Christian Realism

First, before I get into the books I’ve read this month, let me set one thing clear: we’re not becoming a book review site. I’ve had some requests for us to review a book. That’s not what we’re doing, but if you want to send us a free copy of your book, more power to you. What we’re up to is just chatting about what we’ve read this year.

OK, so on to what I’ve been reading. January has been a very strange month for me in that I haven’t gotten a whole lot read. Usually I read anywhere from eight to 10 books/month, but I only got through two in January. One reason is that I was busy catching up with a huge pile of magazines that consumed a good chunk of my month. Also, I seemed to be busier than usual, but I’m not sure why.

Anyway the two books I’ve read this month were Uncommon Dissent, edited by William Dembski, and Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method by Henry Bauer. I’m putting together a class on Intelligent Design with another guy from church (who is a science teacher) and my role is to discuss the metaphysical side of the issue: how much is the ID debate actually not related to science per se but actually a discussion of what constitutes science and what the philosophical/metaphysical foundations of science are and should be. I’ve got an hour and a half of teaching time to answer those.

I’ve read quite a bit about ID, even before I set out to teach this class, and Uncommon Dissent is one of the better books I’ve read. It’s not about ID itself, but about intellectuals who don’t find Darwinian evolution intellectually satisfying, and their reasons why. It doesn’t set ID as the answer but allows the authors to put forth their own ideas, some of which contradict with each other. I highly recommend it.

The other book (Bauer) was good. It reflects a heavy influence of Michael Polanyi in its discussion of how science is actually conducted (in comparison to the myth about the scientific method). It’s not an unimportant subject, especially as our culture becomes more and more a culture of the expert. Again, I recommend.

What’s next? I’m picking my way slowly through Iain Pears’ An Instance of the Fingerpost as well as a couple books for leadership training at church.

Horror: A Thematic History in Fiction and Film by Darryl Jones. Let’s see… how to put this delicately… perhaps I wanted more out of the book than it was ever intended to give, but this book failed to deliver on almost every level.

Ostensibly it was an examination and history of several themes in horror literature (and film): the mad scientist; vampires; forbidden knowledge; pestilence / invasion motifs; diabolism; etc. In actuality, it seemed more like a polemic against the “video nasties” laws of the UK. Yeah, okay, I get it: The Exorcist was banned in England, and the author doesn’t like it. Point taken. Can we move on now?

The book was divided thematically; that much of the title was correct. And in the author’s defense, he seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of 20th-century horror films. Unfortunately, that was the part I was least interested in: I wanted to know more about the themes in literature and the history. And there, it was lacking. First, the history was rather weak, especially on the literary side. The section on vampires in literature, for example, seemed little more than an abridged version of Montague Summers Vampire: His Kith and Kin. In the section on cannibalism, the author talks at great length about Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, and I’m not sure he picked up on all of Swift’s irony. And the opening chapter, about Gothic literature (a reasonable place to being a discussion of horror literature), quickly devolved into a rant about how the English hated the Celts, and the Protestants hated the Catholics. This is how we got Gothic lit: no mention of similar themes appearing in French and German literature at the same time.

To make matters worse, the book was difficult to read. Britishisms aside, the flow was disjointed: paragraphs would go on for a page or more, then the text would jump to another subject without transition or explanation of the relationship. The sentences were long and discursive: things that should have been footnotes were crammed in as long parenthetical clauses, and some things that should have been parenthetical asides were relegated to annoying endnotes.

But I knew the author and I were in two completely different places when I read the following on page 45: Unquestionably the greatest of all cannibal movies, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is also, for my money, the greatest of all modern horror movies (as well as having what is undoubtedly the finest title of any film, ever, and featuring, in Marilyn Burn’s performance as Sally Hardesty, the greatest example of sustained screaming since Fay Wray in King Kong.)

At this point it was obvious we had complete mental disconnect. Or, as bluewoad would say, we had differing hermeneutics. To wit:

• The implicit assumption that there are numerous great cannibal movies to choose from.
  I don’t think there are.
• The claim that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a great movie, much less the “greatest of all modern horror movies”.
  I don’t think it’s even a good movie… and you can interpret “good” on all its various levels.
• The screaming thing.
  If there is such a thing as a great scream, then Janet Leigh takes the prize.

So basically, the book was a disappointment. But the next one I plan to review was much better…

Another book log post…

The Last Coin by James P. Blaylock. About six months ago I started this book, and then we moved to Pennsylvania, and I got sidetracked by Raymond Chandler… anyway, I finally got back around to reading this again, and finished it this time. The book is an urban fantasy about Andrew Vanbergen, who unwittingly becomes a guardian of an evil coin: one of the thirty pieces of silver Judas was paid to betray Jesus. It is also about contraband Weetabix, the Wandering Jew, vigilante parrots, and a faked infestation of ‘possums.

It is difficult to describe Blaylock’s style, though the word “gonzo” has been suggested. The Last Coin is an enjoyable blend of Biblical allusions, European legend, and conspiracy theory, and is equally clever and whimsical. There was one passage in particular, where Andrew muses first about his self-pity, and then about his pride, that stood out for me. The book is quite far from preachy, but had some excellent moral overtones. Faith-wise, I don’t know where Blaylock is. But this is the type of quality novel I wish one could find at the local Christian book store, instead of at the used paperback exchange.

I attend what some would term a mega-church. Mars Hill Church in Seattle has about 4,000 to 4,500 regular attenders (depending on who the pastor has upset from the week before). But we’ve outgrown our facilities and our new building won’t be ready until next fall if all goes according to schedule.

One of the solutions is the ‘video venue’ idea that other large churches (most notably Bethlehem Baptist — John Piper’s church) have used. The sermon is preached live at the main campus and recorded. It’s then played at another site while everything else is ‘live’ including pastors onsite, etc.

This Sunday, Jan 22, was the roll-out for our first stab at this model. A local para-church ministry (www.crista.org) has donated one of its auditoriums to us to use, rent free, on Sundays. They even allowed us to redecorate it however we wanted. The best news for us is that it is just a couple miles from home, which is probably the closest we’ve ever lived to our place of worship, except for a year or so in college. To make it even better, even at full
capacity, the auditorium only holds about 400, so it’ll be more like a small church than the mammoth 1,000+ services at the main campus.

We were expecting about 200 for a successful launch. Official attendance came in at 400. They had to bring in chairs twice and people were standing, sitting everywhere they could. I had to get there late because I had to be down at the main campus earlier in the day. I had to stand outside and look in through a door, so for me the ‘pastor’ consisted of a pair of shoes (which was all I could see). Once the singing/communion time started (yes, we have the sermon first and do everything else as a response to God’s Word being proclaimed), I
managed to get in and sit with my family.

Those who know me know I’m not a very emotional guy. Except for when I see someone breaking the spine of a book, not much gets me choked up. But to see a new campus launch packed out in what is the second-most unchurched city in America, well, I’m punch happy about it all. We are most likely going to have to see a second service soon to accomodate everyone. The numbers at the main campus were not bad at all (if you take into consideration that the Super Bowl playoffs were during the last two services), so all those who came to the new campus did not drain away significant numbers from the main campus. To see the name of Christ proclaimed in such a way… Amen!

For those of you who are in the Seattle area, here’s a movie event happening at Mars Hill Church in February:

Film & Theology Special Event

“What do you do when the Jesus freak who started your church dies from AIDS? Simple. Erase him from history.”

On Friday, February 10th, Film & Theology will hold a special screening of the indie-documentary “Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher.” Writer and director David di Sabatino will speak on the story of the legendary Jesus freak who would help put the
Calvary and Vineyard movements on the map and, ultimately, be erased from church history.

Featured in the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, Mill Creek Film Festival, the Reel Heart Film Festival, Variety Magazine, and Charisma Magazine.

Friday, February 10th
6:45pm
1401 NW Leary Way, Seattle, WA 98107

A number of us here in X-R land identify ourselves to one extent or another with the Reformed flavor of Christianity. Today I was thinking about the whole idea of ecstasy and the Spirit (prompted by a new book from Eerdmans … yes, my life is determined and directed by book catalogs, thankyouverymuch). So here’s a thought experiment I’d like everyone/anyone to chime in on:

Presuppositions: (1) Cessationism: that is, the ’sign’ gifts of tongues, miracle working, and whatnot ceased with the closure of the New Testament.

(2) Mysticism is not allowed.

Question: What ways, given the above presuppositions, do you see it possible to live a life that is open to ecstasy from the Spirit?

Just saw this in the spring ‘06 catalog from Eerdmans: Shouts and Whispers: Twenty-One Writers Speak about Their Writing and Their Faith. Looks promising.

Along with some of the other Christian Realists, one of my goals for this year is to log all the books I read, and I’m already two weeks behind. So here goes: the first three books I’ve read in 2006.

• Office Kaizen by William Lareau. Remember back in the ’80s when doing things the Japanese way was going to tranforms manufacturing in the US? Every company rolled out some fancy management philosophy du jour; they each had a different three-letter acronym, but one of the letters was always Q for quality. That was all kaizen, which is a Japanese word that means, “improvement.” This book is supposed to be about adapting some of those best practices from manufacturing, and applying them to the office environment. In reality it is a 150-page sales pitch for the author’s consulting firm. This was the first book I read in 2006, and it was quite a dissapointment. Fortunately, things can only improve from there.

• In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters by Merrill R. Chapman. In 1984, MicroPro was the #1 software company in the world, with an annual revenue of about $60 million (Microsoft was #2 at $55 million). Fast-forward to 2001, and Microsoft is the #1 software company in the world with $23.8 billion in revenue: more revenue than the next 99 software companies combined. The author argues that Microsoft got so big by never making the types of fatal mistakes that hampered its competitors.

  I had hoped the book would be a primer on how not to do marketing, and in that respect I was rather disappointed. But it did turn out to be an unexpectedly entertaining history of the decline and fall of some of the former big names in the computer industry: Borland, Ashton-Tate, Lotus, Novell, Netscape, and MicroPro. For example, MicroPro (remember, #1 in 1984) ended up with two different products that did the same thing, had the same name, cost the same, and had the same target audience; they had WordStar and WordStar 2000, and no compelling reason for people to buy either one of them. If you’re into computers, check this one out.

• The Prestige by Christopher Priest. Okay, call me a loser, but even though Christopher Priest has written a dozen novels and won the World Fantasy Award, I’d never heard of him until a year or two ago. But now that I have, I find myself of two minds about the book. On one hand, it is quite engrossing and features all sorts of things that interest me: alternate history, ghosts, Tesla (the scientist, not the band), and illusions. On the other hand, it reads like the longest short story ever. It uses the Roshomon-like “multiple perspectives of the same story” style, but by page 100, most of the plot twists are obvious, and the book lacks a big, “aha!” payout at the end. That being said, I still enjoyed the book quite a bit, and will try some of Priest’s other novels.

Okay, that’s it: my first book log entry. None of them evoked life-changing insights, but two of them were worth the read.

Munich
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush, Daniel Craig
Trailer: www.apple.com/trailers/universal/munich
Rated R for strong graphic violence, some sexual content, nudity and language

Reviewed by Paul Christian Glenn

Munich is Steven Spielberg’s most fascinating film to date. It’s far from perfect, but for a director who has spent most of his career pandering, Munich is a significant anomaly - a film with no obvious blockbuster potential. Too ponderous to succeed as a thriller, too crass to be an “important” film, and too vague to work as a mass entertainment, Munich is a unique work that defies easy categorization.

The story has been told before, in George Jonas’ 1984 book Vengeance and a 1986 HBO movie called Sword of Gideon. Even for those unacquainted with the previous tellings, the prologue here will likely be familiar. At the 1972 Olympic Games, 11 Jewish athletes were massacred by a PLO-funded terrorist group called Black September. Munich picks up shortly after those tragic events, as a team of Israeli assassins is assembled to track down those responsible for the attack and mete out bloody justice. Despite being hand-picked by the Prime Minister and funded by Mossad, the team is not officially recognized by the Israeli government. They travel in shadows throughout the Middle East and Europe, building bombs and methodically ticking names off their list.

The leader of this team is Avner (Eric Bana), a former Mossad bodyguard with a young wife at home and a baby on the way. Avner accepts the assignment knowing it will be dangerous, but little realizing how much it will cost him, physically, mentally and spiritually.

The assassins are a surprisingly ragtag bunch. Far from being the suave secret agents of paperback fiction, these spooks have human interiors, and as the bodies pile up, their personal constitutions break down. Doubt begins to color their conversations even as their activities grow more aggressive and gruesome. No matter how noble one’s cause, it is disturbing to look in the mirror and see a killer staring back. How far is too far? What kind of “collateral damage” is acceptable? And what does it mean when you start killing on principle instead of assignment?

The violence here is visceral. Spielberg uses grainy, bleached-out images to create a visually compelling landscape, and his camera mimics the cinematic style of the subject era. The movie is a pleasure to look at, and the performances are compelling. Eric Bana finally proves that there is, in fact, a reason he’s been cast in a string of high-profile projects over the last couple years.

Tonally, the film is a a jumble. At certain times it plays like Tarantino, lingering needlessly over sex and gore, while at others it seems to be channeling Merchant Ivory through Coppola. The story meanders, abandoning characters, suggesting plot threads that never develop, and taking detours through indulgent artistic flourishes (at least one of which is cringe-worthy).

But it is precisely this reckless narrative abandon that I like about the film. We already know Spielberg can do the formula thing. Here he kicks aside the training wheels he’s been carrying for two decades and barrels straight off the beaten path. So what if he loses his way in the woods? I’d rather see Spielberg spend the rest of his career making interesting films that don’t entirely work (like A.I. Artificial Intelligence) than predictable blockbusters that do (like Indiana Jones and the Search for his Bifocals).

Don’t be fooled by the obligatory controversy that has accompanied the film’s release. Some say the pic is anti-Israel; others say it is too soft on the PLO sympathizers. Both claims are completely irrelevant. Munich isn’t making a point, it’s asking a question: How do we reconcile these disparate passions that have fueled horrors throughout the world for centuries beyond remembrance? For once, Spielberg doesn’t have the answer, but he’s ready to start the dialogue.

Interesting article posted at Christianity Today about the commercialism surrounding Disney’s film version of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

This is an issue that must also have concerned Tolkien’s fans when Peter Jackson’s films were released, but the question becomes even stickier with Lewis’ story, which functions as a allegory for the gospel story.

I, for one, am nauseated by the idea of Narnia-themed trinkets being distributed by fast-food merchants, but is there anything inherently unethical about finding new ways to market an intellectual property that has been a commodity since the first book rolled of the press? Interesting question.