Five Blogs that Make My Day and Make Me Think

Carmen at In the Open Space very kindly named me as one of “5 blogs that make my day and make me think” as part of the following meme:

1. Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make me think and/or make my day.
2. Acknowledge the post of the award giver.
3.Tell the award winners that they have won by commenting on their blogs with the news!

Since Carmen took the third point as optional, I think I will too, but I'm happy to recognize a few of my fellow-bloggers. In fact, I’d like to include Carmen herself in such a list (along with a couple of the five she listed: Barbara Nicolosi and James McGrath), but here are five more that I’ve especially appreciated lately, in no particular order:

ThinkChristian – a group blog which posts a lot of good stuff.
Catholic and Enjoying It – Mark Shea always has informative and humorous things to pass along.
Notes from Off-Center – Drew Tatusko is interested in many of the same things I am, and tends to be better read on every subject.
Rumblings – Ryan Duack doesn’t post often, but his work is always worth the wait.
Stuff Christians Like – Jon helps me laugh at myself, and think more clearly about how I live.

Selfishness and Sacrifice in LOST: There’s No Place Like Home

I only started watching LOST a couple months ago, but thanks to ABC.com generously offering all four seasons in HD – for free! – I’ve been able to catch up in time to watch the last few episodes live, and man am I hooked. Last night’s season finale reminded me why this has become my new favorite show (sorry Battlestar). “There’s No Place Like Home” had everything I could want in a TV show: mystery and revelation, action and suspense, character and charm, and one shocker of an ending. As Carmen Andres has noted, however, perhaps the best thing about it was its exploration of the opposites of selfishness and sacrifice (spoiler warning).

“There's No Place Like Home” included a number of powerful moments of selfishness – especially when Ben callously murdered Keamy, knowing full well it could mean the deaths of everyone on the boat – and ultimate sacrifice, as when Michael and Jin stay behind to give the others a chance to escape before the boat is destroyed. As for Ben moving, and leaving, the island, we don’t yet know if that was truly a sacrifice, or yet more selfishness. But perhaps the most interesting aspect of this theme lay in the contrast between Jack and Sawyer.

Since the beginning, LOST has presented Jack and Sawyer as opposites: Jack has always been the selfless one, his only goal to ensure that his fellow castaways get home. Sawyer, on the other hand, has always been self-focused, concerned only for his own survival. Even their appearances reflected the contrast – Jack was always clean-cut and respectable, while Sawyer was gruff and uncivilized. But ever since Season Three ended with a drunk and bearded Jack, back in Los Angeles, actually hoping another plane will crash so that he might return to the island, their roles have been reversed. Throughout Season Four we’ve seen him descend from everything he stood for, most notably when he held a gun to Locke’s head and pulled the trigger in “The Beginning of the End.” Now in the two-part Season Finale we find that three years after escaping the island, he has not only become a drunk, but has abandoned Kate and Aaron, and is willing to do just about anything – even trust Ben – to get back.

Meanwhile, Sawyer has moved the opposite direction, and broken free from his old selfishness. Again, we saw a hint of this (though not the first) at the end of Season Three, when Sawyer turned back to save Sayid, Jin and Bernard in “Through the Looking Glass.” His newfound nobility has also been seen, for instance, in “The Shape of Things to Come,” when he risked his life to save Claire from the attack on the Barracks. Now in the two-part finale, his transformation seems to be complete. In the first half, he turned Jack’s signature line (“live together or die alone”) against him, by insisting that “You don’t get to die alone.” Then in the second half, he does what even Jack was unwilling to do: sacrifice himself to save the rest in the helicopter. While Jack remains silent, it is Sawyer who tells Kate he loves her then gives up his chance to escape. I love the symbolism too: his plunge into the water seems a kind of baptism, which leads to new life for himself (back on the island) and for the rest (who escape on the helicopter). Jack, meanwhile, is nothing more than a spectator to this scene, and as we have seen – he comes to dearly regret that he too did not stay behind.

In so reversing Jack and Sawyer’s roles, LOST has not only presented a powerful image of the nature and results of these two essential options – life-giving sacrifice or soul-destroying selfishness – but also emphasized the inescapably present choice between them. The decision between selfishness and sacrifice is not once for all, but a constant demand. It doesn’t matter how noble Jack was, unless he continues to be so. It doesn’t matter how selfish Sawyer was; for today he can make a new start. Virtue is never satisfied with the past, but awaits each new decision. No one can rest on their past deeds as proof of their character or hope, and no one is so far lost that they can’t find their way home. Sawyer seems to have learned that, as did Michael and Charlie and many others before them; I just hope that Jack, too, will remember it before the end.

Quote - Barth on God and Truth

Sorry posting has been so light this week; I've been engrossed in other writing projects, and will likely remain so for at least the next week. In the mean time, here's another quote that I find interesting, by Karl Barth, in his Evangelical Theology: An Introduction (no, Evangelicalism is not merely an American aberration!). I'm not sure what he means by appealing to the Greek aletheia here, but I like his emphasis on God's truth (or, I would say, our ability to know it) being necessarily historical and revelatory. It is only because God reveals himself in history that we can know him at all:

The object of evangelical theology is God in the history of his deeds. In this history he makes himself known. But in it he also is who he is.... The God of the Gospel, therefore, is neither a thing, an item, an object like others, nor an idea, a principle, a truth, or a sum of truths. God can be called the truth only when "truth" is understood in the sense of the Greek word aletheia. God's being, or truth, is the event of his self-disclosure, his radiance as the Lord of all lords, the hallowing of his name, the coming of his kingdom, the fulfillment of his will in all his work. (pg. 9)

Dilbert Comic

This is great (HT Telic Thoughts):

Quote - Theology and Metaphor

I was reminded of this while reading some of James McGrath’s recent discussions of theology and metaphor (e.g. here); here’s Hans Boersma, from Violence, Hospitality and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition:

Although there are indeed differences between what we call “literal” and “metaphorical” language, this does not mean that we can understand literal language as “more rational” and hence “more real” and therefore giving better descriptions of reality.... No matter how carefully we try to analyze and unwrap the meaning of the metaphor, we can never quite give a literal description that conveys the exact same sense as the metaphor. Just as an explanation of a piece of art can never quite capture the full richness of the artwork, so also every attempt to unpack the metaphor will be only partially successful....

Colin Gunton argues that because the world can be known only indirectly, metaphor is really “the most appropriate form that a duly humble and listening language should take. In all of this, there is a combination of openness and mystery, speech and silence, which makes the clarity and distinctness aimed at by the rationalist tradition positively hostile to truth.” (pgs. 102 and 105; citing The Actuality of Atonement: A Study of Metaphor, Rationality, and the Christian Tradition, pgs. 37-38)

Christian Carnival CCXXV and Prince Caspian

This week’s Christian Carnival is being hosted by Parableman and includes my review of Prince Caspian.

I’d also like to point out Carissa Smith’s piece at Christ and Pop Culture, which very helpfully extends my suggestion that faith in Caspian is trust rather than belief.

Finally, if you’re familiar with the original Narnia books, you might find this Letter to His Imperial Majesty Aslan funny (though it’s a little crude; HT: ThinkChristian). Excerpt:

In the course of talking-animal events, it may become necessary for one animal—or human—or divine being—to come and rescue Narnia from its deepest, darkest hours. We're cool with that. We're just saying ...

Why does it have to be kids?...

Frankly, we'd be less concerned were it not for our understanding that your true intentions are less to help us and more to help these children understand their own religion, which, we admit, sounds pretty confusing. End result: the kids get a deeply transforming religious experience, and we get left with @#$%. Excuse our language, but we're basically animals here.

Quote - Chesterton on The Permanent Miracles

G.K. Chesterton, The Ball and the Cross:

It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the permanent miracles.

"Disaster Fatigue"

In 2004, the South East Asia Tsunami killed around 225,000 people; Americans responded by donating 1.92 billion dollars in aid. In the last month, the cyclone in Myanmar (130,000 dead or missing) and the earthquake in China (60,000 dead or missing) have combined to kill nearly 200,000 people; Americans have responded by donating… 12.1 million dollars:

Charities know this as "donor fatigue," but it might be more accurately described as disaster fatigue — the sense that these events are never-ending, uncontrollable and overwhelming....

Compared with disasters like the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, those in China and Myanmar have generated just a trickle of aid. As of Friday, Americans had given about $12.1 million to charities for Myanmar, according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. The group said on Monday that it was too soon to count contributions to China....

This problem came up after the 2004 Asian tsunami, an event that brought an avalanche of $1.92 billion in charity from the United States, according to the Giving USA Foundation. Hurricane Katrina eight months later generated even more, $5.3 billion.

But then fatigue seemed to set in. The earthquake in Pakistan that killed nearly 80,000 people generated just $150 million from Americans. And the Guatemala mudslide shortly thereafter that killed at least 800 was virtually forgotten.

If one disaster can be galvanizing, several in a row can be paralyzing.

I don't want this to be a guilt trip, and I know money is tight for everyone right now, but please consider giving anything you can (for instance, through World Vision); we can do a lot better than this.

Quote - Art and the True Hero

From Art and Soul: Signposts for Christians in the Arts, by Hilary Brand and Adrienne Chaplin:

Truthfulness demands complexity. It requires that our biographies, novels and screenplays have flawed heroes. In fact it is impossible to create or portray a convincing 'good' character unless they do come complete with warts, failure and sheer bloody-mindedness. Equally important is to remember that even the worst villains are made in the image of God. Even murderers love their mothers, as Dead Man Walking memorably portrayed. In fact, the very best stories are those where the hero sees in his nemesis a reflection of himself, and we, the audience, see reflected in both of them the warring contradictions of our own nature. (pg. 53)

Prince Caspian Review

I have something of a strange relationship with books and film. I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I can remember, but I’m simultaneously a product of our visual culture. This means that whenever I read a good novel, I find myself wishing I could see it on screen, yet whenever I see a film based on a book I’ve read, I’m almost always disappointed at what it leaves out. The first PG-13 movie I ever saw was Jurassic Park; I was 11 but my dad took me to see it as a reward for just having finished reading the book (I did say I was an avid reader, right?). I hated it. All I could think about was how they had butchered the characters and left so much out. It wasn’t until I saw the movie again years later, when the book had become a distant memory, that I could really enjoy it as a movie, rather than see it as a poor representation of the book.

So when my wife and I had the opportunity to see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian last night, I chose not to reread the book first. In fact, it’s been a few years since I’ve done so, and I’m glad of that, because it allowed me to enjoy the film on its own merits before worrying about how it compared to its source. By most measures, this second Narnia far surpasses the first. I’d even go so far as to say that it was nearly as entertaining, though not quite as grand, as any of the Lord of the Rings films. But as I’ve thought about it further, it’s hard to ignore all the changes it made to Lewis’ book. That being the case, if you're anything like me, you may want to see the movie itself before reading on, especially if you hate spoilers (I should also note that I have no idea how this movie got a PG rating. It is quite violent, including an improbable degree of bloodless death and even a decapitation; it should definitely have been rated PG-13).

Prince Caspian follows the four Pevensie children’s return to Narnia, called back when Prince Caspian (the rightful heir to the throne, but currently hiding from his murderous uncle Miraz) blows the magical horn that was given to Susan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. As they attempt to win back Caspian’s throne and free Narnia from Miraz’ oppression, we are treated to a film which is at once better acted, more humorous, and much more exciting than its predecessor. This is because, while the first Narnia was careful to keep the themes and plot of C.S. Lewis’ book intact, this film almost completely abandons the attempt.

On the positive side, this meant the addition or modification of several scenes which, I thought, greatly enhanced the plot. For instance, I appreciated the way they modified the first act of the story: The intentionally ambiguous significance of the birth with which the film begins was clever and revealed the threat to Caspian’s life in a concise and interesting manner. Then, when they parallel the Pevensies trying to adjust to life as children again (a nice addition, in my opinion), with Caspian’s flight from Miraz, I found it a much more engaging introduction than the way Lewis described this sequence of events. More substantially, they add an entire battle in which the Narnians attempt to capture Miraz’s castle, which not only adds interest, excitement and some important emotional depth, but also makes better sense of the events which follow than the original book did. I also liked the expanded scene involving the White Witch, which I was shocked to see in the previews, but think worked very well.

If most of the additions are good, however, there are also a number of unfortunate omissions. Much has been made of the fact that Lewis’ book centered on the triumph of faith over skepticism, while the film totally obliterates this theme. The story takes place 1300 years after the events of the first film (though only one year later for the four children); the great castle they once ruled lies in ruins and Aslan seems long absent. The film almost completely leaves out the fact that few Narnians still believe in Aslan or the old stories. In the book, this is seen especially in the dwarf Trumpkin, who is a convinced skeptic who only slowly comes to recognize Aslan’s reality and authority. In the film, this arc is substantially diminished, as Trumpkin (who is played with a lot of humor) never really disbelieves that the old stories are true; he only doubts their present value.

But, personally, I’m not as troubled by this as others have been, as I think real faith has a lot more to do with trust than with belief anyway. Thus Trumpkin’s (and others, including Peter’s and Caspian’s) lack of trust in Aslan is actually a more realistic, and troubling, form of doubt than his simple disbelief in the book. If the movie gives less ground than Lewis’ original for letting us cheer the comeuppance of the disbelieving materialists, it provides a more nuanced exploration of the danger of lack of trust - in each other and in Aslan - among the “faithful.” To me, this seems of greater value in our postmodern context than the attack on modernism that Lewis intended.

A much less fortanate change was the diminished portrait of genuine faith. The strange thing is that this actually made for a worse movie, not only thematically, but also narratively. In the book, we have an extended sequence in which Lucy alone is able to see Aslan while the others only slowly and painfully come to trust that she knows what she’s doing in following his lead. Though this element is not completely omitted, it is passed over very quickly in the film, which then leaves out entirely the fact that Aslan also appeared to the rest of them - one by one, as they come to trust him - during the course of the story.

In place of this, we get a nice exchange between Susan and Peter where it is asked why Aslan hasn’t proven himself to them, and suggested that perhaps they are the ones who need to prove themselves to him. This does add emphasis to the need to trust even when Aslan seems absent (that is, when God seems absent, though the film subtly diminishes Aslan’s divinity). But in doing so it modifies Lewis’ point that faith precedes sight, and leaves a substantial plot hole which is never adequately filled. Despite what the review I quoted in my last post claimed, the fact that Aslan doesn’t really appear until the end (except in a dream to Lucy) does make him more like a dues ex machina than he should have been.

In the book, Aslan’s appearance in the last battle is but the culmination of a series of previous ones, so it not only brings closure to all conflict but also enables the realization that he had actually been with them all along. In the movie, however, his sudden arrival feels forced and out of place. Though Lucy facing an army with naught but a dagger and a lion is cute, the audience hasn’t been adequately prepared for the significance of this event. And if this is true of Aslan, it is even more so of the tree spirits and (especially) the water god which he brings with him to fight for the Narnians. To suddenly see a great river god attack Miraz’ army, when (unlike in the book) we’ve never even been given a hint that such a being exists, is as clear a case of dues ex machina as you’re likely to find. The result is an otherwise entertaining film which suddenly falls flat at its climax.

Good Stuff From Here and There

I don’t often do summary posts, but I keep running into great stuff today and I want to hurry up and go watch LOST:

First, check out Barbara Nicolosi’s excellent interview with Salvo editor Bobby Maddex (excerpts of which will be in Salvo 5).

Next, and speaking of Barbara, she links a great review of Prince Caspian which comes out tomorrow and sounds to be better than the original:

The Christian theme is not only stronger in Caspian than in Wardrobe, but integrated more naturally into the story — slowly building with events until it perfectly climaxes at the end for maximum emotional effect. This is not some new-age Christian allegory where if you fall to your knees in some sun-dappled field and raise your hands to Jesus all your problems will go away. As in life, God is not a deus ex machina. There’s a bigger picture at work — a master plan — and it’s up to us to find our place within that plan, not the other way around. What Would Aslan Do? No. What Would Aslan Want Us To Do.

On the other hand, others are concerned that the film takes too many liberties and misses much of Lewis’ point (HT: Christ and Pop Culture).

Stuff Christians Like has an insightful post on measuring the true value of one’s time.

Finally, I caught Hellboy on cable again a couple nights ago (I love that movie, and the sequel looks promising too). I was especially struck by the closing voice-over, which sums up the plot (and my worldview) very well:

What makes a man a man? A friend of mine once wondered. Is it his origins, the way he comes to life? I don’t think so. It’s the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them.

The Real Life Impact of Second Life Confirmed

Last summer I wrote an extensive article on Second Life for Salvo 3 which, among other things, argued that probably the most important aspect of such virtual worlds (or “metaverses”) is the fact that who we are inside them will inevitably influence who we are in real life. According to a new article in TIME, I seem to have been right. Recent research being done by Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab has confirmed that one’s appearance and activities within Second Life can have a direct (if only short term) impact on one’s real world attitudes and activities:

Jeremy Bailenson, head of the lab and an assistant professor of communication at Stanford… has found that even 90 seconds spent chatting it up with avatars is enough to elicit behavioral changes offline — at least in the short-term. "When we cloak ourselves in avatars [that is, virtual representations of ourselves], it subtly alters the manner in which we behave," says Bailenson. "It's about self-perception and self-confidence." But researchers are still trying to figure out the psychological mechanisms at work, and which way the effect flows: "Do you consciously wear your power suit to feel confident, or is it that you're in this suit and you're feeling up, but you're unaware of the reason?" says Bailenson.

The article goes on to describe a series of experiments where groups of people were each assigned either an attractive avatar or an ugly one, then allowed to interact with one another in Second Life. As expected, those with more attractive avatars showed more confidence, approached others more closely, and spoke more freely than those with less attractive avatars, quite regardless of their real world appearance. Then, an hour after they had signed off, the participants were told they would be participating in a separate study which required them to choose a potential date out of a group of photos. Once again, those who had recently inhabited an attractive avatar showed greater confidence in their choices than those who had less attractive avatars.

In other experiments, people given taller or shorter avatars were found to display greater or lesser confidence respectively – both in Second Life and after leaving – and people who spent five minutes watching an avatar version of themselves exercising were more likely to exercise in the next 24 hours than those who spent five minutes watching “themselves” lounge around. The article concludes:

"The most stunning part is how subtle the manipulations are and how difficult they are to detect," says Bailenson, "but how much it affects real life later on."

Of course, the effect could potentially work both ways — for good or for bad. "In a therapy setting, we could use these virtual environments to get people to become more confident," says [Lead researcher Nick] Yee. "But they can also be used in advertising and as propaganda."

Yet the most significant conclusion that one ought to draw from such studies goes unmentioned: If even short-term exposure to virtual appearances and activities can have such an impact, how much more of an effect must our long-term virtual choices inevitably hold, for good or ill? If we choose, as so many do, to treat these worlds as a “safe” medium for expressing our darker fantasies, can we really be surprised if our virtual lives begin to spill over into our real ones?

Bumper Stickers for the Megachurch Generation

From The Wittenburg Door:

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be slightly irritating.

Given God's aversion to sin, it's probably best to limit visitation hours.

Boredom is a form of sacrifice.

Read the rest here.

Christian Carnival CCXXIV

This week's Christian Carnival is up; thanks to The Evangelical Ecologist for hosting!

Quote - On Christian Tradition

The recent Evangelical Manifesto's recognition of the importance of the early Christian creeds reminded me of D.H. Williams' book Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants, which argues that Evangelicalism's "historical amnesia" is a primary cause of its present disarray. The following quotation refers specifically to the extra-biblical tradition of the church (including the creeds), but it occurs to me that with very little modification, it could just as well describe the Bible itself:

If the Christian Tradition functions in any normative way at all, it is not simply because it lies in the past or because it is an accepted way of doing things. It has a normative role because it represents the corporate voice of the faithful, very often in moments when the faith was being tested by some controversy, proclaiming what it has received in light of what it must confront. The Tradition of the church is just that, the outcome of a testing and sharpening process by which the Spirit moved through the worshipping, praying, baptizing and confessing community of believers, or what can be aptly called a consensus of faith through time. (pg. 207)