Presbyterian Church Barely rejects Same-Sex Marriage

Washington Post:

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) narrowly rejected a proposal to revise the traditional definition of marriage on Friday, a year after it struck down a barrier to ordaining gays.

The Presbyterian General Assembly, meeting in Pittsburgh, voted 338-308 against changing how marriage was defined in the church constitution from a “civil contract between a woman and a man” to a “covenant between two people.” The assembly also rejected measures that would have affirmed a traditional definition of marriage or sought more theological study of the issue.

Other mainline Protestant churches have approved gay ordination or have permitted individual congregations to celebrate same-sex unions in recent years. The U.S. Episcopal Church, which is holding its national convention through next week in Indianapolis, will consider official prayers for blessing same-sex unions. However, only one major Protestant denomination, the United Church of Christ, has endorsed same-sex marriage outright.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), like many Protestant groups, has debated for decades whether the Bible prohibits same-sex relationships. The discussion has focused mainly on whether to ordain gays and lesbians who aren’t celibate. But as gay acceptance has grown in the broader culture, marriage has become a larger part of the church discussion of homosexuality.

Six states and the District of Columbia have legalized gay marriage and three more could do so this year, but 30 states have passed constitutional amendments limiting marriage to unions of a man and a woman. Throughout debate on the measure Friday, Presbyterian clergy from states where gay marriage is legal said they have been inundated with requests to officiate at same-sex weddings and were upset that they had to risk prosecution in church courts to preside at the ceremonies.

 For the entire article, click HERE.

--Nick

"They Don't Believe Because Your God Isn't Desirable"

Jeff Cook:

They Don’t Believe Because Your God Isn’t Desirable

I watched the recent debate between William Lane Craig, a Christian, and Sam Harris an Atheist. The debate (seen Here) was over the foundations of morality. The Christian addressed the philosophical question at hand with skill and insight. By the midway point the atheist struck me as seriously outmatched and overpowered.

Yet then things changed. Sam Harris began putting forth a set of arguments that had nothing to do with the topic at hand: the problem of religious diversity, the problem of pain, reflections on the character of God in the Bible. By the end I thought the Atheist won—not because he actually addressed the question at hand—on that front I thought he failed. But because I don’t recall anything the Christian said that made me want to believe in his God, yet I had a worthy list of things the Atheist said that made me think the Christian God distasteful.

Is the debate about what is rational or about desire? What do you think of Jeff Cook’s notion that desire needs to be addressed more in apologetics?

Such experiences are not uncommon. Despite solid, rational rebuttals from philosophers across the board, despite the fact that the “new atheist” clan seems hopelessly naïve about ethics and epistemology—their arguments continue to gain ground because they know something Christian apologist apparently don’t.


The debate about God in our culture is not about what’s rational.

 I think Jeff has written a challenging post. My thanks to Scot for posting it. I do remember watching the debate between Craig and Harris, and though I did think Craig technically won the debate, I was left with an odd taste in my mouth.

What Harris said didn't strike me as true, nor did it strike me as a proper debate tactic. But it worked in making this very difficult to brush off.

For the rest of the post, click HERE.

--Nick

"Why a President's Faith may not Matter"

Blake:

He called himself a “life-long Quaker and a church-going Christian,” and at first there was no reason to doubt him.

He played piano in the church, taught Sunday school, and praised Jesus at revivals. His mother thought he was going to be a missionary. His friends said he would be a preacher.

We now know this former Sunday school teacher as “Tricky Dick” or, more formally, President Richard Nixon. He was one of the most corrupt and paranoid men to occupy the Oval Office. Nixon gave us Watergate, but he also gave presidential historians like Darrin Grinder a question to ponder:

Does a president’s religious faith make any difference in how he governs?

“I don’t think so,” says Grinder, author of “The Presidents and Their Faith,” which examines the faith of all American presidents.

“If I asked George W. Bush what he thought about torture, I think outside the presidency he would say he hates it,” Grinder says. “But he’d do it for the country if he thinks it’s right in terms of American security.”

We elect a president every four years, but perhaps we also elect a high priest.  Ever since George Washington spontaneously added “so help me God” to his inaugural oath, Americans have expected their presidents to believe in, worship and publicly invoke God.

A presidential candidate who doesn’t meet these religious expectations won’t go far, Grinder says.

“It’s going to be a long time before anyone who openly admits that he or she is an agnostic or an atheist is elected,” Grinder says. “We tie character and religious beliefs together.”

 For the rest, click HERE.

--Nick

The Amazing Spider-Man, a review

Peter Parker has gone through the meat grinder, being reborn a mere five years after Raimi's train wreck Spider-Man 3. With a new director, new cast and franchise direction, does this new origin story still have the same magic?

You've all heard the story. High school nerd struggles with bullies, beautiful girls out of his class, and getting nibbled on by mean super spiders, wakes up, powerful enough to skeet web everywhere and flex like he's been working out in Venice Beach.

Onto the review!

TECHNICAL

Much of my critiques run the gamut of "been here, seen that."

Made a decade after Raimi first spun onto the scene (hah), the special effects of The Amazing Spider-Man are surprisingly similar to the first Spider-Man. Namely, the motions of Spidey running first-person pov over rooftops are jerky, and there is very little flair in the choreography. The fight scenes are a mix of bland and poorly timed.

A fight scene in a subway when Spidey first finds his powers had awesome potential: a guy with epic powers figures them out while in a speeding tin can on wheels. A recipe for awesome. However, the scene attempts to go for laughs, eschewing the gritty nature of the sequence and instead offers Jason Statham-esque fighting previously seen in Safe, and done quite better in Safe. The concept is great, but it is not well executed.

The sound design is strong, and often I did find myself ducking when webbing was shot out near or past the screen. The editing however, keeps small scenes around for far too long, outstaying their welcome. We came for Spidey to kick some major ass, and those scenes are over far too quickly. A critique this Spidey films shares with the first one.

Overall, nothing you haven't seen before, save for a few attempts at innovation that don't work for me at all. Conceptually rich, sub-standard execution.

NARRATIVE

This is where the film falters the most. It takes over an hour for Spidey to make an appearance, which means Peter Parker has to sustain us. Garfield makes for a great Spider-Man, but a decent Peter Parker. He plays the typical cliche rebellious teenager who really needs to grow up, and is forced (walks into?) a rough situation.

The acting is as diverse as a batch of McDonald's' french fries. Garfield and Emma Stone have decent chemistry,  but Stone looks far too old to be in high school. My girlfriend even pointed this out before I noticed it. Sally Field's either has the worst dialogue in the film, or she cannot act. I'm leaning towards the first option. Martin Sheen is criminally underused and is gone before he can even give a decent speech about taxes and foreign policy.

Rhys Ifans is actually outstanding as Dr. Curt Connors, showing off hidden bravado and deep remorse throughout most of the film, except when he's covered in scales and bearing vampiric fangs. Honestly, he is my favorite part of the story, and the one scene where he is at home and observes his stump of an arm is actually quite potent. Alas, it is over too quick and we have moved on to watching Peter Parker meander around until Connors flips his wig.

The pacing never quite takes off, and the second half of the film suffers. The highlight is watching Spidey fight off the cops, but that only lasts a few minutes and then we're back to meandering around, waiting for the stakes to rise. Which they never do.

THEMES

Though the themes of responsibility are touched on, they take a back seat to the love story. The love story itself is at points awkward and cute, touched up by various different writers with varying results. At the very heart of Spider-Man is the concept of great power and responsibility. I'm all for messing with concepts and reworking them, but they fundamentally missed the very point of Spider-Man, and that is that power, without responsibility, is deadly.

Though The Amazing Spider-Man had a bevy of great writers to work with, the ultimate result is flat and thematically weightless.

CONCLUSION

There are some excellent parts to The Amazing Spider-Man. Rhys Ifans is great, Garfield is decent, the gritty tone (though poorly executed) was indeed welcome. But, the most disappointing thing about The Amazing Spider-Man is not that it falls under the shadow of Raimi's original, but that it falls beneath both Whedon and Nolan's superior comic book offerings and gives us very little to truly be amazed by.

2 out of 5.

--Nick

Allah: A Christian Response; Introduction

SETTING THE STAGE

For my birthday, (thanks Noel) I was given a book by Miroslav Volf, a theologian from Yale who studied under Jurgen Moltmann (a personal hero of mine). The book is entitled "Allah: A Christian Response." Thanks mostly in part to Scot McKnight, I became intrigued by the notion put forth by Volf, in that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Volf does not claim to be a pluralist, and he appears to embrace the trinity in it's orthodox formation. In fact, based on his past, I see very little that doesn't fall under the label "evangelical," which I admit to me is a broad term.

So I cannot instantly dismiss the book, as it appears to be coming from a sharp and articulate evangelical scholar. One who has his pulse on world religions,conflict and reconciliation. Whether or not he is correct, I find that the books that challenge me the most are the one's I always love.

These books are "The Evangelical Universalist" by Robin Parry, "The Coming of God" by Jurgen Moltmann, and "The God of the Possible" by Gregory Boyd. The list is sure to expand. 

GENERAL STREAM OF THOUGHT

Allah came out around the same time as Rob Bell's Love Wins. Rob Bell flirted with Universalism and I do not think he embraced the doctrine. You can read my thoughts here. What I find interesting is that Rob Bell's book, which challenges an evangelical tennant, namely the "born again" experience, drew a firestorm. Volf's Allah didn't. And Volf's book challenges the very exclusive nature of the Christian faith, including the "born again" experience, but also the very concept of who God is and the truth about his revelation to us. This is powerful material and a true paradigm shift of the Christian faith is Volf is correct.

it could be the it is dangerous to talk/write about Islam, but as Bell showed us, tampering with much of anything beyond classic Christian restrictivism pretty much leads to a theological witch hunt.

"Will God save everybody?" is not the same as the question below.

"Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?"

That is the question posed on the back cover of Allah. Quite provocative. With endorsements from Brian McLaren and Mona Siddiqui, including some kind words from Scot McKnight (whose endorsement is not on the book, but he spoke highly of it in a lecture about Rob Bell's Love Wins).

THE ONE GOD AND THE GREAT CHASM; AN INTRODUCTION

"My interest here is the proper Christian stance toward the God of the Qu'ran and what that stance means for Christians' and Muslims' ability to live together well in a single and endangered world." (pg1).

To again quote Volf, "the stakes are high." For him, this is a universal problem. A cursory glance over the chapter titles includes references to extremism and reconciliation. Muslims and Christians combined constitute over one half of the earth's population, and if these two religions are involved in a war of escalations (so to speak) then we have a problem that involves everybody. Volf doesn't see much of the conflict, in it's current state, going away. Especially in regards to natural resources and population.

At this point, I don't necessarily disagree with anything Volf has written. One slight glance at a news channel or a headline will attest to the current instability of a majority of the world's regions. 

Volf's past is briefly visited. He was born in a country that "no longer exists." Yugoslavia. Though brief, this does set the stage for Volf's thinking, and he is writing primarily to a Christian audience.

CONCLUSION

I'm frankly not convinced by his thesis, but I am eager to see what Volf has in store for us. Quite well-written, and quite interested in reconciliation. If Volf is indeed right, that changes some very foundational aspects of orthodoxy.

We should probably listen and see what Volf says.

The God Particle

This is completely fascinating.

Yahoo:

This is as big as the, well, big bang theory: Scientists working at the world's largest atom smasher say they have enough evidence of the long-sought-after Higgs boson.

To the layman, the Higgs boson is the "God particle" and a key puzzle piece in the scientific explanation of the origin of the universe. Physicists around the globe—and perhaps elsewhere, given the size of the universe—have invested billions of dollars in research and have been hunting for the Higgs boson for decades.

Researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN) are expected to announce Wednesday that they have proof of its existence, reports The Associated Press.

The Higgs boson appeared 13.7 billion years ago in the chaos of the Big Bang and turned the flying debris into galaxies, stars and planets.

Its formal discovery, according to a broad scientific consensus, would be the greatest advance in knowledge of the universe in decades and a key to confirming the standard model of physics that explains what gives mass to matter and, by extension, how the universe was formed, according to the AP.

Rutgers University physicist Matt Strassler told Reuters that without the particle, "nothing like human beings, or the earth we live on, could exist."

For the entire article, click HERE.

--Nick

Ted, a brief review

We've all been here. We've all had toys that were capable of carrying on an intellectual conversation with us. For me, it was beanie babies and half-melted army men. For my sister, it was ponies.

For Jon Bennett (Mark Whalberg), it was his stuffed teddy bear Ted. Now, both are grown up, immature and content with living the lazy life. Until Jon must make a choice between the love of his life and the friend of his youth.

TECHNICAL

Ted, fully rendered as a computer generated creation, looks perfect. Every hair, every expression, every little chortle. His movements are succinct and coordinated and not once did I even consider that he was comprised of pixels.

From a cinematic standpoint, the film rises and falls on the execution of a lewd little stuffed bear, and for the most part, there are few technical glitches. Watching Ted brutally satirize singers from the 90s (particularly Creed) was a joy to behold. The film is competently framed and the action scenes (yes there are action scenes) are above standard, though the car chase at the end was not fully utilized, particularly within the context.

However, there is a one on one brawl between Jon and Ted which is both wince-inducing and hysterical, one of the several moments within Ted that had me gasping for air. Slamming into walls, breaking glass and slapping the snot out of each other made for a Bourne-like sequence.

As for the rest of Ted, the editing is adequate and the music works fine. I guess it is a testament to the creation of Ted himself that such things that would be distracting simply aren't.

NARRATIVE

This is where most of my complaints rest, and these are more subjective. I would've preferred more daily life comraiderie between Ted and Jon, and instead the film focuses far more on the relationship between Jon and Lori (Mila Kunis). This works well enough, but I came to see a teddy bear behave like Benny Hill, not watch a relationship struggle. This leaves the film grasping at instances of comedy.

An example involves a supporting character who has Lance Armstrong's bronzed testicle. The scene feels forced and few people in the (PACKED) theater actually laughed. It was then I realized that they seemed to have the same gripe as me: we came to see Ted, and we want more Ted.

The inclusion of a crazed father and malicious son, though funny on paper, simply didn't work. The subsequent kidnapping of Ted and and the following car chase are clunky and meandering. The pacing is solid, though the jarring shifts in tone do detract from the comedic elements and leave us with dramatic themes that feel forced. It seems as if MacFarlane didn't want to be stuck doing a pure raunch-a-thon, and instead opted to show that he can handle drama. Which he can. But we wanted a raunch-a-thon.

This is not to suggest that Ted isn't funny, it really is. But do your best to avoid trailers as many of the better jokes are repeated in them.

MEANING

Ted is surprisingly rich with motifs, not the least of which is the necessity of responsibility. Jon, realizing that he cannot please both his childhood friend and his lover, must make a decision. This decision, though fraught with disappointments, is shown as the wiser choice. Reminds me of leaving childish things, so to speak. To the film's credit, this isn't forced into the final five minutes, but is actually explored (slowly) throughout the entirety.

Also, in thinking about childhood things, the strongest bonds we can have come from imagination and dreams. In this regards, Ted offers us a beautiful glimpse in the mind of a man who was afraid to grow up and be alone, and this magical teddy bear gives him a chance to do so.

CONCLUSION

Though not as funny as I had hoped, Ted is both sweet and packed with universal themes. The acting is strong and MacFarlane is clearly in control of his unique vision. For a debut, I cannot wait to see the direction Seth decides to go.

3 out of 5.

--Nick

Olson, "Confessions of a Christian Humanist"

Olson:

I confess it. I’m a Christian humanist.

Some years ago I saw an article in a fundamentalist denomination’s magazine entitled “Are You a Christian Humanist?” Having long considered myself one, and thinking most fundamentalist Christians probably aren’t, I began reading the article with interest. The author, a pastor, defined “Christian humanist” as a person who (among other things) watches TV more than reads the Bible. Needless to say, I was disappointed. 

The phrase “Christian humanism” has a long and honorable pedigree. It was first attached (so far as I know) to the “philosophy of Christ” of Desiderius Erasmus during the Reformation. Later, in response to the rise of secular humanism especially in the 1930s “Christian humanism” was used to label the Christian alternative by, among others, Catholic thinker Jacques Maritain who wrote Integral Humanism in 1936. That book was a response to the 1933 “Humanist Manifesto.” (A version of Maritain’s thought about humanism was published in 1938 in the U.S. under the title True Humanism. According to its Preface it is based on a series of lectures; the preface doesn’t mention the 1936 book.)

Since Maritain’s exposition of Christian humanism, numerous Christian scholars have adopted the phrase and published books and articles on the subject. For evangelicals, one of the most prominent was J. I. Packer’s and Thomas Howard’s Christianity: The True Humanism (1985).

In its January, 1982 issue, Eternity magazine (of blessed memory, may it RIP), published “A Christian Humanist Manifesto” in direct response to the (secular) Humanist Manifesto II of 1973. But also in response to the fundamentalist and conservative evangelical attacks on “humanism” as essentially pernicious throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s. (Many of you may not be old enough to remember that campaign to vilify all “humanism” as evil led by the likes of Tim LaHaye and others. According to them, “humanism” is to be found barely hidden in public school textbooks. For several years conservative evangelicals especially sought for and found “humanism” hanging on every doorknob including in Christian colleges. It was a major impetus for the then growing home schooling movement.)

Eternity’s prologue to its Christian Humanist Manifesto noted that secular humanism is a real danger to society and not “a fundamentalist fantasy” even though “some of the attack on secular humanism offered by Christians has been shallow and misinformed.” Its Manifesto was written by Eternity’s editors in consultation with a stellar list of evangelical leaders including Donald Bloesch, Bernard Ramm, Arthur Holmes, J. I. Packer, James Sire and Richard Bube.

The Christian Humanist Manifesto deserves much wider dissemination and discussion than it received. I think it is still a valuable resource for Christian unity amid diversity in a Western world increasingly dominated by secularism. Unfortunately, in my experience, most Christians still think of “humanism” as essentially bad; they equate it with secular humanism and atheism. Almost completely forgotten except among Christian scholars is that Christianity is the “true humanism” rooted in Scripture (e.g., Psalms and especially in Scripture’s witness to the imago dei.

For the rest, click HERE.

--Nick

Peter Enns Interview, "Young Evangelicals"

The Christian Post:

Theologian Peter Enns believes that some – mostly young, evangelical Christians today – want to rethink what it means to be evangelical but the movement's leaders are resistant to talking about the issues for fear of repercussions.

"People within evangelicalism desperately want to question the very foundations that made evangelicalism what it is, which is, basically, defending the faith, defending the Bible against the bad guys," Enns told The Christian Post in an interview at the Pastorum Live Conference hosted by Logos Bible Software earlier this month.

The Bible raises some difficult issues that these young evangelicals want to talk about, he said. But some "old guard" evangelicals make it difficult to have those conversations. These younger evangelicals don't want to leave evangelicalism, but they want to maintain their evangelical identity while transforming it.

"What they're saying is what some of the bad guys say about the Bible makes sense, whether its evolution, whether it's Canaanite genocide, whether it's human sexuality, whatever. They're saying they want to rethink some of those issues, but they're doing it from the point of view of having a deep connection with the tradition they were raised in. They don't want to just leave it. ... They want to transform and continue the evangelical journey," Enns said.

The biblical studies professor at Eastern University in Philadelphia, Pa., said he has spoken to many fellow theologians who wanted to also address some of the issues that are presenting challenges to evangelical thought, but did not for fear of losing their job.

"I should keep a list of the people I've talked to over the years who were like, 'I'd like to talk about X, but I can't because I'd be in trouble,' because it's all about protecting the system and it's not about saying, 'hey, that's a good point, let's talk about it,'" Enns said.

For the rest, click HERE.

--Nick