This past weekend I took my son to see Man of Steel with a number of members of my church.  I was really geeked to go as I have always been a huge Superman fan but was disappointed by the corny Christopher Reeve flicks and the boring Bryan Singer reboot.  I believed the mix of Christopher Nolan, David Goyer and Zach Snyder was the right one to finally nail the story of Kal-El.  I was wrong.

It isn’t that Man of Steel is a bad movie but it just doesn’t do justice to the amazing mythology of the comic for several reasons: (1) Michael Shannon is a boring General Zod.  I was so pumped for him to play the villain because he is such an amazing actor and always just a bit of kilter, which would seem to make him a shoe-in to be an intimidating figure–I was wrong.  Shannon’s performance oscillates between bored and forced.  His character’s loyal sidekick, Faora-Ul (played by Antje Traue) is much more menacing!  Amy Adams is also miscast as Lois Lane (and does anyone really say to their editor, “I’m a Pulitzer Winning Reporter!”) and has almost ZERO chemistry with Henry Cavill;  (2) The fight scenes are often way too close up so that it just appears to be a blur; (3) they leave you wondering just what the heck the “codex” is until the third act; (4) the whole flick is about a half hour too long; and (5) Wasn’t it really weird that the ancient Kryptonian scout ship just happened to have a suit with the El family logo on it?  I could go on but you get the picture.

As I said, the film isn’t bad.  In fact, it is easily the best attempt at capturing the classic story but it just isn’t what it could have been.  I did like the breaking up of the origin story as to tell it all over again in traditional fashion would have been boring, I thought Cavill was a fine Superman and I liked Russell Crowe as Jor-El.  As a pastor, I also loved the Christ references even if they weren’t always so subtle (was I the only one who chuckled when Kal-El does the Jesus/Scott Stapp pose when exiting the Kryptonian ship?).

Man of Steel is worth seeing just for the theological discussions that it generates but, overall, I give Man of Steel a B.

Tune back regularly for fresh movie reviews and recommended theological or philosophical discussion topics.  Movies are rated as follows: A+ (a classic and must see even if it involves throwing down the $10 to see it in a theater). A or A- (recommended though with some minor flaws.  You may want to wait for Netflix).  B+ or B (a good film worth saving to your Netflix queue).  B- or C+ (decent movie worth seeing on Netflix or cable if the trailer intrigues you or you are a fan of the particular genre).  C or C- (so-so and worth seeing only if you are a die-hard fan of the genre).  D+ or D (Avoid unless you absolutely have to see it i.e., a relative is in it or you are a pastor and Kirk Cameron is in it).  D- or F (avoid even if Kirk Cameron is in it).

Tune back next week for more.  Until then, grace and peace.

The Replacements are re-uniting.  If you don’t know what that means, I’m not sure we can be friends.

Want to know how Game of Thrones was greenlit by HBO? Lesson I learned in Hollywood–pay attention to others and network! I scored a couple of gigs that way.

J. Warner Wallace over at the Poached Egg on Christian case for making a strategy for youth ministry.  I have been saying for years, it is time to stop playing games and time to start training young people to handle a hostile college experience!

Why are church leaders like Scot McKnight so enamored with evolution when a growing number of scientists are rejecting it!?!

Speaking of bandwagons, Denny Burk has a great article on the very real slippery slope so-called “same sex marriage” creates.

Oh, and speaking of our slide to Gomorrah, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says late-term abortions (i.e., infanticide) is sacred ground? mmmkay.

David French on why Christianity is NOT a religion of peace.

Finally, my favorite quote of the week, “In life, one who confuses dreams for reality is regarded as crazy.  In politics, one who confuses dreams for reality is called an idealist.” Daniel J. Flynn

That’s all for now, tune in next week for more stuff that will blow your mind all over your face!

This may sound funny coming from someone like me.  After all, my undergraduate degree is from a state school and my law degree is from a private, extremely secular Ivy League university but I will never pay a dime to send my son to a secular, state funded college.  Why?

The statistics these days are overwhelming with one study finding that 70% of kids raised in church leave the faith during college.  Nearly all attend secular universities (although a disturbing number attend so-called Christian colleges and I would list the university where I attained my seminary degree as one of the “Christian in name only” camp).  What I have found as someone who attended these institutions (and even taught at a few) is that a young person of faith is constantly assaulted by a secular worldview.  It isn’t that Christianity is effectively debunked at these schools for few secular professors can stand up to trained apologist as evidenced by the fact that William Lane Craig has never lost a debate.  It is more of a culture that mindlessly rolls its eyes at the Christian faith at a time when most young people are on their own for the first time and trying to desperately to decide who they are in order to “own their adulthood.”  The culture is an incredibly powerful entity few have the wherewithal to buck.

William F. Buckley wrote in God and Man at Yale way back in 1951 that it was truly odd to see a school, which was founded to train congregational ministers and supported largely by corporate funding to be filled with agnostics, atheists and socialists! He argued that many of the alumni at Yale were funding the training of enemies.   It would be like West Point graduates writing checks to fund Al Qaeda camps in Pakistan!

Unfortunately, things have only grown worse at most universities since Buckley wrote his bestselling work.  My parents, who established the largest evangelical church in southern Ohio, paid for me to attend a state school where the most popular professor published a book he required students to buy and read that detailed the “Crimes of Jehovah.”  I later attended a law school where the overwhelming majority of grads went on to be corporate defense attorneys trained by radical socialists!  I used to joke when I joined my first law firm that all I learned at an Ivy League law school was “how to stick it to the man!”

Why pay for any of this? Why spend tens of thousands of dollars for our children to gain a job but lose their soul? Besides, if they are well-trained and hard-working, they will financially succeed regardless of where you send them.

I strongly recommend sending young people to schools like Ohio Christian University, where my friend Monty Lobb (the former head of the state family policy council and Assistant Secretary of State for Ken Blackwell) is preparing to train an army of young activists) or Liberty University or, at the very least, Hillsdale College, while officially secular, still believes in truth!  These schools will cost more but what is your child’s soul worth?

I have a hole in my back that won’t heal and it sucks.  It really, really sucks.

Last year, I had surgery and when I was in the hospital a spot on my back that apparently was already afflicted with a disease, became infected.  After several painful treatments and weeks of antibiotics, it became clear that I would have to have surgery.  I was told by the surgeon that they would take a 3 cm by 3 cm by 3 cm chunk out of my back and that it would take roughly three months to heal with weekly treatments at a wound center.   I had the surgery and have now suffered through roughly six months of treatments with no success. That’s frustrating for several reasons, not the least of which is because the treatments are very painful as I am allergic to pain medication and the treatments require the scraping and chemical burning of an open wound with little or no result.

The Bible commands a believer when facing an illness to have the elders pray over the believer and anoint him or her with oil (James 5:14).  I did this.  I have also asked several churches to pray for me but, so far, God’s answer has been a big, fat no!  My wound still refuses to heal and now they want to do another surgery and another few months of painful wound treatment.  Like a spoiled child, I have been inwardly, quietly throwing a hissy fit like a spoiled child.  I am ashamed to admit I feel entitled to good health because I work as an unpaid minister in an inner city church.  I have discovered that in my heart of hearts, I am just as “religious” as the worst Pharisee.

The Apostle Paul had a chronic medical problem he described as a “thorn in the flesh.”  He prayed to God for healing but the Father’s response was “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9).  Indeed, if one reflects upon the cost and the result of our salvation, it follows that anything we suffer on earth, which brings glory and honor to God is but a trivial inconvenience.  Yet, every day when I am painfully reminded about my new physical limitations, I become angry or depressed, which means I don’t truly yet understand grace.  I understand with my mind.  I can share the Gospel with anyone but it hasn’t yet invaded my heart and soul or I would actively seek ways to glorify God through my pain rather than resent him for it.

I heard a preacher say once that the longest and hardest trip a person can take is from the head to the heart and in between is the Damascus Road.  What I have learned is that it is possible to go to seminary, learn apologetics, preach, teach, counsel and share the Gospel without it fully consuming your existence but I hope it does for you and me.

We are working through 1st John to ask what it really means to be a Christian.  Last week, we saw that a true follower of Jesus “lives in the light,” which means, at the very least, accepting the authority of God as THE authority in your life.  What’s next? 1 John 1:7 reads,

7 But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

It is interesting to me that the first consequence of walking in the light is “fellowship with one another.”But what does that mean? We tend to define fellowship as time Christians with coffee and donuts. But the Greek word means “participator” or one who shares in or an equal partner in the community.

So, if true Christian Community is defined by the worship of the one true God, acceptance of one another as family, giving help to those in need and spreading the Gospel, then “fellowship with one another” means we all participate in this and pull our equal share.

So that means, a true Christian does not sit at home and watch Joel Osteen or whatever.  A true Christian joins a community that accepts God’s authority, worships, accepts all, helps all, and spread the Gospel as defined by God’s Word.

That means true churches will be filled with people who we won’t like and even get on our nerves.  So, we will have conflict.  Heck, the only thing keeping a lot of churches together is a lack of communication.

But this is nothing new.  When Jesus chose His 12 disciples he chose both Matthew the Roman tax collector and Simon the Zealot! The two had to hate each other! Matthew may have kept one eye on Simon while sleeping.  After all, inviting those two to come together would be like inviting Majmoud the former Al Qaeda terrorist to a weekend retreat with Isaac the former Israeli soldier!  Yet, even before the resurrection, the two seemed to get along because real-time spent together will produce a “tolerance” our culture cannot dream of!

You cannot truly love without patience and you cannot know patience until you force yourself into a community of truly different people with whom you share everything equally. This isn’t just a nice cultural phenomenon, it is an integral part of being a disciple of Jesus.

Real Christians aren’t just forgiven…they are in community with people wholly unlike themselves—they worship with them, they accept them, they help them and they work with each other for the glory and honor of God.

Is this your life? If not, it is time to make it your life.

Speaking of ready, are you pumped for the final season of Breaking Bad? Do you think Walt White will live?

Did last week’s Game of Thrones freak you out? (This is when I get to condescendingly say, “Well, if you had the books…”) but did you know real historical events inspired the GOT’s “Red Wedding?”

Speaking of betrayal, Mark Steyn posted a great piece on The Obama Administration scandals.

Many were upset by my post on the benefits of GMO’s.   Looks like John Stossel agrees with me.

Larry Taunton wrote a great piece at The Atlantic on strengthening your church by Listening to Young Atheists.

Atheism Analyzed has a great piece on Atheists and the Burden of Proof.

It’s VBS time and Larry has a great post on 5 Ways VBS scarred him as a kid!

Oh, and my favorite quote of the week, “When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.” Thomas Sowell

Check back next week for “Can you be a Christian and not go to church?” and more.

Until then, grace and peace.

But lately I have been re-thinking the whole approach.  I think our church may actually not be helping and may even be contributing to the problem.  It isn’t that I don’t think Jesus’ words about helping the poor seriously, I think he was very clear that Christians have a duty to do so but it is how to best do it that I have been struggling with over the past year.

I first began to question my commitment to traditional means of “social justice” after reading Father Robert Sirico’s Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy (Regnery 2012).  Sirico, a former leftist revolutionary who hung out with Jane Fonda in the 1960′s became a Catholic priest ministering to the poor and began to question if the method of giving people money, food and clothes were really hurting rather than helping the poor.  I had heard inner city missionary Rudy Carrasco state many of the same misgivings a few years ago.

But the final nail in the coffin of the approach I have been championing for the last few years was provided by Robert Lupton in his book Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) (HarperOne 2012).  Lupton argues traditional methods do nothing to motivate the poor to improve their situation and often lead them to become dependent on charity.  He advocates an approach that follows these principles:

• Never do for the poor what they have (or could have) the capacity to do for themselves.
• Limit one-way giving to emergency situations.
• Strive to empower the poor through employment, lending, and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements.
• Subordinate self-interests to the needs of those being served.  Listen closely to those you seek to help, especially to what is not being said–unspoken feelings may contain essential clues to effective service.
• Above all, do no harm.

Lupton, like Sirico and, to a degree Carrasco, argue the only real way to help the poor is to befriend them and help them help themselves.  This is much harder work than just donating cash or clothes or voting for liberals, (whose bureaucratic efforts to end poverty have also produced too much dependence).

I recently spoke with another inner city pastor who had learned local drug addicts were sharing information on how to sell their food stamps for drug money while relying on the local churches and food pantries to eat.  I want to glorify God by helping the poor but I don’t want to be responsible for encouraging reckless behavior.  Jesus commanded us to give to anyone who asks (Luke 6:30) but, as Augustine pointed out, he didn’t say what to give them.  I’m done giving stuff away to anyone except those who will commit to turn their lives around, like those in treatment, etc.  and I encourage you to do the same.

The most likely seemed to be tied to authoritative teaching.  After all, John repeats that he and his fellow disciples have seen, heard (and even touched) Jesus and only pass on what they learned from Him.  It strikes me that John was dealing with challenges to the teachings of the disciples.  This follows not only from the context but because “darkness” was often used by ancient Greek writers like Homer and Plato to designate confusion. We walk in darkness when we shape our faith to suit our prejudices rather than allow the God of the universe to define it.   God’s light is the only way. It is the exclusive path for truth and meaning.  So, one must submit to God’s Word to walk in the light.

But reading through other commentaries and even sermons by guys like Tim Keller, John MacArthur and Charles Spurgeon, it hit me that we can claim to believe in the exclusivity and inerrancy of Scripture and still walk in darkness.

How? By continuing to place ourselves at the center of the universe.

Even in the best of churches, there is a tendency to start with ourselves rather than God.  We preach “practical messages.”  Professional staff respond to complaints about the music, the decor, the temperature, etc.  We say it is all about God but we make it all about ourselves.

Darkness was often defined by Greeks as not only confusion but evil and despair.  They are all connected for they all come from Satan who is one crafty demon.  He can let a Christian parrot all the right doctrines while living a life that is all about his or herself, which produces confusion, evil acts and despair.

To walk in the light, one must not only say we believe it is all about God, we have to live like it as well.  How?

(1) Practice praying…a lot! and begin and end every prayer with praise to God, thanks to God and meditating on who He is.

(2) Don’t expect a life of ease but a life of suffering with “your best life now” coming only after Jesus returns.

(3) Worship God regardless of where you are or whether you like the music because you are singing praise to Jesus on His throne not just for recreation.

(4) Give of yourself including your time and money.

Know the doctrines of God and make Him the center of your life.  After all, Your Life doesn’t get better until it is about something better than your life.

Tonight we begin a new chapter for Revolution as we move to the chapel at Christ’s Community Church (or CCC) and we begin a new sermon series “Walking in the Light: How Do You Know You’re A Christian?” Everyone is welcome. Come as you are.