Avatar, a Theological Review

My wife and I saw Avatar last night. A much hyped movie from one of Hollywood’s most successful producers and directors, James Cameron. It was entertaining and as advertised quite a visual display. Unfortunately, too many movies are praised for their appearance and not their substance. On the former, visual graphics have gotten to a point that whatever monumental advances they made one hardly notices. The law of diminishing returns is beginning to infiltrate technology. On the later, Avatar had a recycled plot of which my wife thought was a combination of Pocahontas, Ferngully, and Dances with Wolves. I, being a closet geek, thought it was like half the plots in the infamous Final Fantasy Series.

There are several things that must be noted for the discerning. It was a combination of New Age, Animism, and Hinduism. This is the worldview of Hollywood. Everything is connected to the divine we just have to “realize” it and tap into its spiritual powers. We are all “one” with nature. God, nature, human beings are all distinct things in separate categories. God is not connected to his creation. His creation reflects who he is in the same way that a person’s work reflects their skill and personality. God is present everywhere but he is not spatial “in” everywhere nor is relationally present everywhere. God is not present with sin and is not relationally “connected” to the sinner apart from repentance and faith in Christ. Believers are united in Christ and united by the Holy Spirit but we still obtain individuality. We are one body of many different parts.

One thing I have recently been pondering is the relationship between environmentalism and technology. Movies like Avatar seem to be saying that harmony is achieved by oneness with nature and not technology. Industrialism and technology caused Earth to “die”. There is sort of a naivety and hypocrisy in Hollywood about this. How much did Cameron have to rely on technology to create this movie? How big was its carbon footprint? How big is his? Surely magnitudes greater than mine. As much talk as there is about reducing our reliance on modern conveniences, how far are people willing to go? Are they willing to return to the dark ages with the short life spans, infertility, disease, etc.? I doubt it. Perhaps a more environmental approach would be to do the movie on Broadway instead of the Big Screen. The truth, modern excess and abuse are the result of greed and coveting, that is, sin. Technology is a manipulation of the environment. Things are shaped into a manner that is useful for us. This can be done for the greater good or the greater evil. There is nothing inherently wrong with using resources organic or otherwise. It is wrong if they are used sinfully. More could be said about that issue but we will save it for later.

There are two ways of interacting in a culture that is modeled in this movie. One is the corporation and the other is the “Avatar”. Since I am inspired by Augustine’s “City of God”, where he rejected the blame placed on Christianity for the fall of Rome and argued vigorously for the blame to be on the false ideals of Rome itself. So many movies in America explore the theme of destroying indigenous cultures with ones more powerful ones, reminiscent of our sins against Africans and Native Americans. One thing Hollywood does not recognize is the effect their movies have worldwide. My wife commented that when you hear of a foreign movie its usually always good. It had to be to make it here, but the rest of the world gets to watch whatever garbage we produce. Hollywood is a global force that is influencing people worldwide. It contributes to the rejection of the indigenous culture one grew up with for the culture promoted within Hollywood. The rise of fundamentalism globally is like the rebellion of the Navi in the movie, fighting back against things considered in affront to traditional values.

A whole post could be written about the Avatar and distinguishing it from Jesus’ Incarnation in Christianity. The two are different though there are some parallels. Parallels are with respect to missionary efforts to learn the language and culture and communicate from one culture to another. Those are good things. However, Jesus was born as a human and Son of God. He was fully human and fully divine. He was not a human posing as a God or a God posing as a human. He did not ascend to full humanity or deity at a later point. This is unlike the Hindu notion of an Avatar and the one represented in the movie.

We must move beyond surface level reviews of things in our culture. We must move beyond the external and move to the internal. This is the role of Theology, to see things as God sees them. This is the role a missionaries, to understand and learn the culture and its differences, similarities, and tensions with Christianity.

Comedians preach repentance?

I have heard Driscoll say he has watched a lot of comedians because they are the only other guys in our society who stand up and talk for an hour. This guy has a great word for us... It's hilarious because its true!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOtEQB-9tvk

Makes me wonder? Are comedians among the few who preach repentance?

Wisdom and Justice

(Originally posted Nov 24th)
Yesterday morning I got up for my usual devotional time and read 1 Kings 3. The classic story of Solomon and the two women claiming one baby was theirs. Clearly one was lying so Solomon threatens to cut the baby in two. This real mother is revealed by the two women’s reaction to Solomon threat. The verse that struck was the last one in the chapter, “When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.” They observed he had “wisdom from God to administer justice.” Justice in this case I think is simply doing what is right. In the case before him, Solomon made a decision to help discern between a fake request and a real one. Justice was done because of his decision. I prayed that morning that God would grant me wisdom to discern how to administer justice not knowing I would soon need it.

One of the expectations of a pastor is to discern the need of people coming to the front door asking for assistance, usually monetary. Not two hours after I read 1 Kings 3:28 did a man and his son come to the door asking for a place to stay until Dec. 1. Then the money would come through and they could get back into an apartment, he, his wife, and their two teenage sons would be off the streets. I have already learned not to give money on the spot but to buy time to see if the need is legitimate. I asked if there was a way to contact him and potentially tomorrow something might be available. He had an email address, provided a reference, which later checked out, and we made a decision to open a home to them come tomorrow morning.

There were certain rules though. Knowing God issue the 10 commandments after he had a relationship with Israel and delivered them from Egypt. As Andy Stanley says, “They are confirmation of relationship not a requirement of relationship.” So, I decided we should set up some stipulations for the grace being offered. This morning he returned with his son in hand and we presented the offer of a place in process of being fixed up to for rent but they would receive no key and need to respect the property. Wisely, one of the elders of the church was with me and asked the man to go and return with the rest of his family and we would show them the place. He said they would return in two hours. Two hours became 3.5 before word came again. The word, via email, was someone had offered to pay for a hotel for a week and they no longer needed our services. Even more intriguing was that five minutes before the email arrived the family member who served as a reference the night before called asking for the address of the place we offered. As I like to say… “Interesting.”

This is the a part of what it looks like to do ministry. God entrusts us to use what he has given us so that we may administer justice wisely. One of the things that became more clear to me than it had been before was the need to create hurdles. Solomon offered in part what was requested but the way he offered revealed the intentions of the two women. In the event we cannot fully investigate the case, we do as Solomon did, create hurdles to reveal what is just. Those with legitimate needs will jump the necessary hurdles. Only a fool hands over money without questioning its recipient. As much as it is injustice to not care for the needy it is also injustice to provide it to those who are undeserving.

Even in our ministry to the poor we must administer justice with wisdom. We must remain gospel centered. I am reminded by tests like these that the gospel is always our guide. God’s grace extended to all came through the hurdle of the cross. Administering justice with wisdom may often look like something as a simple request to demonstrate one’s case is true before giving assistance.

social justice and the gospel

There is a huge interest in social justice these days. This is among both the so-called “secular” and among numerous young Christians who long to see social transformation through activism but do not see any churches doing it. The Bay Area in particular has a long history of activism and fighting against discrimination. This is a large concern because what is the nature of true social transformation? What are the connections between the gospel’s individual call to repentance and transformation of a community? There are many young Christians today disenchanted with the church and the mission of God. I spoke with one young man this week who saw his “church” as those whom he was trying to empower and organize to effect change in their community. No joke, he actually used the word “community organizer.” Additionally, as I work with other pastors I fear that some are trying to respond to poverty through humanitarian motives and not truly Christian ones.

This brings up the issue of the connection between social justice and the gospel. What is the difference between a philanthropist and a Christian activist? This must be addressed theologically. It is one of the reasons why I have taken up reading Augustine’s City of God because I believe until Jesus returns there are two trajectories, the kingdom of God through the church and the kingdom of the world. The answer to the question is One loves Jesus and is motivated and rooted in Him. The other loves man, and is motivated and rooted in that no human being should live in such a way. One’s Jesus died on the cross. The other’s Jesus is themselves. They serve as the judge for what a human being should live like. The one who loves Jesus is united with him and his church. They cannot achieve any real transformation without being connected to the Head and the support of the various gifts of the body. The other will seeks to organize all humanity together, in mutual cooperation not unlike in the construction of the tower of Babel. They desire to ascend to the heavens that they may be like God rather than live in submission and by sustained by Him

We should not however resign to merely a individualistic gospel that assumes individual transformation will by default lead to social transformation. Unfortunately, this has led in part to individual piety. One’s faith is a private one. It is just between “me and Jesus” and if that relationship is maintained everything else will take care of itself. God was not passive when seeing our situation, but He was active sending His Son to carry out justice on the world through Him. Jesus endured the wrath of God on sin, and through Him social transformation is possible. Through Him ALL things will be reconciled to God. But it is only through Him and his instrument is the church which ought to reflect the reign of Jesus over us individually and corporately. Because of Jesus, we are moved to be active in the world in the name of Jesus, for the promotion of Jesus, for the expansion of the kingdom. The kingdom of God has not come apart from Jesus and apart from the church over which he is the head. There is no social transformation apart from a body of believers who loves Jesus, loves their neighbor and weeps over their city. Furthermore, we must understand the age in which we live. We must not buy into an over-realized eschatology and think complete restoration is possible. There will be no complete restoration of all things until Jesus returns. The City of God and the City of the World are caught in a constant conflict for the people of this age, until the one true King returns to bring his City to completion and removes the false city for all eternity.

Not so random thoughts...

So I have made a strange observation and need some advice. I need to make a disclaimer, because I have friends who will likely read this of whom it directly applies.

There are always a few people at church that are not very confident socially. They are often really into sci-fi, trekkies, star wars, or fan fiction and anime. This occurs to varying degrees, and I to some extent identify because I have a bin full of comic books. My point is not the connection between social interaction and sci-fi fans.

But here is my observation: why in churches are they often the kids of fundies? Why do parents who are so concerned about the world polluting their children end up pushing them into the fantasy world of science fiction, Tolkien, or others? What is up with that?

I don't say this to make fun, and I am not saying that everyone who loves sci-fi has fundie parents. Its just too common for me not to ask.

New blog for city church, www.theologicalsynergy.com

I am going to now contribute twice a week to www.theologicalsynergy.com with Jason Helveston, Joel Helveston, and Adam Fix. I will put my posts from that as well as too here for now...

This is my first post for it, describing what theology is:

To kick off my first post on this brand spanking new blog, I thought I would do a series of posts about what the heck theology is. We are calling this blog theological synergy and the word Theology alone invokes a variety of emotions. Some of us cringe at the word because it conjures up memories of obtuse vocabulary and a description of the Christian faith that is abstract, disconnected, irrelevant and pedantic. This has led many to abandon classical formulations of Christian belief, or at least advocate “a new kind of Christian.” (Whoops… I think I just did an indirect slam.) On the other hand, some of us get fired up and geek out about theology because we recognize its importance and its relevance, even if we are not always enamored with some of its superfluous distinctions. So here is my attempt to make a case for not only what theology is, but in further posts to discuss how it should be done. I will do this over a series of posts that I hope encourages us to embody the mystery of godliness that is the gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Tim 3:16).

First, theology is most properly about God. This is the strict definition of the word (theos + logos = study of God). It is not just an academic subject concerning correct content, but it is more importantly an ethical exercise embodied by a community. Plainly speaking, we demonstrate our theology of God with what we say, but even more by what we do. Faith without deeds is dead says James. Since theology is the study of God, we are speaking specifically of the triune God who has revealed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This God is most clearly and directly revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ (Jn 14:6-7; Heb 1:3). Jesus Christ, the God-man who dwelt among us in a particular time and for all time. Theology is universal and particular. Meaning, the work of theology is to give faithful expressions of who God is and what he does both throughout history and in our specific context. Thus, it naturally follows that the controlling authority in theology is the words of God given to us through the Bible. It is the words of God, given by the Father, fulfilled in the Son, and testified by the Holy Spirit telling us who He is, what He has done, who we are, and how we ought to respond to Him.

We are thus in dynamic work of growing in knowledge of the God of the Bible. The church serves as a living embodiment of who they believe God is. We are called to be holy because he is holy (Lev 19:2; 1 Pet 2:9). The critique of the prophets is largely against those who claimed to know God but did not truly reveal Him by their actions. Instead, the served idols, false gods, and false notions of God. Moses charged Israel’s leaders to “distinguish between the holy and the common, between the clean and the unclean” (Lev 10:10). Paul charged Timothy to “watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Tim 4:16) and to “preach the word” (2 Tim 4:2). The life of the church, especially its leaders, proclaims who God is, what He has done, and what we ought to do about it. Lesslie Newbigin put it well when he said the church, serves as a “hermeneutic of the gospel” (Gospel in a Pluralist Society). God’s people, those whom he has saved, whether they want to or not, preach theology about Him in word and deed. This also means that those who do not know the God of Bible cannot do theology. Certainly may have attempted but they have all failed.

This also means that the theology of God’s people is a witness to the watching world. What we believe about God, what we proclaim about Him, is a testimony to the world. Hence, we must be aware and approach how we reason about scripture; how we handle the historic tradition of faith; and how we understand our current experiences. All of which is to be in submission to the Bible. In part, the failure of modern theology is most exemplified in its inability to be faithful to the gospel and a faithful witness to the world. The liberal theologies from Schleiermacher to Tillich, and beyond, overly accommodated the world. Yet, much conservative theology has not adequately addressed the contemporary context being overly concerned with content. We can learn from the early church fathers who wrote to specific issues that impacted the church. Luther never wrote a systematic theology, but letters addressing specific concerns. They wrote for pastoral and missional reasons. They wrote so that people would increase in knowledge of the gospel.

Ultimately, the aim is to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our hope and aim is not to bore people with details, but to do theology where the gospel is not just read about or thought about, but that it is embodied. The measure of whether or not we are doing theology well is the gospel. The quality of a living theology should be its faithfulness to the gospel. Our success will not be due to talent or by our own efforts, but by whether we are abiding in Christ (Jn 15), only then will this work bear fruit.

The difficulty of translation

The TNIV is being discontinued.

Wow... I am a little surprised. In my mind I thought that the competition was between the ESV and TNIV for the future dominant english Bible. I thought perhaps they both would win out with the ESV being used by more gender conservative churches and the TNIV by less conservative churches. One problem though, is that the NIV is still a very popular translation though now out of date, not just for language but also due to time giving better insight into the meaning of particular words and passages. The TNIV would have to remarkably different and better to supplant its predecessor. I find myself having to regularly think about how I will "clarify" the NIV translation. It was a good translation and an updated one is needed.

This highlights the difficulties of translating from one language to another. Words have meanings, but its particular meaning is only given with respect to its relationship in its sentence and the greater context. This does not just include the context of a passage or the bible but also the native tongue of the host culture. In order to properly translate Scripture we must wrestle with what a native ancient speaker of Hebrew or Greek would mean by the words "heart, love, God" etc. Translators then also have to be aware of the cultural milieu of the language in which they are trying to translate it, be it English, Spanish, or German. Missionaries have been debating for centuries about the proper word for God to use in Chinese culture. This is the result of the the differences between the way protestants rendered the early translations and catholics. I believe the debate is about the word Tao. You would think God would be one of the easier ones. It is not that simple. Think about it, Theos, the Greek word for God, was the same word used for all the Greek gods in their mythologies. It had connotations that could have compromised the true nature of God presented in the Bible.

The interesting thing about the TNIV is that the controversy is centered not around words like God, but around gender issues. Should the language of ancient worlds which used "man" to refer to all people, men and women, be changed to reflect contemporary gender sensitivity? This illustrates that views on the nature of gender in our culture are extremely unstable right now. Newsweek did an issue a few years ago in light of transgender people that seemed to argue gender is not biologically determined but determined by an individual's preference or desire. This does not even get to more particularly sensitive issues in churches related to the roles of men and women and the problems our culture has in trying to interpret seemingly chauvinist passages like 1 Cor 14:34 and 1 Tim 2:12. What seemed clear less than a century ago is hardly the case now.

I could go on to explain some of the thought that goes into rendering a translation. But the central issue of the matter relates to contextualizing the message of the Bible, the gospel, that God has acted in human history through Jesus Christ to reconcile us to himself and renew all of creation (Col 1:15-20). What is needed is both faithfulness is rendering the language to the gospel message and faithfulness in preaching the gospel for the salvation of its hearers. Translators cannot do it by themselves, but Christians, all of whom are preachers to varying degrees, need to study the word to correct misunderstandings and faithfully communicate God's love of us chiefly demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Heb 1:3; 1 Jn 3:16; 1 Tim 4:16; 6:20; 2 Tim 1:8-14).