I’m a Christian and I think ‘Noah’ deserves a four star review

I’m a Christian and I think ‘Noah’ deserves a four star review

by The Matt Walsh Blog

(The Matt Walsh Blog)

On Friday, my wife and I had a very rare date night.

Naturally, we decided to spend it being pummeled by the blaring condescension of the most insipid, absurd, unimaginative, clumsily contrived piece of anti-Christian filmmaking to come along since, well, probably just last week.

In fact, if I learned anything from Noah, it’s this: despite popular perception, you can often judge a book by its cover. Also, giant deformed rock monsters make for awkward supporting characters.

We’ll meditate on that second item in a moment, but it’s the first point that should be especially emphasized.

Christians: you’ll hear people insist that you can’t criticize the movie until you’ve seen it. Noticeably, the loudest voices in this camp are the ones who will (rather coincidentally, I’m sure) profit immensely if you meet their challenge.

Don’t.

Don’t bother.

You can hate this film without watching it, for the same reason that you can assume Citizen Kane is slightly superior to Need For Speed, without having seen either of them.

Just use context clues. Use your judgment. Use your money on something else.

Noah is a major Hollywood blockbuster, made by an atheist director best known for his previous flick where a mentally disturbed lesbian ballerina goes insane and bleeds to death on stage. Already, a critical person might be slightly concerned about his handling of the Bible, considering what he just did to the ballet.

These concerns grew from suspicion to reality before it was even released, when the man himself came out publicly and professed Noah to be both an environmentalist propaganda piece, and the “least Biblical” Bible film ever made.

He wasn’t lying.

But he forgot to mention that it’s also a terrible film.

The way I figure it, I must now convince at least two people to skip this movie in order to cancel out the twenty dollars I just contributed to Darren Aronofosky’s and Russel Crowe’s coffers.

What better way to do that than by spoiling the entire thing?

So here goes a thorough synopsis and spoiler, which will hopefully quell your curiosity and alleviate any urge you might feel to go and experience this ridiculous train wreck for yourself:

We are first introduced to the Noah of Noah on a hill in the barren wasteland of the Fallen. In a captivating and subtle initial sequence, our protagonist castigates his son for pulling a flower out of the ground, right before rushing to the aid of an injured dog.

A scraggly band of Bad Guys soon show up with the wicked intentions of devouring the animal’s flesh, because, in this story, the Height of Evil is to stave off your imminent starvation by hunting wild game. (If only they’d developed Noah’s ability to be a strict vegetarian in an environment almost entirely devoid of vegetation.)

The Bad Guys attack Noah, not realizing that he’s a vegan Martial Arts master. Noah proceeds to kick some serious butt, leaving all of the Bad Guys bleeding on the ground.

One of them looks up at him in awe and terror. “What do you want?”

“Justice,” Noah growls with a determined gaze.

I was expecting him to then whisper, “I’m Batman,” and disappear, but I realized that superhero movies wouldn’t have dialogue nearly so clichéd as this embarrassing farce.

At any rate, Noah wants justice. Of course, this is coming from the same dude who will spend the rest of the movie contemplating murder-suicide and threatening to stab babies in the face.

But, hey, nobody’s perfect.

After a troubling nightmare, Noah, for unclear reasons, sets off to find his grandfather Methuselah, who, for unclear reasons, hangs out in a cave and drinks hallucinogenic tea all day.

On the way, our heroes encounter a group of the aforementioned Rock Monsters.

The Rock Monsters — a cross between the Ents from The Lord of the Rings, Transformers, and Muppets — are fallen angels who came down to Earth to help the humans after mean ol’ God cast Adam and Eve out of Eden. The ‘Creator’ was ticked at the angels for being big softies, so he cursed them and turned them into Giant Stone Gumbies.

Christian apologists for this movie have claimed that the Rock Monsters are, in fact, “Biblical” because Genesis does make vague mention of “giants.”

That’s like turning Jesus into an Olympic figure skater and calling it “theologically accurate” because the New Testament says he walked on water.

Still, the Rock Monsters are great unintentional comic relief, so I certainly wasn’t upset to have them along for the ride.

Skimming over a few parts: Methuselah gives a roofie to Noah, prompting a hallucination about the ark. Noah and the gang and the Rock Monsters then start building the ark. More Bad Guys arrive, intending to takeover, but they’re scared off by the Rock Monsters.

In this “version” of the story, only one of Noah’s sons, Shem, boards the ark with a wife. Ham, completely wife-less, is a tad displeased at the notion of default celibacy for the rest of his life.

Understandable, I suppose.

Eventually, he runs pouting into the woods, falls into a hole filled with corpses, and finds a girl sitting among all the dead people. They fall instantly in love — the classic “how we met” story — and the two of them head back to the ark. Unfortunately, Ham’s girlfriend gets caught in a bear trap and trampled by a human stampede along the way. Classic breakup story. Noah forces Ham to abandon her and leave her to die.

Ham is mad. He pouts some more.

Here’s Ham, searching ditches and mass graves for a bride. The movie apparently takes place sometime before Match.com came into existence.

Noah also pouts. Everybody is pouting. And then it starts pouring.

As the rains begin, the Bad Guys make their climactic charge on the boat. We are then treated to an extended sequence of Rock Monsters swatting swarms of drowning people.

Interestingly, only the Main Bad Guy comes up with the clever idea to, you know, go around the Rock Monsters.

The Main Bad Guy’s genius maneuver pays off, and he successfully manages to sneak onto the ark.

Luckily, Noah and crew aren’t forced to make room on the ship for the Rock Monsters, because they’re all ascended into heaven as a reward for kicking a bunch of humans in the head for twenty minutes.

Sadly, all of the (unintended) levity and humor goes up right along with them.

The rest of the film will now be dedicated to a brooding Noah glumly obsessing over his belief that the Creator wants all human beings to perish — himself and his family included.

This forces him to have that difficult family meeting where he explains to his kids that humanity is wicked and they all must die.

But, as usual, it’s right when you plan the obliteration of mankind that your adopted daughter announces she’s pregnant. We’ve all been there. Am I right, parents?

Noah is less than happy about the news, and tells Shem and Ila that, if they have a girl, he will murder it the moment it is born.

Needless to say, Noah doesn’t attend the baby shower and things are generally pretty awkward for the next nine months.

Meanwhile, as Noah plots to murder his grandkids, and Shem plots to kill Noah if he tries, the Bad Guy stowaway is also plotting with Ham to kill Noah. Ham is willing to cooperate with the homicidal plan because he’s still upset that his girlfriend of four minutes was trampled to death. Essentially, this has become a floating soap opera. Think Days of Our Lives meets Waterworld.

Side note: If you doubt the Bad Guy Credentials of the Bad Guy, the writers made sure to include a scene where he bites the head off an endangered lizard while sermonizing about the glories of being a carnivore (this is how vegetarians see the rest of us). His Bad Guy Monologue consists entirely of simply and accurately quoting Scripture (this is how you identify the bad guy in a Hollywood movie).

The next several minutes of emotional-manipulation-disguised-as-plot-development center around the drama inevitably created when a dad wants to kill his grandchildren, and all of his children want to kill him in return.

Finally, in the predictable climax, the Bad Guy tries to stab Noah, but Ham — getting cold feet over the whole patricide thing, I guess — ultimately decides to kill the Bad Guy instead. In the midst of the chaos — wouldn’t ya know it? — Ila goes into labor.

Shem makes a halfhearted attempt to stop Noah from becoming humanity’s first abortionist, but is easily tossed to the side.

Ila gives birth to twins — both girls. GASP. Noah charges at the infants with knife in hand, but has a sudden change of heart. Even though the Creator wants him to wipe out all of humanity, he refuses.

That’s when they hit land.

Next thing you know, Noah is drunk in a cave, depressed that he didn’t have the guts to murder his twin granddaughters. Ah, regrets. We all have ‘em.

Following a pep talk from Ila, Noah decides that maybe it’s OK if people repopulate the Earth. The Creator decides to go along with this new plan.

The end.

I’ve heard the movie compared to Titanic and Gladiator. Personally, I’d say it’s more of a cross between Mutiny on the Bounty and The Shining. Only far less coherent than any of them.

I’ve also heard some “Christian leaders” endorse this steaming pile of heretical horse manure. I’m tempted to accuse them of being cowardly, dumb, or dishonest, but I’ll just give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they slept through the most troubling parts — like the part at the beginning, and the end, and all of the parts in between.

It’s true that it might be a bit difficult to discern the “message” in a film so filled with explosions (the Bad Guys have bazookas, naturally), monsters, and infanticide, but any supposed Christian “leader” ought to try a little harder. Pay a little closer attention. If you do, you’ll see a tale that entirely perverts the nature of God, while flipping sin and immorality on its head.

Aside from a brief glimpse of something that appeared to be either rape or cannibalism, wickedness is portrayed as mostly a matter of eating meat and mining the earth for resources. Noah — a righteous man in the Bible — is stripped of his righteousness in favor of obsessiveness. God is stripped of any characteristics at all, apart from vindictiveness.

It’s not that ‘Noah’ strays from the text — of course it does, the actual text is only a few pages long — it’s that the movie completely and utterly distorts the message and meaning of the original story.

This movie is not an adaptation of anything at all. As far as I can tell, both Noah the Movie and Noah the Bible story have in common: a guy named Noah, a boat, some animals.

That’s it.

If you’re looking for a movie more obviously inspired by Biblical precepts, go see anything else. Go see The Lego Movie. I’m sure even that will bear a closer resemblance to Scripture than emo Noah and his gang of Boulder Creatures.

But what if you don’t care about the Bible and you just want to see a good movie? The critics seem to love this film, don’t they?

Yes, they do. They love it because they’re a herd of politically correct cattle and this is a movie that they’re ‘supposed’ to like. It’s made by an ‘important’ director. It’s ‘controversial.’ It’s upsetting a bunch of Tea Party types.

Plot and script be damned; it’s already got all the necessary ingredients for critical acclaim.

Remember, these are many of the same critics who panned The Passion of the Christ — a beautiful, bold, and mesmerizing retelling of the greatest story ever told.

Politics and theology aside, The Passion is art. Noah is a marketing strategy.

And, in fairness, maybe it ought to be reviewed on those terms.

You can’t condemn it for being a poor Biblical adaptation, because it isn’t a Biblical adaptation.

You can’t condemn it for being a bad movie, because it isn’t a movie.

It must be considered as it is: a gimmick. A brilliant gimmick, for sure.

If the movie studio wanted to spin a yarn about mythical beasts, epic battles, homicidal sea captains, and a pagan Earth god, they could have done so. They could have called it anything. They could have told their own story. But they called it Noah because they knew that the supposed connection to the Bible would garner immediate fascination. They knew there would be controversy, and controversy sells.

They padded it with enough action movie clichés to draw interest from secular crowds, they hid the outright blasphemy well enough to please gullible Christian crowds, and they mocked Biblical theology blatantly enough to delight the critics.

They came up with a way to make millions while exploiting the various sensibilities of different audience demographics.

That was their first and primary intention, and in it they succeeded wildly.

As an adaptation or retelling of Judeo-Christian theology, it’s a blatant mockery.

As a film, it’s like the script for a Syfy Network miniseries got shoved into a blender with the treatment for a Lifetime channel made-for-TV movie and then mixed with enough moping nihilism and environmentalist sermonizing to fool pretentious elitists into using words like ‘daring’ and ‘relevant’ when describing it. In other words, it’s aggressively abysmal.

But, as a money-making ploy, it’s a downright masterpiece.

themattwalshblog.com

World Vision Reverses Decision To Hire Christians in Same-Sex Marriages

World Vision Reverses Decision To Hire Christians in Same-Sex Marriages

(UPDATED) President Richard Stearns: 'Certain beliefs are so core to our Trinitarian faith that we must take a strong stand on those beliefs.'

Celeste Gracey and Jeremy Weber/ Christianity Today

Only two days after announcing it would hire Christians in same-sex marriages, World Vision U.S. has reversed its ground-breaking decision after weathering intense criticism from evangelical leaders.

"The last couple of days have been painful," president Richard Stearns told reporters this evening. "We feel pain and a broken heart for the confusion we caused for many friends who saw this policy change as a strong reversal of World Vision's commitment to biblical authority, which it was not intended to be."

"Rather than creating more unity [among Christians], we created more division, and that was not the intent," said Stearns. "Our board acknowledged that the policy change we made was a mistake … and we believe that [World Vision supporters] helped us to see that with more clarity … and we're asking you to forgive us for that mistake."

"We listened to [our] friends, we listened to their counsel. They tried to point out in loving ways that the conduct policy change was simply not consistent … with the authority of Scripture and how we apply Scripture to our lives," said Stearns. "We did inadequate consultation with our supporters. If I could have a do-over on one thing, I would have done much more consultation with Christian leaders."

"What we are affirming today is there are certain beliefs that are so core to our Trinitarian faith that we must take a strong stand on those beliefs," said Stearns. "We cannot defer to a small minority of churches and denominations that have taken a different position."

"Yes, we will certainly defer on many issues that are not so central to our understanding of the Christian faith," he said. "But on the authority of Scripture in our organization's work [and employee conduct] ... and on marriage as an institution ordained by God between a man and a woman—those are age-old and fundamental Christian beliefs. We cannot defer on things that are that central to the faith."

Stearns expects the board to continue to deal with questions about employment and same-sex relationships. "I think every Christian organization will continue to deal with this sensitive issue," he said. "The board will continue to talk about this issue for many board meetings to come. ... We need to have a process to do further and wider consultation with key Christian leaders around the country, and we will be discussing how that can happen."

Today's letter explaining the reversal (posted in full below) was approved by the entire board, Stearns said. [Editor's note: All references to "World Vision" refer to its U.S. branch only, not its international umbrella organization.]

The initial decision faced heavy backlash from the evangelical community with only some voicing support for the decision. The day after the announcement was made, the Assemblies of God, one of America's largest and fastest-growing denominations, urged its members to consider dropping their financial support from World Vision and instead "gradually shifting" it to "Pentecostal and evangelical charities that maintain biblical standards of sexual morality."

"The U.S. branch of World Vision has placed Pentecostal and evangelical churches in a difficult position," said George O. Wood, general superintendent of the 3-million-member AG. "On the one hand, we applaud the work they do among the poor in America and around the world, and many churches have supported that work financially for some time. On the other hand, World Vision's policy change now puts them at odds with our beliefs regarding sexual morality."

On Wednesday night, Wood encouraged "Pentecostals and evangelicals who hastily canceled their sponsorship of children in World Vision programs to immediately reinstate that support in order to ensure continuity of care for the poor children whom Christ loves."

Stearns acknowledged Wednesday [March 26] that "a number" of child sponsors canceled their sponsorship in the past 48 hours in protest of the change to World Vision's conduct policy.

"That grieves us, because the children we serve will suffer because of that," he told reporters. "But our choice is not about money or income. It's a sincere desire for us to do the right thing. To be consistent with our core values, and to respond to the legitimate feedback and counsel we have received from supporters and friends of World Vision."

World Vision had hoped to take what it described as a neutral position in the gay marriage debate by deferring it to the local church. The changed policy still required singles to remain abstinent and married couples to maintain fidelity, but no longer limited marriage to heterosexuals.

"They were not taking a position," said Tim Dearborn, who previously oversaw how World Vision's Christian commitments were implemented across its international partners. "They weren't intending to take a position supporting same-sex marriage or homosexuality."

More than 2,000 of the 1.2 million children sponsored by World Vision U.S. had been dropped between CT's first reporting of the decision and Tuesday afternoon, according to a tweet by Ryan Reed (he credited his wife, who works at World Vision, with the information; the tweet has since been deleted). But it was not clear whether those numbers were a net loss or had been offset by new donors, said former World Vision staffer Ben Irwin.

"Assuming the '2,000' figure is accurate, that amounts to just under two-tenths of one percent of all kids sponsored through World Vision U.S.," Irwin wrote. "But this was never about percentages. This is about real lives. It's about kids in impoverished communities who just became pawns in our culture war."

Approximately $567 million of World Vision's more than $1 billion budget comes from private contributions, according to its 2012 annual report.

Some supporters took on additional sponsorships in support of the decision. Kristen Howerton, a professor of psychology for Vanguard University and popular blogger, organized a fundraiser with the goal of getting 100 children supported to help make up the difference. She accomplished her goal in a day.

She said she made the decision after seeing hundreds of comments on social media from people vowing to drop their support. "I think people's reactions have been pretty swift in condemning World Vision in placing them outside the fold of evangelical Christianity," she said.

John Huffman, who was a World Vision board member for 26 years, is a fervent supporter of the work Stearns has done. He told CT his "high point" on the board was hiring Stearns, and this was the first time the two men had disagreed. But Huffman called the previous decision to change the employment policy "unwise" on every front. "It lacks of wisdom in terms of biblical, theological, moral, cultural, and strategic implications to the organization," he said.

Strategically, it would have alienated many evangelicals, which make up the majority of World Vision supporters. Given that World Vision has kept such a strong evangelical identity, it's unlikely to attract people from the other side of the fence, said Huffman, who is [full disclosure] board chair for Christianity Today as well as Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

"I don't think it's going to help the institution," he told CT before today's reversal announcement. "I don't think there are going to be other people on this organization that are going to be attracted." (After today's announcement, Huffman told CT, "I'm very relieved and very grateful for the decision of the board to reverse their position.")

Dearborn said that World Vision U.S.'s relationship with its partner organizations also played a role in today's decision. "There's an effort on the part of World Vision U.S. not only to be subject to the authority of Scripture, but also to be sensitive to being a member of an international partnership," he said. "There are 50-some World Visions in the world. Especially in Africa and Asia, the position World Vision just rescinded would have been troublesome."

Stearns reached out to those partners in World Vision's announcement of the reversal, asking for forgiveness:

We are writing to you our trusted partners and Christian leaders who have come to us in the spirit of Matthew 18 to express your concern in love and conviction. You share our desire to come together in the Body of Christ around our mission to serve the poorest of the poor. We have listened to you and want to say thank you and to humbly ask for your forgiveness.

To Stanley Carlson-Thies, president of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, World Vision's controversial decision is a good opportunity for similar organizations to consider their own stances.

"I think it's probably good that other organizations have to face that decision, because it's all around us," he told CT before the reversal. "I would hope that organizations use this as an opportunity to think about their own policy, not just follow the leader."

Here is the full text of World Vision's announcement today:

Does Mormonism Really Teach That Faithful Mormons Receive Their Own Planets?

Does Mormonism Really Teach That Faithful Mormons Receive Their Own Planets?

By Keith Walker , Christian Post Guest ColumnistMarch 18, 2014|4:54 pm

Keith Walker

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently published an article on its web site titled, "Becoming Like God." This is the latest of a series of articles meant to explain some of the more controversial doctrinal and historical problems faced by the Mormon Church today. This article has created a great deal of interest in the media. A good number of well known papers have posted articles regarding this matter, most of them giving the impression that the LDS Church really does not teach this doctrine. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As I was researching this topic I happened to see a comment of one of my former Mormon friends on Facebook. He quoted an official Mormon Church Teaching manual which states, "President Spencer W. Kimball said in a general priesthood meeting: 'Brethren, 225,000 of you are here tonight. I suppose 225,000 of you may become gods. There seems to be plenty of space out there in the universe. And the Lord has proved that he knows how to do it. I think he could make, or probably have us help make, worlds for all of us, for every one of us 225,000.'" (Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual, 2001 p.358)

This is hardly an isolated quotation as this doctrine is taught in numerous Mormon Church teaching manuals at every level. Mormon children as young as four years old are taught;

"'Each one of you has it within the realm of his possibility to develop a kingdom over which you will preside as its king and god. You will need to develop yourself and grow in ability and power and worthiness, to govern such a world with all of its people." (A Parent's Guide Chapter 4: Teaching Children: from Four to Eleven Years)

Gospel Fundamentals is a teaching manual designed in part for family study. This manual teaches the same doctrine when it says;

"To live in the highest part of the celestial kingdom is called exaltation or eternal life. To be able to live in this part of the celestial kingdom, people must have been married in the temple and must have kept the sacred promises they made in the temple. They will receive everything our Father in Heaven has and will become like Him. They will even be able to have spirit children and make new worlds for them to live on, and do all the things our Father in Heaven has done." (Gospel Fundamentals, 2002, p. 201)

This same idea is taught in a revised edition of a manual designed for Mormons in the military.

"An essential requirement for exaltation is celestial marriage, for exaltation depends upon the continuation of the family in eternity and the power to populate other worlds as our Father did this one." (Principles of the Gospel, 1990, p.161)

The current manual for College aged adults is called "Presidents of the Church." There is both a Student and Teacher's manual. The teacher's manual on page 82 instructs teachers to write down a couplet authored by fifth president of the LDS Church, Lorenzo Snow. That couplet reads, "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be." Teachers are also instructed to have students read a portion of the Student manual titled, "They Shall Organize Worlds and Rule Over Them" which begins on page 90.

This section states;

"Only a short time before his death, President Snow visited the Brigham Young University [then Brigham Young Academy], at Provo. President Brimhall escorted the party through one of the buildings; he wanted to reach the assembly room as soon as possible, as the students had already gathered. They were going through one of the kindergarten rooms; President Brimhall had reached the door and was about to open it and go on when President Snow said: 'Wait a moment, President Brimhall, I want to see these children at work; what are they doing?' Brother Brimhall replied that they were making clay spheres. 'That is very interesting,' the President said. 'I want to watch them.' He quietly watched the children for several minutes and then lifted a little girl, perhaps six years of age, and stood her on a table. He then took the clay sphere from her hand, and, turning to Brother Brimhall, said:

"'President Brimhall, these children are now at play, making mud worlds, the time will come when some of these boys, through their faithfulness to the gospel, will progress and develop in knowledge, intelligence and power, in future eternities, until they shall be able to go out into space where there is unorganized matter and call together the necessary elements, and through their knowledge of and control over the laws and powers of nature, to organize matter into worlds on which their posterity may dwell, and over which they shall rule as gods.' " (Presidents of the Church Student Manual: Religion 345, 2013, p.90-91)

The Teachers manual then instructs teachers to ask students two questions, "How does this doctrine help you understand the purpose of your life?" and "Why do you think this doctrine is sometimes difficult for people to accept?"

What is interesting is that the Teacher's Manual makes it clear that this portion of the student manual is to be emphasized. In both questions the teacher is instructed to ask students about this doctrine.

While it is clear that Mormons are taught this doctrine privately, it is also equally apparent that they deny it publicly. The LDS Church has a web site designed to answer Frequently Asked Questions. One question is, "Do Latter-day Saints believe that they will "get their own planet"? It answers in part, "No. This idea is not taught in Latter-day Saint scripture, nor is it a doctrine of the Church. This misunderstanding stems from speculative comments unreflective of scriptural doctrine."

How can they say these are speculative comments unreflective of doctrine when we have just examined numerous official Mormon teaching manuals which state the opposite? The answer to that question is implied in the second question in the Teacher's manual quoted above. They realize that this doctrine is difficult for people to accept so rather than explain it, they simply deny it. At least publicly.

How ‘Cosmos’ Bungles the History of Religion and Science

How ‘Cosmos’ Bungles the History of Religion and Science

The Daily Beast

Neil Degrasse Tyson’s remake of the 1980s series tries to explain how early-modern thinkers began to discover the wonders of the universe. Its history is as cartoonish as its graphics.

Cosmos, Fox’s much-anticipated remake of Carl Sagan’s classic wonder-of-science series, is drawing attention for an unexpected reason. The middle of the premier episode features a long segment on Giordano Bruno, an early-modern friar and philosopher who was burned at the stake for his outlandish theological views. Bruno’s heresy was partially related to his hypotheses about the universe, some of which were astonishingly correct: that the cosmos is infinite, and that the sun is just another star. His proto-scientific inquiry and his clash with the Catholic Church made Bruno an Enlightenment hero, lionized by modern historians and even by figures as celebrated as the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel.

That’s more or less the story that gets told in Cosmos. Bruno is introduced as “only one man on the whole planet” who suspected that the universe was larger than everyone living in the year 1600 thought. Neil Degrasse Tyson ambles through alleys in the Vatican, explaining that there was “no freedom of thought in Italy,” and Bruno’s theories brought him “into the clutches of the thought police.” Bruno, according to Cosmos, wandered around Europe, arguing passionately but fruitlessly for his new explanation of the universe, only to be mocked, impoverished, and eventually imprisoned and executed. Catholic authorities are depicted as cartoon ghouls, and introduced with sinister theme music. Tyson explains that the church’s modus operandi was to “investigate and torment anyone who voiced views that differed from theirs.”

There are cultural, religious, and even political reasons that the story of scientific progress and political enlightenment are so attractive.

What Cosmos doesn’t mention is that Bruno’s conflict with the Catholic Church was theological, not scientific, even if it did involve his wild—and occasionally correct—guesses about the universe. As Discover magazine’s Corey Powell pointed out, the philosophers of the 16th century weren’t anything like scientists in the modern sense. Bruno, for instance, was a “pandeist,” which is the belief that God had transformed himself into all matter and ceased to exist as a distinct entity in himself. He believed in all sort of magic and spirits, and extrapolated those views far beyond his ideas about the infinity of the universe. In contrast to contemporaries who drew more modest conclusions from their similar ideas, Bruno agitated for an elaborate counter-theology, and was (unlike the poor, humble outcast portrayed in Cosmos) supported by powerful royal benefactors. The church didn’t even have a position on whether the Earth orbited the sun, and didn’t bring it up at Bruno’s trial. While the early-modern religious persecution certainly can’t be denied, Bruno was killed because he flamboyantly denied basic tenets of the Catholic faith, not because religious authorities were out to suppress all “freedom of thought.”

Cosmos’ treatment of Bruno as a “martyr for science” is just a small example of a kind of cultural myth we tell ourselves about the development of modern society, one that’s almost completely divorced from the messy reality. It’s a story of an upward march from ignorance and darkness, where bold, rebel intellectuals like Bruno faced down the tyrannical dogma of religion and eventually gave us secularism, democracy, and prosperity. Iconoclastic individuals are our heroes, and big, bad institutions—monarchies, patriarchies, churches—are the villains. In the process, our fascinating, convoluted history gets flattened into a kind of secular Bible story to remind us why individual freedom and “separation of church and state” are the most important things for us to believe in.

The real path to our modern selves is much more complicated—so complicated that academic historians still endlessly debate how it happened. While some scholars treat “the Enlightenment” as if it were a single movement, others argue that it unfolded differently—at different paces, in different styles—in different countries. Some argue that atheism was a central concern, while others think the “age of reason” was driven more by the desire for greater political freedom. Either way, deeply religious Catholic scholars contributed to many of the great discoveries of natural science, and even the foundations of disciplines like geology. Very few of the heroes of the Enlightenment were atheists, and even the scientific luminaries of the period fell for various forms of “occultism,” from alchemy to spirit-conjuring. Many were elitists who, despite their opposition to tyranny, remained contemptuous of the masses. The veneration of reason did not lead neatly or automatically to moderate democratic politics; in some cases, like the Terror of the French Revolution, it resulted in bloody brutality not much different from the sort visited on religious heretics like Bruno a few centuries before.

Does it matter that a TV show doesn’t get into complexities that divide even the world’s leading historians? To a certain extent, misunderstanding the story of Bruno isn’t going to do a whole lot of harm—especially in a country where so many people are in denial about basic scientific facts. But that Cosmos added an unnecessary and skewed version of Bruno—especially one skewed in this particular way—is a good miniature lesson about our tendency to turn the past into propaganda for our preferred view of the present. There are cultural, religious, and even political reasons that the story of scientific progress and political enlightenment are so attractive, and filter down even into our children’s entertainment. It allows us to see ourselves as the apex of history, the culmination of an inevitable, upward surge of improvement. It reassures us that our political values are righteous, and reminds us who the enemies are. The messy, complex, non-linear movement of actual history, by contrast, is unsettling, humbling—even terrifying.

But that chaotic story is worth telling, even when it comes to pop entertainment. It reminds us that history rarely gives us uncomplicated heroes or black-and-white moral choices. It reminds us that even our most impressive rational feats are colored and shaped by our irrational natures, and that our attempts to explain and master the world are always, at some level, an illusion. Cosmos is a grand tour of the amazing things we’ve figured out about the world, and it should also be a reminder of how many more remain unfathomable mysteries.

Ethnic Cleansing Could Lead to Mass Exodus of Middle East Christians

Ethnic Cleansing Could Lead to Mass Exodus of Middle East Christians

By Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison,Christian Post

The former President of Lebanon, Amine Gemayel, is a Maronite Christian. He recently warned of "an exodus approaching biblical proportions." Gemayel told a gathering in Zurich of Christian Solidarity International (CSI) and other human rights activists that the current wave of church burnings, murders, and riots against Christians in the Mideast is the work of radical Islamists. The former Lebanese leaders own brother had been assassinated in Beirut by these same jihadists.

President Gemayel's warnings echo those issued two years ago by Vienna's Catholic prelate. Christopher Cardinal Schönborn in 2012 told a religious freedom roundtable in Washington that Egypt and Syria "must not become Iraq." He was referring to the ethnic cleansing that had led the post-Saddam government of Iraq to turn a blind eye to the killing or the driving out of more than half of that war-torn Arab country's pre-invasion Christian population of 1.6 million.

Cardinal Schönborn listed many famous cities-Antioch, Smyrna, Aleppo, Damascus, Hippo, Alexandria-among the scores of Dioceses that had fallen under the Sword of Mohammed in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries. These historic Christian communities were lost or suppressed by Muslim conquests.

Not since those violent days have we seen such tribulation for the regions Christians, the Cardinal said. That was in 2012. Last Christmas, as if to answer the Cardinal's message, a Chaldean Christian church was bombed in Baghdad.

As President Gemayel now tells us, the situation has grown even worse. For this, the Obama administration bears a heavy responsibility. President Obama spoke movingly of Christian persecution in the world at February's congressional Prayer Breakfast. But he failed to note that these Christians were not persecuting themselves, or each other. In virtually every case, radical Islamists, jihadists, are targeting them.

Mr. Obama's CIA Chief, John Brennan, refuses even to identify the persecutors. He says we cannot call them jihadists because jihad is a legitimate tenet of the Muslim religion. We cannot call them radical Islamists, because that would be disrespectful to a major world religion.

When, as in Sudan in the 1990s, a church is bombed on Christmas Day by the government of Sudan, we are not supposed to notice that that government styles itself the National Islamic Front?

President Obama named Rashad Hussain as his personal envoy to the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The group meets regularly and issues communiqués. It seems never to have placed the issue of human rights or religious persecution on its agenda.

Why isn't Mr. Obama's envoy pressing the OIC on persecution of Christians? If the President of the United States cares about Christian persecution-as he eloquently stated here in Washington-then it should be a simple matter for him to instruct his own ambassador to raise the issue with the fifty-seven member nations where most of this murderous persecution is happening.

Or, is this public hand wringing over murdered Christians merely a polite posture? This administration gave billions to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood regime of Mohamed Morsi-even after Morsi announced his top priority when he visited the White House would be to press for the release of the blind Egyptian Sheik-Omar Abdel Rahman. This Muslim cleric guided the assassins of Egypt's pro-Western President Anwar Sadat and conspired with the terrorists who staged the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey was the federal judge who sentenced the Blind Sheik to a long prison term. Mukasey has warned against even considering release of Mohamed Morsi's friend.

Happily, Morsi was ousted by Egypt's military after a year of misrule and trampling the constitution he had a hand in drafting. Massive popular demonstrations throughout Egypt prompted the army to move against Morsi. Egypt's Coptic Christians-who had been brutally suppressed by the Morsi regime-publicly welcomed the military's action.

Not the Obama administration. They cut off all aid to Egypt's military-pushing them straight into Russia's welcoming arms.

Wherever we look in the Mideast, the standing of the United States is lower now than it was when Mr. Obama took office. Whether we look to Israel, our only reliable ally in the region, or to Turkey or Egypt, once aligned with the U.S., our relations everywhere are in tatters. And the Christians are suffering most of all.

And the Christians are suffering more than anyone. A bitter Islamist Winter has followed the Arab Spring.

Atheist Activists Demand that Wisconsin Governor Remove Scripture from Social Media Pages

Atheist Activists Demand that Wisconsin Governor Remove Scripture from Social Media Pages

christiannews.net | By: Heather Clark 

Scott WalkerMADISON, Wisc. – A prominent atheist activist group is demanding that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker remove a Scripture from his Twitter and Facebook accounts, alleging that they imply the government promotion of religion.

The Madison-based Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) sent a letter to Walker this week after becoming aware that he had simply posted “Philippians 4:13″ as his status on his social media accounts on Sunday. The Scripture reads, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Walker’s Facebook status on Sunday.

“This braggadocio verse coming from a public official is rather disturbing,” FFRF wrote in the letter. “To say, ‘I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me,’ seems more like a threat, or the utterance of a theocratic dictator, than of a duly elected civil servant.”

It demanded that the governor delete the post, contending that it is unlawful for Walker to endorse religion on his official social media pages.

“On behalf of our membership, we ask you to immediately delete this religious message from your official gubernatorial Facebook and Twitter,” the letter stated. “May we hear from you at your earliest convenience?”

“The question is will Walker be able to get away with it?” FFRF wrote in a press release announcing its correspondence to Walker. “If so, what might he post next, maybe something from Acts 10 (in which a sheet descends from above, with a voice saying, ‘Rise, Peter; kill, and eat’)? More sustenance and strength for the religious and exclusion for non-Christians.”

Walker has not responded to the letter, and it not known whether he plans on doing so. The Scripture remains posted on both his Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Public reaction to the matter has been mixed.

“There is nothing wrong with finding strength in Jesus if that’s your thing,” one commenter wrote, “but posting about it it on an official state account is insensitive to citizens of other faiths and, frankly, unprofessional. It’s also kind of obnoxious.”

“Observe history: The Constitution was designed and authored by men who were over 90% Christians in believing in the Judaeo/Christian God!” another stated. “Nearly every one of the signers of the Constitution were Bible teachers in classrooms or preachers in local churches.”

“George Washington, the first president, … required the Bible be a standard book to be taught in all children’s classrooms!” they continued. “Most of the early colonial schools at the time were in churches, and even after colleges were established they all were based on [Biblical] standards of education!”

“I hope that today, the governor Tweets another Bible verse,” a third commenter opined. “In fact, I hope he does it every single day as a new agenda. Then I hope other officials begin doing it. We need to fight back and blatantly.”

When Two Lesbians Walk Into a Church Seeking Trouble

When Two Lesbians Walk Into a Church Seeking Trouble

JOHN BURKE, charismanews

(iStock photo)

“Let’s just go for fun! We’ll see how much we can push their buttons,” Amy teased her girlfriend, who didn’t like the idea of hanging around a bunch of Christians.

“Come on,” Amy insisted. “I hear their motto is ‘Come as you are.’ I just want to prove that they’re ‘come as you are ... unless you’re gay.'”

Amy had been in a nine-year lesbian relationship that had broken up, leaving her wondering why her deepest longings could never be satisfied. She and Rachel had just started hanging out when they decided to attend one Sunday morning.

“I came on a mission to shock people,” Amy admits. “Rachel and I would hold hands in front of people, but instead of the disgusted looks of contempt we expected, people met eyes with us and treated us like real people. So we started coming to church weekly. We kept moving closer to the front each week, trying to get a reaction so that we’d be rejected sooner rather than later. When we couldn’t shock people, we stopped trying and started learning."

“Not long after that, Rachel and I stopped seeing each other, but I kept coming to church because I was searching for something,” Amy admits. “I definitely wasn’t looking to change. It wasn’t my lesbian lifestyle that I was bringing to God, but I wondered if God had answers to my deeper longings. Problem was, I didn’t trust God at all!

“The more I listened and learned about the teachings of Jesus, the more I started to actually believe that God really did love me. I heard more and more about being His masterpiece, and in time, I actually started to believe it. The more I believed God actually could see something of value in me, the more I trusted Him.”

Over time, Amy slowly opened her heart and struggles to Christ.

“It took several years, but as I moved closer and closer to Christ, He gently took me on a very surprising journey," she says. "First, I found out my father had nine affairs while I was growing up—a secret that rocked my world. Jesus began to show me how the roots of my sexual issues tie together with my dad’s—I was just like him, using people to find comfort, life and love outside of God.”

Amy continued to grow in her knowledge of the Scriptures, falling more and more in love with the Lord. The following year, God had another surprise for her: “I went to the seminar called ‘To Be Told,’ hosted at Gateway. I wanted to see how God could put closure to my brokenness, but what He showed me shocked me.” 

“As Dan Allender was telling a story of a bully," Amy recalls, "I suddenly had a flashback of getting off the school bus. I lived down the street from Jimmy, a boy who had bullied me all year. But this particular day, Jimmy acted nice to me as I got off the bus.

“He apologized for being so mean, and he invited me to come to his house.”

That day in the seminar, all else faded to black as this vivid nightmare crept back to life. Amy saw herself walking through Jimmy’s front door, noticing all the shades pulled down. Startled, she spied two teenage boys eyeing her with a ravenous look as the door slammed shut. Her screams never escaped the evil darkness that enveloped that house. They pinned her down and raped her.

She was only 9!

Amy swam in a pool of tears as the seminar continued. Others were oblivious to her divine epiphany. She realized the Lord had been drawing her near to strengthen her for this revelation—to show her the source of so much sexual struggle hidden for years beneath layers of protective mud.

“After that, I realized God knows more about me than I know about myself,” Amy recalls, “and He wants to bring healing to these wounds, so I fully gave Him my heart and body—everything. As I continued to seek intimacy with Him, the lesbian struggles fell away. I’m not saying that’s how God works with everyone, but it’s how He’s healing me. The more I focus on God’s intimate love for me and try to see His masterpiece emerge, the less I want anything to get in the way of His work in me.”

Seven years later, Amy leads our ministry to help people find healing and wholeness from all kinds of sexual and relational struggles. She’s helping others become God’s restored masterpiece.

Jesus Is Never Shocked

Do you realize that Jesus is not shocked by the shocking things people do? Jesus knew Zacchaeus had robbed people blind and profited off much unethical behavior, yet Jesus was not shocked. He did not offer Zach correction, but relationship: “Come down, Zacchaeus. I’m staying at your house tonight.” (See Luke 19:5.) That shocked everyone! Yet relationship changed Zacchaeus.

Jesus knew that the Samaritan woman at the well had been married and divorced five times. He knew about her current “hookup” and how sexually entangled she was with the guy she was living with. (See John 4.) Jesus was not repulsed. (Samaritans of Jesus’ day were treated by the religious community like gay people often get treated by some of today’s Christian community.) None of this kept Jesus away or kept Him from offering her living water. Maybe Jesus wants Christ-followers who will be less like the Pharisees and more like Him—unshockable.

Luke tells of a time Simon the Pharisee invited Jesus to dinner. Jesus and His disciples went and “reclined at the table” (Luke 7:36) along with Simon’s religious friends, who were skeptical about Jesus’ true identity—mainly because He showed more love for “sinners” than love for the Law of Moses. (Jesus had just made it clear this wasn’t true; He came to fulfill the intent of the Law of Moses.) They invited Jesus there to judge Him, not learn from Him.

Middle Eastern dining style consisted of a 1-foot-high table with pillows on the floor for seating, with people sitting usually with feet stretched out to the side or behind them. As the meal proceeded, an immoral woman crashed the party. She sheepishly made her way over to stand behind Jesus. Luke makes sure we know she had “lived a sinful life” (v. 37). She did not just have a few slip-ups, but rather had made a life out of her sexual deviancies, and everyone knew it! Her mud was public knowledge. Her whole life, she had felt judged and condemned by the religious establishment, so to go into the house of her tormentors took enormous courage.

Yet there she stood ... because Jesus was there! Somehow word on the street had traveled to her through the crowd she hung out with—there’s hope in Jesus for the muddiest human. Hearing He had come near, an unstoppable force welling up from within had drawn her to His feet. As she stood in His presence, hope burst through the dam of all that pain that had driven her mudslinging behavior—she started to cry. Her tears accidentally landed on Jesus’ dirty feet (that His host had not shown the common courtesy to wash).

The tension in the room mounted; everyone’s shoulders tightened as she fell to her knees behind Jesus, bent down and wiped His wet, dirty feet with her hair. She took out a bottle of oil mixed with perfume, took the oil in her hands and gently stroked His feet with the oil—kissing them as she anointed Him with the perfume.

Jesus just sat there, never flinching, eyes fixed on the Pharisees, watching them react in shock and disbelief—flames of contempt shooting out of their merciless eyes.

Simon could stand it no more. This outrageous scene had proven his point. He muttered to himself and his “more respectable” guests, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner” (v. 39).

In other words, if Jesus were truly a prophet, He would know about her scandalous sexual sin, and He would be shocked. But Jesus did know and was not shocked!

Now, you have to realize this was a controversial situation. Imagine a known prostitute coming up to your pastor, kissing his feet and rubbing oil on them after the Sunday service. It would be his last Sunday at most churches if he didn’t put an end to it fast! What was Jesus thinking? Why didn’t this shock Jesus like it would all of us?

Jesus looks at the heart. It’s about the heart. Jesus confronted the unloving hearts of His host and friends while this woman demonstrated a heart overflowing with love. Jesus said, “Simon, I have something to tell you” (v. 40).

“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii [a whole lot of money], and the other fifty [one tenth as much]. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. (The only thing Simon had judged correctly that day!)

Then He turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:41–47)

It’s all about love! Don’t miss this very critical point Jesus makes to us all: If you truly recognize how much it cost God to forgive you, it will flood your heart with love for God and others who need more of the same.

It’s all about love! Not a love that ignores the mud and the damage that destroys God’s Masterpiece, but a love that recognizes how much loving mercy God has given a messed-up person like me!

That great love brings grace and truth together to give hope to a broken world in need of forgiveness and restoration.

Note: The previous article was excerpted from Mud and the Masterpiece: Seeing Yourself and Others Through the Eyes of Jesus by John Burke.