A Voyage To Avoid

There is a scene early in Voyage Of The Dawn Treader—the third movie installment in the Chronicles of Narnia series—where Edmund has just arrived in Narnia to meet King Caspian sailing aboard the Dawn Treader. Edmund asks Caspian, “Why are we here?”

It’s a question I asked myself over and over while watching this disaster.

I am not really qualified to review movies. iMonk writer Adam Palmer is much more verse in what makes a great movie. He could tell you all about the director and what other movies he’s made. He could tell you about the actors and what other films they’ve been in. But Adam isn’t seeing the show until tomorrow, so I am taking it on myself to warn you: Don’t waste your money or time on this.

The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader is my favorite of the seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia. There is a reason for Edmund, Lucy and Eustace to be in Narnia: Aslan has them on a journey to know him. The adventures they go through cause them to realize their dependence on Aslan. And as they leave Narnia to return to our world, they now have a desire to meet Aslan here.

At the end of the movie, Lucy asks Aslan if she will see him in her world. Aslan answers that she will. “But there I have another name,” he says. “You must learn to know me by that name.”

You have now heard just about the only thing the movie has in common with the book.

Continue reading “A Voyage To Avoid”

iMonk Classic: Talk Hard (On the Role of the Critic)

Moses Indignant at the Golden Calf, Blake

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
Undated

Note from CM: Earlier this week, we published a strong post in the tradition of what I called “prophetic ridicule.” Some folks don’t like that. They take offense. They think it violates the law of love. Years ago, Michael Spencer wrote one of the best defenses concerning the role of the Christian critic that I have read. In the light of questions some have expressed about the nature of last Monday’s article, I thought this might be a timely moment to run it again.

This is a long, thoughtful, carefully argued piece. Please take your time, read it carefully, chew on it, and take it to heart.

TALK HARD
In which the iMonk describes and defends the role of the critic in Christianity

In the almost four years that The Internet Monk web site has been posting my thoughts on the door of the world, I’ve received over a thousand letters. Pretty cool. And 95 percent of them have been positive, complimentary and encouraging. Also very cool. So you won’t be surprised that I am going to write about the other 5 percent. My personal insecurity knows no bounds.

The reason I am going to write about this 5 percent, is that the vast majority of these writers have something in common. And it’s not that they disagree with me, or think my politics are rabid, or that I’ve over romanticized Catholicism or failed to solve the mystery of it’s and its. No, the majority of these writers are upset that I am criticizing other Christians.

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Saturday Ramblings 12.11.10

It’s countdown Saturday. Countdown to Christmas? Well, no—but if you haven’t addressed your Christmas cards yet, I suggest you get started. College football countdown? C’mon. Other than the Army-Navy game, this is a bye week for college football. No. “Countdown Saturday.” Look at the date. December 11, 2010. 12-11-10. Well, at least it’s a Saturday. Are you ready to Ramble?

The long-awaited third installment in the Chronicles of Narnia movie series opened yesterday in theaters nationwide. Early reviews have been mixed at best, and reports say this could be the last of the series if the box office receipts don’t warrant a fourth movie. Liam Neeson, the voice of Aslan, says Aslan is not necessarily Jesus. He could be, according to Neeson, Muhammed or Buddha. Ok then. Douglas Gresham, C.S. Lewis’s stepson, serves as the “Narnia Police” to keep the scripts as faithful as possible to the books. For this film, he must have been out eating donuts. Look for my review this evening.

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It’s a Wonderful Gospel

By Chaplain Mike

What do you need when you have spent your whole life giving to others, sacrificing your dreams to do the responsible thing, being the person others count on when the chips are down; when you are tired of being “that guy” that everyone looks to but no one appreciates?

What do you need when you are plagued by a continual low grade sense of frustration, disheartened over the mediocre hand life has dealt you, discontent with feeling stuck on the treadmill of a pedestrian, insignificant life?

And what do you need when, in a moment, out of nowhere, it looks like it might all fall apart; when you face a crisis, when it looks like you will lose everything you have worked for, when all the powerful elements of life are conspiring against you and you are backed into a corner from which you see no escape; when you realize that all the good you have done is impotent to help you now?

You need the Gospel.Continue reading “It’s a Wonderful Gospel”

Some More Of My Favorite Things

I like books.

Ok, so that’s not exactly a revelation to those who know me. Saying “I like books” is kind of like saying Dagwood likes sandwiches. I have, well, let’s just say I have a few books. If by “few” we mean “a few thousand,” then we’re on the right track.

So it came as a surprise to me that I could only come up with three Christmas books that I can say I like. I could have stopped at two with one honorable mention, to own to the truth. But we’ll go with three in the spirit of the holidays. No more, though. I mean, do you really think I’m going to list It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Zombies (a book taking Christmas carols and making them into songs about zombies, with such classic lines as “Fresh brains roasting on an opening fire”) or a Thomas Kindcade ghostwritten Christmas story among my favorites? I almost listed Jean Shepherd’s In God We Trust—All Others Pay Cash as it was the basis for the great A Christmas Story movie, but I am just not a big Jean Shepherd fan.

Now, as to Christmas TV specials, I came up with four that are worth watching. Note these are TV specials, not movies. I can come up with five Christmas movies, but you’ll have to wait until next week for that list.

With no further ado, here are the three books of Christmas that I find worthwhile to have on my shelves.

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God With Us

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—‘tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”

As a writer, these words by Mark Twain evoke a resounding Amen deep inside me. How many times have I labored for an hour or more to fix one sentence that came close to expressing my intent, but didn’t quite hit the mark? In recent days, as I began pondering the Christmas story, a singular word struck me with God’s lightning. It is the word “with” – an unassuming preposition that takes on explosive meaning in the right context.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” (John 1:1,2) Here, the Greek word for “with” is ‘pros’ and indicates a personal relationship between equals. John’s iterations are four-fold. The Word, Jesus Christ, always was and always will be, without beginning or end. He was with God, in personal relationship. He was God, having equal status. He has always existed with the Father in eternal fellowship.

It occurred to me that John might have struggled to find apt words to articulate this profound revelation. I am thankful that he did. What if, in an effort to meet some deadline, he threw precision to the wind and wrote something less? We may have gleaned only that the Word was a supernatural being, not quite eternal, not quite God and not so lovingly related to the Father.

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Ajith Fernando on Pastoral Ministry

By Chaplain Mike

In contrast to the “Disneyized” bigger, better, event and attraction oriented approach of much that we call “ministry” today, there are pastors who understand the importance of daily faithfulness, quiet consistency, regular personal interaction with those in their congregations, and ministry activities like pastoral visitation and encouraging people to fulfill their vocations in the world.

I have sometimes heard other pastors disdainfully refer to these ministers as “plodders.” In church growth terminology, they are “shepherds.” From that perspective, however, this is not a positive term. Church growth specialists believe that churches are better served by “ranchers.” This is their way of saying that growing churches require their pastors to transition from ministers to leaders. They must move from being personally involved on the congregational level to being overseers who supervise “under-shepherds” who do most of the actual ministry. They become the “CEO’s,” the “vision-casters.” They become the iconic faces of their organizations and keepers of the institutions, not servants who minister personally to the flock.

In contrast, I am an unapologetic proponent of small to mid-sized churches that are rooted in their communities and are led by shepherds, not ranchers. I have made the point elsewhere that there may well be a place for some larger churches in certain settings because of the nature of the community or because those churches self-consciously determine that God is calling them to marshal resources that can be shared with smaller churches in the same region. However, I think it would be much healthier if we had many smaller churches with faithful and healthy pastors who worked unceasingly on the level of personal ministry than the kinds of large corporate churches modeled on institutional principles arising from our culture rather than from Biblical example and theological reflection.Continue reading “Ajith Fernando on Pastoral Ministry”

Ben Hur and the Nativity

The Numbering at Bethlehem, Bruegel

Guest Post by Andy Zehner

The readers of iMonk can, I’m sure, give a very good account of the theology of the Incarnation and the fulfillment in Christ of Messianic prophesies. Many can recite the second chapter of Luke from “And it came to pass in those days . . .” to “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart” without skipping a beat.

Yet I suspect that even the experts have some false notions about Christmas. We know from scripture all we need to know about the nativity. Yet we lack many details. And much that we think we know is probably wrong.

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Peterson on Jesus as the Way

By Chaplain Mike

Yesterday, in the light of our “Disney-ization” post, a friend reminded me of an interview Eugene Peterson did with Christianity Today’s Mark Galli back in 2005 called, “Spirituality for All the Wrong Reasons.”

This discussion between two of my favorite writers examines the “Jesus way” of living the spiritual life vs. various ways we try to manufacture out of our own (often unrecognized) cultural understandings and expectations. I thought his words might give us the chance to do more thinking together about this today.

These are Peterson’s words:

. . . Do we do it in Jesus’ way or do we do it the Wal-Mart way? Spirituality is not about ends or benefits or things; it’s about means. It’s about how you do this. How do you live in reality?

So, how do you help all these people? The needs are huge. Well, you do it the way Jesus did it. You do it one at a time. You can’t do gospel work, kingdom work in an impersonal way.

We live in the Trinity. Everything we do has to be in the context of the Trinity, which means personally, relationally. The minute you start doing things impersonally, functionally, mass oriented, you deny the gospel. Yet that’s all we do.

Jesus is the Truth and the Life, but first he’s the Way. We can’t do Jesus’ work in the Devil’s way.

I get exercised about this because many pastors are getting castrated by these methodologies, which are impersonal. There’s no relationship to them. And so they become performance oriented and successful. It’s pretty easy in our culture, at least if you’re tall and have a big smile. And they lose their soul. There’s nothing to them after 20 years. Or they crash. They try all this stuff and it doesn’t work, and they quit, or quit and start doing something else. Probably 90 percent of the affairs that pastors have are not due to lust, but boredom with not having this romantic kind of life they thought they’d get.

. . . One test I think is this: Am I working out of the Jesus story, the Jesus methods, the Jesus way? Am I sacrificing relationship, personal attention, personal relationship for a shortcut, a program so I can get stuff done? You can’t do Jesus’ work in a non-Jesus way and get by with it—although you can be very “successful.”

One thing that I think is characteristic of me is I stay local. I’m rooted in a pastoral life, which is an ordinary life. So while all this glitter and image of spirituality is going around, I feel quite indifferent to it, to tell you the truth. And I’m somewhat suspicious of it because it seems to be uprooted, not grounded in local conditions, which are the only conditions in which you can live a Christian life.

NOTE: Click on the link in the first paragraph to read the entire interview.

The Real “Santa Claus”

St. Nicholas, Jvanosky

By Chaplain Mike

In this morning’s post, we talked about the difference between Biblical Christianity and the “Disney-ized” version so prevalent in America today. Another example of turning a classic tale into a shallow, sentimentalized version for mass consumption (more in our culture than in the church) is what we have done to the story of St. Nicholas, transforming him into “Santa Claus.”

Today is St. Nicholas Day. This fourth century saint has been venerated for centuries throughout the world for his giving spirit. His care for children and penchant for secret gift giving has brought him great renown. Somehow, the power of modern culture turned him into something quite different. A human saint was replaced by a jolly old elf. A patron of the poor became a judge of who’s naughty and nice. A church bishop became the CEO of the world’s largest toy factory. A man who walked among his parishioners and served the people in his community became a cosmic delivery man who visits everyone everywhere on one night during the year in his magic sleigh. A saint of the church became an icon of popular culture and a vehicle for commercialism. A story rich in human experience became a modern fairy tale we trot out every year to try and put some magic in our children’s eyes during the season.

Continue reading “The Real “Santa Claus””