?

2006-03-03T13:44:00.000+13:00

In the latest FUEL e-newsletter (about marketing), they're talking about "metrospirituals":

Metrospirituals include everyone from celebrities (Gwyneth Paltrow, Richard Gere and Angelina Jolie, to name a few) to average office workers looking to add meaning to their lives. What they all aspire to, both in themselves and in the products they buy, is a socially conscious combination of style and substance.

...

"Just because you're spiritual does not mean you can't be a rabid consumer," notes Sharon Lee, co-founder of the youth trend forecasting firm Look-Look, which has been tracking the rise of metrospirituals among the 14-35 age group for the past six years.

Consider The Rewards Of Working - Christian Business

2006-02-14T05:57:00.000+13:00

Consider The Rewards Of Working - Christian Business

Wonderful advice for 6am! I love it when I read something that so neatly dovetails with my own thoughts lately - sometimes it seems a little weird to enjoy work so much, but it's good to read something like this that affirms the intrinsic value of work.

Thank You God

2006-02-13T11:36:00.000+13:00

Father,

Thanks for letting me know that I am your Child

Always

Even when I behave like a son of satan...

Thanks for never acting like I'm invisible,

Even when I do the same to You ...

...which is ridiculous considering our respective influence and importance. Yikes!

Thank you for your amazing
scandalous
unfair
ridiculous
LOVE.

"As if he was going to pass them by..."

2006-02-06T10:50:00.000+13:00

"About the fourth watch of the night he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them..." Mark 6:48

Reading this passage last night, Marie asked, "why was He going to pass by?" It's one of those neat questions that don't really have a definite answer, but you can learn something just thinking about it.

Was Jesus so focused on his journey that He just ignored His disciples? Not likely, because in the first part of the verse I've quoted, it says He saw they were straining against the wind.

Was He waiting for them to notice Him? Perhaps that's closer to the truth.

I've been really enjoying the podcast of Michael Card, a man who's music I've enjoyed for many years because he's a teacher as much as a musician.

The latest podcast had a special guest, Dr. John Piper, talking about how God is the Gospel. Sure, you get your sins forgiven, you feel at peace, but the main thing is being reconnected to your Creator.

They talked about, what if you could have anything you want - total material and sensual gratification - without God. That's a scary question for someone who says they love God, because it challenges our assumption that, of course we love God more than anything else.

Then Dr Piper asked, why did God make all these wonderful material things - sunsets, babies, pizza, etc. - that could become idols? His answer was so good I had to write it down:

"We wouldn't know Him for all that He is, if we didn't see Him in and through all that He made."

Now there's something to help me enjoy this day to the absolute maximum!

The Way of Friendship - Christian History

2006-01-29T14:38:00.000+13:00

The Way of Friendship - Christian History

This is my way of bookmarking - I must read this but can't right now.

Cheerio.

The Hulk

2006-01-24T13:13:00.000+13:00

Saw the Hulk yesterday and it was very good.

Best scene: where Betty walks with Bruce through the house he grew up in. It's scary for her, but she's also sure he needs to confront the demons of his past, and this house is the place to do it.

It made me think how Jesus isn't afraid to walk with us through our dark places. Even if we turn green and huge, or whatever our version of turning toxic is, He can cope with it, while others can't.

Marvellous

2006-01-24T13:12:00.000+13:00

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Monday, January 23, 2006

IN THIS HOUSEWIFE’S LIFE, FACT STRANGER THAN FICTION

By Sam Cruickshank in Challenge Weekly, New Zealand
Special to ASSIST News Service

CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND (ANS) -- Although film producer Lisa Abbott is proud to be known as a Christian housewife and mother, she is not your “typical” New Zealand housewife.

The Abbott family, from left Olivia, David, Brooke, Lisa, Austin and Tessa, at the premiere of Meet Me in Miami at the International Latino Film Festival in Los Angeles.

The past few months have seen Lisa walking the red carpet of Hollywood, mixing with Hollywood movie stars and wheeling and dealing with Hollywood industry players. Her movie Meet Me in Miami recently premiered at the prestigious Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood to rave audience reviews at the Loa Angeles International Latino Film Festival.

It is rare that a romantic comedy movie is invited to premiere at big film festivals, let alone receive such a good audience response. But when you meet Lisa such a result is not surprising - miracles seem to follow her wherever she goes.

Although filmmaking has become Lisa’s recent passion, as in her romantic comedy film Meet Me in Miami her own life reads like a love story of international, epic proportions. How she came to live in New Zealand is nothing short of a miracle.

Lisa says that her “love story” with God that first brought her to New Zealand began on March 28, 1982, at 4.30pm at San Diego airport.

She was in her 20s and someone had challenged her to read the Bible, starting from the book of John, and to pray in the name of Jesus. Being young and adventurous, she was up for the challenge.

Reading the book for the third time in the airport lounge, Lisa says that it was “like being caught up in a movie”, in which she saw the events occurring in the Bible so vividly and clearly. It was so real to her.

Until that point in her life Lisa had been a career-focused woman flying across the US managing a property investment portfolio and 4000 apartments. She had been raised with no religious faith as a child.

As a career-driven woman, the last thing Lisa had ever wanted to be was a “born-again” Christian. But her life changed in San Diego airport when she prayed her infamous first “Jesus” prayer.

She says that in that moment she saw the incredible face of Jesus and her life was completely and miraculously transformed. She still can’t fully explain it, except that it was “a miracle”.

This miracle in an airport lounge was the first of many for Lisa. Soon after she met someone who invited her to attend a ball for Prince Charles, Princess Diana and the Queen. Although she initially thought this person was crazy, when the ball invitation arrived for her in gold lettering she knew God wanted her to go.

Lisa found herself jet-setting the world and going to similar balls and functions for three years where she met some of the world’s most “powerful” people. For her, they were all people who needed to know God.

Lisa says this whole “surreal” period of her life was another “little miracle”, and the experience was an excellent training ground with a diverse range of people for later on in life.

In 1989, in the midst of a jet-setting lifestyle, Lisa awoke one day with a really strong feeling that she had to go to New Zealand. She found a world map and chose Christchurch as her destination.

“I was a young Christian and the name ‘Christchurch’ looked like a good place to go and visit,” she said smiling.

Bravely turning up in Christchurch on her own was just the beginning of an amazing New Zealand adventure with God. She took in the beautiful scenery of New Zealand’s Garden City, then began to wonder what it was she was meant to be doing there.

Little did she know that a miracle of romantic joy lay just around the corner - one that would alter the course of her life forever.

She needed a place to live and it was a real estate agent who introduced her to her husband-t- be, a young Kiwi jeweler named David Abbott. From the moment they met, David and Lisa both knew they were destined to spend the rest of their lives together.

”Who can find a virtuous woman? For her worth is above rubies,” is an ancient adage penned in the book of Proverbs. But when David laid eyes on Lisa he had already crafted her engagement ring 10 years before out of a rare deep-pink tourmaline stone that he had bought from Germany.

David knew that the special ring was meant for a special person and he knew that was Lisa from the moment he met her. Lisa is a firm believer that God does the groundwork for His children and that we have to be open to listen to His voice and His leading.

“Where He leads He feeds, where He guides He provides,” Lisa calmly states. ”When I looked at the ring that David had so lovingly crafted for his wife-to-be 10 years earlier, I knew that the man who had hand-crafted this beautiful stone and had put so much love into his work, had faith to believe that God would bring the right woman all the way down to beautiful New Zealand for him - even though it did take 10 years to happen,” she says with laughter and a contented smile.

Thirty days after they first met, Lisa and David married. And 16 years on they have four children, Tessa aged 15, Brooke, 13, Austin, 12, and Olivia, 10, who all provide her with a lot of joy.

However, over the years while the kids were at school all day, Lisa discovered that God had a special work cut out for her.

Her first foray into the world of film took place in 1993. Lisa awoke in the middle of the night clearly hearing God speak to her, asking her to do something for Him. This period of her life she refers to as “the Jesus film” because, in the night, she heard God telling her to organize a showing of the Jesus film at a theatre in Christchurch on Christmas Eve.

Realizing that no one goes out on Christmas Eve to the movies, Lisa was fully aware this would look absurd to most people, but she obeyed and ordered a print of the Jesus film starring Brian Deacon as Jesus and released in 1979. Lisa paid for it on her credit card and the print arrived five days later.

”I approached the local Hoyt¹s cinema with the idea and the manager thought I was insane,” she says with good humor. But on Christmas Eve when the theatre was entirely sold out for the Jesus film he changed his mind.

To him this event was a miracle; to Lisa it was normal.

The Jesus film was so successful that it had repeat screenings in movie theatres all over the country. Lisa had to get five more prints made to keep up with the demand. Then the distribution of the film went into other countries, with her phone ringing red hot. Lisa’s career in the film industry had begun.

She started a company called Family Films, a distribution company with the aim of distributing films that are pure and wholesome. Lisa felt this was important because as a mother she was struggling to find movies without profanity to take her children to.

In 2003 she undertook a great exploit to make the leap of faith as a movie producer. Originally called “The Gardener”, Meet Me in Miami was a film that Lisa’s young daughter, Brooke, had won a part it. Being a parent-support on the set of the film in the US, she was alarmed when the Italian-backed movie ran into financial difficulty.

Because of her background in investment management, she was asked to consider producing the film. In true Abbott style, she said she’d pray about it. She felt that God had presented her with a challenge that He wanted her to say “yes” to.

”God chooses the most unlikely people to do the most impossible things,” says the lively and radiant Lisa. “If it was possible for them to do it all by themselves, then it wouldn¹t be a ‘God thing’. I really want to be involved in things that God is totally the greater part of, because that is exciting and adventurous to me. I think that’s why He chose me.”

Being a Kiwi now, Lisa moved the entire production from its intended Italian set down to New Zealand. This was another exploit she knew was just meant to be as she felt it would be good for both the movie and the picaresque moviemaking location Down Under.

Lisa says she has gone through all the struggles other producer¹s have had to endure in getting their films made, but the difference is that her faith in God has equipped her to rise up and overcome any obstacles that stood in her way.

”What I love most about it is that because I am perceived as being ‘the boss’, I can say to people, ‘Let¹s pray about this’ before any major decision is made,” she laughs.

So far she has had a great response, and has even managed to get entertainment guru Gabriel Reyes, who manages international celebrities like J-Lo and the Desperate Housewives cast’s media publicity, to be open enough to be led into God’s presence and pray with her.

”I feel that this opportunity to be a film producer allows me to share my faith, joy and hope in God with others. Making films is just the vehicle,” she says.

Who Lisa gets to meet and work with along the way is part of her joy relationship with the Producer and Director of her faith and the journey so far has been fun. She believes that all things happen for a reason and she can move boldly forward because there is a greater hand that guides her.

The Christchurch housewife will once again be walking the red carpet, in New Zealand this time, with some of the biggest names in New Zealand film-making when Meet Me in Miami has its New Zealand premiere on Valentine’s Day next month.

Lisa’s next adventure will be making a film about Rachel Scott, a Columbine High School massacre victim who was a committed Christian. In her personal diaries, Rachael predicted her own death before it happened and was ready to meet her Maker. Lisa finds this young woman¹s story of joy and hope amid tragedy breathtakingly incredible.

Sam Cruickshank works in strategic communications for Chambers PR in Christchurch. His parents, Graham and Tui Cruickshank, are the senior pastors at Christian Renewal Fellowship Church in Whangarei, New Zealand.

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Doing Church at the Metro Stops - LeadershipJournal.net

2006-01-18T13:45:00.000+13:00

Doing Church at the Metro Stops - LeadershipJournal.net

Very cool. Great to see that this is actually possible and not just a nice idea.

Be yourself - another gem from Henri Nouwen

2006-01-18T07:08:00.000+13:00

Be Yourself

Often we want to be somewhere other than where we are, or even to be someone other than who we are. We tend to compare ourselves constantly with others and wonder why we are not as rich, as intelligent, as simple, as generous, or as saintly as they are. Such comparisons make us feel guilty, ashamed, or jealous. It is very important to realize that our vocation is hidden in where we are and who we are. We are unique human beings, each with a call to realize in life what nobody else can, and to realize it in the concrete context of the here and now.

We will never find our vocations by trying to figure out whether we are better or worse than others. We are good enough to do what we are called to do. Be yourself!

I heartily agree, but sometimes my attitudes say otherwise. I've been going through some sort of metamorphosis over the past two years, it feels like, going from what I was - someone who was passionate about business and dedicated to the cult-like church we were going to - to what I am becoming - somebody far more arty.

Trouble is, an arty person - or even a real artist - has to make ends meet. And it's in this area of career that I'm probably struggling the most. Nowadays workers in the artistic field have to network and schmooze with the best of them. It's no different than my "previous life" really, it's just that I know myself a bit more now. But that tends to make it harder, not easier.

However, I have to take on board words like the above - start with who I am, and where I am, and work from there. Anything else is a waste of time and defeats me before I start.

So, thank You God for making me, me. Help me to start today - and every day subsequent - knowing that You have a plan that's tailor made for me. Yes it's hard work, and yes I need to learn and adapt to new skills and new people, but I can do it because this path is designed for me.

God is awesome sometimes how He'll speak to you through your own words.

Henri Nouwen on self-rejection vs. humility

2006-01-11T11:53:00.000+13:00

Growing Beyond Self-Rejection

One of the greatest dangers in the spiritual life is self-rejection. When we say, "If people really knew me, they wouldn't love me," we choose the road toward darkness. Often we are made to believe that self-deprecation is a virtue, called humility. But humility is in reality the opposite of self-deprecation. It is the grateful recognition that we are precious in God's eyes and that all we are is pure gift. To grow beyond self-rejection we must have the courage to listen to the voice calling us God's beloved sons and daughters, and the determination always to live our lives according to this truth.

I really get this. It can sometimes seem a short distance between real humility and self-rejection.

Thought-provoking stuff

2005-11-30T15:58:00.000+13:00

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Tuesday, November 29, 2005

WESTERN CIVILIZATION AT THE CROSSROADS
>From NARNIA BECKONS

By Peter Kreeft

HOLLYWOOD, CA (ANS) -- EDITOR’S NOTE: This insightful article complements Dr. Ted Baehr’s new book NARNIA BECKONS. It is available in a special section of www.movieguide.org to everyone who buys the book. NARNIA BECKONS is a comprehensive gift book on C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that every person interested in the writings of C.S. Lewis should read. Some of the best and the brightest C.S. Lewis scholars share their insights into C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe!

Peter Kreeft is professor of philosophy at Boston College and the author of 10 books, including C.S. Lewis, Heaven, the Heart’s Deepest Longing; Between Heaven and Hell; and Yes or No. This article first appeared in issue 7 of Christian History magazine. Used by permission.

A Look at History

How did this uniquely gifted writer sift and sort the past in order to preview the future?

First, Lewis was desperately critical of any so-called philosophy of history. Unlike the many historians who presumed to be able to isolate a ‘meaning’ or ‘spirit’ of a particular age, Lewis thought such attempts to be futile.

“I cannot convince myself that such ‘spirits’ or ‘meanings’ have much more reality than the pictures we see in the fire,” he wrote in the Oxford History. “The ‘canals’ on Mars vanished when we got stronger lenses.” To discern the meaning of history, Lewis argued, one would have to step outside of history, and this no man can do, just as a driver cannot at the same time study the details in the rearview mirror and read a textbook on the principles of reflected light. We simply cannot step out of history to give it an objective look; we cannot examine time and events in a laboratory.

Guidelines to History

Though Lewis rejected the “grand theories” approach to history, he did hold to certain beliefs about the past— about history and human nature—that make him a prophet worth hearing today.

In the last two centuries, most intellectuals have abandoned any notion of unchanging truth, especially in any description of the human person. Human nature is variable, they say, as variable in “spirit” as it is in “body,” responsive to the environment and largely determined by it.

Lewis affirmed that our accidental qualities (height, weight, color, etc.) may change through history, but our essence never changes. Modern man therefore continues to make the same essential mistakes, is subject to the same addictions, sins the same sins and reaps the same whirlwinds as his ancestors. The only changes in man’s essence were the Fall and the Redemption. No other development has or will change our nature. “When poisons become fashionable they do not cease to kill” was Lewis’s warning that we are not so much advanced or different from our predecessors. A moral link connects all people of all ages. On the first page of The Allegory of Love, Lewis writes:

Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations; being alive it has the privilege of always moving yet never leaving anything behind. Whatever we have been, in some sort we are still.

And from Letter 145, written in 1931: “I find nothing obsolete. The silly things the great men said were as silly then as they are now; the wise ones are as wise now as they were then.”

Moral Perfectionism

Just as Lewis denied change in the essence of the human person, he also denied the popular belief in accidental change for the better, sometimes called Progressivism or Universal Evolutionism. It was simply a mistake, he taught, to believe that our century is spiritually superior to previous centuries.

The mistake was commonly made by comparing technology to people. In the current century, telephone service has improved and electricity has replaced steam power, but such technical progress does not mean that people are morally improved. Nor does it mean that old moral rules are by their mere age inferior. If water stands too long it stinks. To infer thence that whatever stands long must be unwholesome is to be the victim of metaphor. Space does not stink because it has preserved its three dimensions from the beginning. The square of the hypotenuse has not gone moldy by continuing to equal the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Love is not dishonored by constancy.

Paradoxically, Lewis’s Christianity gives him a much more radically progressive outlook than evolutionism, for it calls on us to become not just better people but to participate in divine life: an infinitely greater transformation than any current secular fad!

What Have We Lost?

If the Enlightenment helped the modern world discard notions of original sin and moral absolutes, it also uprooted the foundations of truth and goodness. Unlike the Medieval era, all we have left are vague political and psychological notions of what works efficiently. Technology has replaced religion as our civilization’s summum bonum. Naturalism has replaced supernaturalism. Subjectivism has defined a new age of moral relativity.

The Abolition of Man contains the most important and enlightening single statement about our civilization that I have ever read:

There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages: for the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue; for magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men [and] the solution is a technique.

Aristotle listed technique, technical knowledge, know-how, third on the hierarchy of values after contemplation of truth and practical knowledge or knowledge for acting. Modernity simply turns this ancient hierarchy upside down.

The Future

From this bleak vantage point, where are we going? What does the future hold?

Lewis claims no crystal ball, and is highly suspicious of all who do. But, he surely believes that the spirit of Reductionism will continue to deconstruct the reality of heaven and hell, as humans continue to aggrandize themselves as the source and end of all meaning.

“There is much rash idealizations of past ages.” Lewis wrote, “and I do not wish to encourage more of it. Our ancestors were cruel, lecherous, greedy and stupid – like ourselves...but was civilization often in serious danger of disappearing?” No, he answered, but now it is. Civilization to be safe must be “put second” to the higher values of God’s kingdom. As long as civilization is supreme, it is supremely vulnerable.

Lewis was equally suspicious of mid-century collectivism, especially the mob psychology of the fascists in Europe. It seemed to him that this strange submergency of the individual into the masses was a kind of death-wish, a suicide of the person. In such a condition, who could feel the joy, the inconsolable longing after God to which Augustine gave classic expression (“Thou has made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”) In place of this genuine longing for God, the modern person has sought pleasure in violence and lust.

Like the Biblical prophets, Lewis is no doomsayer, for that would make him a pessimistic determinist akin to his modern progressivist opponents. Like the Biblical prophets Lewis draws us a road map, points us to a crossroads, a hope, and offers us a choice: to struggle for the truth in all its fullness, or to surrender the pursuit of truth to modern versions of nihilism.

Lewis reminds us that the choice is more than academic. Spiritual and physical destruction both loom large, and only minutes away. To those concerned with peace in our world, with survival, with life, Lewis would give the following advice:

Perhaps the world will turn to God. Perhaps a few Abrahams will appear to intercede with God for our modern Sodoms and Gomorrahs, and perhaps God will find enough righteous men in them to spare them. They almost made it last time – if there had been only ten good men in them, God would have spared two cities! The most important thing for each of us to do to save the world...is to practice righteousness, to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and our neighbor as our self. You the individual can make the difference.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you appreciated this article and want to know more, please read NARNIA BECKONS. Dr. Baehr’s book is available in bookstores and at www.movieguide.org. When you buy a copy you get access to many informative articles from top C.S. Lewis scholars.

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"New Paradigm of Normality"

2005-11-28T14:43:00.000+13:00

Encouraging words (if you read the whole thing) from the head of the Baptist Church in NZ:

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Sunday, November 27, 2005

HELL HEATING UP IN ASSAULT ON CHURCH
New Zealand Baptist leader says being in ministry today is immensely difficult, but he is supremely optimistic about the future

By John McNeil, Challenge Weekly, New Zealand
Special to ASSIST News Service

Brian Winslade

HAMILTON, NEW ZEALAND (ANS) -- It’s an unbelievably difficult time to be in Christian ministry, the Baptist Union of New Zealand's national leader, the Rev Brian Winslade, told the church’s annual assembly in the North Island city of Hamilton on November 10.

“No doubt similar comments have been made in previous generations,” Mr. Winslade said in his annual report, “but I think the heat is rising. Peculiar sociological factors in the dawning 21st century make this an especially difficult time.

“In our post-modern Western world, a massive shift has occurred away from historical spirituality. Church is no longer the moral conscience of a nation. They once built towns around churches; nowadays they’re regarded as irrelevant in town planning agendas, let alone a respected voice in society.”

Mr. Winslade said being a minister of religion used to be a respected profession but not any more. The moral failure of high-profile Christian leaders had not helped their image.

The complexities of family life in the 21st century were vastly different to a generation ago. Marriage break-up was much more affordable, and with that came a complex web of blended families.

“How do we disciple gay families who come to faith in Christ?” Mr. Winslade asked.

The age of consumerism and fickle loyalty was a significant threat to many churches. Church leaders felt the pressure of dancing to the many tunes of their constituencies, and if they didn’t they watched people leave for greener pastures down the road.

“Leaving a church is a well-developed art these days,” he said.

“Sexual promiscuity is not new to our age, but the degree to which the opportunity assails us is very new and insidious. Nudity on TV, billboards, bus shelters and printed media is pervasive, to say nothing of the availability of explicit porn on the internet.

“The number of men in our churches living with unresolved guilt and a sense of failure over issues of sexual impurity is pandemic.”

Mr. Winslade said ageism was alive and well in the Church. “Ask any male pastor over the age of 55 about how he sees his prospects for a future call. Most vacant churches want a pastor in their early 30s, preferably with 25 years ministry experience under his/her belt. We do not value acquired wisdom like we used to.”

Church attendance had become a discretionary activity. If no better choice was on offer people might decide to attend church on Sunday.

“Today most churches typically attract two-thirds of their committed constituency at best – and next week another one third will take a Sunday off. When our children were born I think my wife missed one Sunday. Today’s young couples seem to believe they’re the first humans to ever give birth – we don’t see them for six months.”

Mr. Winslade said the clash of musicology in many churches was crippling their mission. This was nothing new. Handel’s Messiah was originally banned from the Church for its lack of reverence and Charles Haddon Spurgeon referred to the choir room at the Metropolitan Tabernacle as the ‘war room’.

“Leading churches with deep and ingrained selfishness is deeply disheartening. Music genre that moves one generation is accredited as more spiritual than that which moves another. Many a church today bears witness to sinful, carnal behavior over acceptable church music – rather than a missional focus.”

Conflicting expectations of contemporary pastors were often unbearable, said Mr. Winslade. The omni-competent skill some congregations expected was unrealistic, and often thoroughly unbiblical.

The rural-parish model of church leadership where a “flock” of God’s people related in co-dependent pastoral relationship to a local “shepherd” was an unbiblical construct of modernity.

“If the New Testament is our model, church leaders work to equip other members of the church in the exercise of their spiritual gifts, rather than do the work of ministry on behalf of their congregation.

“Many a contemporary pastor is torn between a desire to fulfill historical expectations of those who pay his/her salary and at the same time lead the church in rediscovery of biblical principles of ‘body ministry’.”

Mr. Winslade said that if anyone thought he was a little depressed for listing these things, he was assuredly not. In fact, he was supremely optimistic about the future of the Christian Church, and the Baptist denomination in particular.

The basis of his optimism was a profound sense that Western Christianity was on the cusp of a second Reformation. The first had dealt with theology; the second was more about ecclesiology.

“God is shaking the foundations and fabric of His Church ... While there are many societal circumstances that appear to conspire against us, could it be that God is reshaping His church around a new paradigm of normality?” Mr. Winslade asked.

The shape of the Church that emerged in the next few decades would probably be very different from the models of the past.

“Will we be courageous enough to welcome these new expressions of Christian community? New forms of Christian community are beginning to emerge, and more still are needed. Will we let them in, or will we reject them unless they conform to our history and experience?

“Amid the seas of change I offer a call for encouragement towards those who render pastoral leadership in our churches. There are numerous and conflicting currents flowing through the church and our pastors need to know they are loved and supported.

If you doubt that is important, stop and consider whether you would like their job. Maybe a word of appreciation or an encouraging hug (or perhaps even a special love-gift) might go a long way towards keeping those at the coalface of change focused for the years that lie ahead,” Mr. Winslade said.

John McNeil, of Christchurch, a veteran journalist with decades of newspaper and radio experience, is the South Island reporter for Challenge Weekly, New Zealand’s only non-denominational and independent Christian newspaper.

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Why is God absent in all the good films?

2005-11-17T12:55:00.000+13:00

Just watched Fracture and Million Dollar Baby (see my filmmaker reviews on them here and here) and I just wonder - why does God get such a bad rap in some of the best films?

In Fracture - as also in the Maurice Gee adaptation In My Father's Den - Christians represent repression, separation from reality, mean-heartedness, inability to cope with the world. God Himself doesn't get any representation whatsoever.

In Million Dollar Baby it's not as if our main character Frankie doesn't try - he goes to Mass every day, prays every night but it's like God is actively saying "Whatever; I don't care." I mean not just passively not being there, but actively going "Get lost". Full credit to Clint Eastwood's story for conveying that feeling.

And the priest - someone who's supposed, in the Catholic tradition, to represent God to the people - loses his rag at Frankie. I guess they're trying to give us the impression that Frankie is hard to live with, but often the clergy in films are presented as "shape up or ship out" types of people.

Is this based on reality? Or is this a bit skewed because the artistic types who will make great films are more likely to find themselves alienated from church.

I think the latter's the truth, and I say that with sadness.

*** Warning: If you haven't watched Million Dollar Baby, don't read any further. I give away the ending. ***

When Million Dollar Baby first came out, I read two reviews, one by (I think) Roger Ebert (LA Sun-Times reviewer) and one by Ted Baehr (Christian Film Commission). I thought I was reading about two different stories.

Ebert talked about how it was one of the best boxing movies he'd ever seen. Baehr compared it to I accuse, a film used by the Nazis to soften the German public up to the killing of disabled people.

I was confused until I saw the movie. Yes it is a fantastic boxing film, I liked it almost as much as Cinderella Man (course if I was a girl I'd probably like this one better [cheeky grin]).

As far as Nazi comparisons, maybe so. It definitely sends an ideological message - it's hard for a well-made film not to - that death is preferable to a life of paralysis. It portrays Frankie's pulling the plug as a courageous act.

But that portrayal links directly to the absense of God, or anyone willing to be God, in this film. Sure, the priest counsels Frankie against killing Maggie, but it's too little, too late. He's trying to connect as a human with Frankie, after calling him a f***ing pagan, and saying why doesn't he get the hell out of church.

In the end, it's his mate Scrap who advises him to do what Maggie really wants. There's a kind of inevitability about the "mercy-killing" but it's played out very painfully, I imagine very realistically.

Both Fracture and Million Dollar Baby had heartbreaking scenes of human tenderness. That's where God is! But those moments are portrayed as slightly pathetic, and most of all helpless in the face of the bigness of the universe.

Helpless - just as I felt on the dentist's chair, but without the sense that the Dentist is there or knows what He's doing.

I'm really looking forward to the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I hear it's a fairly faithful retelling of C.S.Lewis' gospel allegory.

But I wonder, can we tell a Christian story without allegory? Is the world ready to hear about people who really know God, experience Him in their day-to-day lives? Without that story being shunted into the religious section of society, made only as a cheap tele-film and only played in churches or on Christian TV?

I wonder indeed...

2005-11-15T11:40:00.000+13:00

Jimmy Carter's worried about fundamentalists taking over the government. As the most overtly Christian president in recent times (not including the current one), I'm interested in what he means.

After reading the interview (below), I'm definitely not a fundamentalist according to Carter's definition:

"A fundamentalist by, almost by definition as I describe is a very strong male religious leader, always a man, who believes that he is completely wedded to God, has a special privilege and relationship to God above others."

"The other thing they do, and this is the only other thing I'll add, is that they don't believe that it's right to negotiate or to compromise with people who disagree with them because any deviation from their absolute beliefs is a derogation of their own faith. So, those two things, exclusiveness, domination and being very highly biased are the elements of fundamentalism."

I'd rather identify with Carter's definition of his own beliefs:

"KING: You believe that Christ returns that he died for your sins?

CARTER: Absolutely.

KING: All right. Since you believe that then someone who doesn't believe that, you have to believe is wrong, right?

CARTER: Well but I don't condemn them and I communicate with them and I openly try to let them know what I believe and listen to what they believe and live in peace with them. It's not a matter of domination or subjugation of others. It's a matter of humility and trying to serve others, yes.

Here's the full article:

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com

Monday, November 14, 2005

FORMER DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER CALLS FOR COURSE CORRECTION IN NEW POLITICAL BOOK ON AMERICAN VALUES
Takes On Fundamentalism As It Occurs In National And Political Life In The U.S.

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

Photo credit: Simon & Shuster website

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (ANS) -- Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, takes on the religious right in his new book called "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis." President Carter has written many books, including fiction, poetry, and children's books, but this is his first foray in print into the political arena.

In a prime-time interview with CNN's Larry King, the talk show host asked Carter why he wrote the new book?

"Well, I've been very concerned, Larry, that some of the basic moral values of our country in the last few years have been profoundly and dramatically changed in an unprecedented way and I believe that this is the part not just from what Democrats or Republicans believe and it's not between just recent changes.

"It means that the things that we are doing now with our government have never been done before in history and that includes the time of George Bush, Sr. It includes the time of Gerald Ford. It includes the time of Ronald Reagan and all the way back to Eisenhower.

"And so these changes have really severely changed the basic attitude of our country, the basic policies of America's government and I believe this is something that is of great concern, not only to me but to many other people.

King asked Carter: "You say morals of the country, but doesn't the religious right, the religious far right, the evangelicals preach morals?

Carter responded; "Of course they do. A lot of people teach morals and I believe that everybody has their own standard of morals. One of the things that does concern me about recent developments is an unprecedented increase and a commitment to fundamentalism in the religious right and also within the government and that has been coming along for the last 20, 25 years.

"Another change though is that for the first time in the history of our country since Thomas Jefferson said build a wall between church and state there has been a deliberate and overt, not secret melding of religion and politics or the church and state, which I believe is not only contrary to what our founding fathers intended and what everyone else has agreed to the last 230 years but also in my opinion, as a Christian, it's different from what I've been taught to believe in my religion.

KING: President Carter, you're a lay preacher right?

CARTER: No, I teach Sunday school, but I'm not a preacher, no.

KING: But you're very religious?

CARTER: Yes, I'm a devout Christian, yes like many other people.

KING: OK. You're a devout Christian. Is it a thin line between what you believe and what the fundamentalist believes?

CARTER: Yes, there's a thin line between what I think all deeply religious people believe. Ordinarily most of us, whether we are Christians or Catholics or Protestants, whether we are Jews or whether we might be Muslims, we basically agree on justice, on service to others, on humility, on truthfulness, on peace, I worship the Prince of Peace, on forgiveness and on compassion. So, there are a lot of things that bind us together.

"A fundamentalist though, as I define in this book, in extreme cases has come to the forefront in recent years both in Islam and in some areas of Christianity. A fundamentalist by, almost by definition as I describe is a very strong male religious leader, always a man, who believes that he is completely wedded to God, has a special privilege and relationship to God above others.

"And, therefore, since he speaks basically in his opinion for God, anyone who disagrees with him at all is inherently and by definition wrong and therefore inferior. And one of the first things that a male fundamentalist wants to do is to subjugate women to make them subservient and to subjugate others that don't believe as he does.

"The other thing they do, and this is the only other thing I'll add, is that they don't believe that it's right to negotiate or to compromise with people who disagree with them because any deviation from their absolute beliefs is a derogation of their own faith. So, those two things, exclusiveness, domination and being very highly biased are the elements of fundamentalism."

KING: You believe that Christ returns that he died for your sins?

CARTER: Absolutely.

KING: All right. Since you believe that then someone who doesn't believe that, you have to believe is wrong, right?

CARTER: Well but I don't condemn them and I communicate with them and I openly try to let them know what I believe and listen to what they believe and live in peace with them. It's not a matter of domination or subjugation of others. It's a matter of humility and trying to serve others, yes.

KING: When did this start? I mean not -- you told me when it started, why did it start?

CARTER: Well, I think there's been always maybe for a century some elements of fundamentals. You know, I believe in the fundamentals of my faith. But in the book that I have written I describe in some detail the exact definition of what I consider to be a fundamentalist that I've just outlined just two principles of it.

"In my own Baptist faith the right wing began to dominate and fundamentalism came to the forefront beginning in 1949 about 25 years ago and it came to fruition I would guess about five years ago when the leaders of my denomination issued a creed in effect, a state of principles that they themselves drafted and now you cannot be an employee in the Southern Baptist Convention.

"You can't be a missionary overseas. You can't be a pastor. You can't be a chaplain in the armed services. You can't be an administrator or teacher in any of the seminaries or higher education institutions unless you accept that creed and that's something that is completely unprecedented and has never happened in my faith before."

KING: And what do you make of it entering the political arena? Do they have clout?

CARTER: Oh, they have a lot of clout, yes, certainly in my part of the country and in the southwest. There's no doubt about this and that's something else that's happened just recently is a public and open melding of marriage of the right wing members of the religious establishment on the one hand and the right wing elements of the Republican Party. I personally would think this is wrong even if it was the right wing or the left wing of the Democratic Party.

"But this is something that Thomas Jefferson espoused, as you know, when he said build a wall between church and state and I happen, as you know, I'm a Christian and I believe that Jesus Christ ordained this when he said 'Render under Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.' So, this breaking down of the barriers between the two is just one of the elements in recent years that causes me concern.

KING: Do you include President Bush in that category?

CARTER: Yes, I do. I think it's open about it and President Bush has made no bones about it and when I make my statements, which I've just finished making to you in part, there are others who disagree very strongly with me and say well it's perfectly all right to do what we have done.

"So, they don't admit that they are wrong and I don't maintain that I'm completely right and they are wrong, but there's an honest difference of opinion in this country that needs to be resolved I think in the future as it has been resolved for the last 230 years in our country already."

KING: What's been, I know you do more traveling than anyone, what's been the feeling about this elsewhere?

CARTER: Well, I experienced fundamentalism in the Islamic faith when the Iranians took American hostages and the Ayatollah Khomeini, who was a fundamentalist, felt that it was alright to hold foreigners hostage when in my opinion I studied the Quran after that happened. In the Quran it very carefully and meticulously says you do not mistreat visitors in your own home or visitors in your own country if they are foreigners.

"So, that was my first taste of fundamentalism and, of course, fundamentalism can be taken to an extreme too that other people who disagree are not only wrong and inferior but subhuman and in an extreme case, of course, we know that fundamentalists in the Islamic faith declare that anyone who is associated now with the great nation of America ought to be, you know, punished in some way, even killed."

KING: Whether you agree or disagree, you can't deny the timeliness of this book, "Our Endangered Values" by President Jimmy Carter. For instance, you write, "It's an embarrassing tragedy to see a departure from our nation's historic leadership as a champion of human rights with the abandonment defended legally by our top officials." You're talking about the treatment of prisoners and the like.

Tomorrow night Senator John McCain will be here, taking the same position as you do on this.

CARTER: Yes, that's true.

KING: What led to this? Fear with 9/11 did it right?

CARTER: Well, I think the decision to go into Iraq as a war was made before Bush was elected President George W. Bush, and I think that it was before 9/11 because some of the top officials in his government now decided after the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait under George Bush, Sr. that he should have gone all the way to Baghdad and have removed Saddam Hussein from power. So that decision was made by some of them long before George Bush even was elected.

"I don't think there's any doubt that lately, as John McCain has pointed out, and as 90 of the 100 Senators have approved that our government has illegally and improperly been torturing prisoners, so John McCain and others are trying to have in the law just now being considered we should not be permitted to torture prisoners. This has been a part of our nation's policy ever since I can possibly -- well for more than 100 years at least.

KING: But we didn't -- we didn't have a 9/11.

CARTER: Well, but we had the Second World War, which was a lot more destructive for our people. In fact, my own uncle, Tom Gordy, was captured by the Japanese about two weeks after Pearl Harbor and he was a prisoner for four years. He was tortured severely, only weighed 85 pounds when he came out of prison. He was almost dead.

"And after that the Geneva Accords were written, which was approved by and even negotiated by the United States and we agreed that in order to protect our own reputation and in order to prevent our own service people from being tortured if they were captured that we would not torture prisoners who were held by us.

"That in a radical way is now being rejected by many people in our government and it's not a unanimous thing even within the Bush administration. There's a big debate going on whether the CIA should be permitted or the Defense Department should be permitted to torture people.

"I think it's completely wrong. It's completely damaging to our country and it's never been done before. That's just another one of the principles that bothers me."

KING: And the story today on the front page of "The Washington Post" reporting that the CIA set up covert prison systems nearly four years ago with facilities in Thailand, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, a secret prison system. What do you make of that?

CARTER: I was not surprised. In fact, I covered that in my book because there has been a program that was fairly well known that when we were condemned by members of the Congress for what was going on in Guantanamo, we began to move prisoners out of Guantanamo and those others that are captured in the Mideast and put them in countries where torture is alleged or permitted.

"And so this was not a revelation. It was very surprising because it's been a policy. And, as you know, just a few days ago the vice president went to the Congress to try to get key Senators to agree not to put in the McCain Amendment but to let the CIA have permission to torture prisoners.

"This has never been done in our country and it violates the reputation of our nation and it also I think makes it possible for our own prisoners to be in danger in the future."

KING: Do you think the Iraq War, based on the title of your book, do you think it's immoral?

CARTER: I don't think it was necessary. I think it was begun under false pretenses. I agreed with the invasion of Afghanistan because I was convinced the 9/11 attacks were planned and originated and financed through Afghanistan. I fully agreed that we had to take military action there.

"After 9/11 there was a unanimous approbation and sympathy for our country around the world. We had the opportunity then, Larry, of forming a phalanx of almost every nation on earth to join in a concerted team effort to root out and to minimize the adverse effect or threats from terrorism.

"We frittered that away by unnecessarily going into Iraq under false pretenses and now, of course, we have had more than 2,000 of our young people die, in my opinion heroically but in an unnecessary war.

"How we get out is a different proposition. I think it would be a serious mistake for us to withdraw peremptorily or in a hurry. We need to make sure that there's set up now a government in Iraq that can function and we need to train people to take over the security for Iraq.

"But this administration has never yet insinuated even that we intend to withdraw completely our military forces from Iraq, even ten, 15 or 20 years in the future and we've never insinuated at all that we are willing to share the profits or the advantages of dealing with Iran's (sic) economy that is oil primarily.

"If those two commitments were made in a clear and concise and unequivocal fashion, I think immediately the attacks on American forces and those who support us in Iraq would be diminished and the time for our withdrawal from Iraq would be expedited and come in the not too distant future. That has not yet been done. I think it ought to be done.

"I hope we'll withdraw from Iraq but I think we need to do a few things in advance, get a security force and get a government established, yes.

Larry King asked President Carter about the nomination of Samuel Alito to the high court, to which Carter replied that, "I'm not personally, as I mentioned in my book, I'm not all that concerned about the issue of abortion.

KING: Why?

CARTER: Well, Larry, I'm different from some people. I'm a Christian and I never have been able to believe that Jesus Christ would approve abortions unless the mother's life or health was directly threatened or perhaps if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest."

King then asked President Carter about the death penalty?

CARTER: Again, I don't believe that Jesus Christ would approve a death penalty and when I was governor of Georgia and so forth, the Supreme Court had ruled that the death penalty was not permissible.

"As you know, that was changed in the 1970s and until early this year the United States Supreme Court even approved the death penalty for children. That has now been overthrown. I don't think it's ever been proven that the death penalty will deter crimes or be a serious impediment to crimes.

KING: Jimmy Carter, the Nobel Prize laureate, peace prize winner., "The New York Times" best selling author. Almost all of his books--I think every one of his books have been major best sellers.

Larry King then took calls from viewers. A caller Culver City, California, said he was an executive member of the North American Religious Liberty Association and wanted to know what Carter would recommend to stop the polarization in our country?

CARTER: Well, I think the best thing that we can do to stop the polarization of the divisions in our country is for us to not emphasize overly much the arguments concerning moral values that affects, for instance, gay marriage and abortion. I cover these in my book…and also the question of whether we should have religious exercises in our science classrooms. Those are the kind of things that are unresolvable. And I think that they should be completely separate.

"I'm not if favor of a marriage between two men or two women. A marriage is a religious ceremony. But I think the civil rights of gay people to live together in a union ought to be preserved. And many states are now doing that. And I think this is going to be the case in the future.

"As far as abortion is concerned, I've already covered that. I don't think that we're going to resolve it. Because between people who believe that conception begins when a male sperm is attacking a female ovum, people say from then on life exists, we shouldn't interfere with it.

"On the other hand, people say we can do anything with a woman's body regardless of the fetus, I think that's wrong. But there's a division that can be drawn between them as I've already described.

"So, I think that these social issues can divide people unnecessarily. We ought to work on things in religion, I presume that you're talking about religion, that would bring us together, a consistent commitment to justice.

"We worship the Prince of Peace, not preemptive war. We should believe in humility. We should believe in being generous to people who are in need.

"And we should not favor the richest people in America with tremendous tax breaks at the expense of people who are working family or poor people.

"So, there are some basic religious principles that could bind us together that are now dividing us very severely down the middle."

A viewer from Kingston, New Hampshire, asked President Carter what his thoughts were about the motive President Bush, "who seems so openly professes to be a Christian, but acted so quickly in going to war instead of trying to find a peaceful resolution."

CARTER: Well, that's another basic change that's taken place in our country that departs from every previous president we've had certainly in the last hundred or so more years.

"We've always had the proposition in our government, as a basic policy and it's also international law, that a country doesn't go to war unless our own security is directly threatened.

"That's been replaced now by this so-called preemptive war, which says that because America is so powerful militarily, we reserve the right to bomb another nation to launch missiles against it, to invade it, if we disagree with the basic policies of its leaders or if they are obnoxious in some way or if some time in the future they might mount a threat against our country.

"Preemptive war is a departure from every policy that we've had now in our country for the last 150 years. That's a radical departure. And, in my opinion, we don't worship the prince of preemptive war. We worship the Prince of Peace.

King then asked President Carter about the issue of Evangelicals wanting the right in the Air Force and the Air Force to evangelize, in the armed forces.

"(Do)You favor that?"

CARTER: No, I don't.

"I think that the Air Force Academy and the Naval Academy, where I went, and the Military Academy at West Point, all have students come, midshipmen and cadets, that are either atheists or agnostics or Catholics or Jews or Protestants or maybe Muslims and Hindus.

"I don't think that they should use their official domination by superior officers made the common friend of the Naval Academy, for instance, or military academy or Air Force Academy to try to force the cadets or the midshipmen to adopt a particular religion even though it happens to be the religion that I myself espouse. "

King later asked the former President: "By the way, as a Christian, do you believe in creationism?"

CARTER: I believe there's a supreme being, God, who created the entire universe, yes. And I am a scientist, as a matter of fact, as you may know, I studied nuclear physics. I helped to develop nuclear submarines. So, I believe in science. I believe we ought to explore the far outreaches of space. We ought to make sure we understand everything we can about the particles that make up the atoms.

"I think we ought to discover everything we can about science. It ought to be accepted as proved unless it's discounted. I believe still in a supreme being. But, I don't believe that we ought to teach religious matters in a science classroom, because I think that the two ought not to be related.

"They ought to be completely separate. And I don't think anyone, Larry, interferes in full belief in the other. I believe completely in scientific proofs and values unless they're discounted. I believe in a supreme being. But, I don't believe you ought to teach creationism in the science classroom.

A Tampa, Florida, called asked the former Democratic President: "I'm increasingly concerned about the negative changes in our government. What specific actions would you recommend that we can take as individual citizens to effect change in our government and to help stop the lives or make a difference without having to wait two and a half years for the next presidential election? "

CARTER: Well, that's really the reason I wrote this book. I tried to define in very accurate terms, the unprecedented, the profound, the traumatic changes that have taken place just in the last five years as compared to all the previous presidents who've ever served in this country.

"And how radical they are. And I would like for every American to understand these changes and then, obviously, to use whatever influence you have, writing your local newspapers, contacting the Congress members, expressing your views, talking to your friends.

"And obviously in the election that will take place next year, vote for members of Congress who represent you in Washington according to what you deeply believe. And try to persuade others to do the same.

"Then two years after that, when the next presidential election takes place, you can do the same thing. Many of these issues that I describe to you tonight, most of them are national in effect, but some of them are local issues. So, you might have a chance to affect local affairs as well."

Another caller, from Ottawa, Canada, commented: "President Carter began by referring favorably to Jefferson's wall between -- separation of church and state, but then he said that because he was a devout Christian, he would restrict Roe v. Wade and because we worship the Prince of Peace, that is the reason for not going to war and that is the reason for not having capital punishment. Isn't he contradicting himself, choosing to use the bottle when it serves him and going for separation when it doesn't serve him?

"And also since he believes the Bible is the word of God, how can it condone slavery and it condones burning witches, women who were accused of being witches. "

KING: Is that a departure? Can you be opposed to Roe vs. Wade on religious grounds?

CARTER: Well, I'm opposed to (it) --I didn't say that I would condemn Roe versus Wade, as a matter of fact. I said if we assume that Roe v. Wade is going to be the law and try to minimize abortions under Roe vs. Wade.

"And I described the things, that the man was listening, that we can do about it. That is, give women and children more financial support and help during early childhood. And also increase the opportunities for adoptions. And then give education to our young people that are going to be sexually active. I would like for them to be faithful only to their married husband or wife, but if they are going to have sexual activities, to make sure they know how to prevent pregnancy. That's what I think I would do.

"And I don't attribute those beliefs just because I'm a Christian. I think that they are applicable just from common sense."

KING: How about slavery in the Bible and witches and burnings?

CARTER: Well, there's some things, and, you know, there's some things in the Bible that you can't take literally. And I don't think God intended for us to.

"The earth is not flat. And stars can't fall out of heaven on the ground like figs falling off a tree and things of that kind, but people can believe that if they want to.

"I, personally, don't believe that the earth was created in 4, 004 B.C. I think it was created a lot earlier than that. But some of those things are symbolic.

"And every believer in Biblical text whether you're Jewish or Christian, has to make some rational assumptions. And if science proves that the stars are a long distance away and that earth was created earlier by geology and so forth, then I don't see that it's incompatibility with Christianity."

>From Ashland, Alabama, a caller said: "President Carter, I consider you to be historically one of the best presidents we've ever had. And you were one of the best inspirations in my lifetime.

"My question is would the advent of having to have foreign aid, don't you think it's important that we have more aid here as far as taking care of our own country with the minimum wage, health care and education? Thank you."

CARTER: Yes, I'm glad you asked that.

As you know, the minimum wage under this administration has been frozen at $5.15. Since it was frozen the Congress have increased their wn salaries by $30,000 a year. We have one of the lowest minimum wages in the whole world in the developed parts of the world.

"And this has been a radical change over the past as well because almost all of the taxes that have been reduced have been for the richest people on earth.

"And many conservatives, I'm sure a lot of them in Alabama, your neighbors, are very deeply concerned about the unprecedented deficits that have been accumulated during the last four or five years.

"And the deficits have been brought about not because we're giving better services to, the working class people that you represent, but because we've given the enormous tax breaks to the richest Americans alive.

"That has been another radical departure from the past. And it's different from what Republicans and Democratic presidents and administrations have done in years gone by."

Larry King than asked President Carter, "Do you think this shift to fundamentalism will switch back? Will the pendulum swing? "

CARTER: Yes, I think so. I believe that the recent public opinion polls, Larry, have shown a great and growing disillusionment with what's been happening in Washington in the last five years. And there's a doubt about this administration and the direction it's going.

"And I don't think there's any doubt that there's a strong belief among most Americans that we ought to keep fundamentalism out of religion and out of politics, and we ought not to meld the two, and separate and break down the wall between church and state that's been part of our heritage since the founding fathers' times. "

President Carter said he has just returned from monitoring a recent election in Liberia.

"We did the election in Liberia, which I hope will bring peace and democracy to that troubled country. That's our 61st election that Rose and I have helped monitor from the Carter Center.

"And our next election to be monitored will be in Palestine in January where we hope to see a parliament chosen by the Palestinian people. We were there in January for the choosing of the president for the Palestinians. That's the next thing we have in mind as far as elections go.

President Carter said he has not yet been to Iraq.

"The Carter Center just goes where we're invited. And we don't interfere if the United Nations and the U.S. government is heavily involved in taking care of the problem, then we don't interfere or compete with anybody.

The former President said his Nobel Peace Prize is in the Carter Presidential Library, in Atlanta, Georgia, which is open daily to the public, every day but Christmas and New Year's.

**This article was based on a rush transcript of the CNN program Larry King Lived, which aired on November 2, and was re-broadcast on Nov.13, 2005.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

** Michael Ireland is an international British freelance journalist. A former reporter with a London newspaper, Michael is the Chief Correspondent for ASSIST News Service of Garden Grove, California. Michael immigrated to the United States in 1982 and became a US citizen in September, 1995. He is married with two children. Michael has also been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station.

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Exploring a Parallel Universe - Christianity Today Magazine

2005-11-09T09:39:00.000+13:00

Exploring a Parallel Universe - Christianity Today Magazine

This is such a good article. I really identify with what the author is saying - although I wish I had a strong dialogue with people who believe differently. Often people are aware that I'm a Christian, and kind of shut up about certain things around me. Either that or, unaware, they talk as if I believe the same as they do.

It's weird how there's a kind of unspoken secular orthodoxy in New Zealand (and probably the rest of the Western world) today. It's almost as if there's an anti-apostle's-creed:

God is an idea, not a person. (Nicely takes out the need for relationship or accountability to that idea, but you still get to be spiritual)
Anyone can believe what they want, as long as they don't try and impose those beliefs on others (sounds nice in theory, but what about, say, parents and children? Law enforcement? The media? It all depends on shared beliefs)
Gays should be able to get married, whatever, I don't care. (The conservative argument about how this affects the status of real marriage doesn't hold much sway, except among conservative Christians)
Fundamentalism of all kinds is dangerous - especially among Americans in the red states. (This makes us liberal kiwis feel very clever, because the obvious answer is that Osama bin Laden is a dangerous fundamentalist; but it's just as trendy to say so is George W Bush)

And the last point takes you back to the first. Specifics divide, let's just believe in the idea of God rather than worry about who His Son is, or who His prophet is...

Trouble is, that kind of belief system only relies on what's already inside us humans - some good, some bad. And that's how some people like it; I can relate to that, I went through a period of wanting to be a secular humanist for a while. It seemed simpler than being a Christian. Maybe it is...

But the truth is, real Christianity is via revelation from a real and living God. SomeOne with a will, someOne different from me, a Person who is separate. That's what holy means.

Anyway, I'm ranting. Back to the article - my favourite quotes:

"Visiting another city a few months ago, I met with three gay men who consider themselves Christians, attend church regularly, and take their faith seriously. They view the political landscape through the same lens as my reading group friends, though with a far more acute sense of alarm. "We feel like we're in the same situation as the Jews in the early days of Hitler's regime," said one. "We're trying to discern whether it's 1933 or 1939. Should we all flee to Canada now? It's obvious the country doesn't want us, and I believe most evangelicals would like to see us exterminated."

I responded with sheer incredulity. "How can you think such a thing! Homosexuals have more rights in this country than ever. And I don't know a single Christian who wants to have you exterminated." The three cited legislative efforts in several states to roll back rights granted homosexuals and gave me several pages of inflammatory rhetoric against homosexuals by prominent evangelical political activists.

I went away from that discussion with my head spinning, just as sometimes happens at the university reading group. How can people who inhabit the same society have such different perceptions? More ominously, what have we evangelicals done to make Good News—the very meaning of the word evangelical—sound like such a threat?"

And...

"Josh asked me to recommend some books by C. S. Lewis or someone else who could explain the faith in a way that he could understand. "My sister sends me Christian books, but they're totally unconvincing," he said. "They seem written for people who already believe them." I happily complied.

Reflecting on our conversation, I remembered a remark by Lewis, who drew a distinction between communicating with a society that hears the gospel for the first time and one that has embraced and then largely rejected it. A person must court a virgin differently than a divorcée, said Lewis. One welcomes the charming words; the other needs a demonstration of love to overcome inbuilt skepticism."

Virgin vs. divorcee. How true that is. I guess most people I've met who subscribe to the unwritten anti-apostle's-creed have had their own personal experience with religion. We usually don't arrive at conclusions for no reason. What's important, though, is that our minds are flexible and able to take on more truth as it comes to us.

Adelaide

2005-10-16T20:44:00.000+13:00

We're in Adelaide, South Australia for a week with Marie's sister and brother-in-law. Having a great time!

The trip across was pretty gruelling: up at 5am, checked in by 7:30am, on the plane by 9:20am, and 3 or 4 hours later in Melbourne. Then through customs - what a mission! - and onto the Adelaide flight. Phew.

So finally, when our bodies were telling us it was about 2pm, we arrived in Adelaide just in time for lunch.

Adelaide is hot right now. The air is different here, that's the only way I can describe it. It's dry heat here. In fact it's dry everything. There are trees around, but they're all a browner shade of green. Makes me both appreciate home, and enjoy the diversity that's in the world.

Went to church this morning at Richard & Lynette's church, Paradise Community Church. It's similar to Hillsong, big church, pentecostal, etc. Not usually my scene :) ... and yet doctrinally I agree with most everything they believe. One of these days I'll do a blog post about my feelings about the problems I have with "big church".

I guess I'm being confronted with them, in that Richard and Neti are quite involved in the leadership and music teams of the church. They are "big church"people. And yet their hearts are most definitely about what God is about - looking after people.

It's helping me identify why I sometimes feel uncomfortable with church situations; that it's not just me, and that I'm not being judgmental.

At the same time, I'm also seeing that my problems are with structures, and sometimes great people can do great things in those structures. But the temptation and the danger is there for abuse of power, glorification of man instead of God, and mixed motives behind appeals for money or support. But I guess our flesh finds any way it can to get into God's work.

I'm just mumbling stream-of-consciousness here (or steam-of-consciousness?) but no doubt some more serious and together thoughts will form... hopefully! ;)

Anyway, today's speaker was Pastor Chris (can't remember his last name!) from The Potter's House in the USA. Good stuff. Highly emotionally charged, black gospel, with a great hunting story (you had to be there). This guy knows how to communicate with a crowd; he said he's been preaching since the age of five.

His key messages: God's maths is different from ours, the third generation is about explosive growth! But it doesn't come without getting a weapon. So take your weapon - whether that's God's promise to you, praise, a gift He's given you or whatever, and "take the shot". Even if you miss, take the shot. You'll never know if you don't try.

So that was the message this morning. I'll be back with more later!

Christdot :: Christ. Period. :: The J-word - New sitcom focuses on Jesus and humor

2005-10-13T13:36:00.000+13:00

Christdot :: Christ. Period. :: The J-word - New sitcom focuses on Jesus and humor

Wish we could see this programme here in New Zealand.

The Rapture Index

2005-10-12T07:14:00.000+13:00

The Rapture Index

I heard about this via the National Business Review, of all places! Very interesting.

Green evangelical

2005-10-12T07:13:00.000+13:00

This interview with environmentalist and leader of the National Association of Evangelicals in the USA is great reading. Very refreshing to find a Christian in the public eye who knows how to talk openly with the media.

Some choice snippets:

"Dominion does not mean domination. It implies responsibility -- to cultivate and care for the earth, not to sully it with bad environmental practices."

"There are still plenty who wonder, does advocating this agenda mean we have to become liberal weirdos? And I say to them, certainly not. It's in the scripture. Read the Bible."

"Q: My understanding is that you publicly rejected an offer by the leaders of the Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation to join forces.

A: I said, 'Not for now.' Look, there are those in my community who are concerned that environmentalists are advocates of population control, of big-government solutions, or New Age religion, and have apocalyptic tendencies. In the latter case, there's some irony in my opinion. It's like the pot calling the kettle black.

I am trying to reason with my community that we've earned our spurs in co-belligerency -- collaborating with groups we wouldn't otherwise work with, in the name of the common good. I say, if we've worked with Free Tibet on religious freedom, the Congressional Black Caucus on slavery, Gloria Steinem and feminists on rape, and the gay and lesbian lobby on AIDS, why can't we work with environmentalists?"

Like the pot calling the kettle black. I got a laugh out of that one!

It's great to hear a Christian talk about the environment. All I've really heard on the issue is from Radio Rhema, where Bob McCroskie is convinced the Kyoto Protocol is a fraud. It very well may be, but what about the other environmental issues?

Why is Jesus named after swearword: child - The Other Side - Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au

2005-10-07T12:47:00.000+13:00

Why is Jesus named after swearword: child - The Other Side - Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au

I know this should be a very sad statement on the state of religious knowledge among children today, but I think it's really, really funny!

This guy is just asking to have a movie made about him

2005-10-06T16:25:00.000+13:00

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com

Wednesday, October 5, 2005

A HERO IN HELL
Former Drug Dealer Frees Abducted Child Soldiers in Sudan and Uganda

By Maria Sliwa
Special to ASSIST News Service

NIMULE, SOUTH SUDAN (ANS) -- With a physique like Jean Claude Van Dam, 42-year-old Sam Childers has hunted alligators in the U.S. and has smacked down miscreants in Africa. This titan, who could easily pass for Hulk Hogan’s younger brother, sold hard drugs in the late 70s and early 80s and was a rider with the Outlaws, a motorcycle gang in Florida. He has since put his notorious ways behind him and now uses his muscular prowess to save lives in Sudan and Uganda. (Pictured: Sam Childers).

On a recent morning, Sam surveys the orphanage he built on the 36 acres of bush land he cleared four years ago in Nimule, South Sudan. His orphanage is a safe haven for children who are captured out of, or are lucky enough to escape from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel paramilitary group operating in Uganda and Sudan, which has been designated a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department. Though Sam’s gut is overstocked with intestinal fortitude, the terror that rages around his orphanage is so frightening that just thinking about it can send a cold shiver of electric sparks up and down his sturdy spine.

Sam is a pastor and is the only white commander in the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), another rebel group, which, like the LRA has troops in Sudan and Uganda.

Despite the exhilarating jolt of adrenaline he feels while fighting the LRA, Sam says that if he is captured he will likely suffer an excruciating death, as he says he has been warned more than once of the LRA's intent to brutally kill him.

Yet the possibility of slaughter, which Sam faces daily, could be carried out by those considered the least likely to wield the slightest ferocity. As pint-sized threats—some as young as eight—the child soldiers of the LRA are capable of striking a human target like Sam with fatal precision.

In March of this year, a band of these small predators attacked a group of women who were collecting firewood near the border of Southern Sudan: just a few miles from Sam’s orphanage. The juvenile attackers managed to effortlessly hack off the lips and ears of seven of the victims and abduct several others.

The children of the LRA perform these acts at the bidding of their adult counterparts and make up about 80 percent of the rebel group, according to the United Nations. The LRA has kidnapped more than 20,000 children since 1988 and today its captives constitute the largest army of child soldiers in Africa.

Joseph Kony, the LRA’s founder and leader, is a Ugandan and former Catholic catechist whose ideology is based on Christianity and witchcraft. A recent Reuters article says Kony’s group was first armed by the Government of Sudan. According to Jan Pronk, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sudan, there are unconfirmed reports that “factions of the Sudan’s military are still sending weapons to the LRA.”

Believing that he is a modern-day prophet enforcing the Ten Commandments on earth, Kony tells his followers that God has commanded him to punish anyone who works with the Ugandan Government or refuses to obey his message. Though many of the adult soldiers willingly endorse Kony’s campaign of violence, most abducted children do not know why they are fighting.

"Thousands of children have been raped, brutalized, drugged and forced to inflict unspeakable violence on others,” wrote Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, in the foreword to the 2004 book published by IRIN: "When the Sun Sets, We Start to Worry: An Account of Life in Northern Uganda."

But children are not the only victims. Since the LRA began attacking civilians in 1986, they have forced some 1.6 million people in Northern Uganda out of their villages into internal displacement camps, according to the U.N. Disease is rampant in these camps, as they lack proper food, sanitation and medicine. Civilians are afraid to go back to their villages because of the constant fear of another LRA attack and therefore they remain in the camps.

Last month, Sam and his soldiers went to Magwi, one of the most dangerous towns in Southern Sudan because of its high occurrence of LRA violence.

”It was a suicide mission,” Sam says. “Joseph Kony and his men were ambushing villages and butchering civilians, while we were there.”

Although he was unable to capture Kony, Sam says that he and his soldiers emerged from the fighting unharmed and brought 25 former child soldiers, ages 4 to 14, to his orphanage.

Despite Sam’s sometimes overbearingly tough exterior, his manner can be surprisingly gentle. When he is at his orphanage, children often tag alongside him. He takes a personal interest in each one, calling them “my kids,” and frequently nurses their wounds. Even the more traumatized children can’t help but giggle when he jokes with them. (Pictured: Some of Sam's children).

Sam built the orphanage in 2001. It is managed by village women who cook, clean and take care of the children and by his own soldiers who protect the compound and oversee other day-to-day operations. Sam has used his experience in construction to build dormitories that house 110 children. He has also built showers, outhouses, the beginnings of a school, a pen for four pigs and seven chickens, a cooking area, a church, storage rooms, two security posts and a few guesthouses for short-term visitors who occasionally arrive from the U.S. He even installed a flushable toilet, something that is unheard of in the bush.

Sam and his staff also travel to surrounding villages to distribute food, clothing and medicine.

“We will go out and de-worm the people, as their bellies get real extended from the worms,” he says. “We give out medicines, especially when there are epidemics.”

For the past five years, the SPLA has been assisting the Ugandan Government in fighting and capturing LRA soldiers. As both a pastor with Abundant Life Ministries and a SPLA commander, Sam can be seen praying with a group of soldiers before they go out and attack areas where the LRA are active. He stockpiles weapons for SPLA soldiers at his orphanage. Many of his soldiers are also pastors. According to Sam, one of the reasons why the orphanage has remained untouched by the LRA is because the LRA knows it is well protected.

But there is a downside to this. Although there are a variety of medicines available for the children at the orphanage, the soldiers who work in the dispensary have no medical background and do not know how to administer these drugs properly. They also do not know how to prevent illnesses from occurring. Ringworm is contagious and tends to run rampant among the children. Though medicine is administered, those caring for the children don’t wash the children’s bedding and clothing after applying the medicine, so the ringworm easily spreads again. The bodies of some of the children are covered with ashen colored circles from the infection.

“We desperately need a doctor or nurse on staff,” Sam admits. “The problem is that whenever we hire a medical person, the conditions are so dangerous out here that they leave in a few months to get a better job.”

Despite these problems, Sam says his kids are much better off in the orphanage then in the villages, because unlike the villages, his orphanage provides safety, mosquito nets and three meals a day.

Sam says that his life of crime started to change 24 years ago, when Clyde Carter, a cousin of former President Jimmy Carter, hired him to work on his house. He says he was living in Florida at the time and earned a lucrative income working construction jobs and selling drugs.

“I was heavily into drugs then,” Sam says. “I was on heroine, cocaine, every kind of hard drug before meeting Clyde. He was one of the first ones to influence me to stop taking dope.”

But seven years after meeting Carter, Sam was still selling drugs for a livelihood until he “hit the wall” one day and decided to come clean. He says his drug dealing was wreaking havoc on his wife Lynn, who became a Born Again Christian in 1986. Sam also became a Born Again Christian in 1991. They were both ordained as ministers with the Full Gospel Assemblies in 1995 and are pastors at the Boyers Pond Shekinah Christian Fellowship church, in Central City, Pennsylvania.

When Sam first heard about the child soldiers in Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda in 1998, he began rescuing them. He says he knew that despite the atrocious acts these children are forced to perform while slaving as soldiers, they could live happy and productive lives once they were freed and placed in a better environment.

Last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, invited Sam Childers to testify against the LRA. But some observers fear that because the ICC has no enforcement capability, its move to highlight the LRA could fuel the war and disrupt the ongoing attempts for peace negotiations between the Government of Uganda and the rebel group.

Sam disagrees. “Joseph Kony needs to be stopped no matter what Uganda or anyone else thinks,” he says. “The U.S. and other countries need to step in and stop this guy immediately. He should never be negotiated with or given amnesty, because he needs to pay for his crimes. When you look at his crimes, it is not against just adults, it’s against little children. I mean raping little children and chopping them up. This stuff is unreal.”

Sam does agree that the ICC has limitations and that sometimes it takes years for the ICC to do anything. But he reasons that in such desperate circumstances at least the ICC is doing something as opposed to nothing.

As LRA violence continues to rage and appears unstoppable, some voices are being heard.

In April of this year, a number of high profile people spoke out at a press conference in DC. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), and actor John Amos, formerly of The West Wing," along with representatives of World Vision, condemned the LRA, while calling on the international community, led by the Bush Administration, to make the protection of the children a priority.

As he forges ahead in Uganda and Sudan, Sam says he wants to expand his work to other countries where children are also being exploited. During his visits to the bush area of the Congo, Sam received numerous reports that Kony’s rebels were setting up LRA operations and abducting children in that country. Sam says he is preparing to build an orphanage in the Congo and will begin rescuing children there soon.

It is dinnertime back at the orphanage in Nimule. After a long day of freeing children from the LRA, Sam and his soldiers rest their AK 47s against a gray concrete wall in the dining area, wash their hands in a nearby basin, and enjoy a meal of fresh caught fried fish, corn meal porridge and red beans, which they wash down with a mixture of instant coffee, unprocessed sugar and powdered milk.

“The things I have done in my past were really bad,” Sam tells his soldiers. “But despite that God protected me, and with his grace I will help the children in whatever way that I can.”

Maria Sliwa often lectures on modern-day slavery, has published on boy slave rape in Sudan and is the founder of Freedom Now News, (www.FreeWorldNow.com) an international human rights news service.

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Kairos film script competition

2005-10-06T12:09:00.000+13:00

I'm sooo tempted to enter this... don't want to submit a half-finished script though...

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
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Wednesday, October 5, 2005

AN EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITY TO BREAK INTO HOLLYWOOD
A New $50,000 Script Contest Seeks Entries By First-Time Writers Of Religious Films Acknowledging God

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

HOLLYWOOD, CA (ANS) -- Dr. Ted Baehr, Chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission™, has issued an extraordinary appeal to first-time screenwriters with a compelling religious message to enter a competition that will give a chance to break into the big time and get their scripts read by top Hollywood executives. (Pictured: Ted Baehr speaking at the Movieguide awards).

Dr. Baehr made the appeal while announcing the First Bi-Annual John Templeton Foundation Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays, which is co-sponsored by the Templeton Foundation and the Christian Film & Television Commission™.

“The top three winners not only will receive prizes totaling $50,000, their names and scripts will also be announced at the 14th Annual MOVIEGUIDE® Faith & Values Awards Gala and Report to the Entertainment Industry, attended by more than 200 top executives, filmmakers and celebrities,” he said in an interview.

Dr. Baehr went on to say, “Very seldom do scriptwriters, new or old, get read by major Hollywood studios and producers. We have had several of the six biggest studios say that they would read the scripts that win. This is a chance, if you win, to get read by DreamWorks, Disney, 20th Century Fox and Universal and that is a tremendous asset for any scriptwriter.

“It is so hard to get recognition and the people who said they are going to read by those at the very top of the studios so this is going to be an incredible blessing for any scriptwriter that wants to write a great script.”

TREMENDOUS TALENT WAITING TO BE DISCOVERED

When asked if he felt there was the talent out there, Dr. Baehr replied, “To be perfectly frank, I think that there is more talent out there than could be possibly be imagined. The problem with Hollywood, and with any industry, is that you stick with just your friends and it becomes very closed and they just don’t get to see beyond their own community of interest. This also happens in academia – they call it ‘The Ivory Tower’ – and also in business. So it is not just like it is a Hollywood thing. It is the way life is. You stay with your friends and your associates and sometimes you see that there are people out there that really could be a blessing.

“If you look at the movies this year; the year has been a disaster for the box office and most of the movies have scripts that are very weak. Many are fantastic bores with 40 minutes of establishing character. Nobody wants to wait 40 minutes for the character to be established; they want to get into the action.

DOING HOLLYWOOD A GREAT FAVOR

“I get scripts all the time and book proposals and books drafts that are much more exciting than many of the big budget movies that came out of Hollywood this year, so I think we’re doing Hollywood a tremendous favor by opening up the process to people in the hinterland.”

Dr. Baehr then had some practical advice for people who wish to enter scripts for the competition.

“They need to read some books on scriptwriting so they can understand what scriptwriting is about. If they would do that, I know there is great talent out there. My favorite statement comes from Steven Spielberg who said that someday he is going to wake up and some 15-year-old kid from Des Moines is going to have written the most successful movie of all time. And I believe that this is what could happen this time around. It could be a kid or be a 50 something news reporter or anybody, but there is somebody out there who is going to do a tremendous story and we are hoping that we can find that person.”

He went on to say, “The biggest problem is not producing a cohesive, intelligent script; it is understanding that you have to have a plot point within the first ten pages, and you need to understand that dialogue is conflict. So they should understand the basics of scriptwriting and they could do that by reading a book like, ‘The Art Of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives’ by Lajos Egri. This will show them how to make a script great. This and other books could help them and they should also get a copy of the software called ‘Final Draft Pro 4.’ They should also be craftsmen, people who like to tell stories and write.

NEED TO BE ABLE TO TELL STORIES

“I’m always getting people who claim to scriptwriter, but they couldn’t tell you a story if you plied them with rum. So, you need to get people who like to tell stories and who can learn the craft of scriptwriting.”

When asked if there were topics that were out of bounds for the competition, he said, “There is no genre that is out of bounds. It can be science fiction or sports or romance; in fact it can be any genre. The writers have to be people who want to tell stories of faith and values that are spiritually uplifting, not spiritually depressing. We say in the competition rules, however, that we don’t want occult or New Age materials. We are looking for traditional faith and values stories given the great tradition of the monotheistic religions.”

Dr. Baehr explained, “This new prize for films yet-to-be is designed to encourage aspiring screenwriters to create more movies with storylines that help to increase man’s love for and understanding of God, similar to the criteria for the Epiphany Prizes for Inspiring Movies and TV.”

The John Templeton Foundation Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays includes a $25,000 grand prize and runner-up awards of $15,000 and $10,000 each. First-time scribes need to submit their scripts right away to be considered for this inaugural edition of the prize, which will be awarded along with the annual Epiphany Prizes at the MOVIEGUIDE® Awards Gala on March 2, 2006 in Beverly Hills, California.

“We hope the establishment of the Kairos Prize will encourage talented young screenwriters with new ideas and a great respect for the Christian faith to move forward on that project they have in mind, and to inundate Hollywood with moral, inspirational movies,” said Dr. Jack Templeton, son of Sir John Templeton.

Sir John Templeton has long believed that the media, and specifically the entertainment media, plays a role in how individuals form their ideas about faith and values. For this reason, nearly ten years ago he and Dr. Baehr established the Epiphany Prize for Inspiring Movies & TV, to honor those films and shows that help increase man’s understanding and love of God, similar to the famous Templeton Prize awarded every year for progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities.

CRITERIA FOR THE COMPETITION

Specific criteria for the Kairos Prize describe screenplays that are wholesome, uplifting and inspirational, and which result in a greater increase in either man’s love or understanding of the “one true creator God.”

Dr. Baehr, as Founder and Executive Producer of MOVIEGUIDE®, and Founder and Chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission™ works to provide a bridge between the entertainment industry and the traditional family audience. Every two weeks throughout the year, the commission publishes MOVIEGUIDE®, which reviews and recommends movies for their moral and spiritual principles, as well as their production values -- films that tell a story that is both redemptive and inspiring to their audiences.

“We are so grateful to Sir John, and now Dr. Jack Templeton, for their recognition of the impact of entertainment on faith and spirituality,” Dr. Baehr said. “Not only do they realize this, but they want to do something to make a difference. The Templeton Foundation investment in inspirational and God-based filmmaking has already impacted Hollywood, and we hope to see this new prize do so to an even greater extent.

“While more than 50,000 original screenplays are submitted every year to the Writers Guild of America,” Dr. Baehr concluded, “lackluster box office numbers show that by and large, the best and most creative scripts are still not being discovered and produced. The Kairos Prize offers a real chance for the untried and fearful “Davids” to take on the Hollywood Goliath. This prize package is larger than the vast majority of hundreds of other scriptwriting contests, and it is one of the few guaranteeing the script a review by a major studio or producer. We are pleased with their participation, and recognize its invaluable contribution to the careers of our winners.”

More information and submission guidelines are available online at www.kairosprize.com. The deadline for early entries is Nov. 25; the late deadline is Jan. 6. Quarter-finalists will be notified by February 1, 2006. The three winning scriptwriters will be recognized in front of key entertainment industry leaders, producers and talent at the MOVIEGUIDE® Awards Gala. In addition, key entertainment industry studio executives or independent producers will review the winning script and/or agree to hold a pitch meeting with their creative development team and the winning screenwriters, following the awards presentation.

Dan Wooding is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). Wooding is the co-host of the weekly radio show, "Window on the World" and was, for ten years a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. He also co-hosts three days a week a live phone-in show called "Pastor's Perspective" with Brian Brodersen which is carried on KWVE, Santa Ana, California, and other radio stations across the USA. Wooding is the author of some 42 books, the latest of which is his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, go to www.fromtabloidtotruth.com. danjuma1@aol.com

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Hit and run evangelism

2005-10-05T20:35:00.000+13:00

Hit and run evangelism

I can relate to this story, and I find the idea of non-violent communication mentioned here very interesting. We all want to connect to one another as human beings, regardless of belief. That's what I longed for in my days in a small church, where we were being trained to hand out tracts.

Matter of fact, I got evangelised the other day in Albert Park. Shame. I really felt for the old man who was talking to me; he had so much good intentions and I believe a caring heart, but he was a talker, not a listener.

Unlike the story I've linked to, this guy was able to talk with me for quite a while, but it was definitely along scripted lines. He stopped when I told him I was a born again Christian, and gave me a couple of booklets he'd written.

Even though we were on common ground now, there was still a huge distance between us. He wasn't talking to me as a person, he was talking to me as a Christian. Big difference.

And now that I'm getting back into church, and getting back on track, I need to remember that. It's easy to get sucked back into 'churchianity', the culture Michael Card sings about in Present Reality:

A once a week observance
Where we coldly mouth your words

Sometimes I get anxious about this, and God has a way of slipping in something to ease my mind. Like our church holding a conference to leaders for the express purpose of helping us love better. Nothing more, nothing less. Wow. If there's anything the Church as a whole needs more, it's that.

I used to think if people saw some of the cool Christian stuff there was, they'd be impressed and want to know more. They've seen it. Christian stuff - music, books, movies - is in the mainstream, at least in US culture, and the people I talk with aren't impressed.

It's not our minds, or our short term emotions that need to be engaged. To a skeptical world armed with head knowledge and philosophy which can explain anything away, God wants to prove Himself to people through other people who can love. That's a very serious, very long-term programme.

Thank God He's committed to it!

Being known

2005-10-05T20:29:00.000+13:00

^"But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—"
Galatians 4:9a

Tonight as Marie and I prayed I just felt the reality of being known by God in a profound way. Nothing big, just a quiet knowing that he sees right through me. I saw it as a picture - like my skin was transparent and my skeleton was visible. But not in a yucky way. ;)

I just sat there for a while and soaked in the sense of being known by my Father. Because I'm realising that I know myself very little. I've had a sense of honesty as long as I've been self-aware, but when it comes to things of the heart, I realise I'm not too familiar with myself at all. It's not that I'm being dishonest, I just don't honestly know what's in my heart sometimes. Thank God that He does - and He still loves me.

Telegraph | Expat | The Bible for slow readers

2005-09-25T22:57:00.000+12:00

Telegraph | Expat | The Bible for slow readers

Nice idea. I like their clearly defined target audience: those in search of faith, or Christians who want to be refreshed in their experience with the Bible. (Those are my words)

Sometimes we get so hung up over the fact that the Bible is God's Word that we fear presenting it in a relevant way. To people of that mindset I say just present it in the original Hebrew or Greek and let people learn the languages if they really want to seek.

Some stuff in the old testament is more easily understood with charts etc. than paragraphs, yet because the information was stored in words, it was able to be passed down more accurately to us. God knew what He was doing :) Diagrams may not have survived the hands of many scribes as well as letters and characters.

Telegraph | Expat | Missionaries desert the Dark Continent to convert the secular French

2005-09-20T08:19:00.000+12:00

Not that this is news, but kind of refreshing to find a comment about Christianity in the mainstream media that's not laced with sarcasm or negativity. Much.

The article's about British evangelical mission organisations sending people to France and Spain.

Quote:

"[Europe]'s geographical proximity and relative lack of Bible-based Protestant churches has made it increasingly alluring territory for British evangelicals. Moreover, large parts of the Third World are now so teeming with Christians that they are no longer seen as obvious destinations - and they are even exporting their own missionaries to the West."

This last bit is so true. I can't remember where I read it, but it said that Africa and Asia are now sending more missionaries back to Europe than the other way around.

Another article (or maybe the same one, can't remember?) was saying that figures showing which religion is growing fastest (you know, the ones that show Islam is the fastest growing) may be misleading because the statisticians are looking for institutional, traditional expressions of religion - and much of the explosive growth in places like Africa and India is taking place in a far less official way, through the growth of housechurches, etc.

Just like it was in the book of Acts.

The Complex Christ: Stages of Faith - Anxiety, Church and the Freedom to Doubt

2005-09-13T21:50:00.000+12:00

The Complex Christ: Stages of Faith - Anxiety, Church and the Freedom to Doubt

I like this! I wish I'd read stuff like this YEARS ago. Particularly:

"...anxiety comes from not being able to know the world you're in, not being able to orient yourself in your own existence."

Link: Rendering unto Caesar

2005-09-02T13:53:00.000+12:00

Rendering unto Caesar

Ole Anthony runs a Christian satirical magazine called The Door. Trouble with satire sometimes is you don't know what the satirist actually believes. Thankfully, his eloquent editorials answer that question.

With an election looming, and Christians in politics all over the place, this article is very timely.

I don't have a problem with Christians going for office - after all, Daniel and Joseph occupied very high positions of authority, and the book of Acts mentions an important member of Herod's household as being part of the Antioch eldership. But it's interesting that, in Daniel and Joseph's case, they were forced into the position; they didn't seek it.

Also a few thoughts on the verse at the heart of Ole's editorial: "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

I think a lot of people get this verse upside down and around the wrong way, thinking that Caesar (or the government, or the world) has some bits, and God has the remainder. Look at what Jesus said:

"Show me the coin used for paying the tax ... Whose portrait is this? Whose inscription?"

"Caesar's," they replied.

Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.

(Matthew 22:19-21)

Let's turn the question around. A bit like Jeopardy!

What are we talking about if "God" is the answer and "Whose portrait is this? Whose inscription?" is the question?

Answer: The Earth is the Lord's and everything in it!

Sure, Caesar's got his head on the coin. But it's not a matter of two equal halves, sacred and secular, it's more a case of concentric circles - God's delegated authority to man (leaders who often ignore Him) and God's sovereign authority over space and time.

Does that help me with the upcoming election? Kind of. As with last time, I'm voting United Future - a secular party with a lot of Christians in it, and values that Christians can ally with.

Having shown my card, I'll now go and eat some pizza. Mmm!

More on idolatry

2005-08-29T14:55:00.000+12:00

The "I" word sparked a furore in the comments section of this blog. I think Adam misunderstood my highly personal and idiosyncratic telling of the story. After all, I was in my "personal space" writing, using a lot of mental shortcuts that make sense to me but may mean something different to others. So... to clarify:

By idolatry, I don't mean that I was making blood sacrifices to a stone image of Beelzebub. I simply mean that the project we were all working on was becoming more important than God.

To couch it in pluralistic terms, I was out of balance. And in hindsight I could see that Adam was even further out of balance - in his own words he said the project was his life.

And while that's not unusual in art, particularly in the movie business (Kurosawa, Scorcese, etc.), I found myself at a crossroads.

Do you want to go down the path of those legendary artists? Or do you want to forsake that for the transcendent (God)?

Reminds me of a book I read in 2001, called "Work: Prison or Place of Destiny". The author, David Oliver, said there's only one thing that comes close to knowing God, and that's work.

Working with purpose can be so astoundingly fulfilling that it blinds us to our need for relationship with the Creator himself.

Or, as Michael Card puts it in his book "Emmanuel", imagine if his wife gives him a beautiful gift for Christmas and he hugs the book, gives it a big kiss and ignores his wife. How does God feel?

And in the end, that's what it comes down to.

The Campus Confession Booth - LeadershipJournal.net

2005-08-24T09:54:00.000+12:00

A brilliant story from Donald Miller about how a confession booth in the middle of a university campus started some great conversations.

Sandra, thanks for recommending Donald Miller. His name leapt out at me from the LeadershipJournal newsletter I got this morning; otherwise I may have missed this article.

The cost of idolatry

2005-08-21T14:41:00.000+12:00

Over the past few months, culminating last night, God has shown me the cost of idolatry.

I've been involved in a project fuelled with passion, something completely absorbing. One of those things that get you real excited... keep you up at night thinking... make you feel that this is what you were born to do.

In other words, an idol.

I didn't realise this until it all fell apart. And in the heart-searching process in the midst of the fallout, I realised that idolatry feels good. Otherwise we wouldn't build idols, because we humans do what feels good.

As with many profound things, it sounds so amazingly simple in the light of day, but it's another thing to go through a disintegrative kind of experience to find out. A sort of mini-meltdown.

So, last night at church, God made me aware of what I'd been doing - not putting Him first. Not in an accusing, condemning way. But very definitely.

He deserves first place in absolutely every area of my life. And anything less than that is ... idolatry.

I also realised there is nothing casual about my relationship with God. Yes, He is the only One with whom I can be completely myself, yes, I am like a helpless child in His strong arms. But effort is required on my part to take what He gives me and live it out in this world, this creation that goes contrary to His way. The present world darkness that "kicks against the goads".

I'm back on the dentist's chair, realising that even though this world sounds very moral, sensible and impartial, we are either in rebellion against God, or not.

I'm on His side again.

Self deception

2005-08-21T14:39:00.000+12:00

This email from Robert Holmes is very interesting. Particularly the part about remembering peoples' names - something I have difficulty doing. As the article says, "what's my excuse"? ;)

Self Deception
Robert I Holmes

What if I told you that you were suffering from a malady, a sickness, a
disease of some kind. But it did not show signs, or remarkable symptoms to
the sick person. Furthermore, those symptoms were readily visible to anyone
else who looked. You'd feel a little queasy, as I did when I first learned
the lesson contained in this article.

The issue of self deception is very difficult. People do not know they are
suffering from it because they cannot see it in themselves. They are quick
to diagnose someone else who is struggling to see clearly, but ourselves?
Jesus called this the "log in the eye" syndrome.

Because we are all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, we have within our
human frame a hunger for the fruit they ate. We devour fruit born from the
knowledge of good and evil. This fruit bears poor results in our lives. It
creates a kind of myopia, a one-eyed-ness. We view the world in a certain
way, that shifts values toward us, and blame away from us. "It was the woman
you gave me," Adam says, turning the attention to Eve. "Hey, it was the
snake!" she says.

We believe we are better than we really are, and others are worse than they
really are. Bill Hybels says, "We judge ourselves by our intentions and
others by their actions". So true.

An example from real life

Consider a husband and a wife lying in bed with the baby crying. They are
both awake, yet both pretending to be asleep. Each one lies there, thinking
of a good reason why they should not get up. "Doesn't she know I am tired?"
the man says to himself. "I have worked hard all day, she's not even
grateful. Lazy girl". She is thinking, "Doesn't he appreciate how much hard
work motherhood is? I bet he doesn't think it is even real work! I'm tired,
I deserve a break".

This simple example illustrates what the Arbinger Institute has come to call
a "self betrayal" - when you do not follow through on your better instincts.
As a results, we distort our view or paradigm of life to justify ourselves
and condemn others. Anthropologists call it "demonising" others and "angelising"
ourselves.

This is the fruit of knowing good and evil. We have knowledge, and we think
that by it, we are improved. But we rarely stop to examine our assumptions.
Not all knowledge is good knowledge. We think of ourselves as good, and
others as evil. It justifies our treatment of them, for they are something
less than human. We are starting, ever so gradually to "dehumanize" them.

We call this, self deception. In teams and groups it leads to group
deception. This is how Hitler was able to justify destroying the Jews, by
making them less than human. This is why the Evangelical Church in Germany
let Nazi Imperialism evolve. In fact they called Hitler a messiah! This is
why the Afrikaner church largely failed to confront Apartheid, and why the
American church is content with capitalism. What we have is better (or best)
so we think.

It belongs to me!

I was in a leadership meeting for a local church recently. Each member was
asked to be honest about what they saw going on in the church and
leadership. Consider this comment, made by one of the ladies there: "It's
dysfunctional, but hey, at least it's MY dysfunctional!" Crazy as it sounds,
we all laughed, because that's how we feel. "I know it's not working, but at
least it belongs to me!" I can just hear Dr Phil McGraw looking into the
camera and saying, "So how's that workin' for ya?".

Everyone around you knows it's not working, but they cannot help you. You
will not acknowledge your "disease" because of fear, guilt, shame or hurt.
Even those who give lip service to the fact that "we are all sinners", are
rarely found to be repenting. They see the fault in others, but not
themselves. Or if they do repent, they do not go on to bear the fruit of
that repentance. Jesus said it's like, "The blind leading the blind" (Matt.
15:14).

Why do you want to stay deceived?

The truth is, you built the world you live in. So why would you complain
about it? If you want change. change yourself. But most of us do not change.
We cling to our dysfunction. Why would we cling to being "right" or better,
when it just isn't working? The answer is simple, yet dreadful. We cling to
"it's mine" because of a secondary payoff, or a second class gain.

Consider an example that happens in church after church, and business after
business. A man is being raised up in leadership, and decides he will vie
for control. The team do not think it's time, and ask him to wait. But the
man says, "You don't recognise my gift, I am far better at this than the
present leader". So off he goes, taking a handful of people with him. The
man is choosing (in many cases) to be the captain of a tug-boat, instead of
the second mate on a larger trading vessel. Why? Because of secondary gain.
He is willing to suffer one kind of harm, for another kind of (second class)
gain.

· Why do abused women stay with their husbands?
· Why do children stay with their alcoholic mother?
· Why does a sick person not get up for prayer, or to see a doctor?

Because there is a secondary gain.

You're willing to put up with the initial abuse, because of the secondary
gain. Things like money, power, sex, finances, pride, prestige. what's the
pay off for staying deceived? What's the pay off for leaving things as they
are.? Consider the cost though, consider the damage being done to those
around you, and to yourself.

An example

I had a friend who trained as a palliative care nurse. Her work involved
looking after people who were dieing. Her father was very sick, dying of a
disease that could not be cured. Eventually the insurance payments stopped,
and her dad's life was threatened. So she built a hospital room in her
house, and took care of him herself. This appears noble, and her motives
were fine. But somewhere between this fine beginning and the day we met, her
motives had changed.

Dad had become the object of her affection, but not because of his position
as father. Not even because of his frailty. It turned out, the state paid
her quite well to keep him that way. She had every reason to seclude her
life and avoid church. It was so bad by the time I got in on the story that
she defended her father against "witchcraft" and "speaking negatively" so he
would not die. Meanwhile her calling in God was atrophied. The word of the
Lord to her was, "Your father is going to die, prepare your heart to go out
and minister in My name". Instead of embracing this call, she told us to
leave!

The secondary gain was worth it (in her mind), and the cost of obedience was
too high. Shortly though, God called her father home, and her little world
fell apart. Her finances struggled. Her identity, held so long as primary
care giver, was corroded. Her call in God needed a kick-start.

Seeing people as people

I mentioned before that we tend to demonise people, and angelise ourselves
when we go ahead and justify our self-betrayals. (When we fail to live up to
the expectation of our heart, we betray ourselves).

The answer lies in seeing people as they really are. As people! We need to
face our circumstances as they really are, and unmask our choices for what
they really hide. Let me ask you,

· Do you see people, or objects? How would you know?
· Do you know people's names?
· Is there a response inside you which says "I need x from this person."?

My father worked on a Naval ship, which had 350 men serving on it. The
Captain could remember every man's name, and even most of their wife's and
children's names. That Captain went on to become an Admiral. Why? Because
people mattered to him. Many people I talk to say, "I just cannot remember
peoples names" as though it were a fault especial to themselves. Here's the
wake up call. The University of California produced a study on the human
brain, which concluded that the right brain could remember 1 million faces,
and the left brain can code four pieces of information against those faces.
So what's your excuse?

Getting out of the trap

You can escape self deception in four easy ways:

· The first key is to acknowledge the fact that we are deceived.
· The second key is to see people as they really are
· The third key is to find out what your secondary gain is
· The fourth key is to ask those around you to help you

References

"Leadership and Self Deception", The Arbinger Institute
Hybels, Bill. "Who you are When No One is Looking"
McGraw, Phil, Dr. "Getting Real", Audio Series.

------------------------------
WEBSITE
Storm-Harvest Ministries
http://www.storm-harvest.asn.au

MODERATORS
Robert I Holmes and Mario Liu
email prophetic@storm-harvest.asn.au

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Spiritual experience at the dentist

2005-08-16T14:00:00.000+12:00

I went to the dentist today - John Wright, a former advertising client of mine and a great dentist - and had a spiritual experience.

Either that, or there was something in the local anaesthetic - I needed a lot of it, sensitive fellow that I am!

I was there for an hour and a half, my mouth gradually getting more and more numb. The headphones were playing an album by Selah, beautiful music including that song "You Raise Me Up" which nearly always makes me cry. Thankfully not this time.

But it was an amazing time for me to reconnect with God - and in a way, with myself.

Here I was, completely helpless in the hands of this dentist and hygienist. They could've really done anything to me, I couldn't see what was going on, and couldn't particularly feel anything. They might have removed my teeth for all I knew at the time. (They didn't; don't worry!)

Not only did I not know what they were doing, I wasn't fully aware of what I was doing as the anaesthetic set in. I may have been a slobbering wretch for all I know, but, bless them, they didn't tell me.

This state of helplessness is how we are with God - 100% of the time! Whether we are very aware of it, AND when we feel in control of our destiny.

That's why I feel closer to God in times of uncertainty, illness or misfortune. It goes against the things I used to briefly believe - that "abundant life" essentially meant being in control. It was a struggle for me to believe that, but I find I've travelled 360 degrees. Not that I seek uncertainty, illness or misfortune - but they're guaranteed to come into every life. The answer I've discovered is not to freak out when that sort of stuff happens, but to roll with it. Go with it.

As if to confirm, the "morning huddle" email I get from my cousin-in-law Nalani - all the way in Arizona, USA - said this today:

The peace that God gives is a way-down-in-your-gut confidence that everything that happens to you, good or bad, is something He will use to bring you closer to Him and make you more like Him. As your friendship with Jesus grows, this peace will take root in your heart. He promises it will!"

Sure 'nuff!

Roger Mitchell on London Bombings

2005-08-01T11:26:00.000+12:00

This from my email inbox, from Storm-Harvest's email list. Interesting perspective, and a good mix of the practical and spiritual:

Subject: Roger Mitchell on London bombings

Roger Mitchell has sent out the following. Roger has been involved with the
apostolic/prophetic & strategic prayer for many years. He recognises that
many in the Church will not completely agree with him on this.

A view in response to the London bombings:

Bombing, killing and wounding people is bad - we all agree. But we must
recognise the context in which this has taken place. When the attack on the
twin towers took place some of us did our level best to make the following
position known. The subsequent events and now the bombings in London have
underlined it even more.

1. The Western world is vulnerable to terrorist attacks because of things
wrong in its own foundations. These things create a fault line, or expose a
soft underbelly. These foundational faults are:

Ongoing economic injustice. Manifested in gross selfishness and
protectionism, aimed at maintaining the economic power base and affluence of
the West. This is expressed in terms of our current trade and economic aid,
including the terms of the current debt clearances (eg: the conditions of
the IMF and World Bank imposed on African nations even by the G8 summit
leaders).

The abuse of Military power. Manifested in the dominance of the West, based
on our superior nuclear weapons and our manipulation of the arms trade. This
is expressed in our double standards of justifying war in Iraq (who we
originally armed) on the grounds of their supposedly having weapons of mass
destruction like we do and of pressurising Iran and North Korea over the
same thing.

A Christendom-based church. Manifested in those church denominations,
networks, congregations and ministries which align more or less uncritically
with the foundational political, economic and military power bases of
society outlined in (1) and (2) above. This is frequently expressed in the
way that church government, theology, prayer and the prophetic is framed,
interpreted and enacted.

These foundational sins are clearly denounced by the prophet Amos in Israel
and in the other nations around them (See Amos Chs1-2). Amos makes it clear
that societies where these foundational sins exist will be judged (i.e.
given the consequences of what they are choosing) if there is no repentance.

2. Terrorist attacks such as those on the twin towers, the Madrid trains and
the London transport system are the consequence of exposing ourselves to the
jealousy, desperation and sin of those who are the victims of our injustice
and abuse of power. Where misguided, false or violent political, racial or
religious motives and movements already exist to exacerbate such reactions
to our Western nations' sin, the mix provides the current extremely
dangerous and destructive context for terrorism.

3. Western societies are the home of, and in many ways the product of,
Christendom. It is imperative that the church repents for its uncritical
alignment with these foundational sins of the western nations, brings a
biblical response to terrorism, and demonstrates the way of peace.

Biblically, the answer to this terrorism is to come in the opposite spirit.
That means repentance for our foundational sins and love and forgiveness
towards our enemies. This must be expressed in empathy towards them as
people despite the evil they perpetrate. It needs the willingness to
recognise the context in which they are operating described above, radical
and urgent efforts to change the injustices and abuses involved and the use
of dialogue and blessing not violence and cursing in our attitudes towards
them.

4. Since the attack on the twin towers, the Western World, and in particular
the political and military leadership given by the USA and the UK, has
exponentially increased our vulnerability to terrorism. Instead of coming in
the opposite spirit, we have declared war on terror and invaded Afghanistan
and Iraq. We have bombed, killed and wounded many civilians in the process,
adding the desire for personal vengeance to the already existing jealousy,
desperation and sin. It is crucial that the body of Christ humbly stands in
the gap for these sins of the Western nations, especially the USA and the UK
and agitates effectively for changed policies and behaviour in our nations.

5. Therefore, in summary, we want to make the following statements:

The random, indiscriminate and deliberate killing & maiming of the victims
of the London Transport bombings of 7th July 2005 is to be utterly deplored.

The Western nations must turn from their idolatrous worship of guaranteed
security, continuous economic growth and military strength, which takes
place against the sinful background of exacerbated global poverty, unjust
trade and an unrighteous arms trade.

The church in the West must repent as a matter of urgency from its
Christendom mindset, its vindication of selfish political actions and its
manifestation of a crusading rather than Christ-like response to terrorism.

We are trusting God for maximum grace as we pray for Europe at this time.

------------------------------
WEBSITE
Storm-Harvest Ministries
http://www.storm-harvest.asn.au

Shut up, James!

2005-07-26T12:07:00.000+12:00

¹⁹My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, ²⁰for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
James 1:19-20 NIV

It's not often a Bible verse is so perfectly appropriate. Damn!

My words got me in trouble with someone, because they misunderstood what I said. Being misunderstood makes me mad. Wham, wham, wham! I've done the opposite of what this verse says. Yarr.

Starting to feel a bit better after a very brief walk outside (to the letterbox and back - very brief!) but at the time I felt an overwhelming desire to justify myself, and show the other party how unreasonable they was bein'.

Makes me wonder how the monks of old used to keep their vows of silence without going crazy. Or maybe they did go crazy. But I think they took out their frustration by gardening and making wine. The grapes didn't complain.

But me, I live in a world of words. My job is words. Social interaction is words. Even when I look at a photography book, I end up reading the captions.

Thank God for music - the instrumental type - and also for His grace that keeps me on an even keel, even when I'm fit to keel over.

I love it when a Bible verse makes you want to tell it to shut up, because it means the Word hit its mark in me. It's meant to hurt - and bring about change.

Thanks God, for being so amazingly patient and also amazingly passionate about righteousness at the same time. Passionately patient. That's our Father.

2005-07-15T09:10:00.000+12:00

This just in from the Friday Fax, which I get as an email. But at least I get it on Friday! :)

Breathtaking stuff here. I like how this is written - it's not just an "Oh, that's interesting" kind of cultural shift, it's more like a revolution. I've unconsciously been doing steps one and two at the end - getting out of the way of the old structure, and being prepared for the suspicion of other Christians (hasn't really been so bad for me yet).

But I've got a fairly long way to go on the last two - taking responsibility, bearing others' burdens, loving. Although I know that's what I have to do. :) God, please help me to make small steps forward each day.

Friday Fax 2005 Issue 28, 15 July

In this week's Friday Fax:
Megashift

Instructions for subscribing, unsubscribing and changing e-mail address are
included at the bottom of this Friday Fax.

Megashift
That's the title of American author Jim Rutz's recently-published book. It's
hotly debated on TV, and one of Amazon's top sellers. It has also caused
controversy in broad swathes of self-contented US Christianity. 'Megashift' is
a sharp-minded analysis of current Christianity around the world, and is partly
based on dozens of carefully-researched Friday Fax reports. Rutz is now one of
the popular columnists in the conservative Internet news site World Net Daily
(www.worldnetdaily.com). What are his main observations?
- The 1700-year nightmare is over: the Constantinian Shift is shifting back.
Under Emperor Constantine, the Church became an imperial audience, but is now
finally freeing itself from the corset of state control.
- An unprecedented transfer of divine power is underway, from clerics into the
hands of ordinary people. According to Rutz' research in 49 nations, hundreds
of people have been raised from the dead in the past 15 years.
- This is giving rise to an entirely new form of Christianity - with far
greater repercussions than the Protestant Reformation.
- Over 1 billion non-Christians could become active Christians in the next 10
years.

When millions of ordinarly people do extraordinary things
The Charismatic Evangelical movement, currently numbering 707 million people
around the world, is growing by 8 percent per year. That alone is exciting. The
centre of this movement, though, is a mostly unknown and little-understood
movement of 100 million Christians who have no building and neither pastor nor
programme. "A church without vertical hierarchies," says Rutz, "which will
change the future." They have experienced what Rutz calls a 'lifestyle upgrade':

Lifestyle upgrade
Anyone who uses computer software knows what an upgrade is: a new and better
version of a programme replaces the old version. Through an act of God, many
millions of people have experienced an 'inner upgrade' leading to an entirely
new quality of life. Rutz lists a number of chances and advantages offered by
this upgrade, which were previously unthinkable for many people:
- People experience release from the limitations and burdens of a traditional,
hierarchical (and unbiblical) religious system, being freed into an 'open
Christianity' with 100% participation.
- They are no longer a number in someone else's religious programme.
- They experience personal empowerment and are able to do things they
previously could not even have dreamed of, including the supernatural
(healing, prophesying, performing miracles etc.)
- They learn to overcome their own problems, and help others to overcome
theirs.
- They experience fellowship with a small group of close friends who give
mutual support, so that each person and the whole group reaches God's aims,
which are their calling.
- In doing so, they find that which they have sought for their whole life.

Away from spectator religion
The path away from spectator religion frees people from fixed church
role-playing. Previously, many people were passive, conformist churchgoers,
experiencing church as a television without a remote control. The personal
involvement of every follower of Christ, though, rouses millions of talents and
abilities to solve even the most difficult problems. The result is a
'Megashift', a quantum leap in church history.

Post-Protestant revival
Protestantism was an important epoch in church history, but it is now time to
stop protesting and start acting. The current post-Protestant awakening is
larger than the great American revivals since 1727 under Wesley, Whitefield,
the Herrnhuter or Johnathan Edwards. "This third Reformation," says Rutz, "has
three characteristics:"

The church is transforming itself from an organisation to an organism
After 1700 years of institutional structure, the Body of Christ is emerging in
the form described in the New Testament. People are rediscovering the original
forms and functions in an open, participatory system mostly consisting of house
churches.

100% active
Moving away from the one-man church system, in which the pastor literally did
everything, a growing number of Jesus' followers are becoming active
participants, leaving their spectators' seats and taking their place on the
playing field. It should be no surprise the number of goals scored increases.
When 100 people pray for the sick, prophesy, and plant churches instead of just
one, it is also reasonable to expect the number of miracles to increase.

Immense numbers of new believers
Church growth outside America is breathtaking. Tens of thousands of new
believers (Rutz speaks of 175,000 per day) means that although all religions
are growing naturally, only Christianity is experiencing significant growth
through conversion. Where religions meet, Christianity almost always gains new
believers, and new networks of house churches are formed.

How to be part of this Megashift
1. Stop going with the flow, and decide to actively turn away from the outdated
control structures (clerics & laypeople).
2. Take responsibility. That also means paying the price of being a pionier,
including Christian friends' suspicion and ostracism.
3. Learn to love others, overcoming selfishness and becoming a team player.
That requires a lifestyle of repentance and obedience - out of healthy
enthusiasm, not duty.
4. Help carry others' burdens, and not stagnate but take small steps forward
every day.

Rutz says: "Is there a small voice inside saying 'That's right!'?" Follow it.
But you also have the choice to ignore it. That too is freedom. But please
don't complain later..." Or, as C. Peter Wagner says, "Jim describes what God
is going to do tomorrow. You can't afford to miss this book!"
Source: Jim Rutz, www.megashift.org, e-mail ocmoffice @ openchurch.com

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(c) 2005 S Bufton

The Good Doctor

2005-07-12T23:32:00.000+12:00

Dr Who

(As differentiated from The Great Physician!) As a Doctor Who fan and a Christian, I couldn't have said it better than this article did.

I'm in community!

2005-07-12T22:20:00.000+12:00

I was just reading Sandra's blog, and realised that hey, I actually know this person! This most eloquent of bloggers is actually in my orbit of people I know.

And it made me think - this time last year, Marie and I were somewhat on the retreat from close-knit community, while at the same time very aware it was what we needed.

Now, without us trying particularly hard, we find ourselves in community again. It's very satisfying.

There's the Crossover team, where Sandra comes in - and Adam, and Robyn. Neat people, passionate people. The kind of people you want to be around.

Then there's church - theSanctuary in Auckland. Thanks to Marie's work friend Michelle (who is quickly becoming a real close sister!) we're going regularly, because she needs a lift home from us afterwards! Good plan, God! Otherwise we would've never got around to getting regular.

And for this month only (while stocks last) I'm working at my old stomping ground, Rhema Broadcasting Group. I've got community coming out of my ears!

It's funny, the Crossover team aren't all Christians, but we have a surprising amount in common, given our widely divergent backgrounds. And what's really nice is we're fairly open-minded about each other's differences. I think it actually helps our creativity.

That doesn't change the fact I'd like everyone I know to know God personally. That doesn't equate to knowing or believing in exactly the same way I do, to make me feel validated. That's the baggage I've dropped on my journey through, and out of, the dysfunctional church scene.

Speaking of church, theSanctuary is a Godsend. They provide a hype-free zone, and focus on the heart issues. That's not to say they're perfect - I'd get freaked out if I visited the absolutely perfect church. But these guys get rid of some of the stuff that I find gets in the way of people connecting with God.

We had a great guest speaker on Saturday - the Princess of Tonga. Amazing lady, very much led by the Spirit and no slave to tradition. Very quiet, gentle, gracious and radiating an inner strength. So encouraging.

She encouraged anyone to whom it applied to know when a season of grieving was over, and move into what God had that was new for them. I think that was for us!

Quality Christian filmmaking - oxymoronic or just moronic?

2005-06-29T18:27:00.000+12:00

Sy's comment - I like this! Especially the vacuum cleaner story. Many's a time I've watched a movie, read a book or heard a song and thought, gee, if only my unsaved friends could just see/hear this, they'd fully understand and give their hearts to the Lord! But I was looking through my eyes at the time, not theirs.

The key to anyone coming into a relationship with God is seeing the reality of Jesus (God with us) - whether that's something supernatural, like Muslims in the 10/40 window who experience visions of Jesus, or something more commonplace, like observing God consistently at work in the life of a fallible fellow human being. In fact, that's supernatural, too!

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

QUALITY CHRISTIAN FILMMAKING -- AN OXYMORON OR JUST MORONIC?
Understanding why movies with a Christian message just aren’t making it

By David White
Special to ASSIST News Service

LOS ANGELES, CA (ANS) -- Even after Mel Gibson gifted moviegoers with the unforgettable Biblical epic, The Passion of The Christ, one of the questions most often fielded by Hollywood’s most successful Christian artists is, “When are Christians going to make BIG Hollywood movies?” By BIG, they mean big budget—an option not available to anyone who calls themselves a “Christian-film maker,” unless, of course, like Mel, you are fortunate enough to be able to afford to bankroll your own vision. (Pictured: David White).

The truth is, Christian actors and producers will make BIG Hollywood movies when moviegoers support their efforts by purchasing tickets. The trouble is, there are plenty of self-inflicted roadblocks in the way that are preventing this from happening.

At the risk of offending an entire group of well-meaning, hard-working artists, it seems the “Christian movie” genre carries a carefully earned stigma of mediocrity marked by a steadily growing collection of low budget, poorly produced films. To mainstream moviegoers, the result of the negative association of following the word “Christian” with the words “actor,” “producer” or “film” is that the collective contributions of these artists are automatically defined as less creative and inferior to their secular, mainstream counterparts.

For more than 15 years, I have been fortunate to find success in Hollywood as both an actor and a producer—and yes, I am a devout Christian. My one-man show, Holyman Undercover, that I perform in various live venues—both secular and Christian — is a success as well. I find, however, that being defined only as a “Christian actor” or “Christian producer” doesn’t sit well with me.

Why?

Perhaps it is because so many of the movies produced and marketed with the “Christian” pitch rarely realize their full potential, reach their desired audiences or, more importantly, impact the lives of those viewing in a way that is memorable and life affirming. Where is the passion? Where is the commitment to quality? Where is the sold-out devotion to great storytelling?

In fact, so compromised is the response of mainstream moviegoers to most films labeled as having a “Christian message” that they are rendered almost useless as the evangelistic tool most Christian filmmakers pray their works will be.

A highly publicized study commissioned by the Dove Foundation and conducted by Paul Kagan and Associates proved that while some people line up to buy tickets to sex- and violence-laced R-rated movies, G-rated films are more than eight times more profitable. In the wake of that eye-opening study, makers of “Christian” movies are stumped by the figures. They are asking themselves why “Christian” movies aren’t seeing the success their less family-oriented counterparts enjoy. In a climate where family movies are the proven moneymakers, how did this happen? Why are Christian filmmakers—and Christians who are working to produce films with a Christian message—missing the mark?

Those who are fans of these kinds of movies are loyal and want to do what they can to support these kinds of productions. So, why is it so hard to grow the Christian-film market and expand the number of those who are avid fans of this type of family-friendly fare?

The easy answer—and the truth—is because movies with Christian themes are about Jesus and Christians and how their faith affects their daily lives. The general public thinks using the word “Jesus” is the dividing line they don’t want to cross.

The more complicated—and more totally accurate—answer has to do with everything from the quality of the story and who is involved with a project to the complexity and cleverness of a film’s marketing plan. Had any filmmaker other than Mel Gibson attempted a project like The Passion of The Christ, it is unlikely the film would have garnered such an onslaught of media coverage and wide-spread praise—and angst—or enjoyed such amazing box office success. Why? Because Mel Gibson is Mel Gibson after all. He is a great filmmaker, and, most of all, he had a genius marketing plan.

Was it successful because it had a big budget?

Doubtful.

Without a good story, budget will mean little.

A film’s lack of success has less to do with the availability of a BIG budget than it does with a lack of creativity and a sold-out commitment to quality in writing, acting and production. It also has much to do with the agenda-based approach to storytelling that has come to plague the Christian filmmaking industry.

A friend came to see me a few weeks ago, and in the natural course of our lengthy, very pleasant conversation, our talk shifted from one subject to the next until we found ourselves talking about, of all things, vacuum cleaners. He immediately set off into a wildly descriptive monologue extolling the virtues of the most amazing vacuum cleaner of which I had ever heard. By the time he was finished telling me about all the really great things it could do, I could hardly wait to buy one for myself. I was really grateful he had shared with me information that I might not have been able to get from someone else who hadn’t experienced what that machine could really do and how it could change my life.

Then I got a kick in the stomach I wasn’t expecting.

He offered to sell me one of those amazing vacuum cleaners at a one-time-only, today-only, low, low price of $69.95.

At the end of our conversation, I realized, sadly, that maybe he really wasn’t my friend at all. Everything that led up to his final sales pitch had simply been a manipulation designed to prepare me for a successful conclusion to his carefully constructed presentation.

Filmmakers producing movies with a Christian message have fallen prey to this same kind of hidden-agenda storytelling, and viewers are rejecting the sales pitch—and the movies. Many times, the Christian filmmaking industry is so intent with what they want to happen after a film is viewed—namely the viewer falling to their knees to accept the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior as the credits slowly roll—that the story they use to present the message becomes secondary. To them, the message of the story, not the story itself, has become the most important element. Now, in itself, a story slanted to a particular viewpoint isn’t altogether uncommon. However, to be successful, it must be told with a no-holes-barred commitment to honesty in its presentation, or the audience can simply feel used and manipulated.

Quality writing, acting and production have taken a back seat to an all-out, get-them-in-the-end sales pitch. Unfortunately, the result is that audiences who feel manipulated and pressured are likely to reject the message altogether.

Something has to be done—and quickly—before our ability to use this format to further the Kingdom of God is lost forever.

It is time to issue a call-to-arms for all filmmakers who aspire to produce quality films that advance the cause of Christ by drawing lost souls home to the One who created them. We need films that encourage and edify believers everywhere and yet still have the ability to impact the lives of non-believers in a positive way.

How can we turn the tide? By turning our backs on mediocrity in Christian-genre filmmaking. It isn’t about BIG budgets. The hearts of searchers aren’t looking for a BIG story. They are searching for a story their hearts know is real.

Great filmmaking is a complicated, multi-faceted endeavor that can’t be oversimplified. While great marketing is as important an aspect of successful Christian films as who is involved in the production, it isn’t necessarily about how much money filmmakers spend on their productions that is the key to success. It is about telling stories about real people in real-life struggles in a way that enables viewers to discern for themselves that the real answers to life’s most difficult questions and situations can only be found in a life lived for Christ.

The Lord has a great sense of humor and the Holy Spirit certainly can—and does—use even the most poorly written, acted and produced Christian films for His purpose. But God’s message of redemption deserves our very best efforts and commitment to quality.

We serve the God of ALL creation and He lives within us. Because of this, mediocrity can never be part of our agenda. It is time makers of movies with a Christian message take that to heart and live it every day.

When are Christians going to make BIG Hollywood movies? When moviegoers support them. And that is only going to happen when Christian filmmakers properly market films based on a strong, creative and superior-quality story.

To contact David White about the views found in this article, or to find more information about his Holyman Undercover Show, visit his website www.thedavidwhiteshow.com.

David White has been a working actor and producer in Los Angeles for over ten years. He was raised in a small farming town outside of Dodge City, Kansas. He went to school in Chicago, then moved to Los Angeles to pursue his dream in the film industry. At 19, David jumped right into the business. Just six months after moving, David landed a recurring role on Evening Shade with Burt Reynolds for four years. David then went on to guest appearances on such shows as: Coach, Saved by the Bell, Sisters, Melrose Place, Martial Law and many others. (Pictured: Burt Reynalds and David White).

In 2000, he produced and starred in Mercy Streets opposite Eric Roberts, Stacy Keach and Cynthia Watros. In 2003, he produced and starred in SIX...the Mark Unleashed opposite Stephen Baldwin and Eric Roberts. In 2004, David produced and starred in the thriller Ghost Soldiers opposite Viscellous Shannon (The Hurricane). This film is still in Post Production. David’s Company currently is in post production on the Frank Peretti film, The Visitation. It stars Edward Furlong, Kelly Lynch and Martin Donovin. "This film is set to be released June, 2005."

Currently David is in Pre Production on the Vietnam film "To the Wall" and also starring in his own One Man Show, The David White Show: Holy Man Undercover! It is a cross between the HBO comedy specials (Robin Williams, Chris Rock etc…) meets a multi-media Vegas routine.

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This story is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of the ASSIST News Service or ASSIST Ministries.

Interview with Don Hahn

2005-06-09T15:19:00.000+12:00

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

THE SECOND GOLDEN AGE OF ANIMATION: AN INTERVIEW WITH DON HAHN
From: SO YOU WANT TO BE IN PICTURES? -- Interviews and Articles By and About Key Men and Women in the Entertainment Industry

By Dr. Ted Baehr, Publisher of MOVIEGUIDE®

HOLLYWOOD, CA (ANS) -- EDITOR’S NOTE: This insightful article complements Dr. Ted Baehr’s new book SO YOU WANT TO BE IN PICTURES? It is available in a special section of www.movieguide.org to everyone who buys the book. SO YOU WANT TO BE IN PICTURES? is a comprehensive book on movies that every Christian interested in becoming involved in the entertainment industry and every Christian who wants to redeem the entertainment industry (and the culture!) will want to read. It shows Christians how to use their faith to change the culture of Hollywood and how to develop their screenwriting, acting, directing, producing, and behind-the-scenes interests. Some of the best and the brightest people of faith and values in the entertainment industry share their secrets of how to make a great blockbuster movie!

Over the last fifteen years, worldwide audiences have been thrilled by the stunning, memorable family movies entitled, WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT,HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. These movies boasted several “firsts” in the areas of animation technology advances, digital enhancements, and colorization.

The producer of these movies, as well as other beloved classics such as LION KING, EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE and ATLANTIS, is the talented Don Hahn, of the Walt Disney Company.

Don attended Cal State Northridge as a music major and art minor. “I never studied film. I studied opera, musical theatre, and orchestras, and I was always interested in storytelling, drawing, painting, and color theory. I saw the art side of movies as more of an inspiration than the story side. I think movies can be too self-referential sometimes… too insular. I get inspiration from life, nature, other characters and people. I think there are more interesting ways to make films… films inspired by reality.”

Producers are Coaches

Don feels that his job most closely resembles that of a coach on a football team. “I’m not calling plays or passing the ball, but in every way I’m responsible for pulling a team together, creating the project, creating the idea, encouraging the gifts and talents that help the team work together. I’m coaching them to get the best work out of them. I get to work with amazing people. They’re the best musicians, artists, and technical people in the world. We all work much better together than separately; no one could make a movie alone. Joint collaboration makes a movie great. I especially appreciate my core team – the storyteller and songwriter of each project. If we understand each other, it’s powerful. I feel lucky to have them in my life.”

Favorites Project vs. Best Experience

When asked what his favorite project has been, Don responds with, “Oh, that’s hard. That’s like asking ‘Who’s your favorite child?’ I guess if I were pushed I’d have to say BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. I had a great team, the response was so great, it won Best Picture nomination, and it had fantastic direction and lots of innovations. It was an interesting time back in ’91.”

Don feels that it’s less about favorites, though, and more about quality of experience. “With ROGER RABBIT, LION KING and THE HAUNTED MANSION, I learned so much. I worked with different teams and very different stories. Each project had different stories that surrounded it, and each gave me great life experiences that I drew from on subsequent projects. I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to produce films that involve both live action and animation, and I know it’s rare that I’ve gotten to work with both. MARY POPPINS was both, and that always inspired me. I produced ROGER RABBIT, and PETE'S DRAGON, which were both the combination deal. It was a lot of fun.”

It’s all About Talent

When asked about the potential for people of faith to get involved in Hollywood, Don responded with, “There’s an open door for people of talent. There are no barriers beyond that, honestly. There are many people of many varieties of faith – Christian, Muslim, and Jewish, who are all very successful, but it has little or nothing to do with their faith. Hollywood’s all about talent. A person who has an interesting idea or perspective, has done his homework, and learned the craft of filmmaking, that’s what it’s about. It’s all about the talent and ability to deliver something fresh and entertaining.”

Find a Like-Minded Environment, If Possible

According to Don, Disney is naturally a family medium, in keeping with his faith and values. “It’s not often that moral dilemmas come up in my environment. It’s the reason I work at Disney. I could have worked and still can work anywhere else, but there’s a great spirit in this company, and the kinds of movies they promote make it a great place for people with strong values to function well.”

“PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, FINDING NEMO and MIRACLE are all examples of fun, cool-to-watch, incredibly successful films financially. They’re also spiritually connected, positive family movies about overcoming obstacles. Our movies are always obstacle-related, not faith-related or religion-related. Though like any other company, there’s plenty of great water-cooler talk about politics and religion, that’s not what our work is about. Sure we’re humans that read the paper, watch TV, and like to gossip. But if you want to know the truth, most of us who work here are stuck in a state of perpetual adolescence. We’re kids, so we tell stories and make movies about pigs and lions and little lost fish. We dream in ‘cartoon’ at night.”

Excellence Rules

Don Hahn believes that producing animation and live action movies takes a combination of talent, skill, and luck. “Luck is being in the right place and right time. You have to understand the industry enough so that you’re not stunned. It’s a business, and it depends on excellence and quality to make money. Make yourself excellent. Hire the job candidate who is most excellent – the one with the best qualities, instincts, and knowledge. Don’t skip the knowledge part just because it’s not fun. Don’t be like the piano player that doesn’t want to practice his scales. Spend time learning, drawing, understanding the craft, seeking out mentors, and immersing yourself in the industry.”

Never Give Up!

In order to make it in the industry, believes Don, one must find his natural talents and gain knowledge of his craft. It takes persistence and patience, he says, so most don’t stick it out. “They give up. But that’s part of the talent, is persisting. I’ve had to persist through a lot of seemingly closed doors in my day, and there’s always a level of frustration in every endeavor, but I’m fortunate to have known the people I’ve known and that I’ve made it long enough to have done the things I’ve done. Persistence is definitely the key.”

Be Relevant

The common thread in great movies, says Don, is relevance. “So often movies and stories are told that are unrelateable to mainstream audiences. They’re distant and abstract. The audience has to relate to the characters on the screen, whether it’s an animated elephant or a live pirate character. In good movies audiences have some feelings about the protagonist’s dilemma. If they can’t understand the characters, or they’re unredeemable jerks, audiences will feel squeamish, frustrated, even let down. If they’re not real enough, they’re not relateable, and you’ve got a bad movie.”

Transcend Targeting

When asked what the major target audience is for his films, Don says, “I never try to have a conversation about target audience. A good movie, or a satisfying movie, transcends the idea of a target audience. For instance no one liked Lizzy McGuire more than me. Good movies don’t punish parents; they’re as entertaining for the parents as the kids. Yes, we do have generalities of targets, but the most successful movies are relateable to audiences from 6 to 85. For example, in LORD OF THE RINGS one can’t point to the film and say, ‘This was our target audience.’ It was for all of us. Just like the majority of the movies Disney produces.”

No Bad Dreams

The goal of a good Disney film is to excite and entertain, but not truly scare, it would seem to at least one of its producers. “Intense movies really bother me,” admits Don. “It’s a personal thing. For instance, BRAVEHEART was a work of powerful filmmaking, but the graphic images stayed with me for a long time. I just don’t think people need that gratuitous violence in their gray matter.”

It’s Not Called “Show Friends!”

Producer Hahn reminds us Hollywood wannabes that the entertainment industry is, indeed, a business. “Movies have to, for most part, be profitable. That’s the goal. Sure, there are some rare exceptions, like the movies made simply for the art, but the entertainment industry has to have profitability at its heart. Financiers want to know, ‘Is this movie relevant? Excellent in quality?’ People don’t want to pay $10 and feel ripped off. They want to come away saying, ‘I loved those characters.’ Where quality and entertainment meet in a movie, the money will follow.”

Most animated movies are made from between $15 and $100 million dollars, says Don. “One of lowest, most restricted budgets I had was with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. We had to do so much corner cutting, put in overtime… It was a pressured financial situation. We had to make something fantastic for a low price. As the producer, I had to be responsible to that, to understand the business of it all.”

It’s Big Bucks, Folks

When asked about the expenses on an animated film, Don tells us “Big money goes to the labor pool of animators, and the voice cast would be a more minimal cost. We’re paying people to sit at a drawing board and painstakingly draw out each scene. For instance, there were close to 600 animators per major movie about years ago, but now the movies require less due to the impact and efficiency of computerized animation advances. Other crew needed for an animated picture include musicians, sound effects guys, or “Foley artists.” In THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, we used thirty animators and one hundred clean up people, or the folks who draw in the details after the initial rough drawings.”

In-House Development Works

Don and his team don’t get many scripts sent to them, they say, mainly because they don’t solicit from outside sources. Don develops projects himself with writers, and mostly does movies based on favorite kids’ books. ATLANTIS was an original, but HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, LION KING and ROGER RABBIT were novels. LION KING was also adapted from a novel. “You never know where the stories are coming from. We rarely read anything from the outside. We’re more likely to find good ideas and hire writers to carry them through. Actually, the writer on HUNCHBACK was a first time screenwriter. He had been an intern and Disney, then a staff writer. Then, we just trusted him with a big one. Obviously, he did a great job.”

And just as obviously, Don Hahn does a great job as he continues to entertain the world with his colorful, well-produced Disney animated classics. More, more, more!

* * *
EDITOR’S NOTE: If you appreciated this article and want to know more about how you can redeem the mass media of entertainment and/or become involved in the entertainment industry, please read SO YOU WANT TO BE IN PICTURES? Dr. Baehr’s book is available in bookstores and at www.movieguide.org. When you buy a copy you get access to many informative articles from top Hollywood talent and executives.

* * *

(c) baehr, 2005

NOTE from Dr. Ted Baehr: For more information from a Christian perspective, order the latest MOVIEGUIDE® magazine by calling 1-800-899-6684(MOVI) or visit our website at www.movieguide.org. MOVIEGUIDE® is dedicated to redeeming the values of Hollywood by informing parents about today's movies and entertainment and by showing media executives and artists that family-friendly and even Christian-friendly movies do best at the box office year in and year out. MOVIEGUIDE® now offers an online subscription to its magazine version, at www.movieguide.org. The magazine, which comes out 25 times a year, contains many informative articles and reviews that help parents train their children to be media-wise consumers. MOVIEGUIDE® also regularly broadcasts several international TV and radio programs hosted by Dr. Baehr. Also, if you want to train your family to be media-wise, call 1-800-899-6684 in North America to order the book, video or audio version of THE MEDIA-WISE! FAMILY, Dr. Ted Baehr's latest book. © baehr, 2001

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The Music Baton

2005-06-01T09:04:00.000+12:00

I got this from Sandra ages ago, and haven't posted anything about it until I bought some more CDs! ;)

I don't know any bloggers well enough to pass this on direct, but if you're reading this and you have a blog - consider the baton passed! Put something similar on your own blog and link to it in the comments here.

Total Volume of Music Files on my Computer:
I have 130 hours of music ... 6.8 Gigs... so I haven't got as many as Sandra. Yet :)

The Last CD I Bought was:
Whew. I bought about 7 in one sitting... they were (from memory)

The Matrix Reloaded theme music
The Matrix Revolutions theme music
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace theme music (fantastic!)
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers theme music
"Shine" soundtrack

(getting the idea I like movie soundtracks? They're magnificent for creative inspiration. But that's not all, I also got:

13 Years of Herbs
Bob Marley the Early Years (or similar)
Katchafire single (Giddy-Up)
King Kapisi Single (Reverse Resistance) - that guy is so talented

Song playing right now:
Anakin's theme from The Phantom Menace (well, actually the TV's on, but that was the last song playing)

I've also got lots of music recorded off vinyl LPs - some vintage Christian music (2nd chapter of Acts, Barry McGuire, Phil Keaggy), some classical stuff (a lot actually, lots of Beethoven), and some sort of nice old music (Barbara Streisand, John Denver, Neil Diamond).

5 Songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me:
"Painting Pictures of Egypt" by Sara Groves
"Grace by which I stand" by Keith Green
"Jesus Walks" by Kanye West
"Orange Crush" by REM
"Mezzamorphis" by Delirious

Actually, I don't listen to any of those that often, but me and them go back a long way, and they have all helped me.

Now you've read this, the baton is in your hand!

Fragmentary Book Review: Memory & Identity, by Pope John Paul II

2005-05-20T22:21:00.000+12:00

I'm not a Catholic, and unlikely to ever be one, but I enjoyed some of the reflections in Memory and Identity, a sort of memoir by the late Pope John Paul II.

Some of it was particularly hard to understand, using theological terms I'm not familiar with. Plus phrases in latin that I never learnt in high school latin!

But one particular piece leapt off the page and into my heart. It was a wonderful description by John Paul of what God does in redemption:

"In Jesus Christ, God bends down over man to hold out a hand to him, to raise him up and to help him continue his journey with renewed strength. Man cannot get back on his feet unaided: he needs the help of the Holy Spirit. If he refuses this help, he commits what Christ called 'the blasphemy against the Spirit', the sin which 'will not be forgiven' (Matt. 12:31)

Why will it not be forgiven? Because it means there is no desire for pardon. Man refuses the love and the mercy of God, since he believes himself to be God. He believes himself to be capable of self-sufficiency."

That was the most eloquent - and strikingly simple - description of what the unforgivable sin is, and why, that I've ever heard. And this in a book that in other spots is too complex for me.

It's worth plugging through the difficult bits, though, because this Pope lived through unprecedented times in world history, and he talks about living in Poland under the Nazis, and then under the Communists.

It's a refreshingly real look at how faith goes into action, how our faith can engage with philosophy and the issues of the 'real' world.

So, whether you're Catholic or not (I'd like to be one with a small 'c' - meaning 'universal') I recommend you grab a copy of Memory and Identity, and let it make you think.

Letting go - shouldn't be that hard!

2005-05-20T22:10:00.001+12:00

Marie and I were reading 1 Kings 9 the other day, and particularly God's conversation with King Solomon after he built the Temple.

Basically God lays out the contract, a renewal of the contract Moses brought in the book of Deuteronomy.

"Solomon, if you and your people serve me faithfully, I'll look after you and make your nation great and you'll always have a descendant on the throne.

"But Sol, if you and your people fail me, and go after idols, and follow your own will instead of mine, this big 'ol Temple won't mean a hill of beans. It'll be an astonishing ruin, a spectacle, a marvel of horror for all to see. Because it's not about the building; it's about the heart."

We were thinking how it must've been for God to lay this out, knowing full well that the second scenario - disobedience and failure - was going to happen.

How hard must it have been for God (just thinking on a human level here, bear with me) to let Solomon have free will, even as He's laying out these conditions. Or even to not add in rejoiners like: "If you and your people fail me - and you will!"

No, God laid it out as if it was fully up to Solomon and the people. And it was. It's the old predestination vs. free will argument. There is no vs. It really does work both ways. We have complete freedom to do whatever; God knows exactly what will happen because He is outside of time, and able to organise whatever He wants.

So I was thinking ... how come we say it's hard to let go and let God?

Especially when:

He's perfect
He knows everything
He does everything well

Meanwhile God gives us free will, when:

We're imperfect
We don't know much at all (compared to knowing everything, that is!)
We don't do much that well (compared to utter perfection)

So I think God deserves a lot of credit, continually giving us the freedom to go get ourselves in trouble every day, and rescuing us when we need it, because He knows who of us will turn our lives over to Him. And He lives for that relationship ... God, that's AMAZING!

Letting go - shouldn't be that hard!

2005-05-20T22:10:00.000+12:00

He's perfect
He knows everything
He does everything well

Meanwhile God gives us free will, when:

We're imperfect
We don't know much at all (compared to knowing everything, that is!)
We don't do much that well (compared to utter perfection)

I like Jesus

2005-05-20T22:00:00.000+12:00

(Thoughts from reading Luke 9)

I like Jesus. Of course, I love Him (though having not seen Him I am filled with joy unspeakable, etc. etc.) ... but I'm getting to the stage of liking Him a lot as well.

I like the go-to-parties-with-sinners, understanding my weakness and forgiving my sins Jesus (especially the forgiving my sins part!). But there's another side too - the frightening side, like when he suddenly starts glowing on a mountaintop, a Voice is heard from heaven, and long-dead prophets appear.

Peter, James and John must have been thoroughly spooked as they walked down the mountain. It just got spookier, as Jesus ran a demon out of a boy who was suffering big time.

And then Jesus gets all demanding. He says things like "Follow me" and "Are you ready to rough it?"

And then there are comments in scripture I can really relate to, like "They didn't get what he was saying. It was like he was speaking a foreign language and they couldn't make heads or tails of it. But they were embarrassed to ask him what he meant."

Ooh yeah, I know what that's like.

But I'm getting to like this frightening, demanding Jesus. Because He knows what He's doing. He has an agenda, a definite plan.

That's the kind of Jesus that I have to decide - will I follow Him, or not?

More on the Crusades from Ted Baehr

2005-05-17T15:40:00.000+12:00

My education continues without me even looking for it! Another scathing review of Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven from my favourite fundamentalist film critic, Ted Baehr. It's long, but worth the read!

SELF-HATE, REVISIONIST HISTORY AND CHRISTOPHOBIA IN THE MOVIE “KINGDOM OF HEAVEN”

By Dr. Ted Baehr, Publisher of MOVIEGUIDE®

HOLLYWOOD, CA (ANS) -- The New York Times bemoans "Hollywood Worries as Decline Continues" in an article by Sharon Waxman on May 10, 2005, wherein she pointed out that "the poor box-office performance last weekend of the first major film of the summer, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, released by 20th Century Fox, made for 11 weeks in a row of declining movie attendance and revenue compared with last year." The Times fails to consider that the problem is that the average American does not like the politically correct, breast-beating, Christian bashing revisionist history.

In a May 5, 2005 article by Christopher Howse titled "The Crusaders Were Right After All," British newspaper The Telegraph revealed the heart of the problem audiences are having with the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. It quoted director Ridley Scott saying that the Knights Templar were the "Right-wing or Christian fundamentalists of their day." Ridley continued, "If we could just take God out of the equation, there'd be no f---ing problem."

Just who are and were the Christian fundamentalists of our day? Pope John Paul II, who revived the faith of millions; Mother Teresa, who lived out the Gospel; Pat Robertson, who has brought Christian relief throughout the world; and Dr. James Dobson, who has helped millions of families. Are these the people who have caused the world’s problems according to Sir Ridley?

How did they cause the problems when the real villains were the anti-Christian atheists such as Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao, who killed and enslaved millions, and the occultists like Hitler, who killed millions and tried to exterminate God’s people, and the false religious fanatics like the Taliban, who cut off peoples’ hands and executed them for sport?

In fact, Ridley is wrong about history, about Christians, and about the tensions in the Middle East. As the Telegraph points out, "A more realistic view of history requires less retrospective fantasy and more brain work. It means forcing our heads round to see what motivated men and women centuries ago. Try thinking the unthinkable - that the Crusaders were right, and that we should be grateful to them."

As our friend James D. Davis of the Sun-Sentinel, wrote:

"I agreed with Tom Snyder’s assessment, below. I also note that KINGDOM OF HEAVEN showed the Christian communities as hotbeds of scheming and hypocrisy. The more religious a Christian was, the more bigoted and cowardly he was. The Muslims, on the other hand, all got to be brave and true and religious, too. Yet Jeremy Irons said the movie didn’t paint one side or the other as the villains. If that was balance, I’d like to know his idea of bias.

"There were factual errors, too. A historian (Paul M. Cobb of Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute) told me that the Knights Templar never raided caravans; as an elite corps, they would have considered that to be beneath them. He also said Balian wasn’t a blacksmith; he was born into a royal family. The movie had Balian viewing the Dome of the Rock from outside Jerusalem’s walls; apparently the Mount of Olives and the Kidron Valley hadn’t been created yet. Balian also prayed at the site of Calvary overlooking the city; in the real Jerusalem, the church is street level, dwarfed by Mount Zion and the Temple Mount.

"It’s funny that the movie’s production notes rave about Ridley Scott’s attention to historical detail — down to a wasp trap in a corner — but he let those gaffes get by."

Even the entertainment industry rag Variety noted on May 8, 2005 that KINGDOM OF HEAVEN short-changed history, with the comment, "The film has also been dogged in recent months by accusations that it short-shrifts real history. Jonathon Riley-Smith, one of Britain's leading authorities on the Crusades, labeled it 'Osama Bin Laden's version of history' and said, 'It will fuel the Islamic fundamentalists.'"

In his article “The Real History of the Crusades,” Professor Thomas F. Madden points out: Many historians had been trying to set the record straight on the Crusades long before [The President] discovered them. They are not revisionists, like the American historians who manufactured the Enola Gay exhibit, but mainstream scholars offering the fruit of several decades of very careful, very serious scholarship. For them, this is a "teaching moment," an opportunity to explain the Crusades while people are actually listening. It won’t last long, so here goes.

Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, “The Crusades”, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity—and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion—has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.

With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed’s death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt—once the most heavily Christian areas in the world—quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to push back the conquests of Islam at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The response was tremendous. Many thousands of warriors took the vow of the cross and prepared for war. Why did they do it? The answer to that question has been badly misunderstood. In the wake of the Enlightenment, it was usually asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and ne’er-do-wells who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a faraway land. The Crusaders’ expressed sentiments of piety, self-sacrifice, and love for God were obviously not to be taken seriously. They were only a front for darker designs.

During the past two decades, computer-assisted charter studies have demolished that contrivance. Scholars have discovered that crusading knights were generally wealthy men with plenty of their own land in Europe. Nevertheless, they willingly gave up everything to undertake the holy mission. Crusading was not cheap. Even wealthy lords could easily impoverish themselves and their families by joining a Crusade. They did so not because they expected material wealth (which many of them had already) but because they hoped to store up treasure where rust and moth could not corrupt. They were keenly aware of their sinfulness and eager to undertake the hardships of the Crusade as a penitential act of charity and love. Europe is littered with thousands of medieval charters attesting to these sentiments, charters in which these men still speak to us today if we will listen. Of course, they were not opposed to capturing booty if it could be had. But the truth is that the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast majority returned with nothing.

Urban II gave the Crusaders two goals, both of which would remain central to the eastern Crusades for centuries. The first was to rescue the Christians of the East. As his successor, Pope Innocent III, later wrote:

“How does a man love according to divine precept his neighbor as himself when, knowing that his Christian brothers in faith and in name are held by the perfidious Muslims in strict confinement and weighed down by the yoke of heaviest servitude, he does not devote himself to the task of freeing them? ...Is it by chance that you do not know that many thousands of Christians are bound in slavery and imprisoned by the Muslims, tortured with innumerable torments?”

"Crusading," Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith has rightly argued, was understood as an "an act of love"—in this case, the love of one’s neighbor. The Crusade was seen as an errand of mercy to right a terrible wrong. As Pope Innocent III wrote to the Knights Templar, "You carry out in deeds the words of the Gospel, ‘Greater love than this hath no man, that he lay down his life for his friends.’"

The second goal was the liberation of Jerusalem and the other places made holy by the life of Christ. The word crusade is modern. Medieval Crusaders saw themselves as pilgrims, performing acts of righteousness on their way to the Holy Sepulcher. The Crusade indulgence they received was canonically related to the pilgrimage indulgence. This goal was frequently described in feudal terms. When calling the Fifth Crusade in 1215, Innocent III wrote:

“Consider most dear sons, consider carefully that if any temporal king was thrown out of his domain and perhaps captured, would he not, when he was restored to his pristine liberty and the time had come for dispensing justice look on his vassals as unfaithful and traitors...unless they had committed not only their property but also their persons to the task of freeing him? ...And similarly will not Jesus Christ, the king of kings and lord of lords, whose servant you cannot deny being, who joined your soul to your body, who redeemed you with the Precious Blood...condemn you for the vice of ingratitude and the crime of infidelity if you neglect to help Him?”

The reconquest of Jerusalem, therefore, was not colonialism but an act of restoration and an open declaration of one’s love of God. Medieval men knew, of course, that God had the power to restore Jerusalem Himself—indeed, He had the power to restore the whole world to His rule. Yet as St. Bernard of Clairvaux preached, His refusal to do so was a blessing to His people:

“Again I say, consider the Almighty’s goodness and pay heed to His plans of mercy. He puts Himself under obligation to you, or rather feigns to do so, that He can help you to satisfy your obligations toward Himself.... I call blessed the generation that can seize an opportunity of such rich indulgence as this.”

It is often assumed that the central goal of the Crusades was forced conversion of the Muslim world. Nothing could be further from the truth. >From the perspective of medieval Christians, Muslims were the enemies of Christ and His Church. It was the Crusaders’ task to defeat and defend against them. That was all. Muslims who lived in Crusader-won territories were generally allowed to retain their property and livelihood, and always their religion. …

By any reckoning, the First Crusade was a long shot. There was no leader, no chain of command, no supply lines, no detailed strategy. It was simply thousands of warriors marching deep into enemy territory, committed to a common cause. Many of them died, either in battle or through disease or starvation. It was a rough campaign, one that seemed always on the brink of disaster. Yet it was miraculously successful. By 1098, the Crusaders had restored Nicaea and Antioch to Christian rule. In July 1099, they conquered Jerusalem and began to build a Christian state in Palestine. The joy in Europe was unbridled. It seemed that the tide of history, which had lifted the Muslims to such heights, was now turning.

But it was not. When we think about the Middle Ages, it is easy to view Europe in light of what it became rather than what it was. The colossus of the medieval world was Islam, not Christendom. The Crusades are interesting largely because they were an attempt to counter that trend. But in five centuries of crusading, it was only the First Crusade that significantly rolled back the military progress of Islam. It was downhill from there.

When the Crusader County of Edessa fell to the Turks and Kurds in 1144, there was an enormous groundswell of support for a new Crusade in Europe. It was led by two kings, Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, and preached by St. Bernard himself. It failed miserably. Most of the Crusaders were killed along the way. Those who made it to Jerusalem only made things worse by attacking Muslim Damascus, which formerly had been a strong ally of the Christians. In the wake of such a disaster, Christians across Europe were forced to accept not only the continued growth of Muslim power but the certainty that God was punishing the West for its sins. Lay piety movements sprouted up throughout Europe, all rooted in the desire to purify Christian society so that it might be worthy of victory in the East.

Crusading in the late twelfth century, therefore, became a total war effort. Every person, no matter how weak or poor, was called to help. Warriors were asked to sacrifice their wealth and, if need be, their lives for the defense of the Christian East. On the home front, all Christians were called to support the Crusades through prayer, fasting, and alms. Yet still the Muslims grew in strength. Saladin, the great unifier, had forged the Muslim Near East into a single entity, all the while preaching jihad against the Christians. In 1187 at the Battle of Hattin, his forces wiped out the combined armies of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem and captured the precious relic of the True Cross. Defenseless, the Christian cities began surrendering one by one, culminating in the surrender of Jerusalem on October 2. Only a tiny handful of ports held out.

The response was the Third Crusade. It was led by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa of the German Empire, King Philip II Augustus of France, and King Richard I Lionheart of England. By any measure it was a grand affair, although not quite as grand as the Christians had hoped. The aged Frederick drowned while crossing a river on horseback, so his army returned home before reaching the Holy Land. Philip and Richard came by boat, but their incessant bickering only added to an already divisive situation on the ground in Palestine. After recapturing Acre, the king of France went home, where he busied himself carving up Richard’s French holdings. The Crusade, therefore, fell into Richard’s lap. A skilled warrior, gifted leader, and superb tactician, Richard led the Christian forces to victory after victory, eventually reconquering the entire coast. But Jerusalem was not on the coast, and after two abortive attempts to secure supply lines to the Holy City, Richard at last gave up. Promising to return one day, he struck a truce with Saladin that ensured peace in the region and free access to Jerusalem for unarmed pilgrims. But it was a bitter pill to swallow. The desire to restore Jerusalem to Christian rule and regain the True Cross remained intense throughout Europe.

The Crusades of the 13th century were larger, better funded, and better organized. But they too failed. The Fourth Crusade (1201-1204) ran aground when it was seduced into a web of Byzantine politics, which the Westerners never fully understood. They had made a detour to Constantinople to support an imperial claimant who promised great rewards and support for the Holy Land. Yet once he was on the throne of the Caesars, their benefactor found that he could not pay what he had promised. Thus betrayed by their Greek friends, in 1204 the Crusaders attacked, captured, and brutally sacked Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world. Pope Innocent III, who had previously excommunicated the entire Crusade, strongly denounced the Crusaders. But there was little else he could do. The tragic events of 1204 closed an iron door between Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox, a door that even today Pope John Paul II has been unable to reopen. It is a terrible irony that the Crusades, which were a direct result of the Catholic desire to rescue the Orthodox people, drove the two further—and perhaps irrevocably—apart.

The remainder of the 13th century’s Crusades did little better. The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221) managed briefly to capture Damietta in Egypt, but the Muslims eventually defeated the army and reoccupied the city. St. Louis IX of France led two Crusades in his life. The first also captured Damietta, but Louis was quickly outwitted by the Egyptians and forced to abandon the city. Although Louis was in the Holy Land for several years, spending freely on defensive works, he never achieved his fondest wish: to free Jerusalem. He was a much older man in 1270 when he led another Crusade to Tunis, where he died of a disease that ravaged the camp. After St. Louis’s death, the ruthless Muslim leaders, Baybars and Kalavun, waged a brutal jihad against the Christians in Palestine. By 1291, the Muslim forces had succeeded in killing or ejecting the last of the Crusaders, thus erasing the Crusader kingdom from the map. Despite numerous attempts and many more plans, Christian forces were never again able to gain a foothold in the region until the 19th century.

One might think that three centuries of Christian defeats would have soured Europeans on the idea of Crusade. Not at all. In one sense, they had little alternative. Muslim kingdoms were becoming more, not less, powerful in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The Ottoman Turks conquered not only their fellow Muslims, thus further unifying Islam, but also continued to press westward, capturing Constantinople and plunging deep into Europe itself. By the 15th century, the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive. Europeans began to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally achieve its aim of conquering the entire Christian world. One of the great best-sellers of the time, Sebastian Brant’s The Ship of Fools, gave voice to this sentiment in a chapter titled "Of the Decline of the Faith":

Our faith was strong in th’ Orient,
It ruled in all of Asia,
In Moorish lands and Africa.
But now for us these lands are gone
’Twould even grieve the hardest stone....
Four sisters of our Church you find,
They’re of the patriarchic kind:
Constantinople, Alexandria,
Jerusalem, Antiochia.
But they’ve been forfeited and sacked
And soon the head will be attacked.

Yet, even while these close shaves were taking place, something else was brewing in Europe—something unprecedented in human history. The Renaissance, born from a strange mixture of Roman values, medieval piety, and a unique respect for commerce and entrepreneurialism, had led to other movements like humanism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Age of Exploration. Even while fighting for its life, Europe was preparing to expand on a global scale. The Protestant Reformation, which rejected the papacy and the doctrine of indulgence, made Crusades unthinkable for many Europeans, thus leaving the fighting to the Catholics. In 1571, a Holy League, which was itself a Crusade, defeated the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto. Yet military victories like that remained rare. The Muslim threat was neutralized economically. As Europe grew in wealth and power, the once awesome and sophisticated Turks began to seem backward and pathetic—no longer worth a Crusade. The "Sick Man of Europe" limped along until the 20th century, when he finally expired, leaving behind the present mess of the modern Middle East.

From the safe distance of many centuries, it is easy enough to scowl in disgust at the Crusades. Religion, after all, is nothing to fight wars over. But we should be mindful that our medieval ancestors would have been equally disgusted by our infinitely more destructive wars fought in the name of political ideologies. And yet, both the medieval and the modern soldier fight ultimately for their own world and all that makes it up. Both are willing to suffer enormous sacrifice, provided that it is in the service of something they hold dear, something greater than themselves. Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. The ancient faith of Christianity, with its respect for women and antipathy toward slavery, not only survived but flourished. Without the Crusades, it might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam’s rivals, into extinction.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Thomas F. Madden is associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University. He is the author of numerous works, including A Concise History of the Crusades, and co-author, with Donald Queller, of The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople.

In another article, “Crusade Propaganda: The Abuse of Christianity's Holy Wars,” Prof. Madden adds:

Which brings us back to the crusades. If the Muslims won the crusades (and they did), why the anger now? Shouldn't they celebrate the crusades as a great victory? Until the nineteenth century that is precisely what they did. It was the West that taught the Middle East to hate the crusades. During the peak of European colonialism, historians began extolling the medieval crusades as Europe's first colonial venture. By the 20th century, when imperialism was discredited, so too were the crusades. They haven't been the same since. In other words, Muslims in the Middle East - including bin Laden and his creatures - know as little about the real crusades as Americans do. Both view them in the context of the modern, rather than the medieval world. The truth is that the crusades had nothing to do with colonialism or unprovoked aggression. They were a desperate and largely unsuccessful attempt to defend against a powerful enemy.

That's the thing about bin Laden, he is a troublesome mix of the modern and the medieval. He and his lieutenants regularly fulminate about the "nation," a reference to a Muslim political unity that died in the seventh century. They evoke an image of the crusades colored with the legacy of modern imperialism. And they call for jihad, demanding that every Muslim in the world take part. In short, they live in a dream world, a desert cloister where the last thousand years only partially happened.

Looking at the real history, all the mumbling about tolerance is wishful thinking. Islam has been on the march for centuries, believing rightly or wrongly that it is the Truth. Wishing otherwise will not make it so.

In the Ivy League, many years ago, classes on comparative religion used a text by Walter Kaufmann, Religions in Four Dimensions: Existential, Aesthetic, Historical, Comparative (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976). On page 186, Mr. Kaufman notes:

“When Muhammad came to Medina and found that the many well-to-do Jews there rejected his religion, his doctrines changed. Henceforth the kibla, the direction taken during prayer, was changed from Jerusalem to Mecca, the old Arab sanctuary that Muhammad hoped to conquer one day. (When he did conquer it, he smashed the idols but kept much of the old ritual.) The day of prayer was changed from the Jewish Sabbath to Friday. Yom Kippur ceased to be a holiday, and Ramadan, the month of fasting, was introduced. Of the Jewish dietary laws, he kept only a few, notably the prohibition against pork and blood. In the process Islam was transformed. In the Koran Jerusalem is never named expressly, but the change of the kibla is discussed in the second sura (142ff.): “The fools among men will ask: What has turned them from the kibla they used to observe? Reply: To Allah belong east and west…” Formerly, Muhammad explained, he had wanted to see who followed him and who did not; for no Arab adopted the first kibla when he prayed, except his followers. But henceforth everyone should turn in the direction of Mecca. Tradition has it, and scholars agree, that the first kibla was to Jerusalem, the second to Mecca. At that point Islam began to appeal to Arab feelings and traditions. Instead of simply deriding the Arabs’ old religion, the Prophet now could claim some continuity with it; it only needed to be purified. The relationship to Judaism and Christianity was undeniable; but the revelations granted to Muhammad surpassed those of all previous prophets, and Islam now claimed to supersede both Judaism and Christianity, as Christianity had claimed earlier that it superseded Judaism.

“If all this seems reasonable enough and one recalls further that after his arrival in Medina, Muhammad found work for his followers by raiding caravans and blockading Mecca, prompted in part by his own desire for revenge against those who had not accepted his religion, it is hardly astonishing that Muhammad also attacked the Jews, dispossessed them, drove them from Medina, waged war against them elsewhere, killed large numbers of them, and – in the long run this proved even more unfortunate – said some very unkind things about them that became part of the Holy Scripture of Islam. Perhaps, they had said some very unkind things about him first without foreseeing that his retorts would soon be accepted as divine revelation by people from Spain in the West to the borders of India in the East, and eventually even much further east than that. And when he killed Jews, that also was recorded in the Koran. If the giving of the Koran to Muhammad, bit by bit, was a miracle, it seems no less a miracle that although the Koran was accepted as divine revelation by the Muslims they did not treat the Jews far worse than they did.”

In spite of claims that Islam is peaceful, the newspapers report almost every day that Islamic fundamentalists are killing Christians in Nigeria, Indonesia, Bosnia, the Philippines, Africa, etc. Why? Because they have a goal, and the goal is the whole world becoming Muslim.

Christians, too, have a goal – bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ – but those Christians who are wise realize that we are not fighting against men of “flesh and blood, but powers and principalities” and that the answer is evangelism, not conquest.

In spite of our tolerant revisionist history of recent years, most Americans supported the Gulf War as a liberation of occupied Kuwait from a conquering power, Iraq. Similarly, it should be noted, that when the Crusaders went to the Middle East in 1095, they thought they were liberating Christian lands from the conquering Turks, a nation of Muslims who came from Central Asia. These Middle Eastern and North African lands had been the birthplace of Christianity and had been Christian for centuries, even producing Christianity’s best and brightest theologians. Many of the towns were still over 90 percent Christian when the Crusaders arrived. Thus, the Christians who had been conquered and oppressed by the Turks in these towns welcomed the liberating Christian Crusaders from Europe. Thus, from one point of view, the battle of the Christian Crusaders was actually very similar to the action to expel Iraq from Kuwait. The Crusaders were not trying to drive Islam out of its homeland. They were trying to protect and rescue Christian countries from invading Turks who had adopted Islamic beliefs. Historian Hilaire Belloc clearly documents these facts in his book, The Crusades.

Sir Ridley should note these differences between Mohammed and Christ as pointed out by George Zeller (10/01):

Mohammed was the prophet of war; Christ is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6-7).
Mohammed's disciples killed for the faith; Christ's disciples were killed for their faith (Acts 12:2; 2 Tim. 4:7).
Mohammed promoted persecution against the "infidels"; Christ forgave and converted the chief persecutor (1 Tim. 1:13-15).
Mohammed was the taker of life; Christ was the giver of life (John 10:27-28).
Mohammed and his fellow warriors murdered thousands; Christ murdered none but saved many (compare John 12:48).
Mohammed method was COMPULSION; Christ aim was voluntary CONVERSION (Acts 3:19).
Mohammed practiced FORCE; Christ preached FAITH (John 6:29, 35).
Mohammed was a WARRIOR; Christ is a DELIVERER (Col. 1:13; 1 Thess. 1:10).
Mohammed said to the masses, "Convert or die!"; Christ said, "Believe and live!" (John 6:47; 11:25-26).
Mohammed was swift to shed blood (Rom. 3:15-17); Christ shed His own blood for the salvation of many (Eph. 1:7).
Mohammed preached "Death to the infidels!"; Christ prayed "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).
Mohammed declared a holy war (Jihad) against infidels; Christ achieved a holy victory on Calvary's cross (Col. 2:14-15) and His followers share in that victory (John 16:33).
Mohammed constrained people by conquest; Christ constrained people by love (2 Cor. 5:14).
Modern terrorists derive their inspiration from Mohammed and carry out their despicable atrocities in the name of his god;
Christians derive their inspiration from the One who said, "Blessed are the peacemakers" (Matthew 5:9).
Modern day disciples of Mohammed respond to the terrorist attacks by cheering in the streets; modern day disciples of Christ are deeply grieved at past atrocities carried out by those who were "Christians" in name only (the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, etc.).
Many Muslims are peaceful and peace-loving because they do not strictly follow the teachings of their founder; many
Christians are peaceful and peace-loving because they do strictly follow the teachings of their Founder (Rom. 12:17-21).
Mohammed called upon his servants to fight; Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world; if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight . . . but now is My kingdom not from here" (John 18:36)
Mohammed ordered death to the Jews (see A.Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, Oxford University Press [1975], p. 369);
Christ ordered that the gospel be preached "to the Jew first" (Rom. 1:16).
The Koran says, "Fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them" (Qu'ran 9.5); Christ said, "Preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15).
Mohammed's Mission was to conquer the world for Allah; Christ's mission was to conquer sin's penalty and power by substitutionary atonement (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 3:18).
Mohammed claimed that there was but one God, Allah; Christ claimed that He was God (John 10:30-31; John 8:58-59; John 5:18; John 14:9).
Mohammed's Tomb: OCCUPIED! Christ's tomb: EMPTY!

Author Peter Hammond in his article “Why Is There So Much Hostility Against the Bible and Christianity?” notes:

As for the Crusades, the fact is that the Crusades of the Middle Ages were a reaction to the centuries of Islamic Jihad. In the first century of Islam, Muslim invaders conquered the whole of the previously Christian North Africa, destroying over 3200 churches -- just in that 100 years. In the first 3 centuries of Islam, Muslim forces killed Christians, kidnapped their children to raise them as Muslims, or compelled people at the point of the sword to convert to Islam. Up to 50% of all the Christians in the world were wiped out during those 3 centuries. The Saracens (as the Muslim invaders were called) desecrated Christian places of worship and were severely persecuting Christians. Pilgrims were being prevented from visiting those places where our Lord was born, live and ministered, was crucified and raised from the dead. It was after nearly 4 centuries of Islamic Jihad that the Crusades were launched – as a reaction to Islamic Jihad.

The word Crusade does not appear in the Bible, nor is it commanded. However, Jihad is the 6th pillar of Islam and the second greatest command of Muhammad. It is not only commended, but commanded in the Quran. The Crusades ended many centuries ago, however Islamic Jihad is continuing to this day. In Muslim countries such as Sudan, Muslims continue their “Holy War” against Christians. Millions of Christians have been slaughtered through the centuries by Islamic militants – such as the one and a half Armenians murdered in Turkey in 1915. Many of them burned to death inside their church buildings.

It is Christianity and Christianity alone which ended the prevalent practices of human sacrifice and slavery. Respect for life and liberty are a fruit of Christianity. Those who today are promoting abortion, euthanasia and pornography are not offering us progress, but only a return to pre-Christian paganism.

The whole concept of charity was a Christian innovation. Before Christ, benevolence to strangers was unknown.
LEGACY OF LIBERTY

The Christian Church has made more positive changes on earth than any other force or movement in history. Most of the languages of the world were first codified and put into writing by Christian missionaries. More schools and universities have been started by Christians than by any and all other groups. The elevation of women from the second class status they were assigned to by other religions was a Christian achievement. Those countries which enjoy the most civil liberties are those lands where the Gospel of Christ has penetrated the most. Christianity gave birth to liberty. Constitutional republics, the separation of powers, limited government and freedom of conscience are a result of the Reformation.

So, I pointed out that the foundation of limited government, the Magna Carta of 1215 was written by a Christian clergyman, Steven Langton. It is the first statute, the first written restriction on the power of government. And it was firmly founded on the Scriptures, and the Common Law of England, which was written by Kind Alfred the Great. Kind Alfred began his Dooms – which were the foundations of English Common Law – with the 10 Commandments, the Exodus case laws and the Golden Rule of Christ. These documents led to the establishment of Parliament and the English Bill of Rights, which were all foundational for the American Bill of Rights and the whole concept of the separation of powers, limited government, freedom of conscience, and other essential principles of freedom - which we take for granted today.

Karl Marx declared that the first battle field was the re-writing of history. Evidently, the enemies of Christianity have been busy in our universities, in Hollywood, and in many newspapers and magazines, reconstructing peoples’ perspectives of history and reality – from an anti-Christian perspective. It is imperative that we understand the Biblical principles for all areas of life and that we know our history. More and more I see the need for producing books such as The Greatest Century of Missions and Biblical Principles for Africa. By God's grace, we have also manage to completely revise and expand the Biblical World View Manual and Reformation Conference Manual. I am also working on the Greatest Century of Reformation, and a History of the World school textbook.

We need to ensure that our children know that the teachings and example of Jesus Christ have inspired the greatest acts of generosity, hospitality, self-sacrifice and service for the sick, poor and needy. That Christianity has inspired the greatest achievements in science, art, education, economics, civil and human rights and in works of compassion and mercy. Only those ignorant of history could fail to acknowledge that Christianity has made more positive changes on earth than any other force of movement.

More importantly, it is easy for opponents of Christianity to criticize, but – what are our critics doing for the lonely, the widows, the orphans, the sick, the aged and the refugees?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Peter Hammond can be reached at Frontline Fellowship, P.O. Box 74, Newlands, 7725, Cape Town, South Africa Web: www.frontline.org.za; E-mail: admin@frontline.org.za; Tel: +27-21-689-4480

The good news is that most audiences are still media-wise enough to reject revisionist history. The problem is that the future generations could accept this politically correct, anti-Christian propaganda. Several young people have written Movieguide® who are deeply confused about these issues. Help them to be media-wise by being informed and spreading the truth to rescue them from the confusions of our age.

(c) baehr, 2005

NOTE from Dr. Ted Baehr: For more information from a Christian perspective, order the latest MOVIEGUIDE® magazine by calling 1-800-899-6684(MOVI) or visit our website at www.movieguide.org. MOVIEGUIDE® is dedicated to redeeming the values of Hollywood by informing parents about today's movies and entertainment and by showing media executives and artists that family-friendly and even Christian-friendly movies do best at the box office year in and year out. MOVIEGUIDE® now offers an online subscription to its magazine version, at www.movieguide.org. The magazine, which comes out 25 times a year, contains many informative articles and reviews that help parents train their children to be media-wise consumers. MOVIEGUIDE® also regularly broadcasts several international TV and radio programs hosted by Dr. Baehr. Also, if you want to train your family to be media-wise, call 1-800-899-6684 in North America to order the book, video or audio version of THE MEDIA-WISE! FAMILY, Dr. Ted Baehr's latest book. © baehr, 2001

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I think Ridley Scott's ostensible views pretty much reflect much Enlightenment/Post Christian thinking - a lot of hatred and problems in the world would disappear if we just "left God out of the equation."

The appeal of religions like the New Age movement and the Baha'i faith show that people are ready to embrace what they perceive to be a universal religion.

There have been times I've been tempted to go with them. After all, sometimes you have a real connection with someone from a different faith - or no faith at all - that seems spiritual, but you disagree on the details. The principles seem the same.

But the main problem comes when we try to deal with sin. What do we do with it? We've all got it, we all do it. And nobody else except Jesus deals with it satisfactorily.

That, for me, is the bottom line. And that's why I remain - however reluctantly - a fundamentalist.