Earlier I requested prayer in regard to the death of someone close but kept it vague because I didn’t want to disclose private information before I had some indication that it was OK with those more closely involved.

Instead of explaining what happened myself, you can read Jay’s post with my grandfather’s comments. Thank you to all who prayed.

One way to sum up this is to ask yourself: Whose whining is more bearable? Peter Parker’s or Buffy Summers’?

I say Buffy wins easily.

Someday I will complete this review by writing about the second season. I loved it but it was quite different–much more mythic and occult rather than high-tech, with Max being a sort of Messiah. I borrowed it and didn’t get to hear the commentary explaining where the show was going. My suspicion is that the new bad guys in season two turn out to have been behind the terorist pulse attack…. But I’m going to completely miss the point of this entry if I continue. My general feel is that in a perfect world season two would have been season four allowing for some more gradual transitions.

But I wanted to write a note about gender relationships in this show and others. There is a lot of male bashing in the beginning of season one, and one could easily think the show was nothing but a girls rule/boys drool t-shirt. But things get more complicated. Logan Cale (Freudian slip report: I originally typed “Riley” throughout) is a true hero (though he has massive pride issues that almost lead him to suicide). In the end, the differences between him and Max seem rather traditional. Max’s concerns are all domestic–how to make a living and keep it. Riley is all about saving the world. Max both admires this and is frustrated by it, especially when Logan impoverishes himself for the sake of revealing the truth.

I think viewers will agree that the theme, once you get beyond the gunge youth culture show case, is ultimately that “a good man is hard to find and even harder to recognize no matter how obvious.” And this brings me to my point.

Here is an analogy: I used to work for Coral Ridge Ministries and have to read the regular newsletters we received in the early nineties. Don Wildmon’s AFA Report was one of many and it constantly showed the anti-Christian stereotypes present in various movies and TV shows. Many, as I recall, were evil pastors, sociopathic and murderous clergy. Now, I agree that such an extensive negative portrayal is a bad thing in our culture but I began to question if this was really motivated to produce such a result. Mysteries and crime dramas, etc, need really repulsive villains and one builds repulsivity by presenting the audience with horrible inversions. An evil sociopath is horrible but an ordained evil sociopath is the antichrist.

That’s the analogy now for the payoff with SuperHeroines. First remember that in all “action shows” the bottom line is melodrama. Some people like their soap operas without a lot of hand-to-hand violence, but not me. But the soap opera is still the basic thing at least in a successful TV series (was the fact that Witchblade was more a pure action show part of the reason it didn’t do well?).

And this is why female supers are inherently more interesting than males. In principle, a male superhero could simply kiss his wife goodbye and hug his children before leaving for work. Despite Peter Parker’s anxiety, this could work. But a woman comes with built in melodrama. She has a whole host of gender-role issues to deal with as she makes her way in the world. This is drawn out expecially in Dark Angel where Max’s prospective male interest is paralyzed from the waist down.

Egalitarianism may be the reigning philosophy, but the bottom line is that everyone knows relationships are more complicated than that.

It is possible that a true intellectual could complain bitterly about an anti-intellectual mindset in a church culture.

It is easily just as possible that a pseudo-intellectual could issue such loud complaints.

When you meet a different group of people their difference is often marked by speech mannerisms. No one has to explain the situation to you. You pick up loud and clear the message: “You don’t belong.” Whether it is an affectionate term of endearment in reference to Christian brotherhood, a reference to how wonderful someone’s children are, or rhetoric about how no one else in the world cares about grace as much as they do, it is designed to exclude. It may hold the promise that some day you can loose your Eliza Doolittle status, but for the present it keeps you out. Later, of course, it can be the means by which you show that you do belong. There is a positive aspect to all this. Words build communities.

Rationality is supposed to be away around these sorts of linguistic strategies–to either circumvent needless barriers or justify the bond that the distinctive speech reinforces. In the West, at least, Reason (which needs capitalization in this context) is supposed to be a means of communication irrespective of group solidarities.

I actually think there is some factual basis for this idea. But what people often forget is that a speech mannerism that marks out a group solidarity (and excludes others) can easily take the form,

A. If p then q

B. p

C. Therefore, q

This is a perfectly rational structure so it has the appeal of being objective and true. Thus, using this structure is an extremely effective way to enforce a completely irrational community solidarity. Groups often do not actually use these forms as arguments, but as memorized slogans that are accepted on the basis of a desire to belong to the group or a confidence that one’s group is better than others. It is common to find the form above used as the sine qua non of group identity. It is repeated as a proof when, in reality, A is completely false (there is no relationship between p and q) and so is B (q does not obtain).

I suppose thise would all be more convincing if I included some actual examples. But all you have to do is google for Presbyterian arguments against musical instruments in worship, or for exclusive Psalmody, or that it is a sin to celebrate Christmas and or Easter, and you will see this all to easily. The permissability of icon veneration and prayers to the saints I think also demonstrate this idea.

But of course, we may have all fallen for this. The point here for the Church is that trumpeting the importance of doctrine may not be any real help in promoting a culture in which people value truth. It could easily become a culture in which people are more easily misled and rendered incapable of hearing anything outside their own tribe.

One of Jesus’ names is Immanuel: Hebrew for “God with us.”

Reading the Gospels it is rather obvious that while Jesus was always ethically righteous before the Father he was not always “with” the Father or as “close” to the Father in a significant way. Being tempted in the wilderness was not the same experience of God’s presence as being in the cloud of the Mount of Transfiguration.

Likewise, God was with Adam in “the cool of the day” in a way that was distinct from his presence with him before. In some real sense God was absent from Adam and Eve, testing them to see how they would act on their own.

It is possible to talk about God’s absence or presence with his creatures without needing sin to be a consideration. Even a sinless creature could rejoice in a promise that God will one day be with him.

In fact, before sin was in the world we are told of a created barrier between God’s heavenly throneroom and the earth. On the second day of creation God made a “firmament” between heaven and earth. This second day’s work, unlike the other five days, is missing any report of God seeing that it was good.

The story of the creation of Eve tells us that God can make things that are temporary and “not good” as a permanent situation. It was not good for man to be alone, yet God created him that way in order to bring about a change for the better in the future. This gives us a clue as to why the boundary between heaven and earth is not declared to be good. It was meant to be ended.

And Jesus’ mission, while dealing primarily with sin, also dealt with this created barrier that had no reference ot the Fall: God sent Jesus to accomplish “a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Eph 1.10).

I am not tracking the controversy, but I love this quotable it produced. In my opinion it belongs on the BHT masthead:

I am personally wondering how to articulate the different between “Reforming Faith” (which seems to be the Reformation call – “always reforming) and a “Reformed Faith.” (The rediscovery of a 16th Century expression of faith deeply contextual to that era brought forward with impunity into the present as though the Gospel of God had been hidden for 15 centuries).

What book, to the extent that a book can be credited with such a thing, pushed me over into “calvinism”? Arthur Pink’s The Sovereignty of God was the one.

Later, I sort of let go of Pink because I sort of felt compelled by (irrational) Presbyterian loyalties to put my stock in paedobaptist authors. I also heard of some sad things about where Pink’s ended up due to an unchecked sectarianism that pretended to be piety.

Of course, being Presbyterian doesn’t entail a restricted reading list. And for all the talk about “consequences” to theology, the fact remains that the orthodox make horrible mistakes and that heterodox give us wonderful gems. Possibly one of the most important theological teachings of my life about theology proper came to me from John Milton. Am I supposed to reject it just because Milton was (I hear) an Arian and I am a loyal Trinitarian? Don’t think so.

So I was overreacting to Pink. That, at least, is what I’m thinking now after reading this excellent post from James Spurgeon. It is a lengthy quote from Pink on the issue of perseverance and warnings against apostasy. Here is a sample: “According to the lopsided logic of many teachers today, it is quite un-necessary to exhort Christians to “continue in the faith”; they will do so. But be not wise above what is written, and deem not yourselves to be more consistent than the apostles” But please go read the entire thing.

There are some great resources in the comments too! There I found this great message from John Piper. Not only is this excellent exhortation but it also maintains a community focus which may help one apply Pink’s teaching differently than Pink eventually did: “One final word on eternal security. It is a community project. And that is why the pastoral ministry is so utterly serious, and why our preaching must not be playful but earnest. We preach so that saints might persevere in faith to glory.”

This reminded me of a great book that I have read more than once: John Piper’s own Future Grace. If you are looking for a thirty day devotional that is meaty and enriching, Future Grace should top your list.

I’m going to pray the sinner’s prayer again. I prayed it two years ago, but I didn’t really understand it, the importance of Christ’s death and it’s relationship to my sin…. Of course, that was why I prayed it two years ago. A year and a half earlier I prayed it. But i wasn’t even done with kindergarten back then so there’s no way I could have meant it. That’s why I got baptized that second time. Which reminds me: I’m going to need to talk to my pastor about scheduling a new one.

I hope it takes this time. It gets awfully scary wondering when the prayer will really be acceptable.

Extreme, I suppose, but I’ve run into it more than once.

Preaching an accurate Gospel is a great thing and I’m all for it. But, since Rick has no comments, I will ask it here: how do we avoid and paedobaptist version of this spiritual cul-de-sac? Paul exhorts us to treat the weak, the weak in faith even, as those for whom Christ died. He is, in context, talking about how we should treat professing Christians. If we go around worrying about them as those for whom Christ did not die, how can we possibly follow the Pauline exhortations?

For anyone in Saint Louis, the moving party begins at 8 AM on Saturday. I’ll provide lots of empty calories! Please come.