Christopher Robin: A great reminder to find joy in doing nothing

Looking for that few-and-far-between good family movie to see in theaters? Let me suggest Christopher Robin, the latest Disney live action re-make of some of its most beloved characters. The story is simple and sweet, and the message the movie leaves you with is surprising Christian: "Sometimes doing nothing is the best way to do something."

It's a foreign message in our hectic, driven society. So much stock is placed in work and gain, that we forget that God calls us to rest and enjoy His good creation too. Perhaps we've forgotten whether the price we pay today for tomorrow's achievements is really a worthwhile investment. Perhaps we need a little-minded but big-hearted silly old bear to remind us of what is really important in life.

This is definitely what Christopher Robin (Played winsomely by Obi Won Konobi, AKA Ewan McGregor)  needs. We learn early on in the film that Christopher has long since lost the wonder and simple joy of his childhood days in the 100-acre woods. Instead, he's now a thirty-something year old living in a business world where you swim or sink, and he is making desperate compromises to avoid sinking. One of these compromises is cancelling a weekend he promised to spend with his family so he can stay afloat at work. "Dreams come at a cost," Christopher reminds his daughter. "Nothing comes from nothing." His point is that he simply cannot waste valuable time getting away to do "nothing" with his family. Anything that would compromise his efficiency, Christopher reasons, must be avoided.

So of course, when a little yellow bear in a red shirt suddenly enters his life again, his first thought is, "I don't have time for this." Pooh's appearance in Christopher Robin's adult life is the inciting event of the film, and Christopher's quest to get Pooh out of his busy life and back to the 100-acre woods where the bear belongs brings a lot of simple, funny moments, highlighted by Pooh's unassuming friendliness and wit. It's these moments that have Christopher (and us too!) rediscovering the amazing benefit of joy and rest, especially with those you love, by the end of the film.

There is seriously nothing that parents should concern themselves with content-wise in this film, barring one Hefalump scare that might be frightening to super young viewers. No innuendo or insinuated adult messages (a refreshing break from Disney's trend of late!). No violence to speak of, except one quick war scene (Showing how Christopher Robin fought in World War 2). Seriously, I don't know how this film got its PG rating; it's the closest thing to "G" I've seen out of Hollywood in a long time. Add the fact that the live-action, stuffed-animal versions of Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, and Roo are just so darn cute and so amazingly well done (with Rabbit and Owl also smashing as real talking animals), and this film becomes a simple joy to watch.

So, looking to escape from the adult world of swimming or sinking for awhile? Take your family and enjoy this movie together! The last scene of Christopher Robin especially struck me, because of its direct parallel to something Jesus talked about. "What day is it?" Pooh asks (and I paraphrase) as he and Christopher Robin sit on a log and enjoy the sunshine.

"Well today of course, silly old bear," Christopher Robin responds.

"Oh good. yesterday being tomorrow was too much day for me," Pooh says. "I am glad it is today."

It is a reminder to us all just to enjoy today and not worry about tomorrow. As Jesus says in Mathew 6:34, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Yes, our todays have trouble, but it also has joy, if we spend it the right way. Our work can be motivated by contentment, not covetousness. Our most important things can be sitting across from us at the dinner table, not waiting to be worked on in our briefcase. We can choose to find joy in our get-it-now culture through rest, and that is a Disney message worth supporting.

I am Pro-Choice: Why Choice isn't just a Woman's Right

I am pro-choice.

I have come to realize that I need to admit this to my family, church, and community. I do believe it is a woman's right to decide whether to have a child or not, and nobody can take this right from her. Not a Christian, not even a conservative atheist. Especially not government. There will be no government-imposed, forced sterilization on my watch, and neither will I ever accept a justification worthy enough to mandate that a woman must have a child.

Since this choice is a right, Women shouldn't be left alone to speak out on this issue. I believe it is every human being's responsibility to speak out for human rights, even if they are the opposite sex of those who deserve that right. For instance, if an employer decided not to hire me based solely on her prejudice against me as a male, I would hope both men and woman would speak out against this discrimination. Forcing a woman to stay silent--claiming she has no right to speak up for me because she doesn't share my same genitalia--is pure sexism. So is saying I don't have a right to speak out on the pro-choice issue just because I am a man.

What's more though, I've realized that it's not only women who have the right to choose whether to have a baby or not, but also men. This choice is their personal choice, and they too, like women, should speak out to defend it. For me personally, I have chosen not to have a baby right now. I am 21 and still a virgin because I know I am not ready to start a family and provide for a baby.

You see, if you've lived more than a few years, you know the answer to the question "where do babies come from?"  It's a proven fact that the pleasure of sex brings babies into this world. That is not debated. It is also not debated that the embryo is similar yet distinct from its parents at the moment of conception. Because the DNA specifies human, the embryo is human like its parents, and in that way it is similar. However, since the DNA is spliced together from both the mom and dad's chromosomes, this little person (let's say the DNA specifies "boy" for clarity's sake) is neither his mother or father--or a part of his mother's body, for that matter. He is a distinct human being at the earliest stage of development.

The preamble to the Declaration of Independence states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." I believe every human being has the right to live in freedom, so that they can make choices to better themselves and live in peace and happiness. To take these choices away from anyone is despicable. That's why slavery is wrong. That's why eugenics is wrong. And that's why killing little human beings inside the womb is wrong.

Abortion is not a personal choice, but a perverse crime since it robs human beings of their unalienable rights.  Since I am pro choice, I believe all human beings have the right to choice, and I stand against any practice that takes those choices away. We all have the right to choose whether or not to bring a baby into this world, but when our choices lead to the conception of a new human being, we no longer have a choice to bring a baby into the world or not, because the baby is already here. I will always speak out against abortion, because choices are personal to me, as they should be to every human being. I don't want my choices taken from me or any other human being.

You see, you don't have to be pro-abortion to be pro-choice. Quite the opposite. Abortion doesn't rob a woman of her choice to bear a child; she's already accepted that possibility would come as a result of sex. Instead, abortion takes all the choices from the child in the womb. Yes, I am pro-choice, family and friends. And that is why I stand against abortion.

All Roads Really do Lead to Heaven

    But who is waiting for us there? 

    If there is a heaven, there must be a heavenly being that created it. That means there is someone looking down on us from the top of the proverbial mountain we are climbing. We all have a divine encounter waiting for us, the moment after we die. When we have lived our lives to their entirety—when we finish climbing to the top of the mountain—we will be there, in the presence of our maker. Universalists have definitely got that part right, but it may not be the comforting truth they think it is.

   Who is this god that waits for us at the end of our life’s journey? Who is he whom we draw inevitably closer to with each climbing step, day by day? Will he love us and accept us merely for having made the climb, or is there some standard, some requirement of us before we can enter into that restful, joyous afterlife?

   If we accept that merely making the climb gets us into heaven, then that would qualify the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Bin Laden—men who went to their graves only after sending millions of people before them to theirs. Do we seriously want a god who would give these men everlasting paradise? I have a sense of justice that makes that thought untenable, and I doubt I am alone. There must be some standard by which we enter heaven. Justice would seem to require it.

   Is it the sincerity of our belief, then, that will get us to heaven?  If we make the climb firmly convinced and striving for the divine, even if our views of God differ dramatically from culture to culture, will it be enough to see us through? Unfortunately, this is a purely illogical view. There is no practical example of faith for faith’s sake alone being strong enough to overcome all obstacles. I can believe with all my heart that I can fly with the pair of cardboard wings I cut from a Wheaties box—but that faith is not strong enough to overcome gravity.

   We must also keep in mind that Hitler and Stalin believed firmly in their own manifestations of faith. No one was sincerer about his faith then Hitler when he made possible the murder of 6 million Jews. He was walking the talk of what he believed about religion and the Jewish people. The sincerity of our faith is just not a valid claim to heaven. Faith is only as good as what it is placed in.

   So what belief is strong enough to get us into heaven? Can we rely on our good works? If it is possible to get into heaven not on the basis of the sincerity of our faith but of our goodness, we would first need to describe what “good” is. Stalin thought his communism was an ultimate good, worth killing 20 million of his own citizens for. Hitler believed the Aryan Race was good. If “good” is left up to our own discretion, Stalin and Hitler still get to enter heaven. There must be some absolute code of right and wrong that transcends what us so often selfish, twisted humans can come up with. And since it transcends our own understanding, we must believe that the divine creator made it for us—and will hold us accountable to it. He is less like a fan cheering us up the mountain, and more like the referee holding us accountable to play by the rules. And since it is a foul and harms the other players in the game, our heavenly ref will throw us out of the game if we violate the rules. For the first time, the Hitlers, Stalins, and Bin Ladens of the world don’t make the cut. We're making progress!

   This view of God as our heavenly judge leaves us with only three religions to follow: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Islam and Judaism are works-based religions. They hold that you have what it takes to storm the gates of heaven and enter victoriously. Haven’t we already established, though, how shaky it is to believe that the human race can do good? What if not only are we incapable of establishing our own right and wrong, but we can’t even keep the right and wrong revealed to us by God? Have you ever lied, stolen, lusted, coveted, or taken God’s name in vain? Have you failed to keep the five pillars of Islam? Yep, you’re out.

   That’s the problem with works-based religions. We can never be sure we’ll make heaven, and what’s more, the evidence and an honest evaluation of our hearts seems to suggest we won’t make the cut. At this point, we’re in dire straits.

  Is there any hope in Christianity? Here’s the standard Jesus lays out for us to “make the cut”. He says in Mathew 5:48: “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

   So . . . if we’re relying on ourselves to get past the gates of heaven, we’re done for.

   But that is where Christianity makes a break from all other religions. It doesn’t depend on us, but on what Jesus has done for us! He knew we couldn’t live up to the perfect standard it takes to spend eternity with our heavenly Father, so he came and lived a perfect life for us! He offers this life in our place, to pay for our sins. Where all other world religions say do, Jesus says done.

   The Lord is compassionate and gracious; He does forgive transgressions. But yet at the same time, because He is a righteous judge, He can’t leave the guilty unpunished. (Exodus 34:6-7) That is why Jesus had to die for our sins, the just for the unjust, so that he could bear the penalty we deserved and we could go free! That is how God can be both a righteous judge and a compassionate forgiver.

   This the amazing good news that we as Christians get to share with the world! If you confess Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved! For those of us who already have confessed Jesus as Lord, we are called to be trail guides to others following behind us up the mountain! We need to stop worrying that we will be called “close-minded” or “intolerant” (Check out this post, btw, for a true definition of tolerance), and stand unashamedly for this good news! There’s still some people standing at the crossroads. They’re asking for the ancient paths, they’re asking where the good way is; they want to walk in it (Jeremiah 6:16).

   Can we help them find it?

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me”. John 14:6

The Horror of Lot, a Righteous Man

 Lot would be a lot easier to understand if it wasn't for 2 Peter 2:7-8.

Reading the Old Testament account of his life, Lot, Abraham's nephew, appears to be a cut and dried case of an apostate (someone who has left faith in God). When Lot and Abraham had to part ways due to their quarreling shepherds in Genesis 13, Lot moved into the Jordan valley. He was drawn to that lush, fertile valley, but the problem was, that's where Sodom was. Lot drifted closer and closer to that city, where "the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly and sinners against the Lord". By Genesis 14:12, we learn that Lot was living in the city of Sodom. That's when the first round of calamity fell upon the city thanks to a war. Lot was taken captive by a couple of warring kings—a perfect time to cut ties with Sodom, wouldn't you say?—but when Abraham providentially came to his rescue, we find that Lot returned to Sodom!

He was captivated by that city of sin. It lured him back into its culture, and when the Biblical narrative returns to Lot in Genesis 19, we find that Lot was sitting in the city's gates. The gate of the city in those times was the hub of commerce and official affairs. Lot had not only moved back to Sodom, but he had become a prominent member of it!

We learn just how much the culture had affected him later in the chapter. When the depraved Sodomites catch site of the handsome angels that pay Lot a visit, they gather with mob-like force in front of his house. They call on Lot to bring out the newcomers so that they may have sexual relations with them. Lot's response to this lewd, disgusting request is almost as horrifying, though! His reasoning is exactly as follows in verses 7 and 8, "Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly. Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man; please let me bring them out to you, and do to them whatever you like; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof."

How absolutely corrupt must a city be that the moral option was to let two virgin daughters be gang raped. Or at least that is what Lot believed, because the licentious worldview of Sodom had deeply permeated his thoughts. The ugliness of Lot's life doesn't stop there either. Later, on two consecutive nights he is driven to a drunken stupor and lies with a couple of girls without thought—habits we can assume he learned in Sodom. Those girls, though he didn't know it in his drunken state, were his daughters. In Genesis 19:36, it says "Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father."

Lot's story is so horrifying that I am sure a lot of pastors would rather skip over it then preach about it in their churches! Some might wonder why it is in our Holy Bible in the first place!

And that is why 2 Peter 2:7-8 is so confusing:

"And if he rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds)."

Righteous? Seriously? Lot the righteous man seems to be the absolute epitome of a contradiction. And yet there we have it. It's like Peter was making a point out of calling Lot righteous; he uses the word three times in that short passage to describe him. So Lot, we must conclude, though allured and drawn into the culture of Sodom, hadn't quite accepted the sinful lifestyle its residents had dove headlong into. Rather, he played at the edges of Sodom's culture, flirting with their worldview, but yet somewhat repulsed by it at the same time. Trying to enjoy the fleeting pleasure of sin without being the sinner. Enjoying life in Sodom, but trying not to get burned by it.

Well, he avoided being burned--but only because the two angels sent to warn him about Sodom's impending doom literally drug him out of the city. Genesis 19:15-16 "When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, 'Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.' But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of the Lord was with him; and they brought him out, and put him outside the city."

We are repulsed by this "righteous man", as well we should be, but just how hypocritical is our repulsion, I wonder? Are we, in much the same way, soaking ourselves in a culture that has turned from God? Are we content with this culture? Are we even enjoying it?

Modern America's culture is this Godless culture. We have denied God's law and have propped up our own. Divorce is opted for 50% of the time. Premarital sex is the norm. Pornography traps most every guy in destructive habits, but is largely unlegislated. Ripping apart precious new life in a mother's womb is fiercely defended and advocated for. Same sex relations are openly encouraged and accepted. Mutilating your body to become the opposite sex you were born as is praised as "realizing yourself'".

Songs worship this culture. Movies picture it for us. We are asked to like it on social media.

So as Christians, are we distinctly different from this Godless culture? Would we have to be dragged from it like Lot, hesitating to leave the pleasures of Sodom? Unfortunately, in my own life and the lives of many, many of my Christian friends, the answer would be "Yes". Oh sure, we are against the "big stuff". We may stand strong for the rights of the unborn and the Biblical definition of marriage, but how often do we flirt with or are allured to join the more "acceptable" facets of our worldly culture? How often we justify that one sex scene because the rest of the movie is "good". How often do we nod along to that catchy song, that same song that extols behavior that falls solidly in the list of worldly vices rather than fruits of the Holy Spirit? Do we even expect anymore what we consume of the culture to be pure, honorable, or lovely?

Again, are we becoming more and more like Lot? Are we like the proverbial frog in the kettle who can't sense the slowly rising temperature of the water he is soaking in and doesn't know to jump out even as it boils him? It saddens me so much to see this willful conformance by Christians to our increasingly depraved culture. When will we draw the line and say "enough is enough"? When will we make a clean break with our culture and accept abundant ( if radically alien) lives living for Jesus and Jesus alone? Is a clean break even possible anymore, or are we too saturated?

Come out, I beg of you, any righteous Christian. Come out, come out, come out! Don't be consumed by our culture. Don't get burned by it. Don't live your life with one foot in Christ and one foot in the world. It isn't possible to serve two masters, and it is miserable for you to try to do so, isn't it? Will angels have to come for you on your dying day and literally drag you to heaven away from the world you tried so persistently to hang on to?

I'm preaching this to my self as much as you, friends. There's so many pleasurable sins I justify and hold on to. But no longer. Christ wants all of me, and I want to give all to Him! I picture my Christian life right now like an explorer cutting his way through thick jungle underbrush with a machete. There are so many sins that so easily entangle me, but relying on God's strength within me, I want to cut myself free of them! Will you grab a machete and join me?

Maybe it is that secular radio station you need to stop listening to. Maybe it is that song on your playlist that insinuates premarital sex. Maybe it is that movie that presents a destructive message but is just so fun to watch. Maybe it is finally getting filters and accountability software on your devices. Can you see the ways you have been permeated by sin? Can you dam up these channels of filth flowing into your mind, and replace them with streams of refreshing, living water?

The amazing grace of the Gospel--what makes the good news the really good news--is that though we are sinful like Lot, God views us as perfectly righteous through our faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This is how Peter could view Lot as righteous, because Lot, for all his failings, still retained a faith in God. It is an incredible relief to know that if we have accepted Jesus as Lord, there is nothing we can do to lose our salvation. Like it says in the very next verse after the passage of 2 Peter 2:7-8, God knows how to keep the righteous from judgement. Still, I don't want to leave behind a terrible legacy like Lot's. I don't want my life to be a sad record of wasted potential, How terrible to think that Christians years from now might be horrified by the way we went along hand in hand with this culture! God has given us all we need to be different—to live incredible, devoted, faith-filled lives that will leave the world in awe of our great God. It's time to be transformed. It's time to make a break from the pattern of this world and live for Christ!

Let's make a clean break from this culture that is increasingly becoming more like Sodom, without having to be drug reluctantly from it. I am of course not saying we should isolate ourselves completely from the world; Jesus left us in it for a reason! I am only saying that though we are in the world, the world doesn't need to be in us!

I am ready to offer my life as a living sacrifice to God, no matter what that means for my culture choices. "Here I am, Lord, do with me what you like!" is my prayer. Will you pray it with me? And don't just say "yes", please. Think long and hard about it for a moment, because praying this prayer will play out practically in a lot of decisions to limit cultural intake. It will look like visiting the theater way less. It will look like sifting through the scads of admittedly bland contemporary Christian music to find those great, faith-based songs to make a new playlist from. It will look like different lifestyle choices that will place you solidly in the camp of the monks and nuns in the eyes of the world. But what may look like a puritan, "holier-than-thou" lifestyle in the eyes of the many is in reality that abundant, joy-filled life in Christ!

I have given you fair warning, so now that you know what I am asking . . .

Will you join me?

 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:1-2

Why the Truly Tolerent can't Tolerate the Tolerance of the World

Have you ever been in the same room with a clicker? They sit there, an isle in front of you and three seats to the left, and while you are trying to concentrate on the speaker, they have this strange fascination with clicking their pen. About every second second. Every once in a while they'll break their rhythm and rapid fire a few clicks. Click . . . click . . . click click click . . . click. You're about ready to lunge across the isle and strangle them. That would probably raise too much negative attention though. So you opt for a well aimed spit ball instead.

Your friend on your right places their hand on your arm, digging their fingers into the crook of your elbow, and whispers at you to remain calm. It's a free country, they remind you, and they urge you to live and let live a little. You marvel that someone could be so even-keeled in the face of such blatant annoyingness, and you sigh as you put your straw, with loaded spitball, down.

Meanwhile, the friend to your left catches the attention of the clicker and smiles warmly as the clicker glances over her shoulder. Your left-side friend raises his own pen and starts clicking too, in a touching moment of acceptance that leaves you struck mute with horror.

In this scenario, who is truly tolerant? Is it the friend on your left or right? Before we answer, it might be helpful to look at the definition of tolerant. According to Webster, it means being "willing to accept feelings, habits, or beliefs that are different from your own."

With this definition in mind, wouldn't you answer that it is the friend on your right who is tolerant? He's not a clicker himself, but he's willing to give someone else the freedom to click. The friend on your left isn't exercising tolerance, but rather is converted into clickerhoodism.

If tolerance is really accepting beliefs that are different from your own, doesn't that imply that you disagree with the person your are accepting, or is it wrong to disagree at all? Should we all have the same feelings, habits, or beliefs?

The logical approach is to realize that we can't possibly all have the same feelings, habits, or beliefs. Look around you. We all come from different backgrounds and cultures, and our experiences vastly differ and have shaped who we are in vastly different ways. Isn't that a main tenant of our recent thinking in America, that we are culturally diverse? Isn't it the gospel of Post-modernism that we all have different truths shaped by our experiences?

It would seem, then, that tolerance is allowing for differing beliefs, not trying to conform all beliefs into one. So then, why do those on the liberal left try and force us to not only allow their beliefs, but to accept them? If we don't agree with them that marriage should be radically redefined, for instance, we are attacked as intolerant bigots. But by the same token, isn't their claim that we are wrong and should accept their beliefs on marriage incredibly intolerant and bigoted?

It's not helpful to our society to try and force us all to believe the same thing. What's more, it won't work! Tolerance should focus on how we differ, and how we should differ politely. Throwing around terms like "bigot" or "close-minded" is not helpful, to either side. It is more like the bickering and squabbling of middleschoolers trying to get their way on the playground. We should instead seek for the civil exchange of our different opinions and beliefs, and the common curtesy of allowing people to have different conclusions. In my own life as a Christian, I will definitely share what I know to be true with you, but I also give you the liberty of free will, just like my God does. I won't slander you as a close-minded, Christian-phobic individual if you disagree with me. I only hope you will extend the same curtesy to me, and allow me to have my own beliefs. This is America, after all, where we should have the freedom to believe what we want to believe, as long as that belief is not criminal in behavior. That is true tolerance.

The Lord of the Flies and the Lord of the Universe: a case for reading secular literature

Imagine you are on a ship, just offshore from an island on fire. Black smoke billows from it and stings your eyes and burns in your nostrils, wreathing the scene in a haze. Orange flame towers above you in the tree tops and runs at you like a freight train as it crackles through more and more of the underbrush. Heat shimmers on your face and makes you want to shrink back. You would be terrified if you were any closer to the island, but from the safety of your ship, the fierce scene mesmerizes you. You are awed at the fire's destructive power; you feel insignificant and hopeless as you watch it burn before you.

Then you see them.

Tiny figures burst out of the forest, just ahead of the flames. They run like it's the fires of hell behind them, and to them, that's exactly what it is. They avoid being roasted alive only by putting a safe distance between them and the fire by fleeing across the sand. They're fleeing right at you, and drawn to their plight, you immediately make to help them. You lower your ship's boat and draw in to shore. You run towards them. You are shocked to notice that they are all boys, somewhere between 6-12 years of age. What is more, they are half naked and filthy. They carry sharpened sticks and have clay and charcoal smeared on their faces like war paint. They look like mini savages.

You assume they've been playing and in their fun set off the fire that is now ravaging the island.

"Fun and games," you say.

You look around at the fire and the destruction, and it suddenly strikes you as tragically comical that these little boys had blundered their way into a life and death situation because of fun. You decide to make light of it, since this is a small, deserted island after all, and no real harm was done. So you grin at the foremost of the tiny savages, the one who had burst out of the forest first, and say, "We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war or something?"

The filthy boy only nods.

You press your joke further. "Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?"

The boy's answer, though, is without a hint of mirth. It's dispassionate and yet strained, like the last gasp of an animal of prey that has been hunted and harried to the point of exhaustion, to the point of giving up. Suddenly your grin is gone, and a cold shiver runs up your spine.

"Only two," the boy says. "And they're gone."

Suddenly the horror of it all dawns on you. They aren't play-acting. You stare around at the filthy boys. Now you notice the wild look in their eyes. Now you notice the blood on their spears.

This moment you're caught in, this island you've stepped on to, is a real-life nightmare.

This is the scene you will be immersed in at the ending of William Golding's modern classic Lord of the Flies. I had heard some about the book, of course, and had finally found the time to read it. I approached it skeptically, not at all sure what kind of secular mumbo-jumbo I might be stepping into.

When I began to read Lord of the Flies though, I was instantly captivated by a powerful story, an analogy more profound than most. Golding expertly draws attention to the fatal flaw in every attempt secular humanism has made to set up a Utopia on earth: Mankind, even in it's most innocent age of adolescence, is radically depraved.

Golding's outlook of humanity is intentionally brutal and fatalistic. His classic, published in 1954, serves as a warning in the middle of a century fraught with failed utopias. He clearly illustrates the hopelessness of man's attempts at saving ourselves through government or society. When the protagonist, named Ralph, fails to keep the band of boys stranded on the island from doing the one thing that could have saved them--keeping a signal fire going--you fully emphasize with him and are left to reflect on why so many valiant attempts at good ideals have failed. Why didn't alleviating poverty by equally sharing riches utterly fail, for instance? Why does every government, no matter how strong and how secure in their rules, eventually collapse?

In the book, the boys fear a terrible beast is trapped on the island with them. They hunt for it, knowing that if they can but destroy it there will be lasting peace and safety on their island. The revelation, though, is that this beast--this wicked Lord of the Flies--is inside all of us. When we see the boys throw off all sense of government and morality and fully embrace their true nature, they become as terrible as their worst nightmares about the beast. Ralph, the only boy left at the end to try and bring them back to a sense of societal structure and humanitarianism in trying to keep the signal fire going, is ostracized and then hunted by his increasingly savage peers, as if he were the beast! This final hunt, the ultimate culmination of the boy's depravity, is the final scene of the book.

So why in the world do I recommend reading this secular book? It is, as you can see, quite dark after all. Doesn't it fall outside of the things pure and lovely that we are supposed to dwell on in Philippians 4:8? I would counter that even the Bible has what we would consider some really "dark" narrative that is included for us to dwell on. When we see Joshua and his soldiers wiping out whole cities of Canaanites, we are left to reflect on the seriousness of sin to God and on how far men will run from Him. When David commits adultery and than tries to cover it up with murder, we reflect on even how the man after God's own heart was still tragically vulnerable to sin. These reflections are what is right and pure about a story that clearly isn't so.

In the same way, Lord of the Flies gets the problem of human nature right. It is a surprisingly honest secular work that doesn't have any kind of rose-colored approach to our condition. In a world that has embraced secular humanism (the idea that religion has to be kept private and only "logical" steps to save humanity should be considered), Lord of the Flies clearly demonstrates the futility and dead end of any such attempt at humanism. Though Golding doesn't give Christ as the answer to our terminal condition, he does leave his audience groping for something outside of themselves--a void we can seek to fill with the amazing truth of the Gospel!

The next argument goes somewhere along the lines of "Well, you are either for Christ or against Christ." This is very true, but this doesn't mean we shouldn't seek to engage with the other side. We should understand how unbelievers think; we should be able to discern their gropings for truth and be able to respond with the hope of Christ. And one of the most non-threatening ways to do this is to read their literature. Another great example of this is the Unwind Dystology I recently read through. This dystopian series is written from an unbeliever's perspective and it gets a lot wrong, but it does raise serious questions about topics like abortion, the meaning of life, whether we have a soul or not, and what is right and wrong. The author's wings are seriously clipped by post-modernism (truth is relative to human experience), and he wasted a ton of potential due to this. But it is interesting that even with how hard he tried to support Post-modernism, he did come to the conclusion that there were things right and wrong on a universal basis. For instance, dismembering unwanted, helpless young ones is wrong, no matter what you use to justify it. Sound familiar? 

Now this is of course not a license to go read any secular work you want. There is secular literature that is clearly harmful to us in that it doesn't provide any deeper thoughts other than the exploration of sin. These are books that have no edifying value at all and should of course be avoided! I would place series like Harry Potter (witchcraft, it's main theme, is clearly wrong in the Bible) and The Twilight Saga in the "off-limits" category. I thought of reading the classic 1984, but after reading a synopsis and discovering the reasons the protagonist rebels against the "Big Brother" totalitarian regime, I decided to steer clear of it. I started the Divergent series, because it was supposed to deeply explore human emotions and identities, but I gave it up after the first book, sick of the relativism and Tris's obsessive crush on Four. Instead of raising questions about humanity, Divergent was urging that we are essentially good and need to diverge from oppressive, over-arching stereotypes. The right was vague and the wrong was also vague. It seemed to be just as miserable of a slog through the story for the protagonist herself as it was for me the reader, as she struggled with what was right and wrong but never came up with any more concrete answers other than that she should just accept herself for who she was. So, unlike Lord of the Flies, Divergent pushes us to just accept ourselves as good and further away from the hope of the Gospel, and I believe it is a story that should be avoided.

Basically, we shouldn't read secular literature for entertainment alone, and we shouldn't read it at all if it is going to deliver a message that is clearly anti-gospel. For those secular works that are willing to take an honest approach to the problems of our nature or the flaws in the systems we set up, though, I would encourage a discerning read. The Giver is another excellent example of such a secular work, as it very helpfully explores that question we have in Christian theology about whether we can be human without free will. It's not as simple an issue as "never read secular works", because their are many great insights in secular literature if we are willing to strap on our spiritual armor and approach them with discernment. We should be like discerning miners, sifting through the dirt and casting it aside--but stopping to examine the jewels we find and using them to our advantage and the advantage of others. Let's pursue helpful truths like those found in Lord of the Flies, so that we can use them to build a bridge to our unbelieving friends and share the Gospel!

Facts, facts, facts!

“Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.”

This is a quote taken in the middle of a humorous passage from Charles Dicken's Hard Times, where a school master is railing about the importance of facts, and facts alone, in the training of his little charges. While of course this school teacher probably missed the importance of human emotions like love, compassion, and fear, he got it right that when humans reason, the best course for them is to be well grounded in facts.

No matter what issue we are approaching, whether it be politics, healthcare, social issues, or theology, our viewpoints should be factual and well grounded, rather than vague, emotion-driven responses to life experiences. This flies in the face of Post-modernism, which says that ultimate truth is unknowable and that humans should base their perception of truth off their experiences. If you feel like a woman even though you are very clearly a man, your feelings determine your truth, Post-modernism would say.

We as Christians, however, know ultimate reality. There is absolute truth, and it is Jesus Christ. We don't need to cry like Pilate "what is truth"? Instead, grounded in our firm faith in Christ, we should hunt for truth and speak it boldly to one another:

"As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ."

Ephesians 4:14-15

Perhaps this is why gossip and slander are such a big deal to God. We are no longer like the old man who is caught in webs of deception and trickery; we are new creations with an understanding and hopefully a yearning desire for truth. This should be especially true of our theology, but it should leak out into every aspect of our lives. If we really do believe in absolute truth, then we can be absolutely certain that there is truth to be found all around us.

For instance, the topic of vaccines is a blossoming issue in our homeschool circles, and it is time we all did some serious study on the benefits/risks to vaccines, so that we can approach the issue with a factual, well-balanced viewpoint. I would encourage all of us to give a fair hearing to both sides of the debate, but to not accept what either side is saying at face value. Hold them both to the refining fire of truth. If the facts don't back up their claims, then reject their argument.

Don't even accept someone's experience as a way to justify their argument. For instance, in his viral post about the failure of courtship, Thomas Umstattd Jr.'s main argument against courtship is founded on the experiences of his grandparents and their "going steady". It worked for them, so why shouldn't it work for us? He doesn't point to the differences of our grandparent's culture compared to ours and how divorce was not often considered back then--not because the couples were so happily married after their dating experience, but because divorce was still considered a harmful evil. You will also notice in his post that he has a lot of broad statements about how "Each year I waited for courtship to start working and for my homeschool friends to start getting married. It never happened. Most of them are still single. Some have grown bitter and jaded. Then couples who did get married through courtship started getting divorced. I’m talking the kind of couples who first kissed at their wedding were filing for divorce."

His statements are frightening, but we have no basis to know whether they are really true or not. He gives us no specific examples of these divorces or these bitter and jaded singles. While I am sure he has some friends who have been divorced or are bitter and jaded, how do we know if they were really pursuing courtship or marriage in a God-honoring way? Could there have been more at play than just the "failed" system of courtship?

Again, someone's experiences doesn't make their argument automatically true.

This truth-driven approach to every viewpoint you form may put you at odds with people. Like Joel Belz, journalist for World Magazine, says, "Nothing spoils a good story like a whole lot of research." It's way easier to accept hearsay than to search out the truth behind it, especially if that hearsay aligns itself with our beliefs, but let's refuse to compromise and stand unashamedly in our pursuit of truth. We're Christians; it's our calling. I couldn't agree more with Belz's encouragement to us all in the subtitle to his article I read last night: "Let's be vigilant not to spread fake news as fact."

With so much fake or horridly-slanted news out there, let's hold each other accountable to diligently pursue and speak truth into every aspect of our lives, whether that truth agrees with our viewpoints or not. As Christ's representatives, truthfulness should be our witness. Let's live it out!

Why God Couldn't Have Created Evil, but Yet Allows It

What is the most evil thing you can think of? Is it the myriad of pointless, Nihilistic shootings in our schools, theaters, and malls?  Is it the devastating destruction and resulting chaos and war of September 11, 2001? Is it Hitler's Holocaust or Stalin's Communism? Is it the systematic destruction of over 50 million little babies in what should be the safest place on earth—their mother's womb?

What is the biggest natural evil you can think of? Is it Katrina? Is it the devastating Tsunami in Japan, or the earthquakes of Haiti? Close to home for me is Mt. St. Helens, which blew on May 18, 1980. Praise God there was enough warning to evacuate the majority of people living in the surrounding area, or that natural disaster would have claimed more than the handful of lives it did.

There is absolutely no doubt that our world is sick. Even as I type this, thousands and thousands of people are starving. A young man, brainwashed into Jihad, is preparing to give his life in the bloodiest, cruelest attack he can conjure up. Another baby was just torn apart in the womb. What is more, evil has affected each of us personally. Cancer, a drunk driver, a stillborn baby, a soldier never coming home—how has it affected you? Our world is ripe with evil. There is no other conclusion we can come to.

So where does that leave us as Christians? What place does evil have in regards to our belief in an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God? It would seem that both can't be true, right? The God we believe in . . . how could He possibly be reconciled to what we have observed and experienced in tragedy after tragedy on this earth?

This post is devoted to grappling with the problem of evil and passing on the conclusions I have come to. Five questions will both flesh out the problem and bring the worthwhile answers I am confident we can come to. The questions are: 1) Is evil a thing?, 2) Doesn't God care enough to stop evil?, 3) What is our purpose in life?, 4) What other worldview can we run to?, and 5) Has God experienced evil like we do?

So buckle up. Here we go.

Is Evil a Thing?

There's a common argument for God that points to His existence because, "How could there be so much good in the world without our Holy God creating it?" That question could easily be turned on its head though. "Hold on a minute," a skeptic might say, "if I grant you that there is a God that created everything because of the good we see around us, doesn't that make Him the creator of evil too?" They might have even done their Bible study and point to Isaiah 45:7 which reads in the King James Version: ^"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."

This skeptic's question would be difficult to answer if we believed evil was a thing that needed to be created. But is it? Is evil a thing? Of course, I don't mean is it a material thing, for our premise that God created good might stretch beyond the physical to abstract things too, like love, joy, and peace (though since these are a part of God's nature, and God is eternal, even these abstract emotions weren't created I would say. That would be an interesting topic to study more on, sometime! ). Closer study of evil, however, reveals that it is not a thing in and of itself, but the failing of the created. It is the lack or absence of good!

Let me attempt to explain it this way. Is your shadow a thing? Yes, you might say, because you can see and observe it. But what really is a shadow? It's only there because there is light, and that light happens to be at least partially blocked--partially made absent--by your body.  A shadow can't exist by itself. It depends on both the light and your body. Thus it is not an independent thing, but the result of two created things coming in conflict with each other. It couldn't have been created because, thank goodness, we don't have a bunch of shadows running around on their own.

The same with Evil. God couldn't have created it, and we don't even have to point to His Holy Nature to say that, though that is a great argument in and of itself. Evil is not an independent entity, but the failing of God's perfect creation. All of God's creation was "very good" Genesis 1:31, which means evil wasn't around for creation. It was only introduced later as a failing of what was very good, when Adam rebelled.

Our last task in this section, then, is to respond to Isaiah 45:7. In light of what we have discovered, how do we reconcile this verse? Well, context as always is key to understanding a verse! If you read further in Isaiah 45 you will find that God is warning punishment against Israel for their quarrels with their Maker (verse 9). He causes peace for the righteous, and brings evil (more accurately translated "calamity" in the NASB) on those who turn against Him. He does not create the evil Himself, but He is sovereignly using it to punish the wicked.

Now that we have defined evil and its origins, our next question naturally follows.

Doesn't God care enough to stop evil?

So why did God allow His universe to become less than "very good"? Christians believe in a God who is actively involved with His creation. It follows, then, that He's not aloof of the terrible rot of evil in our world. So why doesn't He stop it?

Is He somehow indifferent? That can't be. We can be absolutely sure of that. God Is holy: "For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; no evil dwells with You". Psalm 5:4. Evil and sin are against His nature, and therefore abhorrent to Him. Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus (John 11:35). We grieve the Holy Spirit when we sin. (Eph. 4:30)

So if evil grieves God so much and yet hasn't been stopped, are we to believe that God is not powerful enough to stop it? There are a few who have capitulated to this certain heresy, but read any of the lists of God's attributes and you will learn that He is indeed all-powerful. God is omnipotent. "Even from eternity I am He, And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?" Isaiah 43:13.

Further study reveals that God will indeed destroy evil one day (See Revelation 20 and 21). He is more than powerful enough to do so! In the meantime, He has provided a way to escape evil's power through believing in and accepting Jesus as Lord. We will still suffer during our lives on earth, but we can be comforted in Christ. We will still die, but death will not conquer us. Through the Helper Christ has sent us, the Holy Spirit, we have the power to overcome evil!

God is holy. He hates evil and will one day destroy it. His plan for the world is good. So we can trust that for whatever reason God temporarily allows evil in the world and our lives, it is for a good reason. A best reason. Exploring our purpose in life might help us discover this reason.

What is our Purpose in Life?

“To glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.” That’s the rote Christian response. It’s a good one, but do we take the time to actually investigate what it means, as we good little Sunday school grads repeat it verbatim?

What brings God the most glory? Isn’t it through the amazing demonstration of His mercy in that He would choose to save some of us fallen, willingly-rebellious people from the just penalty we deserve? (Romans 9:14-24) Think about it though. What if there was no contrast of God’s great mercy and lovingkindness. What if there was no evil to save us from. Would we even know His attributes? Would we even be thankful for them?

What’s more, what would our relationship with the Lord look like if we didn’t daily need Him to “deliver us from evil”, as Christ so famously taught us to pray in Mathew 6:13? Would we rely on Him in any meaningful way? Also, could we even call it a relationship if all we could ever do was glorify God, and never had a free will that could turn from Him? If I acquired a girlfriend by forcing her to love me, because she had no other choice, that wouldn’t be real love. It would feel really lame for both of us. It would be wrong.

What if we need the contrast of evil, then, to truly know what is “very good”? So often we American Christians tend to believe that God’s main purpose in life is for us to be abundantly happy and to have our whole lives go on without a hitch. We rage at Him if anything bad is thrown into our lives. We question His goodness. But what if we couldn’t be drawn closer to the Lord without experiencing the hard times for a season? What if we couldn’t truly choose to surrender our lives to Christ without having the chance to choose that which is in opposition to Him, evil?

You see, maybe the greatest good isn’t living a life without hardship. God is our heavenly Father, and He knows what is best for us.  Take my little Brother Wyatt. He thought I was terrible for forcing him to eat his coconut squash curry before he could eat his warm, buttery slice of bread. The best good he could think of would be to ditch ALL coconut squash curry in favor of all-you-can-eat bread and butter, and though I may have been tempted to agree with his sentiments as a mortal human being myself, was I wrong for having him eat what I knew would ultimately be healthier for him? Of course not!

God’s purpose for our lives is to draw us to Himself and for us to glorify Him through our lives. Like a good father, He knows what is healthiest for us, and He will lovingly put us through it whether we think it is best or not in our limited, human perspectives. Evil is a temporary consequence of this best way, and we can trust God through it. Perhaps, realizing this, we can even rejoice in the trials that come our way as a result of evil! (James 1:2-4)

What Other Worldview Could We Run To?

The last three questions have helped us investigate the Christian’s response to evil. How does it appear to you? Does it make sense?  Does it appear harsh? Can you make an adequate defense against the problem of evil from a Christian Worldview? If not, what is a better explanation for the problem of evil?

Every worldview has to answer the question. It’s not just the Christian Theists who need to be ready to make sense of the problem of evil. So, let’s look at how other common worldviews handle evil.

Worldviews are commonly grouped into four overarching categories: Naturalism, Transcendentalism, Post-Modernism, and Theism. Naturalism is the belief that all there ever was, ever is, and ever will be is naturalistic. There is no supernatural. No God that created us. No spirits that intervene in our lives. It is the religion of Atheists, Nihilists, Existentialists, Humanists, and the like. Their response to evil?

Tough luck.

Literally. There is no meaning or any purpose behind it. It’s a natural world doing what it does. It’s “biological, highly-evolved machines” (that’s us!) breaking down or attacking each other. Make the most of the life you’re given—play the cards you’ve been dealt—because that’s all there is for you.

Just makes you happy to be alive, doesn't it?

The Transcendental worldview believes that everything is spiritual. There is nothing that is material (what we think of as material is really an illusion or illustration of the supernatural). Transcendentalists are Buddhists, Hinduists, New Agers, Pantheists, Tom Cruise, Obi Won Kenobi, Oprah, Shirley MacLaine, and the likes. Their response to evil?

It is an illusion.

There’s no such thing as evil. There’s maybe two sides of the same—the black and white of the yin yang, or the dark and light sides of the force—but there’s no ultimate evil. Maybe, if you believe in Karma, the "evil" you experience is what you deserve for your past life. If you are a leper or have cancer, then you must have really messed things up in your past life. Or, alternatively, suffering is a consequence of your desires if you’re a Buddhist. You must learn to stop desiring anything if you want to escape evil. You see, in both these cases, what we think of as evil is really just, well, what we deserve. It’s not evil, we just think it is because it hurts. Badly.

Alternatively, we could forget about Karma or stopping our desires and just go with Shirley MacLaine:

“Until mankind realizes that there is, in truth, no good, and there is, in truth, no evil-there will be no peace.”

Yay peace, right?

Or you could go Post-modern. Post-Modernists believe that no one can know ultimate truth. Our truth is shaped by our experiences. So to them, evil is kind of hard to explain. What may be true for you about evil might not be true for me, but don’t worry, we are both right! There is no grand metanarrative—no “big story”—to give any kind of explanation or reason for evil. Make of it what you will. What’s more, if I believe my god caused you to suffer, I am just as right as you are in thinking it is an illusion. And what about the terrorist who kills as many as he can because of his beliefs? You may look at it as evil, but you have to let him live out his own truth, right? Talk about a convoluted mess. And it doesn't sound very peaceful to me, Shirley.

Lastly, there is Theism--the religions that have God central to them. Islam believes that everything comes directly from God’s (Allah’s) hands. He created everything, so He created evil too and uses it for His purposes. He creates it to make us aware of our devious ways, or to test us to see if our faith is really genuine. As I have already pointed out above, this differs from a proper Biblical Theist’s view of evil. Evil isn’t something God directly created, and though He may use it to test our faith, it’s to grow us deeper in our relationship with Him, not to see if we can take it or not.

Your last option other than Christianity is Judaism. The God of Judaism is the same as the Christian God, except that it is fuzzy just how you are supposed to overcome evil or escape it as an Orthodox Jew, because you deny Jesus Christ as the Messiah. You are still under the law, and the common understanding of evil is that it is a punishment for your breaking of the law. As the disciples asked Jesus in John 9:2:

And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?"

Jesus’s response? John 9:3:

Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Has God experienced evil like we do?

Jesus’s answer to evil there in John 9:3 may seem rather harsh if you think about it. Maybe even more harsh than the disciples’ conclusion about evil. God let this guy be blind for all his life just so He could show His good works by healing him? That’s crazy! It almost seems . . . wrong, one might say.

We have to remember, though, who is the Lord of this earth and what our duties are as His creations. We are to bring Him glory. We need to stop feeling entitled to the idea that God owes us an abundantly happy, carefree life here on earth. Clay, meet Potter. God has the privilege to do anything He likes with us little lumps of clay. If He chooses to use even the evil—the evil that mankind has brought upon ourselves by our rebellion against Him—to bring glory to Himself, then that is His choice.

It might seem a little callous of God still, though, if it weren’t for the fact that He stepped into this world and experienced evil to the greatest extent so that we might live. He took upon Himself intense suffering and evil! He is not aloof in any way to the evil in this world. He is not indifferent towards it. He experienced it to the deepest extent, taking it all upon Himself in that moment on the cross. He offered His perfect self for rebellious, corrupted lumps of clay! He was willing to demonstrate the Father's glory in that way.

And He defeated evil.

Death has no sting for those who trust in Him. Sin can be broken free of. Evil can be overcome with good! One day evil will be completely done away with, after all peoples have had a choice whether to accept God or not, but until then, God knows our suffering in the here and now and can comfort us like only someone who has gone through our same pain can. He empathizes with us and intercedes for us with groans too deep for words!

As I have wrestled with these questions, evil has become much less of a problem for my Christian Worldview. In fact, I couldn’t imagine trying to make sense of evil without a Christian Worldview. As one of our favorite hymns go, “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus/just to take Him at His Word/just to rest upon His promise/just to know, thus sayeth the Lord.”

I sincerely hope this post helps you as you process the question of evil and come to your own conclusions. It may not have fleshed out all the different arguments and defenses, but I assure you, many an hour was spent researching and thinking through what I have written! It is my prayer that you will be able to sing the chorus to this favorite hymn with me, more clearly and assuredly than ever:

“Jesus, Jesus how I love you, how I proved you o’er and o’er. “Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, oh for grace to know you more”

Disney: The Beauty or the Beast?

I love Disney.

I grew up with Buzz Lightyear being my best buddy. I was that kid who literally broke Buzz's arm, because I was so sure he could fly that I launched him down a flight of stairs. And of course, I sobbed at the realization that he couldn't, and my poor parents had a distraught kid on their hands as they tried with no success to but Buzz back together again. Even further proof that I was obsessed with Buzz? I, um, owe my being potty trained to him. Seriously. I wasn't getting it until my parents drew me a picture of Buzz sitting on the porcelain throne. If he could do it, I could do it.

I also loved Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo. Disney and Pixar had a great thing going. Some of my best childhood memories are my times spent at Disneyland. Trips to that special land of happiness also mark important milestones in my life. A trip there when I turned thirteen, and again at 18.

Disney is interwoven into my life, like a familiar friend.

But I hardly recognize my friend anymore. My first glimpse of Disney's recent transformation was their film Frozen, with a glimpse at a potentially gay character and the possible Lesbian analogy in Elsa. Next came Zootopia, which encouraged us that you can be anything you want to be, and biology doesn't matter. It also featured a very strong secular humanist message (look inside yourself and be the change), a nudist colony made only slightly less disturbing by the fact that they were animals, and a wink wink moment where male characters are playing around with an app on their phone that lets them appear to dance sensually with Gazelle, a pop singer who is portrayed to be just as immodest and seductive as the pop singers of our culture today.  And now, judging off the Plugged In review, Disney's live action version of The Beauty and the Beast has a prominent gay character with a small handful of scenes dedicated to him and a crossdresser who preens towards the screen for us--and later shares a dance in the background with the gay character.

Disney has gone off the deep end. It's as if there is no longer anything ethically off limits for them. They have become very good at sneaking in filth while keeping a PG rating. But how much more of it are we going to take?

I seriously doubt we are going to find many more positive messages from Disney, unless they have a radical change of heart. Gone are the messages of the importance and steadfastness of friendship (Toy Story) or in letting go of your dreams to love selflessly (Up). Gone, most likely, is even the more ethically tolerable though still questionable message about pursuing your dreams with all your heart. Disney has been sucked into espousing the talking points of the liberal political agenda, which flies in the face of traditional conservative values. Giving moral, family-affirming messages is going to become less and less important for them as they continue to spiral down and continue the destructive cycle of a worldview completely apart from God.

So again I ask, how much more of this are we going to take? When will we no longer be content to give Disney a captive audience for an hour and a half as they attempt to weave glittering, brilliantly-put-together lies into our psyche? More importantly, will we allow our children to sit through these lies? What happens when they grow up with their Disney role models being negative ones?

This mom, for one, is no longer willing to put up with Disney. Brooke Poston, author of the blog This Modest Mom, cancelled her family's $6,000 dollar trip to Disneyland and started a boycott of all things Disney. You can view and sign the boycott here if you are ready to take that step.

Or, maybe you're like me, and are not willing to completely ban Disney. I definitely don't plan on visiting Disneyland any time soon but will be taking a movie-by-movie approach to banning their films. If they are willing to return to a friendly, positive family film like UP, then I will support that movie. However, like I said, the chances of that seem to be getting increasingly rare.

It's time, guys, to start cutting ties with Disney. You may decide to go completely cold turkey off all things Disney. Fair warning, though: this will mean banning more movies than you would at first assume, because Disney has their hands in the Marvel movies and Star Wars for instance. Or, you may decide to go it by a movie-to-movie basis. But please do something. If nothing else--because realistically, thinking we can boycott Disney out of business is a stretch--do it for your children. Don't let them be captivated by brilliantly put together lies that pull at their young heartstrings.

Cutting ties with Disney will leave a void, sure, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. There are tons of great books out there to opt for instead. I found family reading time to be way more profitable than sitting in front of a screen anyway! Also, it would appear that Disney and Hollywood in general are fresh out of ideas, as Eric Metaxes pointed out in Breakpoint yesterday. Christian storytellers, be inspired! Let's use our redeemed creative abilities to write and film captivating, original stories that will reach an audience that might just be getting tired of the same old same old.

It's painful seeing the end of an era; it's painful watching Disney evolve from the beauty of their brilliant, morals-affirming stories to the beast of their present, glitzy filth. But there's no need to mourn. We're Christians. Our satisfaction is found in Christ and the amazing story of grace, forgiveness, redemption, and triumph that can be found in Him alone. Maybe Disney will one day realize this and turn from their destructive deceptions; we should definitely be praying for them. But until then, let's be careful to fill our minds with stories other than the new Disney norm.

 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

Philippians 4:8 

Family Force 5: A Force for Christ or Post-Modernism?

I recently had a chance to see the band Family Force 5 (FF5) in concert. They were one of eight bands at The Rock and Worship Roadshow, put on by the amazing Christian humanitarian organization Compassion International. I confess I had very little clue of who the band was going in to the concert. The only song I had ever heard from them was “Walk on Water”, which I liked almost enough to put on my I-pod. Almost. The lyrics lacked a direct reference to Jesus, but it was clearly implied that He was the one they were singing to. The chorus was all about “walking on the water” trusting Christ wouldn’t let us sink and was everything He says He is. What’s more, the music was catchy and upbeat, and really pulled me in. The only thing I had against the song, then, was that it just sounded kind of cliché.

Needless to say, armed with only this bite-sized sampling of their music, I was curious to hear more from FF5. When they were announced on stage, I clapped cordially enough and even stood up, feeling the anticipation that buzzed through the crowd. Then, in one ear-grating explosion of music, I got my chance to get to know FF5 up close and personally.

Things started going downhill fast.

First, the music was loud—as in blow-you-back-a-few-feet, bass-reverberating-in-your-chest kind of loud. Secondly, it was quite foreign and funky music, somewhere close to chaotic. You could barely hear a word they were singing, and neither could you find the lyrics floating around on one of the giant screens above, behind, or to the sides of the band to clue you in. You were left with a vague sense that the band was, indeed, trying to communicate something to you by the way they sang passionately into their mics.

Given you couldn’t hear a word they were saying, you were left with watching their dance moves. They could dance, that was for sure! I almost imagined that Michael Jackson had been reincarnated. There was no moon walking going on, but plenty of similar, jaw-dropping foot work. Even while watching them dance around the stage, though, my fascination turned to unease. Their dancing at times could have been easily interpreted as sensual. Their skin-tight jeans and constant flipping of their long hair didn’t help with that interpretation.

Then, to top things off, FF5 couldn’t seem to get enough of themselves. The main singer and another band member each took a turn at grabbing a camera from the production crew filming the event and turning it to focus exclusively on them, close up. The lens must have been literally inches from their faces as they yelled into the mic they held in their other hand.  The main singer also laid down on the stage at one point, holding out his feet towards the audience to touch—as if his feet had earned the right to be idolized because of their incredible dancing.

Finding myself disgusted by the band, no matter how cool their dancing was, I turned my attention to the crowd. Some looked equally disgusted, sitting in their seats with arms crossed.  Others looked confused, caught somewhere between trying to dance along with the music and searching around for lyrics to learn what in the world the song was about. Finally, there were a lot of fans going out of their minds dancing along to the music—quite comically, some of them. I envied them and wished I didn’t have these rising qualms inside me so I could join in their dancing. But my qualms remained even after Family Force Five disappeared off the stage, and they eventually organized themselves into a burning question.

What in the world was Christian about FF5’s performance?

I took that question home with me, and decided to do a little investigating on it. My first place to start was Googling Family Force 5 with the only (literally, only) line  that I was able to pick out from their perfomance: “Crank it like a chainsaw”. The search results gave me the words to FF5’s song, “Chainsaw”*:

Yeah, they like the way I do this
When I crank it like a chainsaw
Yeah, they like the way I do this
When I crank it like a chainsaw

Full throttle heavy metal
Set the bar next level
Wasteland gettin' all janky
Soul Glow, chainsaw

Lay in the cut with them elbows back
Engine smokin' just like this track
Shirt be soakin' from all this sweat
Catch my breath, chainsaw

Now hear me roar
I'm an apex predator
From the sycamores, let's get Skeletor
Chainsaw, chainsaw

Watch and learn, watch and learn
Get that thang crankin', yeah, slash slash burn

Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it, crank it, crank it back
Crank it, crank it, back back

Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it, crank it, crank it back back
Crank it, crank it, crank it back back

Crank it like a chain, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it like a chain, crank it like a
Crank it like a chain, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it like a chainsaw, chainsaw

Fresh flannel shirt, country bumpkin
Lumberjack your moves, a.k.a. Paul Bunyan
Run yun yun-yun-yun yun-yun-yun yun-yun
I make it run I make it run I make it run run
Chainsaw

Drop it, drop it, drop it, down low
Chop it, chop chop it, chop, here we, here we go
Beats so sharp that they're callin' me Jaws
I'm your boss, baby, crank it like a chainsaw

Chainsaw

Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it, crank it, crank it back
Crank it, crank it, back back

Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it, crank it, crank it back back
Crank it, crank it, crank it back back

Chained out (Chained out), head hunter (Head hunter)
Cyberpunk, yeah, I'm a blade runner (Blade runner)
Turned up (Turned up), automatic (Automatic)
Full tank, you ain't gotta think about it
Chainsaw

Chainsaw
Yank it, crank it, swank it,
And you put it inside whatever you ride
Turn it all the way up and hear you crank it
Chopped the block no ginsu
Wilderness but I'm chivalrous

From Texas but no massacre
Unless it's a beat we killing it
Chopping down trees, can't you see
Watch some things fall
Bows to my knees I mean
I crank it like a chainsaw
Do it to these trees
I'll see these things y'all
Burn it up now burn it down
Now let me see you chainsaw

Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it, crank it, crank it back
Crank it, crank it, back back

Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Bows to the knees, yeah, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it, crank it, crank it back back
Crank it, crank it, crank it back back

Crank it like a chain, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it like a chain, crank it like a
Crank it like a chain, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it like a chainsaw, chainsaw

Crank it like a chain, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it like a chain, crank it like a
Crank it like a chain, crank it like a chainsaw
Crank it like a chainsaw, chainsaw

My first thought about the song when I read these lyrics was, “Nihilistic”. I found their claim at being an “apex predator” and a “head hunter” that "slash slash burns” things to outweigh their promise that they were “from the wilderness but I’m chivalrous, Texas but no massacre”. My second thought was “post-modernistic”. There’s no way this disjointed, schizophrenic song could be anything but a product of that worldview. But how could that be? Wasn’t this, after all, a Christian band? Weren’t they the same Christian band that made that pretty good song I had heard on the Christian radio station Air1 about trusting Christ?

I decided to see what FF5 said about themselves on their website. On their “About” page**, I heard a lot about their “hip-hop hues, guitar bludgeoning, smoov R&B melodies, eye-winking pop-culture references, stentorian grace, personal reflections and infectious optimism”, but not a single word about their faith. Not a single reference to Jesus, let alone God. The closest I got to anything Christian was this quote about two-thirds of the way down their long “About” page:

“On the joyous, celebratory ‘Let It Be Love,’ Jacob [FF5’s lead singer] delivers a couplet that is all-encompassing: ‘It’s not about the stand you take/but the grace we give/It’s not about the name we make/but the life we live.’ It’s a sentiment that transcends attitudes, belief systems and the spiritually empty things humanity puts entirely too much emphasis upon.”

Ah ha, that’s all good, just as long as you don’t put Christianity under that title of “spiritually empty things”. You see, lacking is a strong cry to reject the things of the world and turn to the love and grace of Christ! In fact, here is the worldview of FF5, taken again straight from their page about themselves:

“[FF5] have come to party positive with big beats and rapidimente rapping while offering moments of sincere inspiration. Producers Riley Friesen and Seth Mosley ably captured the band’s forward-in-all-directions worldview for maximum joy and reverence.”

I am not quite sure what is meant by “forward in all directions worldview”, but it would not seem to be consistent with Jesus Christ, who is “The way, the truth, and the light, no one comes to the Father but through me”. (John 14:6) Still, though, perhaps none of the actual band members had written all that about themselves. I wanted to see a direct interview where they were asked about their faith face to face.  I found such an interview on YouTube***. The reporter asked them directly what role their faith played in their music. Their answer, after a moment of awkward silence, was “A big one,” followed by nervous laughter and more awkwardness.

One of the band members (the lead singer, looked like) then elaborated:

“You write songs with experience and what you’re going through. And I think, um, this last record we, we were, uh, really writing out of that. And so some of our songs like “Let it be Love” and “Walk on Water” are our more faith driven songs. And you know, they’re what we were feeling at the time. Then you also have, like, stuff that’s like berserk and’s like ‘ah we’re just going to go crazy and have a good time.’ So . . .”

Pay careful attention to his words about “writing songs with experience” and “that’s what we were feeling at the time”. These are both cut and dried tenants of Post-Modernism, the belief that your own experiences and feelings define truth for you—because ultimate truth is unknowable. Your identity isn’t fixed in Post-modernism. In fact, it jumps around from identity to identity as you continually find your truth from each different revelation you have given to you by your experiences. Think of pop singers who have switched from identity to identity like Miley Cyrus (Can you believe she used to be the innocent Hannah Montana?), Justin Bieber, and Brittany Spears. And now, apparently, FF5 as they switch from their Christian Identity to their pop, secular hip-hop identity, or maybe even to their Nihilistic identity in “Chainsaw”.

Another telling sign of Post-Modernism is its avoidance of any absolute truth. Since truth is relative to your experiences, it would be wrong to try and force any overarching truth on anyone. As a result, you have to be intentionally vague and non-intrusive in whatever truth you personally hold to. So, for instance, if you are a Post-modern artist, your works are highly random and impressionistic. You randomly fling paint on your canvas, because it is not important (and even detrimental) that you paint a clear picture of something real, but that your audience is allowed to interpret their own truth as a result of gazing upon your random art.

If you are a post-modern music band, your work will also be highly disjointed and vague. It won’t speak to absolute truth, but will allow you to form your own conclusions. That sounds remarkably like FF5’s “Chainsaw”, and the majority of their songs. If we really agree with Christ that you will know people by their fruit (Mathew 7:20), then we need to look with careful discernment at the rotten fruit hanging from FF5’s spiritual tree and reject them as being a Christian band. They are a Post-modern band who may personally hold to faith experiences, but don’t think Christ is an absolute truth worth devoting all their music to. It is sad that a sincerely Christian organization like Compassion International allowed this band to tour with Christian greats like Steven Curtis Chapman, Francesca Battistelli,  Passion, and Rend Collective—as if FF5 was just as valid as these artists who actually sang of absolute truth,  who actually worshiped absolute truth.

This is not about criticizing FF5 because I have a different taste for music than they do. This is about the discernment we as Christians need to have. It is our duty to guard each other from false prophets, and that’s what I am doing here. Please, be wary of Family Force 5, and approach listening to them with a healthy dose of salt. Or, even better, steer clear from listening to them at all, until they are willing to truly let Christ be the absolute truth worth writing and living their music for.

¹⁵ “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? ¹⁷ So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ So then, you will know them by their fruits.

Mathew 7:15-20

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* http://www.metrolyrics.com/chainsaw-lyrics-family-force-5.html

**http://familyforce5.com/about/

*** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQbYDjg0Bts