At any rate, the rules of this particular meme are: 1. List your top ten favorite films (in no particular order). 2. If you are tagged, you have to post and tag 3-5 people. 3. Link back to the one who tagged you. 4. Tip the hat to Dan.

That said, here is my list of my top ten favorite movies of all time:

The Motorcycle Diaries

Ernesto “Che” Guevara and his college friend Alberto Granado launch out into Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela on a beat up old motorcycle in the 1950’s. Their lives are radically changed as they encounter poverty, disease, and oppression. Guevara’s life is changed forever as a result of their adventure. Che becomes the leader of the Cuban revolution.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a movie that reminds all of the inherent truth in the aphorism “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!” Joel Barish lives in a day wherein you can selectively erase portions of your personal memory. The portions marked for erasure are the most uncomfortable memories, of course. When Joel’s girlfriend chooses to erase him from her memory, he reacts by erasing her from his memory to avoid the pain. Unfortunately, he realizes he still loves her and regrets having the procedure done as memories of her begin to disappear. Basically, the movie is about trying to undo that which was initially considered beneficial. Life is good, even the uncomfortable aspects.

Lost in Translation

Scarlett Johansson. I admit it; I absolutely love Scarlett Johansson. She’s awesome. Lost in Translation is rich with plot lines. A washed up American actor and a woman who is supporting her husband and searching for meaning discover one another in a foreign land and culture. They befriend one another in journey and discover that their mismatched companionship is founded upon deep and different personal need. Yet, that companionship too must come to an end sooner or later. It’s a great movie. And Scarlett Johansson is in it too. Did I mention that little fact?

The Island

Scarlett Johansson, again. I’m usually not a huge fan of Science Fiction flicks, but this one is really well done. And Scarlett Johansson is in it. This movie raises all sorts of relevant religious and ethical questions that are not at all far-fetched, given the day in which we all are living. Should clones be manufactured for the sole purpose of spare parts (e.g., organs, blood, body parts)? Are clones human beings? Should they be created for personal insurance reasons? The Island is a dive into all of these questions. Plus, Scarlett Johansson is in it.

21 Grams

21 grams is another movie filled with plot lines. These plot lines, however, converge around a series of events that culminate in one accident that touches all involved and consequently connects their lives. Sin, Fall, and the cry for Redemption make this move great. It’s real and raw. The everyone loses 21 grams of weight when they die is a great supernatural marker pointing to the soul within each of us.

Life of Brian

OK. Lest anyone get their britches in a bundle over my listing of this movie, let me just say, “Take it for what it is!” It’s Monty Python! The “I Want to be a Woman” coliseum scene is classic, and reminds me of the time we are all living in right now! Remember, this movie was made in 1979! “Don’t you oppress me!” Classic! Any serious student of the New Testament should have a copy of The Life of Brian in their library! Yes, I said it!

The Passion of the Christ

This movie did not make my top ten list just to offset the funny that is The life of Brian. This movie is actually incredible. It is so well done. Mel Gibson’s Passion is the best Hollywood interpretation of the last days of Jesus of Nazareth’s life, period. Yes, it is beyond gruesome, but so was Roman crucifixion. Too, there is a very prevalent reliance upon the Christus Victor motif of atonement buried in this film. Look closely; you will see it. Mel Gibson was the recipient of plenty of criticism for what was perceived as an anti-Semitic interpretation of the events in Christ’s passion, but a keen eye will spot the presence and the relentless push of Satan to destroy Christ throughout the movie (especially in the Garden scene). The horrible orchestrator of events in this film was Satan. The cataclysmic battle between God’s good and Satan’s evil is obvious in The Passion of the Christ.

The Last Temptation of Christ

Reactionary Christians the globe over came out in droves against Martin Scorsese and The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. Why? Who knows? The reaction probably emanated from the unfortunate fact that Christians have for so long failed to understand the genre of film and/or literature. It’s about story. This story was built upon the idea of the last great temptation Jesus endured as a humble and sacrificial Messiah. The key word being “temptation.” While on the cross, the film suggests, Jesus was tempted to come down and save himself and take all that he deserved in life (e.g., a wife, a family, a house, a quite life in the hills). Was Jesus tempted in such a manner? Well, scripture is silent on the issue, but it’s not at all a stretch to believe he was tempted in such a manner. The last Temptation of Christ is a movie about such temptation. It begins with Jesus on the cross and ends with Jesus on the cross. The body of the film is about the temptation Jesus endured while he was nailed to the cross. How Christians missed this major plot point is beyond understanding. The scene when Jesus defends the woman caught in adultery is classic. In this scene, Jesus is interpreted realistically as the one who does not dive into situations with a premeditated speech or plan, but instead relies completely upon the Holy Spirit to give him the Word to be spoken into the situation. Often, we read the complete story back onto the text, instead of allowing the characters in the story to develop and speak in their own real-time. Scorsese allowed the characters to develop naturally and brilliantly.

Life as a House

A broken family begins to heal relationally when the father (George) is diagnosed with terminal cancer. The family healing is not instantaneous, thankfully. It occurs over a period of time, and as the sick father and his angst-laden, prostitute son (Sam) work together to rebuild a house George inherited from his alcoholic and abusive father. This film is all about redemption. In the end, George dies, and Sam gives the house to a woman who was crippled by George’s drunk father. This film is more inspiring than the majority of church services I have attended in my life.

Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys is the film adaptation of the Michael Chabon novel. It’s a great, great story! It also features Toby Maguire pre-Spiderman fame. I actually prefer the pre-Spiderman Maguire. He is a far better actor than Spiderman allows him to be. Wonder Boys is set in Pittsburgh. It’s a story about the relational interaction and messy lives of a professor/writer (Grady Tripp) and one of his best but seriously strange students (James Leer). It’s a story about life, and it’s messy. It’s also a joy to watch. Wonder Boys is a great book and a great movie.

People I’m tagging: Ben, Rich, Joey, Tatum, and Nick.

In anticipation of a serious dive into DeYoung and Kluck’s Why We’re not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be, I snagged a copy of The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World (editors John Piper and Justin Taylor). Chapter authors include: David Wells, Voddie Bucham Jr., John Piper, D.A. Carson, Tim Keller, and Mark Driscoll. The book exists as a direct result of the 2006 Desiring God National Conference (Minneapolis) held to explore the Supremacy of Christ in our postmodern and increasingly diverse contemporary world. The conference speeches have been complied to form this volume.

So far (I’m still reading it), this is one incredible book. If you are interested in parsing the often convoluted language of contemporary spirituality, which can often be tagged as new age and/or humanistic, or if you would like to critically investigate postmodern expressions of the Christian faith, then put this book in your library. You will reach for it regularly.

The first few pages of Chapter One by David Wells (Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is - by itself - worth the $14.99 I dropped for the book. Wells not only identifies the present state of postmodern spirituality, but also clearly articulates all that is actually wrong with it and how it actually conflicts with and clashes headlong into a biblical expression of Christianity.

The following excerpts from Wells’ chapter summarize the postmodern situation with precision and unction:

“When the Enlightenment mindset dominated American culture, those who said that they looked within themselves for answers were, in all likelihood, secularists and humanists of one kind or another. In the postmodern moment in which we are living, however, those who look within themselves are not necessarily divorcing themselves from the sacred On the contrary, many are actually believers in the sacred, which they are persuing within themselves. They are not seeking the God of the Christian religion, who is transcendent, who speaks to life from outside of it and entered it through the Incarnation, whose Word is absolute and enduring, and whose moral character defines the difference between Good and Evil forever. Rather, it is the god within, the god who is found within the self and in whom the self is rooted” (27).

“If they speak of transformation, as so many do, it is in terms of their own human potential, the innate sources of personal renewal that lie deep within. If they speak of their own intuitions, as they often do, it is with the sense of having onboard navigational system that enables them to find their place in reality. Or, perhaps more correctly, it allows them to find a better place in reality. And if they speak of a connectedness for which they yearn, it is in the blurry sense that somehow the human and divine are no longer disengaged from each other, but, rather, are implicated in each other. An outside God, such as we find in biblical faith, is comprehensible because he is self-defined in his revelation; the inside god is not. The inside god is merged into the psychological texture of the seeker and found spread within the vagaries of the self. The outside God stands over against those who would know him; the inside one emerges within their consciousness and is a part of them. Religions have their schools of thought and their interpreters, and always the debate is over who most truly understands the religion. Spirituality, in the contemporary sense, spawns no such debate because it makes no truth claims and seeks no universal significance. It lives out its life within the confines of private experience. ‘Truth’ is private, not public; it is for the individual, not for the universe. Here is American individualism coupled with some new assumptions about God that are being glossed off with infatuations about pop therapy, uniting to produce varieties of spirituality as numerous as those who think of themselves spiritual” (28).

We are living in an age wherein people are completely satisfied with situating all that is God and Divinity in some vague place within themselves. At the same time, they declare themselves to be bearers of some sort of truth that is seriously limited to themselves and absolutely subject to whimsical changes that find catalysts in everything from graduations, break-ups, marriages, and too much late night pizza. So, on one hand, we claim to find God within ourselves, yet, and on the other hand, we claim ourselves to be not very reliable, or at least seriously limited, epistemologically speaking. It seems like a no win situation, theologically and philosophically speaking.

Therefore, when a contemporary seeker declares, “I guess I found ‘God’ and he/she/it was in me and around me and was beautiful. The universe is powerful and it lives in me,” we can confidently respond with a “No!” They neither found God, nor did they find power. What they found was a thin understanding of themselves superimposed over vague ideas and expressions of God. It is not powerful; it is a illusive delusion. Unfortunately, today many are calling this delusion Christianity. Wells’ chapter is a call to not ignore or withdraw from culture, but to understand it and engage it in mission, with the understanding that Jesus Christ reigns above it all. It is a great read.

The introduction of the the book also contains a brief description of the chapter by Mark Driscoll. It too is a great read, and it pays for the book by itself too. Here is an excerpt from the introductory description of Driscoll’s chapter:

“With regard to the historical Christ, he suggests that liberals and Emergents have overemphasized the incarnation/humanity of Jesus at the expense of the exaltation/divinity of Jesus. Conversely, Jesus’ exaltation/divinity is overemphasized by conservatives and fundamentalists at the expense of his incarnation/humanity. Driscoll argues that both truths must be equally emphasized. Driscoll goes on to argue for a ‘two-handed approach to Christian ministry’ whereby the timeless truths of Christianity are held in a firmly closed hand, and timely ministry methods and styles are held loosely in a gracious open hand” (16).

I’m not sure how - or why - anyone could disagree with what Driscoll is saying above as regards balance in biblical ministry and service. A celebration of Jesus’ exaltation/divinity and his incarnation/humanity should be at the very forefront of our ministries, always! If these are not the point of our existence as Christians, if these truths are not leading us into our ministry/service, then something else is going on and it is not something that can be called good. Driscoll is declaring a very, very necessary truth that is as relevant and vital as anything could be in this time and day of ours. Great stuff …

Work Cited: The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World. Leicester, England: Crossway Books, 2007.

Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be is a sturdy but cordial critique of the Emergent Conversation. It is a critique that may just prove to be the final straw that breaks an increasingly unpopular and self-contradicting camel’s back. Why we’re Not Emergent is a really good read. I highly recommended it to anyone who wants to take a closer and deeper look at the emergent church movement.

I’ll be posting commentary on each chapter, beginning today. I thought a bit of back-story would be prudent before I begin my commentary on the book’s chapters.

I have had some interaction with more than a few participants of the Emergent movement, and I have actually donated a few dollars to Emergent Village. I have nothing but love for the people who camp at the Village, but I don’t resonate at all with their philosophy, theology (or lack thereof), or expression of the faith. I was never completely comfortable with declaring myself Emergent because I suspected it too be a little too close to the Unitarian Universalism I checked out while I was in seminary. Needless to say, I got the hell out of there (Unitarian Universalism) and had zero desire to align myself with anything remotely similar. The Emergent conversation looked - and still looks - a lot like Unitarian Universalism. In fact, more than a few Unitarian Universalist aficionados have blogged positively - even glowingly - about emergent, added emergent leaders to their blogrolls, and have joined local emergent cohorts, as Unitarian Universalists. There is also word of a few Unitarian Universalist “Emerging Church” church plants. Strange bedfellows? Perhaps not, and therein exists a very, very serious problem. So, I never became too comfortable with the Emergent expression, and never completely embraced it. I investigated it, and carefully so.

I do appreciate some of the questions being raised by the Emerging Church (e.g., community, caring for the poor, loving Jesus, etc.). Incidentally, the Emerging Church is not the same thing as Emergent Village, regardless of what anyone tries to say now (now being the key word). The two began as different streams of expression, with Emergent becoming a sub-expression of the Emerging Church Conversation, though Emergent leaders are now trying to own the title “Emerging Church” as their own and recast it as representative of their own (Mark Driscoll was/is representative of the Emerging Church but won’t touch the Emergent wing, for example). Personally, and at this point, I say let them have both. Who really cares? Both words are so loaded with controversy that they serve no edifying purpose at all anymore. The mere mention of either word is accompanied by too many presuppositions and assumptions to count. Their mention only leads to unfruitful polemic wrestling that is meaningful only to believers who have knowledge of all the insider language upon which it is all built. The words “Emerging” and “Emergent” have slowly sunk into a Christian echo-chamber that contradicts any realistic expression of missional living. So, let them have both words, I say. It’s all insider garb at this point anyway. My non-Christian neighbors have no idea what the words even mean or represent.

That said, I am not emergent, and never claimed to be. I do have some sympathy for the “Emerging Church Conversation,” and have used the word “Emerging” on occasion, but I’m not sure that the conversation occurring there can’t be found elsewhere in the church, so I’m not sure a separate conversation is at all necessary. And given the baggage contained by the word “Emerging” - and “Emergent” - I’m not sure self-identifying as either is even a good idea anymore. The “Emerging Church” movement has forced us all to ask bigger and more important questions over the past few years. That’s a good thing! That’s a prophetic call! So, maybe we have heard the call and are now in the process of engaging that call and living out its imperatives in our local settings. If this is the case, then the Emerging Church has fulfilled it’s purpose. Well done! But it just may be time to admit that its role was a limited one and it’s now time to go home and live out what was proclaimed. The “Emergent” wing of the conversation is another story completely. It may unfortunately be little more than a rogue vehicle that refuses to bow to its larger - and already fulfilled - purpose. Maybe?

So, I’ll be going through Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck’s book, chapter by chapter, offering commentary and thoughts. Feel free to read it along with me and bring your own thoughts, questions, and concerns. I think it will prove to be a very worthwhile read. See you all for chapter one soon! Peace.

Work Cited: Deyoung, Kevin, and Ted Kluck. Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2008.

In two weeks, the world’s largest Bible printing facility will open in Nanjing, China, prompting some to dub the historic eastern Chinese city the Bible printing capital of the world.

You can read the complete story at The Christian Post.

The following are a few of the most resonate excerpts offered by Tozer in The Pursuit of God.

“We can exaggerate about many things; but we can never exaggerate our obligation to Jesus, or the compassionate abundance of the love of Jesus to us. All our lives we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that might be said of him. Eternity will not be longs enough to learn all he is, or to praise him for all he has done, but then, that matters not; for we shall be always with him, and we desire nothing more” (41).

“The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of his presence. On our part, there must be surrender tot he Spirit of God, for his work is to show us the Father and the Son. If we cooperate with him in loving obedience, God will manifest himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with th light of his face” (64).

“Our pursuit of God is successful just because he is forever seeking to manifest himself to us” (65).

“A satisfactory spiritual life will begin with a complete change in relation between God and the sinner; not a judicial change merely, but a conscious and experienced change affecting the sinner’s whole nature. The atonement in Jesus’ blood makes such a change judicially possible and the working of the Holy Spirit makes it emotionally satisfying. The story of the prodigal son perfectly illustrates this latter phase … This story overlooks the legal aspects of redemption, but it makes beautifully clear the experiential aspects of salvation” (100).

“In determining relationships we must begin somewhere. there must be somewhere a fixed center against which everything else is measured, where the law of relativity does not enter and we can say ‘IS’ and make no allowances. Such a center is God. When God would make his name known to mankind he could find no better word than ‘I AM.’ When he speaks in the first person he says, ‘I AM’; when we speak of him we say, ‘He is’; when we speak to him we say, ‘Thou art.’ Everyone and everything else measures from that fixed point. ‘I am that I am,’ says God, ‘I change not’” (100).

“Long-held habits do not die easily. It will take intelligent thought and a great deal of reverent prayer t escape completely from the sacred-secular psychology” (122).

Work Cited: Tozer, A. W.. The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine. Camp Hill: Wingspread Publishers, 2007.

This oddly uniform style of dialogue ringing all around me made me shift in my seat. I felt nervous and unpleasantly certain that I was about to be found out. When Maria asked me why I’d come on the retreat, I bit my lip. When in Rome, I thought.

“Well,” I said, “since the new year, I’ve just been feeling like God has been telling me that I need to get right spiritually. So here I am.”

Admittedly, aspects of the Christian expression Taibbi encountered at Cornerstone Church were bizarre, to say the least. A growing number of young evangelicals brand Hagee-like expressions of the faith with tags such as ’socially and culturally archaic’ and ‘terribly unhelpful.’ Taibbi’s soft assumption that all of religion - and all of evangelicalism - looks and sounds like Cornerstone is not helpful either. Yet, he perpetuates the assumption that Hagee and Cornerstone speak, act, and worship for the rest of us. Could Taibbi have picked a different evangelical church to visit? Sure! But it would have made for a boring story, especially for an atheist. He needed a ridiculous and exaggerated example of religion and evangelicalism. He surely found it at John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church.

Taibbi is not far removed from John Hagee. In fact, they need each other. Taibbi is simply one more sensationalist in a growing line of zealot atheists who know how to pick the worst and most ridiculous examples of evangelical expression and champion them as good reasons for the cessation of all things religious and/or Christian. Hagee is not far behind. He knows how to do the same thing, but from the other side of the fence. The pair are living on opposite sides of the same detrimental social coin. Surely this money tree is wilting, right? Hagee, however, and to his credit, is not wandering around in disguises pretending to be something he is not just to get a bit of dirt on the other side. Say what you will about Hagee and his expression of faith, but he is too honest to stoop to such behavior.

There are millions of us who espouse an evangelical theology but who reject being classified as part of the religious right.

Right on, Campolo. I do think this fresh expression of evangelicalism is here for the duration. It will be an interesting next few years in the church, to say the least. Good times!

More emergent motivational posters can be found hosted at the Spurgeon.org web site. It’s all tongue in check, of course. Yeah, right.