Movie Smackdown: The Hunger Games vs. October Baby

I'm annoyed, and a bit offended, by something that just showed up in my inbox. It's an ad for a movie I've never heard of called October Baby. Obviously it's a "Christian movie" about abortion. Now, I am totally 100% opposed to abortion (because I think that human beings are human beings from the moment of conception, and I oppose the killing of innocent human beings), but the copy of the first paragraph of the email got under my skin. Here it is:

This weekend, when the biggest box-office hit is expected be a film based on a popular book about young people being forced to fight to the death, OCTOBER BABY hits theaters with a resounding message about the sanctity of life. Talk about a culture in need of a wake-up call!

I'm annoyed because that paragraph unfairly implies that The Hunger Games is against the "sanctity of life" (which is almost the diametric opposite of the truth), and I'm offended that whoever wrote it either decided to take a pot-shot at a movie they haven't seen and don't know anything about, or thinks that I and every other Christian out there is too stupid to know baloney when we see it. The whole message of The Hunger Games (which, full disclosure, I have not seen yet on the big screen, but I've read the book series and from all accounts I've read, the movie is remarkable in its fidelity to the book) is that life is too precious to be manipulated and exploited for the entertainment of others. The story does not glorify the fact that the kids are killing each other in an arena; the arena combat is absolutely painted in a negative light. You might as well say that Star Wars is a story that celebrates the idea of blowing up whole planets full of people. Ridiculous.

The cherry on the ice cream sundae is the crack about "...a culture in need of a wake-up call." Ironically, The Hunger Games IS a wake-up call. The underlying themes are about a too-strong totalitarian government manipulating their population into complacency by using "reality TV" as a propaganda tool. Over the past half-century, real governments have become better and better at using the media to spin the facts to their own advantage; take a look around in an election year and see for yourself. At the same time, "reality TV" becomes more and more outlandish. Government-sponsored and approved violence could, given the right set of circumstances, become reality one day in this or any country. Just ask first-century Christians, who, depending on who was in charge, might wind up getting eaten by lions in public. Cruelty of man against man, heightened by the fact that the persecuted persons are children, is totally, unequivocally condemned by The Hunger Games. When we wake up to the fact that although they are not physically cutting each other's throats, many times the players in "reality TV" programs are mistreating each other publicly for their own ends, and we watch it and call it entertainment, then we will have learned the lesson of The Hunger Games.

According to reports on the Internet today, The Hunger Games has already sold fifteen million dollars worth of tickets, even though it doesn't actually open until tomorrow. It's obvious that some marketing person at October Baby is somehow trying to get a piece of that. I'm not sure what the exact idea is (viewing their movie as a protest against another movie?), but it's not going to work. The millions of Hunger Games fans are not going to say, "Oh my goodness, you are RIGHT! I will throw away the ticket I stood in line for and now buy a ticket to see YOUR movie instead!" In fact, the only thing I can see this kind of advertising accomplishing, if it accomplishes anything at all, is to put the idea in the head of a parent who is too lazy to really find out what The Hunger Games is all about that it is harmful to their teenagers, and forbid the teenagers to see it. What's that going to do but drive a wedge in families? The kids will either sneak out and see it anyway, or miss out on what could actually be a highly positive message for them (violence is bad, and so is believing that everything you see on TV is okay). Shame on you, American Family Association.

AFA, if your film is any good, you don't need to slam other good movies to sell it. Especially not films with a positive message. I won't be wasting my time with October Baby, but I will see The Hunger Games. Because I enjoy a movie with a positive message.

My New Study Bible: Life Application NLT

Life Application Study Bible
New Living Translation

This past week I got a new Study Bible... the Life Application Study Bible in the New Living Translation. This is a hardcover copy that I won in an online contest; I actually already had a paperback personal size copy of the same thing on my shelf for a while, waiting until I had time to spend with it (I gave it away when I got this hardback copy), and my wife has had the NIV version for some time (she got it for Easter several years back). This is the first time I've really opened one up and spent quality time with it. I'm actually more impressed than I thought I would be!

For the past several years I've been a huge fan of my ESV Study Bible. I've read through most of it in my quest to read through the whole Bible in a year (which is now several months into its third year... go Ezekiel!) and learned an awful lot. The ESV Study Bible has tons of notes that give historical background, cross-references, and other supporting material to help you understand the text. I've also been using the NIV Study Bible, which contains materials along the same line (I've been reading them together, which has been very interesting... usually they have completely different supporting material, sometimes they are complimentary, and occasionally they come close to contradicting each other! But both are outstanding). The Life Application Study Bible is not like that. Certainly it has a copious amount of notes, but the study notes in this Bible are not primarily of a historical or even of a Theological nature, at least not in the academic sense. These study notes are firmly focused on one thing: showing you ways that the Bible text applies to your day-to-day life. They're not concerned so much with telling you how someone lived in the first century; they're concerned with how the Bible is telling us to live in the twenty-first century. They're very good at helping you start thinking about what the text means to your life, right now, today. I'm duly impressed!

Is this the only Study Bible I would want to have? Definitely not. Not for me personally, anyway. I'm very interested in all of that historical background and learning how different passages of Scripture interact with one another (by the way, the Life Application Study Bibles do have book introductions which provide some historical background, so it's not like they leave you high and dry). I enjoy a more academic take on the Word sometimes. I also find that I don't particularly trust the New Living Translation for serious study; it's still way too close to paraphrase for me, although it is less relaxed about fidelity to the text than the classic Living Bible, and of course almost anything is more literal than something like The Message. The NLT is more like having a good friend explaining to you what the Bible says, though, and I do kind of dig that for casual meaning. The Life Application Study Bible matches the NLT incredibly well because reading the study notes feels kind of like having that same good friend tell you what they learned from reading the Scripture passage they just told you about. For me, the overall effect is like listening to a message by a pastor who has a very relaxed style and who is very good at bringing the topics he finds in the Bible into a daily life context. I'm going to make it part of my devotional life, and I think I'll get a lot out of it!

I'm also pretty sure that it's the only Bible that I've ever seen that includes the little-known apocryphal Gospel According To Spider-Man:

(Just kidding... that's 2 Thessalonians there.)

Good stuff on the way!

First off, I want to apologize for the too-long absence. My family has been in the middle of a crisis situation that I believe a lot of people are experiencing right now: we are trying to sell a house that stubbornly has resisted getting sold. Often when we have a crisis of circumstance, we Christians wind up having a crisis of faith as well, and that's where I've been... and I didn't want to blog when I was feeling at a loss for answers and risk making someone else feel the way I was. I'm being real with you here; Christians spend time not understanding what's going on sometimes. I've learned a lot of interesting stuff in the process, though, and I'm going to share it with you in the coming weeks! First up, though, I have a review of this book coming up; that will be a good jumping-off point for the entries about my recent house-selling and soul-searching experiences. So stay tuned! Book review should appear this weekend.

Crossway's Paperback ESV Study Bible - I don't see their logic

Crossway recently released the ESV Study Bible in paperback. Their blog post about the release is mostly about the kinds of people they expect to buy it. I love the ESV Study Bible; it's the keystone of my twice-extended read-the-Bible-in-a-year program. And I don't doubt that people will buy it in the new paperback format, but I doubt that it will be the people they blogged about.

First they mentioned students buying it as a textbook. I guess it's possible that this will happen to some extent, but I think today's college student likes for everything to be as electronic as possible, and I can't see a student dropping $20-$30 for an almost 2½-pound paperback that they'll have to lug around and which will wear out when they could pay $20 for online access indefinitely at esvbible.org, or drop $8.54 and get it on their Kindle or Nook, or even from Google Books. I know some people like to write in textbooks, and other people like to sell them back to the bookstore to be re-sold the next year as used books, but I don't know... after Apple's recent announcements about releasing textbooks for iPad, I just think students are going to continue to go more and more digital.

The second category of buyer they mentioned is travelers. The argument is that a traveler isn't going to want to carry their "good" ESV Study Bible with them in their luggage and risk it getting damaged. But seasoned travelers, I believe, have also already adopted e-Readers, and they're going to want their ESV Study Bible electronically as well. Besides, don't all copies of the ESV Study Bible come with free access to the online version? If so, then folks who already have a "good" copy at home can already hop on some free Wifi, which is all over the place nowadays, and use the online version instead, and not have to carry along anything but the laptop or tablet computer they were bringing along anyway. Why add those 2½ pounds to your luggage when you don't have to? Also, serious traveling Bible enthusiasts are likely to have software like Logos on their computers, and I'm thinking those people will prefer to pony up the extra cash to have it in that software instead.

The final category from the blog post is "the church leader" ...meaning that it might be used for discipleship programs, Bible study groups, that sort of thing, and that churches might buy copies in bulk. This one, I can see. The logistics of having copies available for members on e-Readers are formidable, although I suppose in more affluent congregations the members are not unlikely to own e-Readers already (or be able to use the vendors' computer-based reading applications); since the electronic editions are lendable, I could envision a situation where a church buys a bunch of digital copies and lends them out for study group use, saving themselves twenty bucks a copy over the paperback version, and with the added advantage that the books would not wear out. But out of Crossway's three scenarios, this would be the one I would consider the most likely to generate sales... if, that is, churches are even using the ESV Study Bible in small groups. It would certainly be a good resource if they are, and if they aren't, this might be a good time to take a look at it.

The main people I would envision using this are people of slim means. I speak as someone who has spent a lot of time living on a shoestring, bargain-hunting every chance I get. In the case of the ESV Study Bible, I was so excited about it that I actually preordered mine and picked it up as soon as it was available, but if I wasn't able to afford the standard editions and had just found out about the ESB, and if I didn't have an e-Reader (I happen to have a Kindle, but let's imagine I don't) I would be all about this paperback version. Outside of the e-Reader route (which is an absolute steal!) it's the cheapest way I know of to buy a new copy, and I think bargain shoppers may well go for it. Heck, this puts the ESV Study Bible among the ranks of the least expensive serious study Bibles available! I certainly don't wish the paperback ESV Study Bible ill - I hope it sells remarkably well, because the ESB is an amazing Bible. I know it's changed my life and perspective on things. But I'm not sure Crossway really knows who their ultimate audience is going to be for this one.

Happy New Year 2012!

What do you mean, I'm late? We're only like 4% of the way through the year! It's still new!

And it's that time of year again. The time of year again when blogs contain things like this and this... posts about ways to start a Bible reading plan and stick to it. I've done the same myself from time to time, and we've even got some Bible reading plans available at ScriptureMenu.com if you want to get your toes wet. It's the time of year for "resolutions," and judging from the number of weight loss/dieting/exercise/stop smoking ads I've been getting in my mailbox and seeing on TV, resolutions are still alive and well.

If you've been following this blog for a while, you will know that I'm on an on-again, off-again quest to read all the way through the Bible. In fact, I am planning to do it all in one year. That year is 2010, so I am officially starting my third year of  my one-year Bible reading plan. I faltered a little bit that year when we had some family situations that basically disrupted our lives for several months; at the end of the year I renewed my commitment to keep at it. And I did keep at it... for a while, at least! I wound up getting stuck at the end of the book of Jeremiah, not because Jeremiah was a particularly hard book, but because this summer we moved to a new town and I ran into an intense spot at work that often left me drained at the end of the day. To make things worse, the new place is a bit smaller (we'll be moving into a bigger house soon), which means it's a little bit harder to get away from the racket of having a 4-year-old and an 11-year-old in the house. Basically, it got hard, so I never officially "quit" reading, but I sort of just didn't continue reading consistently.

You know what? I can see the effect that it had on me when I was reading consistently, and I can see that it's not there now. I'm convinced: just reading the Bible consistently really does change you for the better. It's not just something that the Bible publishers say to get you to buy Bibles, and it's not just what your pastor says because it's his job; it's a reality. And listen, this blog is certainly not my job. I don't get any dollars or brownie points for saying this. It's the honest truth.

My good friend Justine blogged a few weeks ago about her failure to follow her Bible reading plan last year to the letter (or the number... make sure you check out her post if you're a math nerd like she is!) But actually, she didn't call her experience a failure, and I don't either. Time in the Word is never a failure, even if it's not as much time as you had planned. I don't really do the "resolution" thing, but now is as good a time as any to get back on the horse and ride... so last night I opened my Study Bibles back up to where I left off.

Lamentations.

I almost laughed when I realized I was picking up at maybe the least popular book in the whole Bible! I mean, even Leviticus isn't as not-popular as Lamentations. At least Leviticus is part of the Pentateuch, and everybody loves Genesis and Exodus. I wasn't afraid of Lamentations, but I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, either. I didn't have any feelings either way when I opened it up.

What I found when I read chapter one of Lamentations was a beautiful, vivid poem about how much sadness there is when God's people have ignored His instructions and leaped (not fallen) time and again into sin. I had read the story in the Historical books, and I read read the warnings in the Major Prophets, and this was the aftermath. I kept thinking about how sometimes I'll tell my kids, "You need to stop doing that or else I'm going to have to punish you," and then they keep doing it and keep doing it, and finally I know that if I don't punish them, I'm going to lose their respect as an authority figure who they need to obey. I've given them the rule, I've outlined the consequences, and I've even given them mercy a time or two, but they've proved that they have an unrepentant heart, and they've brought consequences on themselves.

That's what happened to the Israelites, and that's what I read in the first chapter of Lamentations. I stopped after one chapter; this year, because my study environment is still not particularly conducive to long periods of study, I'm not going to push myself. If I get a nice quiet block of time to read, that's wonderful, but I'm happy with as little as one chapter a day if that's all I can get. I'm going to try to be diligent to get that chapter in. One chapter a day won't take me to the end of the Bible by the end of the year, I don't think (I haven't crunched the numbers), but it will get me on track again. Some days I expect to get in more chapters anyway, so I may yet make it by the end of this year. But 2012 or not, I'll make it eventually. And I know that even a little bit of the Word most every day will make a difference.

Read it! You'll be glad you did!

Happy Epiphany 2012 - part 2

On Epiphany I blogged that I had a surprise in store for my family to bring Jesus into focus for them this holiday season (if you need to catch up, click here for that post). When I wrote that blog entry, I had a little bit of a problem to overcome: I wanted to share the post with you on the actual day of Epiphany, but I didn't want to let the cat out of the bag on what I had planned! (My wife does occasionally read my blog, you know!) So I simply mentioned that I had something in mind, but didn't say what it was. I wanted to follow up on that and let you know how it turned out!

The big surprise was simply that I had gone to the Christian bookstore and picked up a small gift for each of my family members. I wanted it to be something they would like, but I wanted it to be something that would have a spiritual significance to them, and I wanted it to be something that would last them a long time. That's a tricky proposition, especially when you're talking about a 4-year-old girl, but I'm pretty sure the Holy Spirit was guiding me, because everyone seemed to love what I gave them.

That evening, without telling them what I was going to do, I had everyone sit down on the floor near the Christmas tree, and I explained that Epiphany is the day to celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men (see my previous post for the whole scoop on that). Then I told them that I've been thinking this season about ways to make sure that we find a way to really focus on Jesus in the middle of all of the racket that's going on this time of year (see this post for more on that!) and that I had gotten each of them something special to remind them of Jesus. Then I began to bring out the gifts, one by one.

How to Study Your Bible, for Kids
By Kay Arthur, Janna Arndt

For my wife, I had bought a small, framed cross, with the words "Trust in Him" written under it; I told her that my hope for her this year is that she would learn even better to trust in God, no matter what is going on. Then I brought out my gift for my 11-year-old son: a book called How To Study Your Bible For Kids by Kay Arthur. Kay Arthur has written a number of successful books on the inductive Bible study method (it's basically what I was always taught, although I didn't know that was what it was called); the book has a storyline and activities and it will be lots of fun for him. And I knew that he truly does care about the Bible and want to know what's in there. Since the book uses the NASB and his regular reading Bible is an NLT (read about his iShine Bible here), I also bought him an inexpensive paperback NASB to use for study times, on the theory that it would be better if he has the translation on hand that the book is written for. I was surprised how excited he was to get it! He loves reading, and I think he's going to have a great time with this book.

My 4-year-old daughter was tricker; I wanted her to have something meaningful, and I didn't want it to be one of those cheap plastic Sunday school prize trinkets up by the register. I settled on something that will last her a little longer: I got her a life-sized velvet cupcake with a surprise inside. She opened the package and was so excited when she saw the cupcake, because she loves cupcakes! It's not instantly apparent that something is inside, so I took it and I said, "You can see this cupcake, right?" She said yes. "If it was a real cupcake, you could taste it, right?" She nodded. "Well, the Word of God says, 'Taste and see that the Lord is good!'" Then I opened it up and showed her the cupcake necklace inside! My wife and I hope to reinforce that Scripture for her every time she wears the necklace until the association is so strong that every time she sees it, she remembers that the Lord is GOOD!

A husband can usually tell he has done a good job when his wife winds up in tears. My wife did! And my kids were excited about their gifts too! We told our little girl that she needs Mama's help with her necklace and that it's only for church and very special occasions until she's older; she's already had the cupcake out this morning, ready to wear it to church! I told my wife that I don't intend to celebrate Epiphany exactly like this every year; I don't want it to turn into another day to anticipate getting some "stuff" and another gift-purchasing burden. But I do want to do something every single year, to remind my kids that Jesus is central to our lives. Santa is gone by December 26th; Jesus is here always!

Happy Epiphany 2012!

Happy Epiphany!

What is Epiphany, you may ask? Well, I didn't know myself until several years ago when a friend who is lay clergy at the Episcopal church downtown told me about their church's annual Epiphany service. I knew that the word "epiphany" means a sudden understanding of something, and I had heard that there was a holiday by the same name, but I didn't know what it was all about. For those of you who are from a church background which does not observe Epiphany, here's how it lays out. Remember everybody's "favorite" Christmas song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas"? The one nobody can remember all the words to? Well, it's not just a song! In many religious traditions, there actually are twelve days of Christmas, starting with December 25 and ending on January 5. The next day, January 6, is called Epiphany, and it is traditionally the celebration of the day the Kings from the East arrived to worship Jesus. Interesting that this tradition points out a fact that many Christians are not aware of: the Wise Men almost certainly did not arrive at the manger on the night of Jesus' birth. In fact, not only does the Bible say that the Wise Men arrived at a "house" to see a "child" (not a "stable" to see a "baby"), but it says that Herod, in an attempt to eliminate the new child who threatened his throne, executed male children aged two and younger "according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men." Judging from that evidence, it is possible that the Wise Men arrived as long as two years after Jesus' birth, and that Mary and Joseph had found more suitable lodging by then. The time between Christmas and Epiphany represents the time between Jesus' birth and the arrival of the visitors who had come so far to worship Him.

This Christmas season I did a great deal of thinking about how to make sure that Jesus is an actual part of the celebration, not just the statue in the middle of a scene like the one in the picture above. You can read some previous thoughts of mine here. Especially for children, there is so much emphasis on gifts that I started to wonder if there was a way that we could celebrate the festive season with gifts and trees and lights and eating and family and hustle and bustle, but also take some real time to think about the real Jesus. Then I hit on it: Epiphany! It's long enough after Christmas proper that there is some separation from the craziness, but it is close enough that there is still a connection. The manger is still fresh on our minds. Heck, they're still talking about it in my daughter's preschool class at church.

So I have something special planned for my family tonight. It's small, but hopefully it is going to be very special and personal, and hopefully it will help us all focus clearly, in ways that we comprehend at each of our own ages (which range from 4 to 41), on the amazing story that not only did Jesus Christ miraculously appear on Earth those many centuries ago, but He is present in the person of the Holy Spirit right this minute. Today.

What an epiphany that will be!

Want to find out how it turned out? Check here!