T.C. of an O.J.

What a slow news day! I saw the new Will Farrell/John C. Reilly movie “Step Brothers” over the weekend and thought it was hilarious. I can’t remember when I laughed harder in a movie theater. The movie has been getting so-so reviews, which matter bubkiss because fact is, I was entertained.

• Bob Dylan – Did you realize Bob Dylan recorded 3 Christian albums from 1979 through 1981? Slow Train Coming was his first and was introduced to me by none other than Keith. It begins with the song “Gotta Serve Somebody”, to which I say, true that, Bob Dylan.

Unsurprisingly, Dylan’s Christian recordings alienated his secular fan base to the point a casual music fan like myself never even knew they existed until I unearthed a dusty copy of Slow Train Coming a few years ago from a neglected music collection.

You have the voice of an angel. I mean, it’s like Fergie meets Jesus.

While I’m not the biggest Bob Dylan or Christian music fan, Dylan is a masterful musician who made a few meaningful and spiritual albums before dropping Christianity. I do like the gospel/blues feel of Slow Train Coming. I also like the song “Saved” off the 1980 album bearing the same name. I think I could get into Christian music every now and then, after all, I did love singing along to “I Wanna go to HEAVENNNN!” in Buffalo.

• Where Are They Now? – A few of my former schoolmates have been in the news this year, however, they have been making headlines for shocking, disappointing, and frightening circumstances. As the events and naive optimism of my youth become vintage memories, more and more I’m convinced that depravity and tragedy are inevitable outcomes in this fallen world apart from God. I hope to write more in the future, but 2008 has not been a good year for Bearcat alumni.

• 2 Year Anniversary – Yesterday marked my 2 year wedding anniversary. It’s cliché to say, but it’s hard to believe I’ve already been married for two years. The most shocking thing is, as time goes on I get to know my wife more and more. To think, we thought we were really close when we said “I do”, but today we laugh about how little we really did know about each other.

It is exciting to build a deeper relationship together, although at times it can be challenging. For me, I know the hardest part is fighting the temptation to just vegg out on the couch instead of taking full advantage of the time we have together.

Although director Julian Schnabel took some liberties adapting Jean-Dominique Bauby’s tale to the screen, the result is still impressive and thought-provoking.

Despite maybe being a little too artisy-fartsy for some, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a must-see French language film. It tells the story of Bauby, known as “Jean-Do” to friends, the Editor of Elle magazine that wakes up from a coma with “locked-in” syndrome. Due to a major stroke, at 43 years old, Bauby is left paralyzed and unable to speak.

All Jean-Do can do is see and think. As observers, we’re able to hear his thoughts and see almost exclusively what he sees for the first portion of the film. After the shock and horror of his situation sets in, Jean-Do pities himself. His only communication with the outside world is his ability to blink his left eye.

With the help of his determined nurse Henriette, he develops a method of communication and rediscovers his imagination. Henriette works her way through an alphabet ordered by frequency of usage and Bauby blinks when she arrives at the letter in the word he wants to spell.

Let's write a book.

To the shock of his publisher, Bauby decides to make good on a book deal arranged before his sickness. Claude, yet another beautiful woman in Bauby’s life, is sent to take the dictation.

Bauby is trapped inside his body, a prison of flesh and paralysis. This suit is an inescapable “diving bell” for Bauby. But, with his blinking eye and his mind unaffected, he is still able to imagine vivid fantasies and dreams. As Jean-Do struggles to keep from drooling out of a disfigured mouth, as viewers we also see his “butterfly” or escape - an endless stream of imagination and memories including a wild dinner at an expensive restaurant with Claude, sex on the beach with an old flame, and life as the editor of fashion magazine.

However, the film’s conclusion is abrupt and the movie is devoid of spirituality. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was by no stretch trying to invoke comparisons to Christianity, but some parallels to Christ did exist. Jean-Do’s paralyzed state must have been something like Christ felt when he was stripped of his divine attributes in order to come to earth and die for our sins.

In order to die on the cross for our sins, Jesus left the comfort of the Trinity and came to earth.

…although [Jesus] existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

What it must have been like for Christ on earth? Talk about leaving your comfort zone - Christ went from being all-powerful and omnipresent to confinement in a fleshly prison. While on earth, Jesus had no divine attributes and instead was doing his ministry through God’s power. Although obviously not God, Bauby also faced the limiting reality of “locked-in syndrome”, reduced to a prisoner in his own body.

Bauby’s prison, his “diving bell”, symbolized his extremely limited state and approaching death. On the other hand, his butterfly, or his imagination allowed him to be reborn in a sense and live in a fulfilling way he never experienced before his illness.

In goes almost without saying that Jesus’ death and rebirth are central to our life as Christians. As we undergo spiritual growth, our natural man dies while Christ starts to shimmer through. The older we grow in Christ, the more we realize that we’re depraved sinners only capable of doing good things through Christ. Is it too much of a stretch that Bauby’s figurative death and rebirth bring to mind this passage?

So death works in us, but life in you.

The theme I liked most from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was that the mind and the ability to choose are the most powerful things a human being “owns”. Reduced to vegetable state, Bauby could still choose to accomplish something amazing. Instead of wishing for death or making excuses based on his circumstances, he wrote his memoir – the bestselling The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

God also places extraordinary value on choice. The one thing we have sole control over, our heart, is the one thing God uses to establish a relationship with us. No one can force us to choose anything we don’t want to. We have the free will to enter into a relationship with God at any time. But, even the creator of the universe can’t make the choice for us. We have to make it for ourselves.

The movie also touches on things we take for granted. We live like we deserve things like our right eye and the ability to walk, yet sometimes we don’t appreciate them until they are gone or are sewn shut.

What did you think of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly? Do you make excuses for yourself because of circumstances or what you don’t have? Do you take what you have for granted?

More “closet cleaning”…

In the movie Mean Girls, a backstabbing, cut throat clique of glamorous teenage girls ruthlessly run their high school’s popularity contest. Regina George, the “Queen Bee” controls the other Plastics using manipulation and intimidation. When her status is challenged by Cady Heron, played by Lindsay Lohan, both girls go after each other as only adolescent girls can: disgustingly nice to each other’s faces, yet diabolically evil and merciless behind each other’s backs.

It’s a hilarious and seemingly a little over-exaggerated, but if you’ve had to live through high-school you know it can actually be like Mean Girls. In the halls and classrooms, there’s an endless competition going on to be accepted and loved by others. Most will either stop at nothing to achieve acceptance or submit to the realization they’ll never have it. One day you’ve got a best friend and the next you have a worst enemy, inevitably someone you’ve found out is gossiping about you behind your back.

Xenos' Mean Girls

But things get better after high school, right? In some ways they do, boys and girls become men and women. They dress more grown-up, becoming refined in the stealthy art of co-worker bashing, all-around gossiping, and general making their way to the top of the heap. There are some that naively believe the popularity competition stopped in high school, but in reality the power struggle is greater in the office and the suburbs than it ever was. If you can make the company money, you will advance. The rules of the game may have changed a little, but the most adept quickly adapt to stay on the top.

Graduating to the Office

In workplaces across America, there also exist countless groups of Plastics who seek to control the way things happen and decisions are made. Disappointingly, they aren’t nearly as attractive as Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams. Instead, their bloated and weathered exteriors more accurately match their filthy insides, yet their game is the same. They have the management’s ear while they play a game of appearances, acting naive, polite, and kind on the surface, but gossiping and backstabbing behind the scenes to orchestrate events to their liking. The corporate culture is a game of appearances, politics, and popularity. If you listen closely, you can hear the whispers. Things haven’t changed at all since high school.

People believe that as they grow older, they mature and leave behind the pettiness of their childhood. Yet, a quick glance around the workplace and the household shows the contrary. People are still playing games, putting on facades, and stabbing friends in the back to get what they want. Relationships still fall apart at an alarming rate, and where they still do exist, they’re held together loosely by circumstances like a job or a crumbling marriage.

Change

How then does real change happen? The daytime self-helpers teach us that we’ve got to do what’s best for ourselves. The TV judges and talk show hosts decree that only we have the power to make positive changes in our life. The message of the culture is clear: If we want to be better people all we have to do is wish it and it will magically happen.

Yet, the bible presents a viewpoint that is in stark contrast with the Dr. Phil’s and Oprah’s of the world.

According to the bible, people can’t just be good. In fact, at their very core, from a biblical perspective, humans are rotten- incapable because of our very nature of doing anything good. This view is as politically incorrect and offensive as it comes and it shocks the naive optimist in most of us that likes to believe “we’re pretty good”.

Forgotten Depravity

Even as Christians, how soon after receiving God’s grace do we start to forget how undeserving we were of it originally? Recently, I was arguing with someone about the Prom of all things. The topic of conversation was really trivial; the point was I had painted a picture of myself that was far off from how things really were back in my high school days. Even then, I liked to fancy myself as a decent guy and a great catch for the ladies, but the ugly truth was that I was no better than any other guy at the Prom that night: I was essentially a predator with selfish motives, albeit more devious and refined in method.

Even now, years removed from the prom experience, I tend to view myself in a highly esteemed regard compared to those around me. It’s an utterly selfish and narcissistic view from inside my head that I actually could think anything I’ve done in the years between makes me any better than I was back then. In fact, when I’m truly honest with myself, I see infinitely more cracks and blemishes today then I saw back then as a non-Christian.

If we’re involved in ministry, there’s a temptation to start complaining about the younger Christians we’re overseeing. They aren’t changing, they’re constantly sinning, and they haven’t lived up to expectations yet again. There’s no doubt these characters have problems, but for all of their short-comings, the wrong way to approach them calling for change is from atop our high horse. They despise the spittle that rains down from our nagging lectures, so they tune them out.

The sobering truth is, “the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick”. This passage from scripture refers to all human’s hearts: yours, mine, and everyone’s. Here’s another: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. So, just because we’re ’saved’ and have been a Christian longer than someone else, doesn’t mean we have any grounds to get self-righteous and feel we’re better, mightier, or somehow more acceptable in God’s eyes. Maybe we have God’s grace, but it is through no doing of our own.

Superstars

The apostle Paul always had this in the forefront of his mind, which helped him remain humble during ministry. Just as thankfulness was the key to Paul’s contentment, humility was behind his ability to successfully reach people for God. As Paul explains in Ephesians:

you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you…to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel,

of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power.

To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ…

How often do we feel like “the very least of all saints” as Paul called himself? Maybe there’s times we feel down or guilty for making a mistake, but more often than not it is easy, especially if we’re older as Christians, to view ourselves self-righteously. A wise Christian leader once said emphatically that “There’s no superstars in the body of Christ”! At the time, his statement felt more powerful than a blow to the gut because I loved to think of myself as many notches above most of my Christian contemporaries.

Paul was a prime example of “no superstars”, because of anyone deserved to be treated like the “LeBron James” of Christendom, it was him. However, Paul was more than happy to slog away in jail for years, work as a tentmaker, and deal almost incessantly with Christians who probably “didn’t seem to get it”. It would have been easy for him to complain or hold out for a more glamorous detail, but he didn’t. Instead, his encounter on the road to Damascus with Christ was burned into his memory. Paul deserved to die, he knew it, and he never forgot it. Anything other than death had to be attributed solely to God’s grace.

Read how Paul states this in 1 Timothy:

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor, Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.

The problem is that we’d like to distance ourselves from Paul. We weren’t dramatically blinded by God, so it’s easier for us to forget that we too were headed straight for death before God saved us. We’ve learned a few things from God and studied the bible a little, so all of the sudden we start walking the halls like the popular girls.

The people we are working with in Christian ministry need discipline, direction, rebuke, and correction. But before we mount our steeds to administer it, keep in mind we struggled through similar problems too. Most of all, remember that we’re only here because God allowed us to be.

Here’s something that always baffled me: even the most mediocre, painful to watch, disgustingly bad movies have that requisite “this is an amazing movie” quote plastered on their DVD case. It seems as though movie studios can dig up a, or if you remember this story from a few years back fabricate a fake, critic who’s more than willing to gush praises all over their not-so great films. Just once I’d like to pick up a movie and see “Wesley Snipes, Martin Short and Sandra Bullock are atrocious…so bad it’s good!” and “watching Mickey Rourke try to act will give you a dull headache…by the time ‘Bullet’ is over you’ll be reaching for the Advil” or “at least you waited for the DVD release and saved a few bucks…Ben Affleck goes through the motions and is forgettable.”

If someone recommends this movie to you, they hate you.

Because I Said So had “lots of heart and plenty of laughs” if by lots of heart and laughs you mean that you wanted to beat Diane Keaton and then yourself over the head with a lead pipe upon seeing the movie.

So often we scan the DVD cases looking for a movie that will interest us, but can we really expect an honest appraisal from the very people who want us to buy what they’re selling? Films routinely promise us mind-boggling entertainment and excitement, citing phrases like “action-packed thrill ride” or “the most memorial film you’ll see this year” but more often than not fail to deliver.

Bold Claims

Another bold claim maker, Jesus Christ, was acutely aware of the inherent skepticism he’d raise. In John 5 he reasons, “If I alone testify about Myself, My testimony is not true.” In that ancient day, a Jewish court wouldn’t even bother calling the defendant to the stand. The reasoning: of course the charged would claim innocence, so why even bother?

However, Jesus did make huge claims, which if true, would profoundly affect the entire human race. Christ said things like “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” Jesus claimed God had given him the authority and responsibility of guarding the pathway to heaven and according to Christ our entrance into eternity is based solely on our relationship with him. Christ “also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God,” a claim that infuriated the religious leaders of the day and quickly lead to his death.

The statements Christ made are serious and therefore need significant validation for us to consider them. Thankfully, God anticipated this dilemma. He gives us 4 distinct witnesses to the fact the Christ is who he says he is:

John the Baptist is the first witness Jesus calls to the stand on his behalf.

“There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true…John…has testified to the truth. But the testimony which I receive is not from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved.”

Jesus cites John the Baptist because his “street cred” was extremely high with the people of that day. Most thought of John as highly religious and some even concluded he might be the messiah. However, John deflected these speculations and instead pointed to Christ as the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies and the symbols of substitutionary sacrifice, saying, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

The next witness Christ cites are the miracles he has performed.

“But the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish–the very works that I do–testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me.”

Jesus is, of course, referring to the amazing supernatural wonders he executed in order to show he did have the kind of power he was claiming. Jesus often performed these in public so all could see the power of God working through him. At the time, there would have been many witnesses to these wonders; men like the paraplegic he healed would be walking around telling everyone he encountered about the person who had made it so he could walk again.

Yet, Christ doesn’t stop there. He’s also been validated by the Father.

“And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent.”

Here Jesus refers to the witness given to Christians when they receive Christ and become believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit. In Romans we read, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God…”

This is a significant and power witness and it is more powerful than any external sources Jesus could cite. As Christians, the Holy Spirit, God himself is inside of us, powerfully validating that Jesus’ claims were true.

However, this witness only operates fully after a person receives Christ. A true skeptic would need more evidence than this.

That’s when Jesus pulls out the big guns…

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me”

Its obvious Jesus wanted us all to listen up regarding this final witness, as his statement feels pretty abrasive.

He’s referring to the Old Testament scriptures, a source all of the day knew well and trusted. Any good Jew could recite miles and piles of scripture; meanwhile, God had been orchestrating a paper trail that big to authenticate his coming messiah. Jesus points to these ancient scriptures, almost sarcastically asking, “It’s me- don’t you realize who I am?”

Amazingly, this authentication of Christ is as convincing and powerful as it was back then.

In Isaiah 42:9 God says, “Behold, the former things have come to pass, Now I declare new things; Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.”

God is omniscient, all knowing, and has the ability to look at time like a news reporter hovering over a massive interstate traffic jam in a helicopter. God can see the future clearly and he uses this to separate himself from other would-be idols, gods, and deities while at the same time authenticating his son, the messiah.

In Isaiah 44, God puts the challenge on the table:

“Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me. ‘Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; Yes, let him recount it to Me in order, From the time that I established the ancient nation. And let them declare to them the things that are coming And the events that are going to take place. ‘Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses Is there any God besides Me, Or is there any other Rock? I know of none.’”

To predict and declare the future is the unique ability of our creator God. No one else has this dramatic ability because it requires an infinite being to accomplish. God is such a being, saying, “If you’re God, let’s see you do this! How come your God can’t predict the future like I can? That’s right, only I can do this and only I am God!”

In Luke 24, Jesus gives his disciples a thorough bible study: “Now He said to them, ‘These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures…”

And we complain when the sermon gets close to an hour long? This must have been a long, intense bible study!

“and He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’”

Jesus took them through the entire Old Testament to show them passage after passage of predictive prophecy that referred to his life. There was no way Jesus could fake all these prophecies. Some scholars estimate there are over 300 distinct messianic predictions in the bible foretelling every aspect of his life and death hundreds of years before his appearance on earth. No one has control over things like where they will be born and how people will react to them.

Scriptures like Isaiah 53 eerily and accurately predict specific details of Christ’s life and demise, down to the fact that “He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities…by His scourging we are healed.”

Two types of pre-authentication are built into the bible regarding Christ:

The type John the Baptist referred to, which were the Old Testament symbols the people practiced in ritual. Ancient people often didn’t have the ability to read, however they could discern the significance of an animal sacrifice. The priest would place his hands on the scapegoat’s head and symbolically transfer the sins of the people to that animal. The symbols acted out as drama in front of the people later pointed to the same person who John pointed to: Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

The second type of pre-authentication employed by the bible is direct predictive declaration from God.

As we’ve seen, in effect God says, “You know this is me because I’m telling you what’s going to happen before it happens.”

For a Christian plagued with doubt or a skeptic filled with cynicism, direct predictive declaration is very compelling.

One of the most mind-blowing prophecies is found in Daniel 9 concerning the coming of the messiah. God not only says that Jesus Christ will come, he tells us exactly when.

Daniel 9’s Messianic Prophecy

Imprisoned for 70 years in Babylon, Daniel starts praying to God for Israel’s release. According to Daniel’s calculations, it’s getting to be close to the time that God promised he and his people could finally get out of captivity.

An angel visits Daniel in 9:24-25, telling him,

“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.”

In the context of Daniel 9, the “weeks” the angel refers to in the prophecy are actually years, or more specifically “sevens” or Sabbath years. The prophecy seems complicated, but it’s actually easy to calculate. The time from the decree to rebuild Israel to the coming to the Messiah is, according to angel Gabriel, 7 sevens and 62 sevens until the Messiah’s coming. So, (7×7) + (7×62) = 483 years.

However, in Daniel’s time they used lunar years, which consisted of 360 days per year. We use a slightly different measure, the Solar year, which are comprised of 365.2425 days, or less nerdly - 365 ¼ days. When we convert, 483 lunar years comes to 476 solar years.

So, 476 years from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah comes. Now, when was that decree exactly?

In Nehemiah 2:1-8, Nehemiah is employed as the King’s cupbearer or wine-taster, a job that’s easy and painless most of the time, but dangerous and necessary because of the possibly a dissenter might try to poison the King. It was Nehemiah’s job to get poisoned first if the wine was poisoned, thus saving the King.

One day, wrapped up in Israel’s plight, Nehemiah looked especially downtrodden. Of course, the King was highly sensitive whenever the person responsible for protecting him from wine-poisoning was looking a little under-the-weather. Therefore, King Artaxerxes asked Nehemiah, “Why is your face sad?”

Nehemiah explained why he was so sad and because God was with him, the Emperor of the biggest Empire in the world at that time granted him his wish that Jerusalem be rebuilt.

This is useful because we know through biblical and extra-biblical sources exactly when King Artaxerxes’ reign began, 465 B.C. We can add 20 years to this in order to find the date when the decree was issued because verse 2:1 tells us all this “came about in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes”. The Ancient peoples dated their calendar from the fall, so because the reign began in spring, the decree was issued in the year 444 B.C.

As we previously determined, 476 years later would take us from 444 B.C. to 32 A.D. But wait, because there’s no “year zero” on a timeline, we add one year to date the prediction’s result to be 33 A.D.

This is an astonishing prediction and validation of God’s Messiah, as it corresponds with exactly when Jesus announced himself as the Messiah. Again, remember the Daniel 9 prediction was given over 530 years before its fulfillment, so it pre-dates Christ. It would have been impossible for either Jesus or his followers to fake its fulfillment, especially because they did not keep a precise calendar in that day.

Are there any other possible explanations to brush away the significance of this prophecy? I’ve presented only a quick and dirty run-down of it here. If you’re still skeptical, why don’t you take up God’s challenge and delve further into the details of Daniel 9, or more importantly, ask God in your own heart if he’s really who he says he is.

God’s Challenge

God is waiting to respond to you if you’re seeking him earnestly and he’ll verify himself to you personally if you check him out.

Later in the book of John, “Jesus answered them and said, ‘My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself’”.

When you have an encounter with the real God, the one who is able to foretell and predict the future and who created you, God himself witnesses to you regarding Christ’s authenticity.

Today, there is no doubt in my mind that Christ is real because I’ve experienced him personally, just like there’s no doubt in my mind that my wife is real. I sit and talk with my wife in the same way that I’m able to have a personal relationship with God because of his Messiah, whom he pre-authenticated and then sent to die for our sins to make that relationship possible.

Healthy skepticism is fine and in fact, God anticipated it and built evidence and validation right into the bible. As Christians, our faith isn’t blind, rather based in part on real, substantiated evidence.

Just as you could only determine whether or not a movie is excellent or a flop by actually watching it yourself, you must make a determination for yourself regarding God. With eternity at stake, why would you leave it up to some other critic’s opinion? While movie tastes vary from person to person, Jesus’ claims are absolute and encompass the entire human race.

If you’re skeptical why don’t you take your search to God? Do you want to know him in a personal way? After all, Jesus makes outrageous claims that if true, will impact us for better or worse, regardless of whether or not we ever believe them. Due to the evidence God provides, these claims are plausible enough that should at least investigate them further!

Adopted from a teaching by Dennis McCallum.

Totally unrelated, but check out my mixtape.

Hardcore is a 1979 film written and directed by Paul Schrader and stars the acclaimed George C. Scott. Yet, Hardcore is relatively unheard of by casual movie watchers these days. Why? Well, a searcher for the movie “Hardcore” would be well advised to include George C. Scott’s name in the query, lest ye want to find seedier search results.
The subject matter of Hardcore is hardcore. Two opposing worlds collide as Jake VanDorn, a conservative Calvinist from small town Grand Rapids played by Scott, must dive head-first into the deplorable and depraved underground world of pornography to find his missing daughter.

When Jake’s daughter disappears, he quickly hires a private investigator to find her and is shocked and sickened when he is finally shown a grainy movie of her having sex. His daughter is involved in Los Angeles’ porn scene. After the private investigator’s initial attempts at locating her fail, Jake makes the painful decision to immerse himself into the seedy and deplorable world to find her.

Jake is a Calvinist who believes in predestination. On his search, he meets Nikki, a prostitute and aspiring porn actress, who is willing to help Jake track down his daughter. Nikki’s is as screwed up as the world she’s living in, but she’s open to talk about her beliefs and longs for someone like Jake to save and help her. But, for as noble his quest to save his daughter, Jake doesn’t want to hear the things Nikki says or believes in. VanDorn reminds her he subscribes to “TULIP”, which is a nice way of communicating that Nikki is an un-savable, lost clause. Sadly, Jake’s only use for her is helping him save his own daughter.

For her entire life, Jake tried to protect wall off his daughter from the outside world. But, at her first opportunity she ran as far away from Grand Rapids as she could looking for what she thought was love. In Los Angeles she finds a whole town willing to use her up and spit her out, which feels like acceptance and love to her. She ends up being used by the industry like a rag- they very people she thought loved her were setting her up to die in a snuff film! Blinded by the world’s delusion, she felt loved by the people who loved her least and didn’t see how her father, a raging work-sub, loved her all along. When Jake finally does find her, he emotionally confesses his love for her and she sees it too.

Pornographic Economics by Ryan Broughhman

Girls like Jake VanDorn’s daughter are nothing more than dollar signs and bodies to be used by Adult Film Industry.

A movie that removes itself from mainstream consideration because of its gratuitous use of nudity to accurately paint the porn scene, many themes run through Hardcore.

Jake must put aside the fact that the adult film industry disgusts his very being to infiltrate the world. He begins dressing like a gigolo and going to adult bookstores and peep shows. VanDorn feels sick to his stomach every time he has to do this and George C. Scott does a great job portraying it. On screen, it looks as though Jake feels like he’s wading into a pit of rotting garbage to find his daughter.

But because he loves her, he’s willing to do it. He’s willing to put up with the foul stench of the whole scene - the full-frontal male nudity, the come-ons from whores, and sitting through pornos while feigning interest, all because he wants to find her.

It’s a picture of redemption. Jake is willing to get filthy dirty in order to pull his daughter out of the muck and save her life. Often times, in the Body of Christ, we deal with people who seem foul and unlovable. In order to correct, reprove, and eventually redeem them, we have to wade out through the sewage to save them, often times completely submersing ourselves in it all to get a hold of them. We’re going to get mud on our boots and clothes if we want to be involved with people!

Just recently, we talked about my dealings with high schoolers that wouldn’t cooperate and complete their assignments. These two boys argued and spewed excuses all over the room. It would have been easy to ignore them and not address the problem, but it would have also been unloving. Instead, all those who had to deal with the boys got covered with a little of their spewage, but hopefully we helped redeem and sanctify these guys.

As a father, Jake had to witness a sickening sight- his daughter, porn star. Although it was her choice to run away and go into the movie business, Jake’s stern, rules-oriented approach in the home only made matters worse. Instead of emotionally connecting with his daughter, he used the fact that he was providing for her and protecting her from the cruel world as an unfitting substitute.

Jake is a warning to all current and would-be fathers that you can’t just love a family through dedication, bringing home the bacon, and hard work. A father must also connect with and support his family emotionally. Sons and daughters must actually feel loved, rather than deduce it because a roof is located overhead.

Hardcore still feels violent and shocking, yet the sub-culture has only slid further down into depravity since 1979. Then, underground movie producers planned to use Jake’s daughter in a snuff film and kill her! Men lined up waiting to shell out big bucks to see it. The horrifying thing is, as people delve into pornography appetites only grow stronger and something that seemed to satisfy lusty cravings one yesterday, doesn’t anymore today. Nowadays, women are openly objectified everywhere- in mainstream culture a woman’s worth is most often judged based on her looks.

Hardcore was made before cable television and the internet began to stream porn conveniently into houses. Now, instead of having to go out to a seedy movie theater in a shady area of town, adolescent boys can sit at their computer and call up all sorts of things to their screens with only a few mouse clicks. Porn isn’t even underground or taboo anymore, as stars like Jenna Jameson have crossed over to mainstream acceptance. Many years removed from 1979, what new, depraved ways are adult film producers thinking of to shock audiences now?!?

Disclaimer: If you’re planning to see Into the Wild, you probably shouldn’t read this. It might spoil the film for you!

Emile Hirsch plays Christopher McCandless, a jaded young man brimming with bitterness and distrust towards his parents and the world. After graduation from college, Christopher, who dubs himself Alex Supertramp for his travels, sets out on a journey towards Alaska. In Alaska, Alex feels he’ll finally live and experience life the way it was meant to be experienced before it was polluted by man. Just as Chris sees his father as an abusive tyrant, he sees Alaska as a Utopia where he can live autonomously in happiness.

However, from the beginning, Chris is unable to see how his family loves him. Although his father and mother frequently fight with each other, upon his graduation from college they proudly offer to pay for Chris’ graduate studies at Harvard and but him a new car. Their attempt at loving their son is flawed to Chris, even though he also has a younger sister who looks up to him.

Christopher is a driven young man. There is no doubt he’d be successful in the corporate world, yet the thought of business meetings and business suits nauseate him. Instead, his quest is fueled by this intense disgust for the world’s greed and materialism. His solution is to run away from it all, burning his identification, giving away all of his money, abandoning his car, and becoming a “tramp”, hiking, hitchhiking by car and rail, and rafting across the Western United States.

Into the Wild, a movie written and directed by Sean Penn based on a novel written about the actual Christopher McCandless, is a memorizingly heart-wrenching film. As Chris journeys across America his beard and hair grow long and messy, transforming him into Alex. For all of Alex’s hate for the world and its systems, he makes a fatal error by lumping the people trapped in this filth as part of the problem.

Alex’s quest is supposed to be about getting back into the wild, but while he is alone in it, he is almost always experiencing severe hardship. He fails to preserve a vital kill as meat that would be his dinner becomes infested by maggots, underestimates a river’s seasonal rise, and misuses his guidebook. But, the real trouble is in his heart, where Alex is a confused and lonely child who longs to be loved by his parents. While Mom and Dad have made mistakes, his own stubbornness and misdirected rebellion ultimately prevent it from ever happening.

Into the Wild - Chris aka Alex in Alaska

Alex’s adventure doesn’t go as planned.

In stark contrast to Alex’s suffering in the wild is his time spent with the motley ensemble of characters on his pilgrimage. The friends that become part of his life are the memorable part of the adventure as the scenes with Wayne, Ron, Jan, Rainey, and Tracey find Alex having the most enjoyment getting to know these people. Whether by intent or not, the movie shows clearly that all of Alex’s good times are spent in the company of others. Despite the cauldron of discontent that bubbles beneath Alex’s surface, he is genuinely likeable and able to make a lasting imprint on the characters he meets. In turn, they do the same for him, although he mutes their efforts by maintaining his focus of his greater aspirations of Alaska.

In one scene, Alex sits atop a mountain with the elderly Ron, a lonely man who grows to love Alex so much he wishes to adopt him. Alex has just finished drawing Ron out of his bitter old man shell, getting him to climb up to the top and share the view with him. But, Alex takes this beautiful moment, one in which Ron explains forgiveness to Alex and pushes in aside. His thoughts no doubt turning to Alaska he tells Ron, “You don’t need human relationships to be happy, God has placed it all around us.” My wife groaned and nodded her head in disagreement as if to say, “No, don’t think like that, Alex!” but Alex’s stubborn resolve obliterates any promise the moment on the mountain had for Christopher McCandless’ life. As even the film later shows, Alex couldn’t have been further from the truth.

In fact everyone he meets on his way begs Alex to forgo his quest north, but Alex pushes on blindly. Jan, an old hippie traveler whose own relationship with Rainey was restored in part because of Alex, tearfully asks him “do your parents know where you are?” Sadly, Alex’s parents don’t know where he is and the uncertainty about their son’s life has brought them together while at the same time ravaging their lives with sadness and guilt.

Why does Alex keep pushing towards Alaska? Does he view autonomy with nature as the ultimate escape away from the “sick society” that turns him off? Does he want to proudly stand against society by foraging into the wild? No, it seems like he wants to run away from reality and stand in contrast to his parents. But as far as he runs, Alex can’t escape his bitterness.

Myself in Alex

As a teenager turning into a young man, I felt much the same Christopher felt. My stomach turned at the idea of becoming a working stiff for the man and I felt isolated and alone in a world where nobody loved me, or so I perceived. I took my parents for granted and used incidents where I felt they were wrong to justify writing them off and shutting down their future attempts to show me they loved me and relate with me. I spent most of my time and effort thinking up dreams of a world where I would be different and stand proudly alone, yet in doing so I was pushing people away that really cared for me by keeping everyone at arm’s length.

Luckily, I never considered Alaska as an alternative to the world around me and eventually found Christ while attending an on campus bible study. I always felt like there had to be an alternative to this cold, dark, sick world, but solutions I would come up with on my own didn’t really change anything or fill the void I still felt in my life. In Christ, however, I was finally able to take my misdirected rebellion and channel in into a funnel provided by God. I hope I never lose this rebellious distrust of the world that boiled inside of me as a teenager, however, I’m so thankful that God was able to refine this desire for non-conformity I had within.

It is so sweet for me to open the pages of the bible and see Jesus as the ultimate rebel with a cause, rebelling against the systems and religion of the times in order to bring all of humankind a meaningful and lasting alternative. I’m just sad that people like Christopher McCandless will never get to experience this too.

A Tragic Conclusion

What good are the breathtaking sights Alex saw on his trip? He can’t share them with anyone else! His time in the wild is spent fondly thinking back on the time spent with his friends. In Alaska, Alex wants to share his experiences with people. Without people the beauty and nature of Alaska seems useless.

In fact, Into the Wild is one long look back on the time Alex spent with people he has grown to love as he dies a miserable death isolated, alone, and hungry. At very end, on his deathbed, Alex doesn’t reflect back on the original purpose of his trip- the nature or the beauty he’s seen, instead he dreams of running back to his parents arms.

He learns some of life’s most difficult lessons too late. Christopher spends life pushing away people trying to experience happiness on his own, but only after actually trapping himself alone in the wilderness, with loneliness crushing him to death, does he realize “happiness is only real when shared”. Tragically, Alex is an example for us all. He, like most people, spends his entire life trying to run away from his parents. His story should be a warning to those that attempt the same race: we can never run away from our parents and the suffering we think they’ve caused us. If we write them off and refuse to love, in effect we become what we despised in the first place and with always take that deadly baggage with us- even all the way to Alaska.

I’m sure everyone has had their share of weird dreams, but last night I dreamt Nicole Kidman was an old college friend of mine. I racked my brain trying to think of a reason that Nicole Kidman, of all people, would show up in my dreams and then I remembered I’ve got a bad habit of staying up past my bedtime and watching the celebrity gossip show, TMZ. Kidman is 5 months pregnant with Keith Urban’s baby, you know.

Photo obtained from justjared.buzznet.com

My old buddy Nicole and her baby to be haunt my dreams!

While I’m rambling, I attended a high school basketball playoff game at a certain school that has, shall we say, a little bit of a reputation for less than perfectly behaved students. While I was walking down the hall there was a big sign hanging that read something like this: “If you have to think about whether what you’re about to do is right or wrong, it’s wrong!” I can’t get over that sign and the fact that it is probably right for almost everyone who reads it. I picture a bully about to take some poor kid’s lunch money, looking up at the sign and then changing his mind.

Hoop Dreams

still “cleaning”…

On the subject of basketball, If you’ve never seen the documentary Hoop Dreams, you really need to. You don’t need to be a basketball fan. Despite a long running time, the film is so powerful and moving, it’s no wonder it was one of the most critically acclaimed of 1994.

Hoop Dreams tells the tale of two young black men with NBA aspirations. From a young age, the two players, William Gates and Arthur Agee, naively see professional basketball as the inevitable end to their journeys. Agee and Gates are standouts on the blacktop from a young age. On their “road” to the NBA, on the court and off, they battle the cruel reality of real life. The inner city ghetto, poverty, drug addiction, families trying to live vicariously through them, and harsh realizations that their ability to play basketball cannot solve life’s problems all stand in their way.

I won’t ruin the ending of the movie, but this quote from one of the players really stands out:

People always say to me, “when you get to the NBA, don’t forget about me.” Well, I should’ve said back, “if I don’t make it to the NBA, don’t you forget about me.” - William Gates in Hoop Dreams

What really strikes me is that in the 14 years since, “Hoop Dreams” have gotten worse, not better. Every high school should be required to show this movie. On the amateur courts there is more pressure than ever, as standout players are recruited from an increasingly younger age. Players transfer from school to school, jockeying for national exposure and scholarship offers. It’s a system that resembles any other system in place today- if you can play, more importantly, if you can give us something, we want you. When you no longer can, there’s no more use for you.

It’s so tragic that our culture routinely holds up examples of stars like Michael Jordan and LeBron James to persuade children to buy into the “you can be anything you want to be” fallacy. While this it might be most pervasive on the inner city basketball courts, this false hope invades every area of life. Schools everywhere are teaching the notion that if you totally sell yourself and find your true passion, magically you’ll be rewarded like the Jordans, Oprahs, and Rolling Stones’ of the world.

I’m not suggesting people can’t do what they have passion for and there is nothing wrong with encouraging kids to try their best, but it is delusional to let them follow unrealistic dreams at unimaginable costs. Which would be worse: a parent “shattering” a teens’ childlike dream or encouraging their children to keep working towards an empty and lost cause? An elite player like Jordan sacrificed his whole life in an intense drive to become the greatest. For Jordan, almost like a fictional Miranda Priestley in The Devil Wears Prada, it may have been lonely and dark at the top, but at least the money and fame sort of, at least initially, seems worth it.

Photo obtained from Yahoo Sports

How do you practice this?

Parents and kids buy into the “be like Mike” syndrome and begin sacrifice everything in the race for their child to be the next LeBron or Carly Patterson. The problem is that most will never even be good enough to earn a college scholarship, let alone make it to the professional ranks. At the NBA level, or any other field’s elite rank, sacrifice and hard work often aren’t enough. There are so many intangibles.

I stand 5-11 and have average physical skills. It would be insanity for me to latch onto the delusion that I could one day play professional basketball, no matter what kind of work ethic I had or sacrifices I was willing to make. A player like LeBron James works hard to improve upon the already mind-blogging physical gifts he received. Truly, there’s no way an average person like me could ever compete. In the same way, it was unrealistic for me to believe I would graduate from college and instantly be handed a rewarding 100K-a-year career. Corporations don’t hand money out! The individuals standing at the pinnacles of their respective careers are few for a reason. Yes, they’ve put it hard work, but luck, opportunity, being born with talent and drive, and being in the right place at the right time played a big role, too.

At least the sacrifice Michael Jordan made got him something. While he was alienating teammates, gambling, and womanizing he was filling his trophy case. On the court, his accomplishments are so respectable; we can almost overlook his lack of success off of it. But, for every LeBron or Air Jordan we immortalize, there are millions like William Gates and Arthur Agee we have never heard of or forgotten about.

So, if we can’t have “Hoop Dreams”, can we have any dreams? I’m planning to have kids one day and there’s no doubt they will look up to famous figures like the inevitable next basketball superstar and dream about one day being them. So, with all this in mind, what do I tell my kids?

More “closet cleaning”…

At the climatic moment of the film The Devil Wears Prada, Andrea “Andy” Sachs realizes her dream job, the one she thought she wanted so badly, isn’t worth sacrificing her entire life and ruining all of her relationships for.

As moviegoers witness another predictable feel-good Hollywood ending, the moral of The Devil Wears Prada is clear: what really matters in life is not money, fame, status, or career; rather what is most important is staying true to yourself and being with the loved ones you care about.

The Devil Wears Prada - Image obtained from http://outnow.ch/Media/Img/2006/DevilWearsPrada/movie.fs/34

Now, I’m not trying to bash the message behind the movie, but let’s be honest - at the most important moment of her young budding career, as her boss (who is one of the most powerful people in the industry) is calling, Andy throws her cell phone into a fountain? It makes for an interesting movie, but that’s not how people really live!

The majority of us are either working stiffs who are scared to ask for a day off at our mediocre jobs or we’re sitting at home jobless because we pulled one too many Andrea Sachs’ of our own. In real life, telling a boss off might feel good in the moment, but it won’t put food on the table for the next month, will it?

The Dream Job

There’s a growing notion in high schools and colleges that a “dream job” is out there for every student, if only they’ll work hard enough and follow their dreams tirelessly enough to get it. The culture holds up this fable of a dream job and uses a few examples of successful people who seem to be like you and I to support it. Look, there’s a 20-something rapper who’s sold a platinum record…over there! It’s a hip, young, attractive female who works as a fashion designer. Do a few examples mean dream jobs are possible for all of us? Who’s going to take care of our trash?

What all this dream job talk doesn’t prepare you for is the likelihood that you won’t actually get your dream job. After all, the competition is incredibly tough for a fun, exciting, rewarding job that pays 6 figures with amazing perks. Realistically, very few obtain their dream jobs and only after great ongoing cost to their personal lives.

The harsh reality is, instead of a dream job, most people will get a boring old regular job. I see you there, sitting at your desk frustrated. I’m here too. Don’t we deserve more?

The problem is, spending our lives searching, climbing, and holding onto the hope that if I get to dream job fulfillment is there too doesn’t work out. We see it in the movie - Miranda Priestley, Andy’s powerful fashion magazine Boss in The Devil Wears Prada, wasn’t fulfilled by her job at all. It was a constant grind for her maintain the ruthlessness needed to stay on top and it took an ugly toll on her. Her relationships were non-existent, she was divorcing, and her life although well-dressed and full of money, was miserable.

Andrea got to see this, along with a rare glimpse of Miranda without makeup, near the end of the movie. Loyally, Andrea reveals a plot to replace Miranda at the magazine. Almost immediately, Miranda puts back on her cosmetically applied, callused exterior and makes sure Andy knows she’s still the same bitch she always was, lying when she tells Andy she knew all along about the plot.

Somehow, most of us know in the back of our minds that a career will never make us happy either. But, we seem to forget this the moment an amazing opportunity arrives along with mandatory late nights, cancellations of family plans, and relational alienation with the ones we love the most.

They say that the thing you’d do for free for the rest of your life is your dream job. Once you find out what it is, chase it down.

The Alternative Dream Job

While I’ve got a boring and unfulfilling day job, I’m lucky enough to already be doing what I would do for free for free after work. I spend most of my nights involved with my church. In fact, my calendar looks like I’m a busy fashion mogul, but a closer look reveals it is filled with home church meetings and breakfast appointments at Dunkin’ Donuts to practice discipleship. I look forward to the weekend as an escape from the workplace, but more so as an opportunity to practice my “dream job” uninterrupted.

I’m thankful that after years of unsuccessfully searching for a career that would live up to my dreams, God has given me ministry inside of the Body of Christ that far exceeds any occupational thrills I could have hoped for.

I’m helping introduce students to Christ, while at the same time God refines my character. Talk about a perks package! Wait; there are people who actually get paid to do this kind of work too? It’s too good to be true!

More “closet cleaning”…

Just this past Saturday, A Shaker Heights doctor accused of by running a “pill mill” from his three clinics killed himself by jumping off the Valley View bridge.

Valley View Police…said they were called to the bridge at 7:43 a.m. after a witness saw a man jump off the eastbound lanes of the Interstate 480 bridge.

The witness told police the man opened his car door left the engine running and jumped.

…the fall was about 170 to 180 feet.

Which turned my thoughts to “The Bridge”. “The Bridge” is a controversial 2006 documentary about the high rate of suicide jumpers who use San Francisco’s most recognizable structure, The Golden Gate Bridge, to end their lives.

The filmmakers point their cameras at an infamous position on the bridge for a year and capture 19 people jumping off towards death. The film focuses on interviews with friends and families of the jumpers. More a funeral remembrance to the victims than a sensational attempt to capture something morbid, “The Bridge” isn’t as horrific as it is just saddening. Maybe not so surprisingly, it offers little in terms of answers or hope. Footage of people climbing over the rails of the bridge to fall to the ocean below is intertwined with loved ones detailing lives that just didn’t fit into this world, lonely people, and struggling to explain why someone they knew would end their life.

Suicide sign on the Golden Gate Bridge

Despite signs like this, people still jump.

What goes through a person’s mind as they plunge to their death? The most alarming realization of the documentary is that a person ending their life has many long seconds before impact with the water, which is like concrete to an object falling from so high so fast. These seconds seem lengthy even to casual viewers of “The Bridge”, but I wonder how long they must have felt for those actually falling.

One of the jumpers, with a history of mental illness but the appearance of an average young man, is interviewed after he survives his suicide jump off the bridge. He tells the camera that after not going to school that day and crying the entire bus ride there, on the way down he realized he wanted to live. Astonishingly, he does- with many broken bones.

Finally saw No Country For Old Men. Since hearing the title, I wanted to like the movie even before I saw it. It’s strange how something so simple and seemingly unimportant as a title can affect your perception like that.

I liked the movie a lot, despite the final outcome. In fact, the film felt very similar to The Departed due to the undesired conclusion and for many other reasons. I wanted to yell at the screen. Damn, Llewelyn shouldn’t have gone back to give that Mexican agua, even he knew it was a bad idea.

In both - The hero is in over his head, the entire movie is sweaty palms with the whole outcome riding on a few choices that could have easily been made differently, the presence of a villian that is so vivid and hated in the end he must be loved, and the gruesome amount of blood and violence.

The conclusion seems abrupt, but does it make the movie flawed? I haven’t decided. To it’s credit, the movie doesn’t give us the Hollywood ending we’re conditioned to expect. After intensely following a trial of blood across Texas, it all comes to an end in a shootout we don’t even get to see.