Lightsabers and Wands

So, I had the chance to watch Harry Potter 7 over the long week.  It was a snowy week here in Washington and I had to get out and do something with the boys.  Or, at least, that's what I told Sarah.  And Harry Potter was an excellent choice.
If you're looking for a movie review, here's a bit of one.  I thought the movie was brilliant.  I think David Yates, the Director of the movies since HP 5 is by far the best director yet.  Each Director did well with what they were given, but David Yates has stopped just turning out "Good Harry Potter" movies and is turning out Good Movies.  These last three movies remind more of the Lord of the Rings trilogy from that standpoint.  A fantastic combination of source material, great cast, and excellent production.  And I can't believe we have to wait until July to see part 2!
A couple of notes along with that.  Is this a movie for kids?  Yeah, if your kid has read the book they're not going to see too much that will bother them more.  The visual of Nagini is pretty creepy.  And the scene of Hermione getting tortured was actually fairly disturbing.  But, again, J.K. Rowling did such a good job with those moments in the book I would say if your child has read those scenes, they can probably see those moments.
But the bigger, philosophical question many Christian families ask is: should their kids watch this movie?  Much has been made about the magic/Witchcraft connection of Harry Potter and the Bible's clear prohibition about dabbling with that type of stuff.
As a parent, I certainly don't want to argue that a kid has to see Harry Potter.  Yeah, they're really well written books, and well done movies, but there are lots of good books and good movies I don't need to let my kids read and see because I disagree with their content (No child should be subjected to Grease 2 as an example.  Wow, what a stink bomb of a movie.  Oh, and the morals are questionable too :) )
But, as a Christian parent let me be clear that I've let my kids read the Harry Potter series, we own the movies, and I've read and watched all of them myself.  My thoughts on this comes from a couple of things. 
First, I don't discount the Bible, but I see a big distinction between Magic and Witchcraft being part of a story and actually trying it myself.  When I watch movies about the Mafia it doesn't mean I'm going to change my name to Fat Tony and start conducting my business in the basement of a bar.  I am able to separate the two things, and I want to teach my kids they can do the same.
And, on a related note, my kids are exposed to magic all over the place.  There's magic in the above mentioned Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and in the Narnia books.  And, if you've ever watched Star Wars just trade the Lightsabers for Wands, and call The Force "magic" and you'll see it's really no different from Harry Potter on that issue.
Do I ban all such magic related pop culture from my house?  My response is no.  When I watch and read Narnia, or LOTR, or Star Wars, or Harry Potter I see the same things.  I see good triumph over evil.  I see heroic sacrifice.  I see friends laying down their lives for others.  I often see great, relatable Christian ideas - whether that was the authors intent or not.  That's just how I'm wired.  I see Jesus everywhere.  And I think He's pretty glad about that.
So, I want to instill the same gift in my kids.  If something is truly irredeemable (I'm looking at you G-Force.  Super hero rodents.  Really?) I see no need to support it.  But much of pop culture can be seen in a variety of ways.  I choose to err on the side of Grace.  And fun.

Don't go to church, Be the Church

Bill

A Christian response to an unjust government

So, I've heard some positive feedback on my sermon from this week.  If you haven't listened to it yet, you can find it at http://www.svlccommunity.org/  I spoke about Politics, and in particular about how we as Christians are Biblically called to engage in politics.  I won't recap the whole sermon here, but I got one question from a number of people afterwards that I thought would be good to address in this format. 
I argued that, Biblically, Christians are called to "support" our government.  You see this a number of times in Paul's writings and I believe in many of Jesus' actions as well.  But the question that was raised was, "What then do we do with an unjust government."  What are Christians supposed to do in Germany under Hitler?
It's a great question.  And one I don't think I have all the answers to.  But, I did a little thinking and some research and I have a few ideas.
One, the truth of it is, Paul and Jesus lived under governments that were pretty unjust as well.  They probably didn't have it as bad as life in Nazi Germany, but they were much worse off than life in most First World governments in our day today.  So, for Paul to say to that Government leaders were put there by God, is a pretty bold step in his day.  That shouldn't be discounted.
However, we also shouldn't discount that Paul almost certainly believed that Jesus was coming back very soon.  In most of his writings it's very clear that Paul believes Jesus' return to be imminent.  That colors much of his commentary on life style choices.  It colors his thinking on marriage, and I think it colors his thinking about governments.  Why worry too much about an unjust government when Jesus is coming to bring a new Heaven and a New Earth and all this be wiped away anyway?
But, as we have seen 2000 years later, although Jesus' return is imminent, God's time frame and our time frame don't seem to be similar.  So, we still wait for Jesus.  We still wait in a broken world where governments can be bad, and sometimes truly evil (again, the image of Nazi Germany comes to mind.)  As Christians, do we just wait for Jesus to come back, or do we step into unjust situations and do something to combat that?  Do we take a page from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the great Lutheran leaders, and plot to kill Hitler because he is that evil?  Good questions.
Again, I'm drawn to the Bible for answers, and here I'm afraid it's a little less clear.  And it requires much humble thought on our part.  To begin, let's look at a specific example with Jesus.  Many are familiar with Jesus encounter with the crowd and the woman caught in adultery.  In that instance, Jesus challenges the crowd who is seeking "justice" (blood, really) "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone."  And after all of the woman's accusers walk away He sends the woman away forgiven, with the command to not sin again.  For me, this provides a great example of Jesus' response to an unjust situation.  The woman, although guilty, was being treated without justice.  By Jewish law, the man she was with should have been brought along with her for accusal.  The whole scene reeked of a set-up, and flew in the face of Jesus' message of forgiveness and grace for all, regardless of sin.  So, instead of letting the unjust action slide, Jesus stepped in, and acted.  He did so in a very unique way, but He acted to subvert the unjust action no matter how you look at it.
Paul does something similar in his letter to Philemon.  This is a story about Philemon, a slave owner, and his runaway slave Onesimus.  Paul has come into relationship with Onesimus, and has discovered that he knows Philemon quite well.  In fact, Paul brought Philemon to faith.  So, Paul takes the radical step and sends Onesimus back to Philemon and urges/commands Philemon to forgive Onesimus and treat his as an equal in Christ.  Paul sees slavery as unjust, and knows that if Onesimus is caught as a runaway slave he'll be killed.  But instead of hiding Onesimus, Paul sends him back to his "owner" and says you can't hurt him, you can't punish him, you have to treat him as Christ treats you.  Paul steps into an unjust situation and challenges it.
So, what do we learn.  Well, my reading is that Paul and Jesus chose not to try and change the un-justices of the world, but they did stand up to the unjust actions before them.  They did what they could when they could, and expected others to do the same.  So, yes they didn't fight the unjust governments under which they served.  In their wisdom, that wasn't where they thought they should spend the majority of their time (this was spent on bringing the Gospel to the World.)  But, they didn't ignore it either.
So, that seems like our calling, to do what we can when we can.  Sometimes that means individual action.  A modern example might be to stand up to bullying in our schools when we see it, a real problem right now.  But yes, sometimes that needs to be done on a large scale.  To stop Hitler, or Stalin, you couldn't do that one encounter at a time.  It needed to be done with millions working together, forcefully.  On this, Reinhold Niebuhr did some great work arguing for Christian Realism, in direct contrast to those Christians arguing for a pacifist reaction to the Nazi's.  Niebuhr argued that in this clear case, pacifism was not the Christian response at all, direct action was needed.  It's not always easy to see when that is, but when it is clear, then our Christian response should be equally clear.
So, a few thoughts on a difficult idea.  I'd love to hear your thoughts or further questions if this gets you thinking as well.  Have a great week, and as always. . .

Don't go to church, Be the Church

Bill

116 - 3

You may have noticed a decent gap between my last post and this one.  That's because I try to maintain the blog a little more during the summer months, as a way of checking in on things when so many of us are out and about.  But, I'll try to do a few new pieces throughout the Fall and Winter as well just to keep you all intereted :)
And this weekend, what better way to spark your interest than 116 - 3.  I knew it was a bad weekend for Washington Football, but until a friend posted that on his Facebook status I didn't realize just how bad it was.  The Huskies, Cougars, and Seahawks all lost this past weekend by a combined score of 116 - 3!
Seriously.
What do you do with that?
First off, I've got to say that as a guy who never played a lick of "real" football, I certainly hand it to our guys for going out there and playing week in and week out - taking a physical punishing I can only imagine.  300 pound linemen don't try and hit me when I play Tennis or go Sowboarding you know.
But, as an interested observer, it's hard to not to question what's going on with the players and the coaches.  I guess, I think we just start to to all become experts in something that we spend that much time watching.  Or at the very least, something that we're invested in.  And, let's face it, there are a lot of Americans invested in Football.  I'm willing to bet (I hope I'm wrong, but this is still my hunch) that more Americans watched Football on Saturday and Sunday this weekend than went to church.  They probably spent more on Footbal related stuff too.  Now, that's an investment.
So, after 3 good old fashioned poundings, what do you do?
I"m thinking that we need to remember, that it's just a game.  Yes, it's an industry that is responsible for Billions of dollars.  Yes it's their jobs, and our work ethic means we should all strive for our best every day in whatever we do.  But, it's still just a game.  So, three of my favorite teams lost their games this last weekend.  It was frustrating.  It was annoying.  But, did anything bad really happen?  No lives were lost, no wars were started.  And, after it was all said and done: I played with my kids, went trick-or-treating, played Crazy Eights with Princess cards with my daughter.  Those were the things that mattered to me this weekend.  Those memories will last a lot longer than the bad football ones, as well they should.
So, I hope you had a great weekend.  I hope your favorite team won a game somewhere.  But, I hope you also were reminded this weekend of what matters in your life.  And what really doesn't.  Who knows, you may get the chance to remember it again next weekend.  After all, the Huskies are playing the Ducks!

Don't go to church, Be the Church!

Bill