[image: Dogwood, 2014, JA Van Devender]
Matthew 13:52 (NKJV)
52 Then He said to them, “Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.”
If the only artistic avenues open to a culture is the revarnishing of old achievements, then you can be pretty certain that stagnation is present as a prelude to collapse.
I have always had a kind of sneaking suspicion that there is a reciprocal relation to artistic energy and cultural health. Broadly speaking, I think you can measure the "temperature" of a culture by the vitality and movement in the arts. There are historical precedents that it would be tedious to catalog and I don't intend to go there, but a walk through of any local art museum with a significant collection can almost present a commentary on the rise and fall of cultures.
I think back to the energy of the early American movements and the raw hopefulness that was communicated in the arts. I am not going to commend any particular artists because it would distract from the main point, but pick one or two that you like and just survey their works in comparison to the wider prospects and attitudes in their surrounding times and places. What is truly interesting to me is to survey the "periods" they represent, especially when subsequent artists basically just polish the apple of the pioneers. At first glance there is some rough correlation to the lack of creativity, the retrenching attitudes, found among the whole community.
Which brings me to the planned release of Star Wars VII coming up this December... starring... the original cast in the leading roles. C'mon guys... Hans Solo at 70? Good grief... would it not be better to come up with at least a "Next Generation" epic ala Star Trek rather than resurrecting the same old characters?
This is Hollywood making money by exploiting the nostalgia of aging boomers and their kids. We are supposed to relive the thrill of that first opening sequence, with the words receding into infinity and the brilliant score strumming our imaginations even as it fixed itself into our cultural heritage. It was ground-breaking stuff... brilliance of execution transforming a mediocre plot line into the stuff of legend. Adding to that original work, especially beyond the first three, has seemed analogous to a later artist adding some background detail and "improvements" to the Mona Lisa. It was complete as it stood... what was added to it had the net effect of detracting from it.
The same with 2001: A Space Odyssey. "Also Sprach Zarathustra" is forever branded in my mind as being associated with a bone spinning in the air registering the leap of man creatures into the age of tools... and the fade in view of the spinning Space Station with its docking shuttle waltzing to the "Blue Danube" was cinematic brilliance at its best. None of the sequels came anywhere close to that achievement nor to the perplexing and thought provoking final scene with the embryo gazing at the planet earth. We talked about that for months.
Star Wars did its thing and introduced iconic characters that resonate among us to this day. Leave it alone!
Come up with something new, for goodness' sake. Let the Force be with someone else...
When art is reduced to only a celebration of technique... when special effects are the reason to see the movie and not to enhance the story line... then the true tragedy is occuring in the culture and lives of those who are paying the admission fare. Special effects mesmerize the senses but they do not inspire the imagination. There's only so many things you can do with the Robin Hood theme until you transform it into something it was not.
Show some class Harrison, Mark and Carrie... let the memory of your work then be that which abides in your fans... don't diminish it with some token attempt to regain your youth because that will be how you are remembered.
It was good as it was... leave it alone.
"Hell?" You say?
[image: Flowering Pear, 2014, JA Van Devender]
Luke 12:4–5 (NKJV)
4 “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!
OK... what do the beautiful pear flowers have to do with Hell? Well, directly, nothing. Indirectly, they are an apparent treat for squirrels and I had to move this potted tree several times to keep the little monsters from eating every bloom. As far as I was concerned, at the time, it would have been only just for each one of those little critters to be fried. If I didn't live in the suburbs I and my trusty shotgun might have translated that wish into reality.
But the real reason why I'm musing on "Hell" today is because of this article [HERE], again brought to my attention by my FB friend Al.
One essential premise of the article is that the traditional Christian doctrine of Hell is a tough sell to modern ears and particularly the younger generations. This truth is well known by Biblical preachers who face the tension between the world view of the Scriptures and the world view of the common culture at every point of intersection. And, quite frankly, the general concerns or reservations about the doctrine as expressed by this author, are ones with which I have some sympathy.
I can remember when I was preparing for ministry and undergoing trials of examination, being asked about my views on what we call the "intermediate state," that condition of the soul after physical death and prior to the resurrection of the body. I said that "if it weren't for the plain teaching of scripture, I would believe that the soul ceases to exist between death and the resurrection, but such is not the case. The scriptures plainly teach that "this day you will be with me in paradise" and there can not be any other way of taking our Lord's words than that the thief would be with Jesus that very day in paradise." Therefore, even though it is a tough doctrine, yet it is what the Scriptures teach. The same can be said about "Hell."
Which brings us to the concerns raised in this article.
The author believes, somewhat in common with the late C. S. Lewis, that "sin" and the condition of "sin" is in fact Hell. Grounding his argument in the Platonic/Socratic views that sin essentially is a willful self-denial of the good, that sinful actions separate us from the experience of the good and therefore bring unhappiness instead of happiness, he advances the idea that total sinfulness means that we deprive ourselves of all experience of the good and thus Hell is not really punishment but the cumulative effect of bad choices. We are miserable beyond belief but, in fact, we have just been given over to our sin and that is the experience of Hell.
There is some truth in this and we Christians must remember that Hell is metaphorically cast for us in terms of a variety of images. It is both pictured as a lake of fire and also as an "outer darkness". What is consistent about the scriptural presentation however is that it is ALWAYS presented in terms of judicial punishment. And it is this point that the author is at pains to deny or to find some alternative explanation.
What Christians must remember is that sending someone to Hell is a very Personal thing to God Himself. It is presented in terms of judgment and sentencing. It is cast in terms of justice, that it is the "reward" or "wages" of sin.
The view this author is promoting is most clearly distilled in his statement, "To say that an immoral person deserves to suffer for his sins is like insisting that a man with cancer deserves to have his legs broken. It's a prescription of additional suffering for someone who's already suffering." This is the "medical model" of ethics raising its perenial hissing head. "Sin" is a disease.. like cancer..... it causes the sinner to suffer... the sinner actually wishes that he did not suffer and therefore, given the chance and the right medicine, he would gladly choose it so that he may have relief... obviously this medicine has not been offered or taken and therefore the sinner does not deserve punishment... he deserves mercy. It would be unjust to have his legs broken.
This view of sin effectively undermines and completely subverts the gospel of Jesus Christ. If sin does not deserve punishment then Christ died for something other than the sin of His people. If sin does not deserve punishment then Jesus' death is just one more instance of where a good man was killed by sinners who were themselves victims... they were suffering more than he was. If sin does not deserve punishment, then God really should do something about the suffering that people bring on themselves and if He is a loving God He would cure everyone who is suffering and therefore everyone stops suffering after death because God would heal them of their sin.
At every point the repudiation of penal justice at the hands of a righteous God who has a case against sinners and whose punishment is justly eternal, turns Christianity into just one more rationalization of human merit. According to this view, no one deserves to be "punished" for eternity because human beings, by their very humanity, should be eternally loved and blessed by God.
If this author had preserved the penal sanctions in his development of the nature of sin and its death dealing aspects, then we might have had common ground on which to build complementary views. But deny God's justice and the necessity of punishment as an integral aspect of that justice and the gospel is lost.
Jesus is the Son of God or He is not. There is no middle ground in that proposition. What Jesus teaches is, in fact, the truth about God and mankind or it is not. The second question hinges on the first for the degree of authority we assign to Jesus' teaching. Jesus taught that we are to fear Him who, after having killed (note that), has the power to cast into Hell. Jesus, the Son of God, leaves the 'casting into Hell' in terms of a judicial decision to be exercised at God's discretion. He chooses to have mercy on whom He has mercy and to withhold mercy from those who justly deserve His wrath. He is God. We are not. We do not stand in judgment of Him, but He of us. It is up to us to conform to His thoughts in this matter and not otherwise.
Failing to do so is being subject to the possibility that Hell is something we will know much more about than we would desire.
Posted by Gadfly on April 29, 2014 at 09:47 AM in Christian Apologetics, Church, Commentary, Culture, Movies, etc., Discipleship, Education, Ethics | Permalink | Comments (0)
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