Two hours removed from watching The Man of Steel, I can say that the film was entertaining, but will not go down as a classic Comic Book film.

And it wasn’t because the film lacked potential. Rather, it lacked follow-through…especially follow-through with the meaningful aspects of the film’s message.

The Superman and Christ comparisons weren’t merely hinted at in this film, they were obvious and intentional. Clark goes to a local Catholic parish and the stain glass behind him, for the entire scene, is Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane praying to the Father just before he willingly hands himself over to the Roman authorities. The scene foreshadows Clark’s willingness to submit himself to the US Military as a means of saving the world.

When Superman does hand himself over, the confrontation with the military leaders is cast in the imagery of Ascension, as Superman floats above them.

Then, later, Jor-El tells Cal-El that he will be the link between human kind and the Kryptonians. After giving an inspiring speech telling Clark that he can lead us, though we will stumble as we seek to follow him, Cal-El then floats off to save the world in a very crucifix form.

I have no problem with this Christ-imagery in Superman films…if it’s done well. The potential was there in this movie to do it well. But there was never a deeply artistic, meaningful follow though.

Rather, at the end of the scene when Clark talks to the parish priest, the scene climaxes with the Clark walking out to give himself up to the “authorities,” wondering whether either Zod or the human race can be trusted, and the priest’s final words are, “Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith before you can trust.”

Look, I’ve been around Christian circles enough to know that people love a good religious-sounding cliché, but that was bad, even for Hollywood.

Instead, that was a great opportunity to explore human brokenness – for the writers to not just write a clichéd priestly character, but to actually write a man of wisdom. His response could have been, “The human race is broken. Look what happened to the guy on the window behind you. But in giving himself up, he saved the world. By making himself ‘less’ he became ‘more.’”

Then, the writers should have taken that theme and weaved it right through the entire film.

One way this could have worked out would have been this: Zod is a trained military fighter. There’s no way, on equal ground, he should lose to Superman in a fight. Superman was trained to not fight by his father. So, in hand-to-hand combat, Superman should always lose that fight.

But that’s the perfect opportunity to reintroduce the Christ-symbolism. Superman knows he cannot defeat Zod through violence, so he the story should be written in such a way that the only way to defeat Zod is through non-violent submission. I’m not sure what this looks like exactly, but these Hollywood caliber writers surely have the creativity to make it happen – and I know Christopher Nolan has such creativity, we saw it in the The Dark Knight trilogy.

Yes, Superman will never been anything more than a modernist-Christ-figure. But when they tell his story that way, it should be more than just in an occasional scene, but actually translate throughout the words and deeds of Clark Kent as he seeks to defeat evil and be the true link between two worlds. Clark Kent could have been more if the writers had made him less. That’s what makes the Christ story so great. And that’s what makes this Superman-mythology fall short of its great potential.

What do you think? How could the story have been written so that Zod is defeated through Clark’s submission instead of dominance? Or, do you think I’m wrong and the story ended how it should have?

P.S. Though I don’t think this will go down as a great film, I do think Henry Cavill was a great Superman and Clark Kent. Also, there are other meaningful aspects of the movie that don’t get follow-through, either (such as the nature of free will vs. determinism), but that’s a discussion for another post.

It appears his heart was strangely warmed when he looked into her eyes. But all she saw was a dude keeping her from her wine and crackers!

Everyone once in a while someone gets upset by something I say in a sermon or something I do as a pastor. Those things bother me to varying degrees, depending on the charges.

But, after reading the story of John Wesley and Sophy Hopkey (he denied her communion after she married another man when he had the hots for her), I’m realizing maybe I need to try harder to anger my congregation.

After Sophy’s new husband got involved, John Wesley literally had to escape Georgia because he was being brought up on these charges (I’ve bolded my favorites)…

John Wesley is “a sly hypocrite, a seducer, a betrayer of my trust, an egregious liar and dissembler, and endeavourer to alienate the affections of married women from their husbands, a drunkard, the keeper of bawdy house, an admitter of whores, whoremongers, drunkards, ay, and of murderers and spillers of blood to the Lord’s Table, a repeller of others out of mere spite and malice, a refuser of Christian burial to Christians, a murderer of poor infants by plunging them into cold water, a Papist, if not a Jesuit, or rather, an introducer of a new religion, such as nobody ever heard of; a proud priest, whose view it was to be a bishop, a spiritual tyrant, an arbitrary usurper of illegal power; a false teacher enjoining others under peril of damnation to do what I would omit myself, to serve a turn; a denier of the King’s supremacy, an enemy to the colony, a sower of sedition, a public  incendiary, a disturber of the peace of families, a raiser of uproars, a ringleader of mutiny – in a word, such a monster that the people would rather die than suffer him to go on thus.”*

It appears I am not trying hard enough. John Wesley’s standards are just too hard to meet! Somehow, after I read this, I feel like I’m failing as a pastor.

What do you all think? To whom should I deny communion next month?  

*Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodist. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 70.

Yesterday, I was doing just that when the Christian station was playing a song that had kind of a catchy tune. I grabbed my phone, used the Sound Hound app to find out the artists, and it was a band called Building 429, singing a song called, “Where I Belong.”

As I said, the tune was catchy, and for that reason, apparently the song is quite popular. To that end, I praise them.

But as I listened to the song’s lyrics, my heart sank in disappointment:

All I know is I’m not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong*

The problem with these lyrics will be lost on a lot of Christians. And that’s why I wanted to write this piece.

For generations, we Christians have preached a message that is quite foreign to what Scripture says. We’ve said, as the lyrics of a treasured hymn suggest, that “this world is not my home, I’m just a passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door, and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”

But the idea promoted in this hymn and this Building 429 song are contrary to scripture’s teachings that  this world is our home; this is where we belong.

Sure, this world is broken and messed up. This world is a world where it still appears that evil and death are winning. Scripture attests to these realities.

But scripture’s answer to the reality of evil is not abandoning the world, but embracing it with God’s justice, mercy, and resurrection life.

This is a world God will redeem and resurrect. This world will be created anew. This world will one day know the reality of evil fully and finally defeated. This world will one day see the veiled (but current) reality that God is on the throne as Lord. This world will one day know the political, social, structural, and individual realities of God’s justice and mercy extended to all. This world is the world God longs to fix…and IS fixing right now through you and me.

Fixing this world through justice and mercy, through the promotion of resurrection, is the mission of God – a mission he invites us to participate in right here and right now.

The message of Christ’s gospel is not a message of escape from this world (“take this world and give me Jesus”), it is a message of engagement with this world.

I am truly sorry if I have demolished a favorite hymn of yours or one of your favorite contemporary Christian songs. But God has designed music in such a way that its messages and teachings stick in our hearts even better than sermons (or blogs) do. And that means Christian musicians and songwriters have a theological responsibility to make sure they teach the gospel correctly.

The gospel correctly taught is not, you can “take this world and give me Jesus.” The gospel correctly taught is not, “this world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.”

Quite to the contrary, the gospel correctly taught is, “I can take this world and still have Jesus precisely because Jesus also wants to take this world. This world is my home. I’m not just passing through.” And that means I have a responsibility to this world. I am working with God to bring new creation right here, right now.

So what about you?  What other songs can you think of that promote escape from more than engagement with the world? What songs/artists do a good job of promoting engagement with the world and working with God to bring about re-creation? (Switchfoot and Gungor are two that immediately come to mind for me.

*Please understand, my disagreement with the lyrics of this song do not mean that all Building 429 songs are wrong or not worth listening to. Honestly, this is the only song I know by them. Their other songs may be fantastic. And even in this song, I want to commend their desire to be found in Jesus and, though I wish they had voiced it differently, it is still worth praising the fact that they are singing about rejecting the lies and falsehoods this world offers so that they can have Jesus instead. So this article is not a blind-wrath destruction of this band. But I do feel part of my job as a pastor is to bring theological clarity to the people I minister to. This blog is such an attempt.

One of the difficulties with the way a lot of us talk about evangelism is the assumption is that “I” must introduce people to God – that their eternal fate is resting upon whether I get to them quickly enough before they die.

But in this model, “I” am the primary actor, and salvation becomes about “their” response of inviting God into their life. Salvation in this setting is wholly wrapped up in what two human beings are doing for or to God.

Furthermore, all of this assumes that God is merely a passive participant in this process. That is, he has not taken an active interest in “them” until “I” arrived on the scene to preach his message.

Such an approach assumes salvation is totally a human project where God is a passive afterthought, having little or nothing to say except, “I accept you” after a person has first accepted Him.

I don’t wish to communicate here that we shouldn’t have an urgency in our evangelism. But, rather, I want to place that urgency in a wider theological context.

The God revealed in Jesus Christ is not a passive God. He is active, he is involved with his creation, he is the one who initiates relationships, he is working behind and in front of the scenes, and he is already there, even if we don’t know it.

The God we share with people in evangelism is a God who is already present in people’s lives before I ever arrive on the scene. He has already introduced himself. This is what Wesleyan’s call, “Prior” or “Prevenient Grace.” It is the belief that prior to salvation, God is already graciously at work in our lives calling us to turn to Him.

In other words, it’s not my job to make the first introductions. Rather, it is my job to discern and point out where God is already graciously at work in someone’s life.

The first time your co-worker encounters God is not when you share Jesus with her. God’s work has permeated her life, he has revealed Himself to her repeatedly from everything from rainfall to clean water to fresh air to breath…to your very presence.

When you share your faith, you are not plowing new ground. You are simply harvesting a crop from the land God has been tending for years.

Christians need to rethink evangelism, not as introducing God to our friends, but as an act of pointing out the presence and activity of the God who is already active in the lives of our friends.

And on some level, isn’t that freeing? Doesn’t that take the burden off us? We don’t need to carry the weight of someone’s eternity around our neck. Yes, we believe the message of the gospel is the greatest message ever told and we ought to announce it. But it was told and enacted first by God, in Jesus, and that gracious, initiating theme of God’s love permeates all of our lives. Which means we don’t have to force or manipulate persons into accepting Jesus. Rather, we just simply find out where God is at work and work with him to point out, embody, and celebrate the God who came before us!

If any of us believe the gospel, it is not because we did any initiating. God graciously introduced Himself to us, first, because that’s the kind of God He is. We need to stop introducing people to God, and start showing them how God has already introduced himself to them.

For something different: Tell me about how God worked in your life prior to you becoming a Christian to reveal himself to you? How did his prior groundwork of grace lead you to a relationship with Him? 

A good coaching staff is filled with people with specific skill sets. It’s is their collective objective, not only to win games, but to make their players and teams better – both on an doff the court.

You need to surround yourself with people who will tell you the truth about your sermons. These need to be people who are gifted in diverse areas, informed in various ways, and sensitive to a variety of potential offenses. And if possible, send your sermon to them before you preach it. Get their feedback. Listen to them. You don’t always have to do what they say, but at least hear them out.

For my sermons, I’ve recruited a Grammar Nazi, a person sensitive to uses of guilt and shame in sermons, a person incredible at concrete application, a person well informed about ancient Roman history, and a person who writes fiction for a living, and is therefore well tuned to the beauty and uses of narrative.

They’re my coaching staff. They help me execute the plays. They help me win the game. Without them, I’d lose nearly every time.

Speaking of Coaches, here’s the famous John Wooden giving a TED Talk on the difference between winning and succeeding. 

But there is a potential crippling weakness to the show – a weakness that will ruin the show if they don’t do something about it.

I watch the Sherlock Holmes movies and shows because I want to match my skills of observation with his. I like participating in the story. 

That’s not to say I think I’m as smart as he is. Not even close.

But I like seeing if I can figure out what is going on. I like seeing what he sees and hearing what he hears. I like trying to put the pieces together with him. I like trying to beat him to it (though, when I do, it’s usually because the writers gave it up too easily).

In the first several episodes of Elementary, they let me do all this. I saw everything Sherlock saw. I heard everything with him. And if I couldn’t feel or taste what he felt or tasted, he told me what he was feeling and tasting. He let me participate. 

But in the second half of the season, the writers stopped letting the audience see everything Sherlock saw. He started putting clues together that the audience didn’t even knew existed because we weren’t given a chance. Sherlock was deducing conclusions from evidence not available to the viewer.

And this is the potential crippling weakness.

If the audience can’t see all the clues, then a Sherlock Holmes story becomes nothing more than your average crime scene investigation show. And while those shows are often fun, and sometimes well-told, Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be more than that. We’re not watching Sherlock solve a crime, we’re supposed to solve it with him. We are looking for a story we can participate in.  

It’s elementary, CBS. You can have a fantastic Sherlock Holmes mythology that’s uniquely American, OR you can have an average American murder mystery show. But you can’t have both. I fear you will settle for the latter simply because it’s easier to tell a story that way. But my hope is that the popularity of your show will show you that American audiences aren’t looking for easy television. We want quality television that doesn’t just tell us a story, but invites us into a story. And we’ll go to the BBC to get it if you won’t provide it.

Those are just some random thoughts written out in about 5 minutes. What do you think?

This video is well worth your time…especially if you don’t think you need to watch it.

Now, speaking of the leadership and education of young women, while there, I was having a conversation with three young women, and sisters from our church – Katie (23), Ginny (19), and Regan (16).

While conversing we saw a painting of about 12 famous black women, known for their Civil Rights leadership. We began to guess which woman was which, when we came to the name, “Coretta Scott King” and this conversation took place.

Ginny: I don’t even know who Coretta Scot King is.

Me: That’s Martin Luther King, Jr.’s wife.

Regan: Yeah, you know who he is. He’s the guy with the store down on Hwy 77…right across from the place with the good Hot Wings.

The Hamricks are weird! But that’s why I love them. Thanks for making every experience a memorable one, ladies! 

While I’m grateful for the friends I have that are my age and who desire to serve God, I have become increasingly grateful for those people who have taken their wisdom and their experience and stooped down to me, in whatever ridiculous mire I constantly find myself, and invested of a piece of themselves into me.

I have observed that my generation and those younger than me often do not appreciate the contributions of older believers. From children’s ministries, to middle school, to youth, to college, to young adult classes, we often segregate ourselves and are segregated based on age.

And I lament this.

I wouldn’t be near the Christian I am today if it weren’t for older Christians.

If I can give one piece of advice to young Christians it is this: Surround yourself with older, wiser, grayer, more experienced, seasoned Christians. Join their small groups. Go to their Sunday School classes. Have dinner with them. Ask them questions. Pick their brains. Do what they say. You need them.

If I can give one piece of advice to a seasoned, veteran Christian with gray(ing) hair it is this: We need you. We may not know it, but we do. We have no chance to be the people God created us to be without you and your wisdom and influence. We need you to be there for us and with us and even against us, if need be. We need you to join our small groups, teach our Sunday School classes, invite us over for dinner, pick our brains and let us pick yours. You might even be surprised at how young we keep you!

Here are the seasoned Christians in my life that deserve much more than a blog-post-thank-you…

(In chronological order of influence)

Jack and Robin Tenney, who had me into their home everyday after school my junior year of high school, and were the first to teach me what it meant to love Jesus.

Alan and Neena Lord, who not only gave their daughter to me, but poured their hearts into me in college and after.

Lonnie and Kim Nelson, who to this day mentor my wife and I, mourn with us, laugh with us, and encourage us.

Marty and Kim Allen, who showed us the meaning of hospitality, awkward humor, and the beauty of redemption!

Doug and Sandy Pennington, who have shown us the ropes of ministerial life and given me, in particular, grace upon grace to make mistakes. (They don’t have to show much grace to Cassie, she’s pretty well perfect.)

So the question becomes, what has my daughter learned by watching this film?

1. On the negative side, the narrative world of Beauty and the Beast teaches there are three kinds of men: Bumbling idiots (her father), womanizers (Gaston), and the subtly oppressive (The Beast) who tell you they love you but still control you.Clearly my daughter can look around her own house and see that the world isn’t so simple. Nevertheless, as a dad, I must be aware of how powerful narrative images are in children’s minds. (My kids, for example, have already bought into the images of good guys vs. bad guys perpetuated by Disney movies, even though the world is hardly so easily divided.)

   Nevertheless, I’m afraid here that Disney has also played on the larger pop-cultural stereotypes that all men are idiots, womanizers, abusive and in need of being housebroken by a good woman. Which brings me to the second lesson my daughter has learned…

2. The second thing my daughter has learned, and this is far more dangerous than the first thing, is that women should stay in abusive relationships as long as possible because, after all, you might just change your “beast” into a loving, sensitive man who will protect you instead of manipulate and emotionally abuse you. You can be his savior! You can tame the savage beast! Stay in it; don’t have any regard for your own safety! He was nice and heroic by saving you from those wolves and those silly womanly ways of taking walks in the woods in the middle of the night…that means he’s changed!I really do hate this message.* And I think the only people who can’t appreciate why are those who have never seen an abusive relationship at work, they’ve never felt the sting of spousal abuse, or gendered manipulation on an abusive level. One need not agree with my assessment of this movie to agree that the “You can tame the beast” is a hurtful message for women, a message which unfortunately causes many of them to place themselves willingly in harms way. 

I don’t know that it would make for a better story, but a better message would certainly be: Whether they guys is overtly forceful like Gaston, or more subtly controlling like the Beast (who I don’t believe ever, EVER, says, “sorry,” by the way!), little girls need to know that control is control, manipulation is manipulation, abuse is abuse, and the best thing for you to do is get out of the relationship as fast as you can.

It’s not your job to play the hero. You have no emotional, psychological, ethical, or spiritual reason to keep yourself in danger.*

In the end, the Beast is more dangerous than Gaston because he appears to be the protagonist, when in actuality, there’s merely a difference in degree and not kind.

Finally, is there any value to my daughter watching this film?

Absolutely. But only if I am there to talk to her about the messages of the movie instead of just letting her passively ingest its messages.

One of those values is, while I wish it would go further, it is leaps and bounds ahead of Disney’s earlier non-efforts to portray relationships of gender equality. (It is, nevertheless, far from the gender dynamics of The Princess and the Frog. )

While I think the Beast does move past the his emotional abusiveness when he learns to give up Belle for her benefit, the best part of the film is when Belle continues to stand up for herself, even before they fall in love. She lets the Beast know clearly that he is not to treat her abusively.

She draws clear boundaries and teaches him how to treat her.

And I will point this out to my daughters. We teach people how to treat us. We are responsible for drawing boundaries to protect ourselves from hurtful persons. Belle does this, for the most part, admirably.

I merely wish that the writers would have shown that part of her boundary drawing needed to be a recognition that focusing on drawing boundaries with the Beast’s emotional abuse is to miss the forest for the trees. Yes, he is emotionally abusive. But his power lies, not in his tempter, but in his captivity. He controls her world. And even if she draws boundaries in one little part of that world, she still lives under his regime…until she gets permission to leave. But even this provides another talking-point for me and my daughter.

In the end, I’m glad Belle and the Beast fell in love – even if I still think outdated gender roles are involved. But I don’t think she should have been in that situation long enough to fall in love.

*Wait for a 3^rd post, specifically dedicated to this.