A Concise Review of Avengers, Star Movies, and Super Heroes
by Jen Foster—
I haven’t seen Game of Thrones and don’t intend to. I have seen most of the recent comic book spin-offs (thanks to Scottie) and find them… tepid and dry. Star Wars is distractingly eastern religion for dummies and Star Trek nauseates with its holier-than-thou scientism, environmentalism and multiculturalism. So, I muse on the obsession with fantasy from afar.
It seems that our current inclination toward larger than life characters, epic battles and superhuman elements may stem from western culture’s luxurious self-indulgent, self-protective effeminacy. We have so well insulated ourselves from pain, hardship, challenges and meaningful struggle that we have also insulated ourselves from adrenaline-producing excitement, sweaty palms clasped before God, and faith-filled risk taking.
It’s a shame, really. Our petty busyness is all too often about making my life, and my family’s life, more satisfying, more peaceful, more safe, more comfortable, more healthy, more more more more. How about trying this for a change?...See if we can’t intentionally pursue the eternal instead. Keep an eye towards new life after death, structure the day’s activities around worshiping and enjoying the Almighty. Find time to talk with the Divine. Plan short-term and long-term goals for serving the King of kings. Sing and dance like David before the Lord God. Find those soul-mates who turn our eyes to Jesus and off our selves.
I speak from experience. When Heaven and Christ and the majesty of God becomes dull and far away and unrelated to our lives now, then we seek after lesser stimuli. We binge watch TV, we become experience junkies, we fire our endorphins with glam and glitter. Of course, it’s all temporary. Sooner, rather than later, we need another boost, another hit, another tickle. But, when we are enthralled with the Ultimate Reality, then fictional fantasies become a modest, mildly amusing break from the strain and pressures of the fight of faith. Believe me, the True Story – the One Story – the Biggest Story is the most exciting, energizing and rewarding story. And we don’t watch this story, we live it.
(Yep, that's all of it this time.)
Is it Israel or the Messiah?
Dear Elmi,
Congratulations on your graduation from UM-Dearborn! I'm proud of you but I also will miss you. Thanks for engaging me in so many deep and intelligent discussions over your 4 years here, most of which were about the Bible or the Qur'an. As you already know, this is part 2 of my exposition of the Servant in Isaiah 52 and 53. In part 1 I did a word-search overview of "Servant" in the entire book of Isaiah excluding chapter 52:13 - 53:12 to save it for later. So now, since I skipped that section before, I will focus only on the identity of the Servant in Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12. For convenience I have pasted the whole passage with my embedded comments below.
Your friend,
Scott
Everybody needs this coverage—even men.
by Sarah MacDonald—
Why are people so disrespectful? She didn’t understand why people couldn’t mind their own business and leave her alone. She was just trying to tend to her garden, and she didn’t need a bunch of people staring at her. People could be so self-centered. Just because she covered her head didn’t mean she was any less of a person. People would ask her why. Why? Why was her head covered? Submission! Tradition! They didn’t really care why, they were just judgmental, she thought. She would never act like they did. She was better than that.
Featuring: The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, by Steve Schlichter
The Locke and Lewis Lecture series is a video project conducted during finals week at UM-Dearborn (April 22-25). This year it consists of 36 "micro-lectures" on various topics related to the intersection of faith and reason. Watch the Introduction by Scott Cherry.
Philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues that holding to both evolution and naturalism is self-defeating. You can have one or the other but not both. If evolution is the only input then we have no reason to trust in our ability to reason and no way to account for any interest in the truth content of any claim.
Just one of 36 micro-videos in the series. Click here for the full playlist.
A Story of Ethical Perfection
by Tom Gilson—
If asked, "Who's ethics were unmatched in all of Western literature?" who do you think of? ...Socrates? Buddha? There is perhaps only one character portrayed as possessing perfect power while being perfectly other-oriented. This is one of 38 micro-videos in the all-new 2nd annual Locke and Lewis Lecture Series. Thanks to Tom Gilson for filming this exceptional talk at our request.
Click here for Part 2 of Too Good to Be False by Tom Gilson