"Man of Steel": A Christian Message Amidst All the CGI Razzle Dazzle

See the Trailer Linked Here

Christopher Nolan tries to do the same thing with the Superman franchise that he already did with the Batman franchise three times over.  The result is certainly the grittiest of the Superman films, but unlike the Christian Bale Batman trilogy, it didn’t add a lot of realism at the same time.  Give me the good old days when Terrence Stamp played General Zod with such villainous, comic book charm.  In this update, Michael Shannon brings the intensity, but like the rest of this film, there’s very little charm.  Why, they even managed to almost de-charm Amy Adams as Lois Lane, an almost impossible feat!  But not for Christopher Nolan!  This is kind of like a melding of the first two Superman movies from the late 70’s and early 80’s, but without any of the somewhat goofy appeal.

     Even if those first two Superman movies were full of comic book silliness, they were still entertaining.  This new Superman attempts to outdo every aspect of those first two movies.  Instead of Marlon Brando saying a few words over his baby boy in a now dated crystalline movie set, here we get Russell Crowe flying around on an alien insect, embroiled in the middle of a civil war with General Zod and the useless Council of Krypton as the planet begins tearing itself apart.  The Phantom Zone that General Zod and his minions are placed in is no longer a floating, two dimensional rectangle, but some complicated structure they are able to change into a mammoth, menacing spaceship.  Some of the story changes actually work, such as Lois Lane finding out right from the start that this alien Superman is, in fact, farm boy Clark Kent (the well-cast Henry Cavill); no more completely fooling a hard-boiled investigative journalist with a pair of glasses!  There are also a few interesting, quieter moments, particularly between Clark and his parents (Diane Lane and Kevin Costner), though Nolan’s attempt at gritty realism even affects these scenes, and I found myself wishing they’d give the shaky cam and camera glare a rest!

     I did like how they included some Christian themes, despite just how blatant those themes were!  If they include Jesus, who am I to complain about how they choose to do it, as long as they do it correctly (like they did in the last movie, Superman Returns starring Brandon Routh)?  However, they did make it quite obvious!  On several occasions, Clark/Superman talks about being mankind’s savior; as Superman, he then spreads his arms out in flight in a pose similar to Jesus on the cross, appearing as a Christ-figure before descending to make a sacrifice that could possibly kill him, all for the sole purpose of saving the world; as Clark, he talks with a priest about making the choice to surrender to General Zod to save the world, and the camera fills the screen with Clark’s head on the right, and a mural of Jesus featured prominently on the left.  The allusion is unmistakable.  It almost seems like a marketing ploy to appeal to a certain film-going demographic.  Instead of feeling played, though, perhaps we should appreciate the fact that they actually want to appeal to us, and maybe we should feel elated that Christian themes of Christ’s sacrifice and redemption for us can be featured so unashamedly in a Summer Superhero Hollywood Blockbuster!

     “I never thought this thing would go the distance,” Gene Hackman comments as Lex Luther in the second movie from 1981, as Superman battles the three Kryptonian villains over the streets of Metropolis, causing mayhem and destruction.  And back in the early 80’s, this super-battle was really something to see.  Not anymore!  It’s been over 30 years since Christopher Reeves’ Superman battled Terrence Stamp’s Zod on the streets of a movie studio Metropolis, and since then, we’ve had any number of Roland Emmerich and Jerry Bruckheimer action flicks to expand the medium, and a whole revolution in new special effects CGI technology, so much so that even G-Force, the kids’ film about superspy rodents, had more impressive effects and action sequences than any of the old Superman movies.  So now, when they have a battle, they pull out all the stops in their attempt to make it something we haven’t seen before.  After Smallville is just about decimated, and they’ve dragged the action and effects on and on and on and on and on and on and then some, with trucks pummeling structures and fights in midair, bodies slamming through buildings, huge pieces of concrete and steel falling and being thrown all over the place, and huge gravity machines attempting to change the makeup of the planet, it does tend to overwhelm the viewer.  I was overwhelmed, and much of time, it was so fast and furious, it was hard to keep up and tell what was going on.  I wanted to stand up in my seat and shout, “Could you calm it down a few hundred notches, huh?”

     Or to put it another way, after about the 256^th time someone or something is slung into a building, crashing against it or paving a path through it, or the 79^th time someone throws a vehicle – car, plane, 16-wheeler – at each other, it becomes obvious the tremendous amount of hype and excess this film was saddled with.  That, coupled with the joyless action, has brought it crashing gloomily down to the ground instead of soaring into the clouds as it should.

     Like many sci fi/action movies these days, Man of Steel is an exercise in extremes.  Just how much is too much?  Although the answer to that question may not have clear cut parameters, I know it when I see it.  And this was way too much!

Stephen King's "The Tommyknockers" and Liberal Poison

Late last night and the night before
Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers, knocking at the door
Don't want to go out, don't know if I can
'Cause I'm so afraid of the Tommyknocker man
          -     Old Children's Rhyme

     In the TV movie The Tommyknockers, based on the book by Stephen King, I see an allegory.  Stephen King said that in retrospect, although he didn't even realize it himself at the time, that when he wrote the book, the alien Tommyknockers were stand-ins for his own alcoholism  (He also revealed, in his book In Writing, that he was so drunk when he wrote Cujo that he now cannot remember writing it).  I can certainly see that allusion, and have no doubt that was what King's mind was doing when he wrote it, but for me, in my Christian walk and the way I see the world, I see the Tommyknockers representing the liberal movement, and the poisoning of our society.  And yes, I find that ironic since I know how liberal Stephen King is!  In the book, the character of Bobbie Anderson finds a huge alien spaceship on her property, and begins the long process of digging it up.  As she does, some force inside the ship is slowly released and it begins infecting her.  She starts to change.  This mysterious force begins to feed her new thoughts and ideas, and she begins building weird contraptions like a hot water heater that is 200 % efficient and runs off of D-cell batteries, a typewriter that types out Bobbi’s thoughts while she sleeps, and a levitating tractor.  Soon this force from the ship begins infecting the entire town.  The people of Haven begin reading each other’s minds, building a new town order and agenda that they are not even aware of at first.  They can build the most amazing things and start becoming of one mind, but this alien force also takes its toll on them.  As they “become,” they change.  They develop sunken eyes, pale skin, and their teeth begin to fall out (much like what happens to severe alcoholics).  They grow to be obsessed with this “becoming” and with the ship, and they distrust anyone in Haven who is unwilling to “become” (Ruth) or unable to “become” (Gard), and that goes doubly for any outsiders.  Soon, the air in Haven becomes so polluted by the air coming from the ship that it’s all they can breathe.  Breathing normal air would now kill them.  People attempting to enter Haven become deathly ill, and have to turn around and leave.

     Aside from the sheriff, Ruth, who resists “becoming” and so is killed by the town (who telepathically convince her to blow herself up in the town hall), the only other person who does not “become” right away is Bobbie’s best friend, a drunken poet named Jim Gardner.  Though he is still “becoming” like the rest of the town, it’s at a much slower pace; the effects of the alien force is slightly lessoned for him due to a steel plate in his head that somehow blocks the full alien influence.  Because of this, Gard is distrusted by Bobbie and the rest of the town, and his only saving graces are that the town knows he is still “becoming” one of them (albeit very gradually), is viewed as a harmless drunk, and agrees to help dig up the rest of the buried ship on Bobbie’s property.  Even though Bobbie still can’t read Gard’s mind like she can the rest of the town’s population, she still loves him, and since she now seems to be the town’s leader, since the spaceship was on her property and she was the first to start “becoming,” she convinces the town not to kill Gard for now, as long as he continues helping them dig up the ship.  Yet they all know Gard is still different from them, and they don’t trust him.

     To me, this story is an allegory for the liberal movement, and I can see myself in the character of Gard, a different thinker somewhat unlike, yet still living among, a bunch of hypnotized, unthinking followers of some other ideology who don’t trust him.  Whereas the rest of the town seems oblivious or uncaring to the alien influences that are changing them, Gard is all too aware that something evil is going on.  I’m a conservative Christian who believes in the concepts of good and evil, and choosing righteousness over wickedness, and I’m surrounded by a people and a society in which the majority seem to think that the concepts of good and evil don’t really exist, and therefore, people’s behaviors should be excused and accepted, even those that could be defined as sinful or evil by traditional Biblical definitions.  I see our great nation being poisoned just like Haven in The Tommyknockers, soured with dangerous ideas.  Just like the folks of Haven, these people don’t think about these ideas or where they come from or what they all really mean – they just accept them unquestioningly as they “become” one with all the others infected as they are, and they don’t think about the possible outcomes.

     As for the people of Haven, Gard finally destroys the ship, along with himself, Bobbie, and many others in the town.  The survivors all die when the poisoned air they now needed to breathe dissipates.  Will something similar happen to this nation?  Who knows?  It’s possible.  These are people who have no sense of morality; if you try to teach them morality, they wouldn’t listen, and if you tried to enforce a Christian sense of right and wrong upon them, they’d gasp like dying fish!  Like the people of Haven, they probably don’t give things much thought, but just accept things as they are, evil or not.

     Maybe things will work out in the end, though.  As an allegory, I see the fresh air reentering the town at the end of the ordeal as the ideas of conservatism and Christianity, and perhaps the dying people could merely represent the liberal movement in general, and not real, dying people.  Rather than physical death, perhaps, for me, it could just represent the death of the liberal movement.

     Now I know Stephen King would be the first to say that this interpretation is all hogwash, and that these allegories are not what he meant or intended when he wrote it.  That’s okay though.  The nature of art is that it can be interpreted in many ways.  This is what I saw when I read it, and the plot does fit this particular political view, whether Stephen King intended it or not!  If I want to see Jason Voorhees, the killer from the Friday the 13^th films, as an allegory for the AIDS virus, that’s my prerogative too, and this also fits the theme.  Art is whatever we deem it to be, and can have much more than one interpretation.  In fact, if I were going to write my own science fiction novel and make it an allegory for the poisonous liberal movement infecting this nation like a cancer, it might just look a hell of a lot like The Tommyknockers.

     We are in danger though.  Liberalism and the ideas that go with it are running rampant through our nation.  Let me paint another picture using The Tommyknockers.  There comes a time in the novel where there is no turning back, where Bobbie and a few others begin changing faster than the rest, begin turning transparent, where they have to wear “pancake make-up” on their whole bodies, and where they are not even human anymore.  Bobbie takes her loving old hound dog Peter and hooks him up, along with a few people, as a living battery.  With wires coming into and out of his brain, he floats, alive, in a fluid filled compartment, acting as a power source for major Tommyknocker contraptions.  It is the saddest thing!  Gard is devastated and repulsed when he discovers what Bobbie has done to Peter.  He finds Peter in his living battery cell, whining.  Every so often, his legs move in his solution, as if he’s running, perhaps chasing rabbits in his dreams; he paddles in this clear liquid as if he were trying to escape the nightmare of his existence.  As an allegory, have we reached that point now?  Bobbie turns on what she once held dear, and uses it (Peter) to strengthen the Tommyknockers.  Even though it causes him great pain, she doesn’t care; she’s not Bobbie anymore – now she is a Tommyknocker herself.

     Yes, things are that bad in the real world!

I wrote this as part of a longer journal entry in 1994, and other than updating a little bit at the beginning concerning Stephen King's revelations about this story in his book In Writing, everything else I left as is.  I find it interesting that what I said about the liberal movement then still applies today, even more so.  And one more thing.  I am a conservative Christian.  I won't apologize for being a conservative Christian and having the veiws of a conservative Christian.  If a liberal sees the Tommyknocker force as Christian conservative values poisoning everything it touches, (or as the influence of alcohol, which Stephen King thinks his own subconscious implanted into the story) they have that right.  That's the nature of art.

God @ the Movies: "Firestarter" & the Eternal, Never-ending Flames

I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning.

                                                   - Jesus, Luke 12:49, NLT

She waits, the little girl who has the power to start fires with her mind.  But she doesn’t use it.  She doesn’t burn.  It slips out sometimes, when she’s angry, yet even when she is with them, held captive by them, she still waits.  This government agency known as “The Shop” may think that they are the ones in charge, yet she could, at this very moment, destroy them all with just a thought.  As one man describes it, “Suppose there is a little girl out there somewhere today – this morning – who has within her, lying dormant at present, the power someday to crack the very planet in two like a china plate in a shooting gallery.”

     That little girl, Charlene McGee (Drew Barrymore), gives them small glimpses of what she is capable of.  She and her father are befriended by a nice old couple, Irv and Norma Manders, and when those who want to use her – or kill her – finally catch up with her at the old couple’s farm, she burns.  Cars explode!  Lots of them!  People catch on fire!  “There’s nothing going on here, honest to gosh!” says one lying agent, attempting his best impression of a decent person, but even she, this little child, sees through them, and when they try to grab her, this very agent catches fire, spreading quickly from his outstretched arm and engulfing the rest of him in a matter of seconds!

     But they do eventually catch her, and her father.  An agent named Rainbird (George C. Scott) knocks them out with tranquilizer darts, and they keep them both prisoner.  And she doesn’t burn… yet.  Rainbird then pretends to be her pal.  As “John, the friendly orderly”, he convinces her to work with them, and so she does.  She performs controlled burns for them, so they can quantify and record her firepower.  They don’t realize it yet, but they are the ones in danger, not her!  Their days are numbered, and there will come a day when she will release her power, and then they will burn! 

     And that day does come.  Her father, Andrew McGee (David Keith), has planned their escape, and he arranges to meet Charlie in the barn outside the main facility where they are being kept.  Unbeknownst to him, Rainbird is already there.   

     “My friend John is here!” she tells her father excitedly.

     “The orderly?” he asks.

     “Yeah, up there,” Charlie says, motioning to the rafters above them.  “Couldn’t we take him with us, if he wants to come?”

     Andy puts his daughter down and shakes her shoulders as he tells her, “He’s the one that shot us, baby.  He’s the one that brought us here.”

     Charlie shakes her head.  “Oh, no, Daddy!  That’s John.  He took care of my room…”

     Andrew stops her in mid-sentence.   “No!  He is with them!”

     She thinks for a moment, and a sadness crosses her face as Rainbird aims a gun at them both.  She was deceived!  “It isn’t true, is it?” she asks softly.

     “Yes, it’s true!” Rainbird declares loudly from the rafters, hiding behind a bale of hay.

     “You tricked me!  You lied to me!” Charlie shouts defiantly to the rafters above them.

     Rainbird laughs as he shouts back, “No, I just mixed up the truth a little Charlie, and I did it save your life.”  Everything he tells her is a lie, even now!  He wants to kill her, and even worse, he wants to see the shocked look on her face when he strikes her across the bridge of the nose with the back of his hand, sending bone fragments into her brain!

Burn it all down, baby

     “You come down here before I set everything on fire,” she threatens, “’cause I can do it!”

   “Oh, I know you can,” he replies, “but if you do, you’re gonna burn up an awful lot of horses.”  He tries to use her love against her.  “Can’t you hear them?  Necromancer’s in one of those stalls,” he says, referring to her favorite steed.

     Yet in the end, after he shoots and fatally wounds her father, he is the first one to burn.  And as the barn goes up in flames, Charlie turns her attention to her beloved dad, as he uses his last breath to tell her she must destroy it all.  She cries, and sorrowfully kisses him goodbye, and then saves the horses she loves, using her great power to sear the latches and hinges on the stall doors, allowing the horses to escape.  Once she blows the front doors off the barn, propelling several agents in fire suits backward from the blast, the frightened horses trample them underfoot.  While some agents run for their lives, others shoot at her, but the bullets won’t touch her.  The air around her is so hot, they ignite and explode before they can penetrate her skin.  And then the fire leaves her, and these agents die burning and screaming.  

Pyromania Rampage!

A huge fireball springs from her and blasts a man trying to make a get-away in a motorized cart.  With a techno beat as relentless as her rampage, courtesy of Tangerine Dream, and some superb cinematic fire stunts, more bullets explode from the intense heat before they can get to her, and then all these agents have left is screaming and pleading and crying before her fire reduces them to ashes.  Three agents fire at her, and then run away in three different directions.  A flow of fire leaves her and splits into three jet streams, seeking out each of them as they scream in agony.  The men hiding in the nearby trees aren’t safe either, and soon, after firing their useless weapons at her, they are burning along with the trees!  Another agent thinks he has a clear shot as she comes to a little bridge on the property.  He misses, and is reduced to begging and pleading as a fireball hits him dead on and sends his burning body flying into the top of a nearby tree.  The agents then send out a truck and a helicopter, but she repels the truck and brings the helicopter crashing and burning to the ground, both of them bursting into flames!  And then she turns her attention to the compound, for the people there aren’t safe either.  Flames and fireballs bombard the great mansion.  All-consuming and blazing fire comes from somewhere inside this little girl, who didn’t want to burn and didn’t want to kill, yet she destroys everything there, and all of those who meant her harm, prompted by the words of her father who told her to burn it all down, so they can’t do this to anybody else. 

     And she did it with an almost cleansing fire. 

     “I baptize you with water; but someone is coming soon who is greater than I am – so much greater that I’m not even worthy to be his slave and untie the straps of his sandals.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

                        – John the Baptist, Luke 3:16, NLT

      There are parallels here between Jesus and this fictional little girl Charlie McGee.

     Both are innocents.  In fact, Jesus was pure, and he never sinned, and he has a special place in his heart for innocent little suffering children.  “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said in Matthew 18:3, “unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.” 

     Both refrain from burning.  Jesus is giving the world an opportunity to repent, until his second coming.  Talking about the end times using a parable about wheat and weeds, with Satan taking on the role of an evil farmer planting weeds among the seeds, Jesus explains, “The field is the world, the good seed represents the people of the Kingdom.  The weeds are the people who belong to the evil one.” (Matthew 13:38).  Explaining further about the fire that will consume those who belong to Satan, Jesus says “Just as the weeds are sorted out and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world.  The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will remove from his Kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.  And the angels will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Correct me if I’m wrong, but won’t the evil people of the world see these cleansing angels in pretty much the same horrified, pleading fashion these agents must see Charlie when she burns them alive?

     Just as with this make-believe little girl and the deceiving agents who surrounded her, some of those who surrounded Jesus tried to disguise their true motives.  “Teacher,” the Pharisees said to Jesus, “we know how honest you are.  You teach the way of God truthfully.  You are impartial and don’t play favorites.” (Matthew 22:16)  They were attempting to flatter him with kind words before ensnaring him, just like the agents were trying to deceive Charlie at the Manders’ farm with their fallacious “aw shucks” charm.  But Jesus knew their evil motives.  “You hypocrites!’ he said.  “Why are you trying to trap me?” (Matthew 22:18)

     “Look, I am sending you out as a sheep among wolves,” Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 10:16.  He also warns them, “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves.”  Yes, Jesus was certainly aware of them, though his disciples could be deceived, just as Charlie was fooled by Rainbird in the movie Firestarter, based on the superb novel by Stephen King.  In fact, Jesus was always aware of everything that was going on, and though Rainbird managed to fool Charlie, hiding from her his plan to kill her, Jesus knew the Pharisees were plotting his death, the difference being that it was actually all part of God’s plan for our salvation.

     And just as with Charlie having her extraordinary powers tested, verified and measured, the Pharisees and teachers of religious law of Jesus’ day wanted him to perform for them as well.  Jesus did many miracles during his time on earth, including healing the blind, the lame, the deaf and dumb, and the sick, casting out demons, feeding groups of thousands with only a few loaves of bread and a few fish, turning water into wine, commanding the winds and waves, walking on water, and bringing the dead to life.  Yet these same Pharisees and teachers of religious law didn’t believe these miracles.  They even wanted to kill not only him, but also Lazarus, when he brought Lazarus back from the dead.  And instead of recognizing these miracles and rejoicing when Jesus performed them, they instead took him to task for “working” on the Sabbath, and yet after all of this, they still had the gall to ask him, “Teacher, we want you to show us a miraculous sign to prove your authority.” (Matthew 12:38)  But Jesus replied, “Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign; but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah.  For as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.” (Matthew 12:39-40).  Jesus, of course, was referring to his death on the cross for our sins and his glorious resurrection in which he triumphed over death and the grave. 

     And just as the day finally came when Charlie unleashed her full power, destroying the evil agents and their compound, so too will there come a day when Jesus returns to do the same thing with the evil people of this world!  He’s given them time to repent and turn from their sins and believe in him, but that time will eventually come to an end.  “For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and will judge all the people according to their deeds.” (Matthew 16: 27).  Even Jesus does not know when this will happen, for he says, “However, no one knows the day or hour these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself.  Only the Father knows.”  (Matthew 24:36).  However, Jesus warns that the day and hour WILL come, so we’d better prepare for it!  “If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not allow his house to be broken into.  You must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.”  (Matthew 24:43-44)

     And on that day, he will “separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork.  Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.” (Luke 3:17)  And perhaps, like Charlie, he will be sad on that day, for the ones who wouldn’t change, and maybe he’ll even say the very same words Charlie said as she cried and watched it all burn.  “For you, Daddy.”

"For you, Daddy!"

Continuing to Seek Truth in a Land of Uncertainties: Cementing My Christian Faith and Belief in the Bible

     Though I will forever be learning about it, even after all these years, I still believe in the Bible.  Unfortunately, believing in something doesn’t always make it so, even for evolutionary scientists, and I’m man enough to admit that my Christian belief is about equal amounts faith and fact.  It's supposed to be.  God designed it that way for a reason.  He wants faithful followers who choose him, even when it is not a certainty.  I believe it is the truth, and that this truth will strengthen my faith, yet I am at least aware there are more people in the world who doubt Christianity than who share this belief.  I don’t believe in the religion of Buddhism or the cult of Scientology, yet if those beliefs, or any other, unlikely as it is, really are the truth of all things (!) then that would make the Bible nothing more than allegory or mythology.

     Viewed in this light, I must then ask, “Is it all right for a person to believe in and live his or her life by the teachings of the Bible even if it is, in reality, merely a myth?”  And you would think the answer would be "yes."  Seriously, if more people lived by the teachings of Jesus and the Bible, regardless of what they believed, wouldn't this be a better world?  Yet there is are problems with this line of reasoning.  No matter how noble or moral, a person should not live in something they don't believe, or that isn't truth.  Some people hold the view that the Bible is not truth, but they still feel it’s okay for people to believe in this untruth due to the wisdom of the Bible and Jesus Christ.  That’s not the best view to have, nor the best reason to believe in or follow the precepts of Christianity!  Even Paul in the Bible considered this, in Corinthians 15:17-19, when he said "And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world."  (NLT)

     The Bible’s wisdom, whether it is truth or not, or can be proven or not, does have some wonderful messages to teach about brotherly love and morality, and making the correct and righteous choices in life.  And though this may be one of the deciding factors in whether or not you choose to believe, it is not the end, but only the beginning.  Unlike the liberal movement, the teachings of the Bible show us that some things are morally wrong, and that we must attempt to end these corrupt vices and to teach the people who are fooled and corrupted by them that there is a better way.  This world is full of violence, murder, idol worship, mystical practices, lust, sexual promiscuity and other sinful sexual practices, addictions, obsessions, and any number of other vices.  In short, this world is full of sin, simply because this world is full of people, and all people, even me, were born into sin.  However, we can't merely say that if people lived by the teachings of the Bible rather than following the ways of this world and Satan that the world would be a wonderful place.  Following the teachings of the Bible without believing what the Bible says about Jesus leaves you, as Paul pointed out in that passage in Corinthians, "still guilty of your sins."

     And since I’m speaking of truth, here’s one I don’t have to prove, because it is fact:  This is not a wonderful world.  There may be wonders here, and compassion, and love, because we were made in God's image, and God is love.  But we are also fallen men and women, and there is evil here as well, in abundance.  If you don't believe that, watch the news any night of the week, on any channel!  Is is filled with the evil and violence and hatred men have for one another.  Man corrupts anything he touches, and that includes, unfortunately, religion... and Christianity. Like everything else in man’s past, Christianity has had it's fair share of a negative history full of bloodshed and hatred, and that goes as well for the present and the future.  Holy wars, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the Salem Witch Trials, the interference of the church in politics and government, and current Christian dishonor like some recent televangelist scandals, charlatans, and tragedies like Guyana and Waco are just a few examples of what man has done to God’s perfect word.  But don’t make the mistake of blaming this on the Bible or God or Christianity in general – this was man’s doing.  Like everything else, the Bible and God’s perfect wisdom is not safe from man.

     And yet we can't just think that the Christian church has been tainted by man all these years.  For instance, the Crusades were born out of conflict with Muslims.  We still have conflicts with Muslims.  And think about this:  When Jesus returns to judge the world and separate the sinners from the saints, the sinners won't welcome him, and won't see him as a wonderful savior.  There will be hatred and violence and bloodshed.  Because if the Bible is truth, and it is my belief that it is, then what it all boils down to is a Holy War between the forces of good and evil, and many of those fighting against Jesus won't even realize that they've chosen sides.  They don't even realize it is what they are choosing right now!

Spring 2013 Reality Show Wrap-up, Part 1: "American Idol, Season 12" & "Survivor Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites"

We watch a lot of reality shows these days, and have been struggling to keep up with them all.  Maybe now that they’re officially over, we can catch up on all those old police dramas that are on our DVR all the way back to January!

     So the finales happened, and we found out the winners, but as always, it was a fun journey for all the contestants and judges.  Here’s just a few (or more) thoughts about them:

American Idol: Season 12, 2013

The guys really weren’t all that good this year.  I really didn’t like Curtis Finch Jr. at all. Unlike some of the girls, he wound up displaying the worst side of Gospel/Soul, and though the judges were pretty much bowing before him in worship, America wasn’t feeling it.  His over-singing was probably the main reason he was voted out first – well, and maybe that hideous jacket he wore on the first “Top Ten” show.  

Curtis: Couch, curtain, tablecloth or jacket:
That thing's ugly any way you slice it!

I was hoping good things for Paul Jolly, the smiley, charismatic country crooner, and Lazaro Arbos, the young, Desi Arnez look-alike with the humble personality and strong stutter.  Jolly wasn’t very country, and like most of the other guys, had a rather high pitched voice (we like ‘em deeper), and Lazaro, who loves to wear bright, loud colors, particularly pink, was always nervous and out of tune, poor guy.  He sounds much better on his studio recordings than he does live.  He wasn’t ready for this competition.  It was too big for him.  Devin Velez was the Hispanic singer who looked rather Caucasian, in a strange sort of way, and occasionally sang in Spanish.  He was merely okay.  The best of the guys was probably Burnell Taylor, who went from a very laid back, “chill” dude in his first audition to an almost Urkell-wannabe, with the short hair, bow tie, and greasy glasses.  He usually sang with his fingers gyrating and his hands moving up and down.  He had a nice quality to his voice on certain songs, but even he wasn’t quite as good as the worst of the girls, whoever that really was.

Top 4 Guys: Lazaro, Burnell, Paul, & Devin

Janelle was the first of the girls voted out of the top five, but I still loved her, and downloaded several of her songs, but she usually flew a bit under the radar when compared with the other girls, and then made the mistake of singing Dolly Parton’s “Dumb Blonde” on Diva week.  If you’re thinking that you’ve never heard that Dolly song among her impressive catalogue, then that would explain why Janelle was the first of the girls voted out.  Still, her performance on songs like “I Will” and a slower version of “You Keep Me Hanging On” explain why she was still better than the boys.  There were quite a few times I didn’t like Amber Holcomb all that much, and when compared with the ultimate winner, she paled, but there were other times I felt Amber was able to pull a rabbit out of a hat, and I wound up thoroughly enjoying her performances.  She surprised me every time she managed a performance that made me really take notice of her talent, and it happened four times (for “She’s Leaving Home”, “What About Love”, “What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life” and “The Power of Love”).  I like it more when they manage to restrain themselves from over-singing showy gospel and soul songs.  

Top 5 girls: Angie, Candice, Janelle, Kree, & Amber

Angie Miller showed herself to be a top contender early on when she sang an original composition called “You Set Me Free” at the piano and it went viral.  The producers wisely released it as a single on iTunes in the end.  But there were at least seven other performances of hers I liked enough to download.  Kree Harrison was the runner up, and was a natural with a microphone.  She was consistently good, and never gave a performance I didn’t like.  However, the thing with Kree was simply that.  She was consistently good, but some of the other girls were occasionally brilliant.  On any given week, Amber or Angie, or even Janelle, managed a bit of a better performance, and Kree didn’t always pick the best songs.  I didn’t download an awful lot of Kree’s songs (at least not yet).  That brings me to the winner, Candice Glover.  Whereas Kree was consistently good, Candice was almost always stunning, showing Curtis Finch Jr., the first one voted out, how great a restrained and controlled performance can be.  With just a few exceptions, Candice’s performances were always one of the top three on any given week.  I said from the beginning that she was undeniably the most talented one among the top ten.

Top 3 girls: Angie Miller, Kree Harrison, and Candice Glover

     Of the contestants who didn’t even make it into the top ten, the most memorable were Zoanette Johnson and Charlie Askew.  Zoanette was an annoying and garishly large black woman with a garishly large personality and not much talent.  I still don’t know why the judges put her into the top twenty! 

Zoanette & Charlie

And Charlie was a bit of a strange duck, a skinny kid with gobs of long red hair and a bit of boyish charm and his own rather unique and mystic style.  He made a huge mistake when he pulled his hair back into a ponytail with a feather earring, a camoflauged “wife beater” t-shirt and black leather pants and tackled Genesis’ very angry sounding “Mama”.  Like Lazaro, he wasn’t ready for this competition, and took the judges’ negative comments very hard.  He then lost a contest with Aubrey Cleland to be the lucky 11^th contestant to go on tour with the rest.   

            The judges were caricatures, as usual.  Mariah Carey was the prima donna in the tight dresses, overusing her hands and the word “Darling” when she talked, which was usually in circles.  For her performance in the finale, they stuffed her into something that looked like Daryl Hannah’s mermaid costume from Splash!  She’s kind of like the pop music world version of Morticia Addams, particularly the way she is restricted in those tight girdles and dresses.  Randy was, as usual, “the dog”, calling all the girls “Dude” and overusing the phrase “Ryan!  She’s in it to win it!”  Telling performers they’re the best of the night doesn’t seem to work anymore, and this year, he resorted to telling certain contestants that it was the best performance of any singing competition ever in the history of television, which he said to Candice, but Mariah Carey one-uped him when she went on the stage after one of Candice’s performances and threw gold glitter on her!  What will they think of next?  Keith Urban usually just displayed a cool vibe, but unlike Mariah Carey, he always had constructive advice for the contestants.  Then there was Nicki Minaj.  We didn’t like her from the start, and some friends and family refused to watch this season because she was one of the judges.  I checked out some of her “music” on iTunes, and I can see why.  Yet what we discovered with Nicki is that, taking a tip from Simon, she “told it like it is” and I often found myself agreeing with her assessments.  Unlike Mariah, she wasn’t attempting to be politically correct, and that’s a rather refreshing approach in this day and age.  When the remaining three guys weren’t all that great together, she told them to “get off the stage”, and she wasn’t afraid to even tell the opinionated producer Jimmy Iovine what she thought of his backstage critiques.  And, of course, it was obvious Nicki and Mariah can’t stand each other. 

     And what can I say about Ryan Seacrest that hasn’t already been said?  He’s one of the best announcers/MC’s on television, and quite the workaholic.

Survivor Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites

 

Well, Cochran, the red-haired, fair-skinned, Woody Allen-like nerd, won the whole thing, and I can’t say I’m not happy about that.  We’ve always liked Cochran.  There may have been a few times he said the wrong thing or had the wrong attitude, or aligned with the wrong people, but then, it all managed to get him to the finish line, now didn’t it!  

What’s more, that’s a win for all geeks everywhere!  He was one of the previous favorites, and a self-described Survivor fanatic, having even written a college dissertation about the show!  I find I seem to have a lot in common with Cochran, having, like him, watched every episode of Survivor they’ve ever made, and burning after about 5 minutes out in the sun, though he seems to now be more comfortable with who he is.  Describing himself pre-Survivor as “Brilliant, insecure and neurotic”, which didn’t suit him well during his first season for Survivor: South Pacific, he said during the reunion show this year that he’s much more comfortable with being who he is.  I, too, have managed to embrace my geek nature and take pride in who I am, and I’m sure this win will allow him to go farther in life than I have so far!

Here’s all the other players this year, and a few thoughts about them:

• Francesca was a returning favorite who was the first voted out for her previous season.  Once again, thanks to Phillip, she was the first voted out this time around as well!  She said if that happened again, she'd eat a rock.  We were kind of hoping host Jeff Probst might bring that up during the reunion show, but they didn't invite back all the people who were voted out that early.
• That’s right, Phillip returned, trying to explain to everyone that he wasn’t crazy before, just crafty, and would this time be utilizing Boston Rob’s “rules” in an attempt to control the game.  However, what Phillip doesn’t realize is that he IS crazy, and built an alliance called “Stealth-R-Us” that even those in his alliance found completely laughable.  I’m surprised any of them could keep a straight face!  Phillip is self-deluded, and even seems to have convinced himself about the real reasons for his own shortcomings during challenges.
• Brandon Hantz returned, trying to once again redeem the “Hantz” family name, but going about it in a completely different way than his first appearance on the show.  During his first season, I kind of liked him, a young kid trying to live the Christian life and prove that the Hantz family is more noble than his infamous Uncle Russell made them out to be, and even though he was a bit of a psychological mess that season, I got the feeling his heart was in the right place.  This season, he was even more unstable, and all he managed to prove is that, given time, a Hantz can’t help but become a mean-spirited, selfish jerk!  If he still claims to be Christian, he gives us all a bad name.  He left the game early after a huge fight with Phillip that ended with Brandon dumping his tribe’s rice in the sand, and then having a hissy fit before they even got to that week’s challenge, forcing an immediate tribal council right then and there to just get rid of him.  It's times like these you wonder how "real" this reality television really is!
• Dawn was another returning favorite, and as before, she was an emotional wreck, yet, whereas on her previous season she was a nice but rather mousy emotional wreck, this season she was a conniving and backstabbing emotional wreck, taking legitimate friendships she had built up on the show, particularly with Brenda, and then turning on them, excusing it as being “just a game.”  She really hurt Brenda’s feelings, and Brenda said on the reunion show that she will not be a friend to Dawn any longer.  Game or no game, these people have to suffer the consequences of their actions.  And these actions didn’t even help her, because, although she was in the final three alongside Cochran and Sherri, Cochran won all the votes, and neither she nor Sherri got a single one.
• That brings me to Sherri, who was a newcomer.  Attempting a few alliances right from the start, none of them panned out, and when she found herself in Phillip’s alliance, she went along with his ridiculous “Stealth-R-Us” routine just to get further in the game.  When Phillip was eliminated, and Cochran found himself still in the game, he maneuvered her to the end with him because he knew she would be a non-entity for the final three.  True to form, most of the questions were for Cochran and Dawn only, and when a few people did question Sherri about why she was there since she didn’t do anything and was brought as a mere seat-filler by Cochran, they were told by Sherri herself that she certainly deserved to be there.  When Erik questioned her about it a bit more thoroughly, she turned on him, and told him to shut up and sit down.  Well Erik was right, and the fact that almost nobody questioned her and that none of them voted for her spoke volumes!
• On a previous season, Erik had made one of the most boneheaded plays of all time, but this season, he was more level-headed, and made it all the way to final five, and probably would have made it farther if he wasn’t removed from the game early for severe dehydration and hunger.  Complaining of dizziness that wouldn’t go away, doctors were forced to remove him from the game after checking on his nearly non-existent vital signs!

• Another person ejected from the game for illness was Shamar, an Iraq war veteran who was like a big, lazy, crying baby.  Like Phillip, he was self-delusional, and his alliance only kept him around for the numbers.  Upsetting everyone in the tribe including his alliance, he wouldn’t help with any of the chores, ate more than his fair share, and spent most of the time lying around in the shelter.  I couldn’t believe someone could get an injury serious enough to leave the game early from just lying around doing nothing, but Shamar found a way!  Lying in the shelter, he managed to get sand in his eye, and it caused an infection.  Then he started acting like he didn’t really want to leave the game early, but we were kind of wondering if he might have put sand in his eye on purpose as an excuse to leave early!
• Matt seemed like a nice enough guy, but I wanted to take a pair of clippers to his hair and beard something fierce!
• A few of the returning girls, particularly Corrine and Andrea, tried to make some huge plays, but they didn’t work.  Corrine was voted out before the jury was formed, and Andrea was voted out with a hidden immunity idol still in her bag!
• Michael was one of the new contestants, and he's so gay, you might have thought the ghost of Ethel Merman was following him around the island!  One of Corrine’s major mistakes was aligning herself with Michael just because “she loves her gays!”
• Some of the new girls, Laura, Hope, Julie, and Allie, were pretty, but not much else, and none of them went too far.
• My favorite players, other than the winner Cochran, were the “Three Amigos”, which were newcomers Reynold and Eddie, and returning favorite Malcolm, and the funny thing is, they were never aligned with Cochran, since Cochran was the self-proclaimed geek and these “Three Amigos” were the jocks who normally wouldn’t pay Cochran any heed at all.  They knew it, and Cochran knew it.  Yet even though they were the “popular”, good-looking studs, and actually even because of this, they were targeted right from the start, beginning with Sherri building an alliance and going after the cute young girls Reynold and Eddie aligned themselves with from the beginning.   Once the tribes merged, Reynold and Eddie, who somehow managed to keep themselves alive, aligned with Malcolm, who then had no one else to align with against Phillip’s “Stealth-R-Us”, yet before being voted out one by one, they managed a big move to finally get Phillip eliminated when Phillip’s team was prepared to vote out any one of the “Three Amigos”, but Reynold won individual immunity, Malcolm played the hidden immunity idol he had found, and then surprised everyone by producing a second hidden immunity idol he had found and giving it to Eddie!  With the votes from the rest of them split between Malcolm and Eddie, which no longer counted, the “Three Amigos” were able to each write down Phillip’s name to get his crazy butt thrown out!  It’s one of the best blind sides in Survivor history!  Eddie managed to make it the furthest of the three, being the most agreeable and least threatening of them all.  Besides being somewhat arrogant and so damned “perfect”, I actually found myself liking all three of them, and the audience agreed, since Malcolm was named “Fan Favorite” in an online poll and awarded $100,000.

Beliefs vs. Facts: The Christian Perspective

And so last week, I decided to tackle anew the Evolution/Creation debate, and had stated that I've written a lot about it in my journal over the years.  Going back over my journal, I discovered that this entry from 1995 was my first mention of that debate.  Some of my views concerning some of this have naturally changed over the last two decades.  For instance, I'd have to say I'm not a "young earth" proponent as Walt Brown is, and I take exception to my claim below that we have been just "poking holes in the other major theory" of evolution, for I actually think it is much more than "poking holes".  In fact, everywhere I turn in evolutionary science, I find nothing BUT holes, excuses, hoaxes, and wishful thinking!

     The journal entry below only touches upon the evolution/creation debate; there is much more to come from these journals, not only with this debate, but with Christian theology, science, and other apologetics.

     I also believe that some of what I wrote here will most likely step on a lot of secular toes, but it goes with the territory, I'm afraid.  It is the God's honest biblical truth, that those who believe in Jesus will make it to heaven, and those who don't will wind in someplace else, someplace not so nice.  Non-Christians seem to have the most problem with this very concept, and yet it is at the root of what Christianity is all about: That Jesus is the only way to the Father.  He even said it Himself in the bible:  "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through me." - John 14:6 NIV

     Sorry to be blunt, but that's Christianity!

My journal entry from 1995:

     I no longer believe in evolution, and I do believe in creation, and a creator.  But is this creator (or creators) the God of the Christian Bible?  Was the world created the way the Bible said it was?  At this point, we have to not so much disprove other theories, but prove our own.  Never stop searching!

     Walt Brown’s book In the Beginning:  Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood touches on this needed proof.  As the title suggests, he really does have compelling evidence of an actual world-wide flood like what is described in the Book of Genesis in the story of Noah and the Ark.  I also just checked another book out of the library called The Genesis Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings by Henry M. Morris.  I’ll always be on the lookout for proof!

     However, as I said, I won’t find all the answers in this life.  Creation is just a theory, and unfortunately has not really been proven, not even after all these years, aside from poking holes in the other major theory of how all of this came about and how we all got here.  Yet that also means that it hasn’t really been disproved either.  As much as I wish it could be proven, it has not been, and has been designed in such a way by God so that it actually cannot be proven.  It is not fact.  It is a belief.

Image from http://missinguniversemuseum.com/Exhibit6.htm

     But then, that is why they call it faith; to believe without having all the facts; to have faith in the Bible and Jesus without proof:  That is what is ultimately required of all Christians (or any other belief, really, be it another religion or atheism).  One can, and should, continue to search for the truth, the facts, and the proof, for it can lead in the right direction (but not always, thanks to the great deceiver and father of lies, Satan – some people who think they are on the road to truth are being deceived).  Yet there comes a time in a man’s life where the search for the truth produces only more questions, and he has to make a choice; when facts alone are not enough and he realizes they will never be enough.  Sometimes he or she is required to make a choice without all the needed information being at his or her fingertips.

Image from http://www.thecollapsedwavefunction.com/2012/08/arguments-against-evolution.html

     It goes without saying that I cannot prove the Bible as the Gospel Truth (if it could be proven, there'd be a lot more Christians around, and they wouldn't call it "belief" or "faith" anymore), and that includes all that goes along with it:  The creation, the flood, the happenings and stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, the exodus from Egypt, the legends of David, the virgin birth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and his death and resurrection, or even the very existence of God in any of his guises (Creator, Lord, YHWH, Father, Son, or Holy Spirit).  Even skeptics agree in some of it:  They believe in the flood of Noah’s day, but that it was not a world-wide flood, and they agree that people like Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus existed, and can corroborate many of the stories.  However, these unfaithful, secular experts are unlikely to put their faith in anything that goes beyond what can be corroborated in other ancient documents or can be called into question based on evidence from olden objects found in archaeological digs.  If they can question it, they will.  In short, I have some evidence on my side to back up what I believe, but at some point, I must still “take the leap of faith” and let Jesus catch me.  I can’t really speak for any of the other religions, but I know the Christian faith requires this leap of faith.  You can do all the searching in the world and you won’t find the answers.  You won’t find proof that the Bible is literal, or that Jesus was of virgin birth and was uniquely the only literal Son of God (in the sense that He is God as God the Son, part of the “Triune Godhead”), or that when He was crucified that he thereby saved us from our sins, and will come again.  How can I convince people of this when some people and other religions actually believe He faked His crucifixion and resurrection?  Christianity requires that we believe all of this without the proof it would take to convince others outside the faith, and I do. 

Image from http://nextestation-evolution.blogspot.com/2011/09/evolution-animal.html

     And so I believe in it, this religion and the God of the Christian Bible, but even more so, I believe in all of it because I believe in the deity and “God-ness” of Jesus Christ.  I used to believe in Jesus primarily due to what I’ll call the “comfort” and “safety” factors.  It’s comfortable to believe what everybody else in the community, or the household, believe, or the majority anyway.  And being a Christian, we believe that Christians go to heaven, and those who don’t believe go to hell, and so believing in Christ becomes a safety issue, as in “If I believe, I’ll go to heaven.”  But my belief, due to my quest for more information and more proof, has expanded beyond this safe and comfortable region.  It’s growing into a different, deeper kind of faith now, one that has blossomed because of the lies I’ve seen in the teachings of this world and its secular views, and its shallow selfishness.  But I wouldn’t behoove anyone who comes to the faith or still believes in Christ mostly for that safety net.  This faith cannot be disproved, and if the choice between eternal life in paradise or eternal damnation in hell is the deciding factor in bringing some people to Christ, then they are still believers, and have become my Christian brothers and sisters.  In other words, if the Christians are wrong in their beliefs, then it really makes no difference what I believe.  If I wink out like a candle flame when I die and no longer exist, or if I’m reincarnated according the dictates of other religions, then it stands to reason that believing in Christ would make no difference one way or the other.  I’m still going to just “wink out of existence” or be reincarnated until I “get it right” or attain Nirvana or something, according to these other beliefs.  However, if the Christians are right, then only those who believe in Jesus and follow Him will make it to Heaven, and all others will still exist, but (and I know this is harsh) burn in hell for eternity!  If that’s a person’s only reason for believing in Christ, it’s a good one!

Image from http://alcarie.deviantart.com/art/Evolution-270668787