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How do we incarnate the body of Christ in this new frontier, this increasing wilderness? What do the roots of Christianity, of the apostles first forays into the world have to say for the church today? These are the questions that drive me. How are we to be the church in a culture that has forgotten the ways of Christ?

The call of the church today is to abandon its fortresses and to become nomads, following the breath of God as he fills the world with life; to pursue the shadow of an unrelenting and unceasing God that is passionately reclaiming what is his. I want to understand how he spoke through his first apostles as he called together and formed the body of believers in the upper room with his holy fire. I want to inhabit the words and minds of the ancient theologians and mystics that sought God above all else. Through all of this though I want to gain an understanding on how to inspire, lead, and bring others along on the narrow path, to one day see the new heavens and the new earth in all their glory, and to see the face of my savior and embrace his feet in awe.

This journey is both intimately personal, and at the same time impossible without being in community with other believers and unbelievers alike. For truly as the gospel states we all have sinned, and fallen short of God’s glory, but praise be the cross is sufficient for all who embrace it’s story.

-David

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Entries in Movies (3)

Friday
Nov142008

A Fierce Competition

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ThereWillBeBlood

There Will Be Blood is the epic tale of Daniel Plainview, a self ascribed ‘oil man’.  The movie was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and starred Daniel Day Lewis.  Faith plays a central role in the film.  The movie contrasts the Pentecostal preacher Eli Sunday with Daniel Plainview.  Early in the film Daniel is tipped off to the oil in Little Boston by Paul Sunday (Eli’s twin brother) in exchange for 500 dollars.  During the negotiation Paul asks Daniel what church he belongs to.  The pragmatic Daniel replies, “I enjoy all faiths, I like them all, I like everything.”  This contradicts with Daniel’s unusually open and vulnerable conversation with Henry, a man claiming to be Daniel’s half brother, later in the film.

Daniel: Are you an angry man Henry?

Henry: About what?

Daniel: Are you envious, do you get envious?

Henry: I don’t think so, no.

Daniel: I have a competition in me.  I want no one else to succeed.  I hate most people.

Henry: That part of me is gone.  Working and not succeeding.  All my failures has left me… I just don’t care.

Daniel: Well if it’s in me it’s in you.  There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking.  I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone.

Daniel has a fierce and diabolically competitive nature within himself, he wants no one else to win.  Daniel hates almost everyone, he finds nothing to like.  Daniel observes it’s universal nature, if it’s in me, than it is in you.  What else could this be but a generally revelatory understanding of original sin?  However rather than repent of it, he embraces it and cultivates it.  In contrast Henry has found that his darker emotions have subsided as he has seen the fallacy of works and success, unfortunately Henry has no hope, only that he is no longer envious and filled with a a desire to see all others fail.

What else is original sin than a fierce competition to prove your success as a contrast to the failure of others?  What else is it than a hatred of most people, a failure to look on most people and find anything worth liking?  How does this film’s understanding of sin compare with the competitive stories of Elijah and Jezebel, or Samuel and David?

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Saturday
Feb162008

Most

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I just finished watching the movie Most as I prepared it for our service tomorrow.  This film hits in a way that few others can.  Beautiful cinematography contrasts the bleakness of a post soviet era, eastern block city.  The characters are imminently approachable and human.  This movie can change your heart of you let it.

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Saturday
Jan192008

Cloverfield

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cloverfield_poster Saw Cloverfield today at the local googleplex.  If you aren't aware it is produced by J.J. Abrams of LOST fame.  The story begins with a going away party for one of the main protagonists, and launches from there.  The entire film is shot from the perspective of a small consumer camera, ala Blair Witch Project.  So, I found myself having to turn away from time to time to avoid a sense of sea-sickness since it was on an 100 foot screen.  This movie asks some important questions if you allow yourself to linger on it's subject matter:

  1. What is the value of human life?
  2. With what authority do we claim to destroy?
  3. When faced with an assortment of bad ethical choices what do you do?
  4. What is the price of friendship?
  5. Can a standing military be a good thing?
  6. What do we do when nothing works right?
  7. When your only choices are which way to die, where do you turn?
  8. What if our collective primal fears were made manifest?
  9. Where do our fears come from?

I know, I know a lot of questions from a simple flick right?  On a scale of 3 to 7 this move gets a solid 5.9 repeating.

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