The Chronicles of Non-ia

It's not that Lucy is annoying, or that Liam Neeson should stay out of movies forever, or that CGI in large amounts is dumb. Those things are true, but that's not why The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was such a disaster.

The problem was the worldview. Which is odd, considering Lewis' 7-volume series is touted nearly universally as a fine example of Christian literature. I have my own thoughts on the quality of those books, and there are elements in them that make me profoundly uncomfortable, but I would agree that they support a thoroughly Christian theology (for the most part).

None of the recent films from Walden Media based on them support anything but a humanistic postmodernism that undercuts not only Lewis' intent, but the stories themselves.

In the book version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Aslan defeats the White Witch's Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time with Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time. The implication is clear: Aslan, as Christ-figure, is raised triumphantly from Death just as Jesus was raised to Life by the hand of the Father. The Deeper Magic is stronger than the merely Deep Magic, which symbolizes Original Sin and human rebellion.

In the recent movie "adaptation," however, Aslan defeats the White Witch's Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time with....Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time. This choice on the filmmakers' part doesn't even make sense contextually, but the ramifications are truly awful. Aslan simply draws on his own power to defeat "evil," which is made of the same stuff that produces good. This distinction without a difference isn't even Manichean, it's simple relativism, stupid sappy Pelagianism wrapped up with digital effects and cute child actors.

There are many more examples I could provide from these films to show how bad they are, and how little fans of Lewis' books should care for them, but this one is pretty summary. The films weren't even very entertaining, and while they might have been higher-budget than the four BBC TV movies from the late '80s, at least the originals were faithful to Lewis' original stories.

Here's the baffling thing, though: C.S. Lewis fans are pretty diehard, and they love pointing out the symbolism in his novels. Why do so many of them love these films? Can't they see that Walden Media and whoever else has stripped all the meaning from these tales? I only hope these don't end up replacing the books for the next generation.

Please leave our literature alone, Hollywood.

Dear Hollywood,

You've never been my favorite person. You wear too much makeup, you talk too much about irrelevant or profane things, you glorify sin, and as often as not your output is inane, maudlin, and just plain boring.

There have been some good moments. Most of the movies I like to watch don't belong to you, but you were responsible for some of my favorites: Beau Geste, Sgt. York, El Cid, Lonely Are the Brave. Things were different back then, though. The pall of censorship (the bad kind, not the good kind that sorts out the awful stuff) and humanism were there from the beginning, but in the old days filmmakers still had some latitude to say what they wanted and make the films they chose.

Not anymore. All your movies are the same, Hollywood, and they're all bad. Kids' cartoons are often the worst with their uniform "do what you want because that's the only path to happiness" propaganda, but maybe that's just because they're the most blatant. It's also kind of sad how your adult movies are more juvenile and your kids' films are more "mature," but that's the least of your worries.

If that's what you want to do, Hollywood, so be it. If you're comfortable producing complete rubbish and bilking millions of unthinking audience members out of billions of dollars, at least I can take refuge in the fact that I don't have to watch your garbage.

But keep your hands off good books.

Particularly Christian books. If you want to ruin The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Watchmen, I won't like it but I won't really care. But when you turn The Lord of the Rings into a humanist manifesto, The Chronicles of Narnia into postmodern gruel, and King Arthur into heresy-peddling pulp trash, you've gone too far.

I don't even like The Chronicles of Narnia that much; there are far better books. They are Christian, however, and what you did to them is unforgivable, Hollywood. If you'll bear with me, you modern Babylon, I'll tell you exactly why I'm so aghast at your "adaptations." And it's not just because they're poorly made.

Sincerely,

C. Hollis Crossman

Loose Canons IV: By What Standard?

This is the last post in this series.

What I've been arguing is the unity of the Church for the preservation of doctrinal purity, orthopraxy (right practice), and overall accountability. But under what standard can all Christians be brought together? (And just for the record, I am NOT a theonomist, I just borrowed Rushdoony's title because it seemed to fit.)

The easy answer is that all Chrsitians are united by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No believer could argue that. Despite our denominational and sectional differences, every child of God is united in a single Body that is held together by Christ's blood and the Holy Spirit's power. This is true despite our human efforts to breed dissension among ourselves, to find issues and doctrines to rally around that mark us off from "the others." These are sins for which each of us must repent, but they don't change the fundamental unity of Christ's Body.

And yet. Clearly, there is division in the ranks. Some of it is certainly caused by non-believers within the Church, but plenty of it (too much) is caused by Christians who lose sight of the single greatest motivating force among God's people: His glory. We exist to glorify God, and secondarily to enjoy Him; we do not exist to be saved. Our salvation is sure, but its fundamental purpose is to bring Him glory, and only after that to bring us joy. Even our joy glorifies Him; Yahweh is the center of the universe, and man exists for His purposes and good pleasure.

Why do Christians so easily mistake themselves for the center of the universe? how does our gaze become redirected from the God of Glory to our earthbound selves?

This is where division comes from: when we stop being consumed with God, with the true Gospel of Christ's redemption, with the love of the Holy Spirit, we will surely turn our attention to ourselves, and as individuals we will break into factions. Only God is unified, and only God is capable of effecting unification; humans are only capable of discord and strife. Once we lose sight of God, we fall apart, we become petty and find ourselves more worthy heirs of "truth" than our brothers and sisters.

As fallen human beings, we are not able to give God our complete undivided attention at all times. We still sin, we still act selfishly, we still look askance even at our fellow believers. Which is exactly why unification is so important: we need the whole Body of Christ working together to keep ourselves on the narrow path, because no individual, no single congregation, not even a single denomination is capable of the constant shepherding necessary for perseverance and faithfulness.

Which brings us again to the question: what standard do we look to for unification? The Gospel, of course, but the Gospel from whose perspective? which codification? Again, the answer is fairly simple: the Gospel as revealed by Christ to His Church. This is where doctrinal consistency is so important. If you're teaching something that Christians at every period have not, chances are you'd better reevaluate. A lot of modern Christians balk at words like "creed," "tradition," and "confession" (for reasons of which I'm largely unaware), but without those we're forced to reinvent Christianity with each new generation.

Creeds and confessions simply cement the Church's orthodox doctrines for the benefit of successive manifestations of the Body. If you can't agree with every point in the three Ecumenical Creeds (Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian), chances are you're not a Christian; not that right doctrine alone makes you a Christian, but it is a necessary element in the equation. The doctrines presented in the Creeds are our core beliefs as children of God, and the primary basis for unification among even the most disparate denominations and groups.

Let me clarify that last statement: Everything in the Creeds is supported by Scripture; Scripture is the divine revelation of the Word of God; the Word is Christ, and He is our only grounds for unification of any kind. If the Church is going to be unified, it must be in Christ, and it must be in the truth of the Gospel as revealed in His person and work. Humanity may be distracting, but we'd all find ourselves less distracted and more effective if we simply abandoned ourselves to the contemplation of the One who saves rather than those He is saving.

Loose Canons III: No Congregation is an Island

One of the often overlooked themes in Daniel Defoe's brilliant Robinson Crusoe is that of Christian salvation. Crusoe, alone with his thoughts, finds God; but it's only when he converts Friday that he realizes how empty his life was without Christian fellowship. The island at that point becomes a metaphor for man's spiritual state apart from the Church, a metaphor the Presbyterian Defoe no doubt intended.

If it's true that individuals die a slow spiritual death cut off from the Body of Christ, isn't the same true of local assemblies? Christ calls us into His fold individually, but He emphatically does not call us to figure everything out on our own, to cut ourselves off from the lifeblood of Christian communion, to be the sole stewards of our own spiritual health. The Church is for the building up of the saints, for their nurture and growth, for their accountability (and for evangelism; more on that later).

Denominations exist to provide the same kind of care and accountability for congregations that those congregations provide for their individual members. Accountability is never a unilateral affair; humans are universally fallen, and we need accountability above, below and to either side. A denomination holds leaders and assemblies responsible in a way isolated congregations cannot be held accountable.

For example: within my own Orthodox Presbyterian tradition, the doctrines and practices of each congregation are held under constant review. When either of those are deficient or beyond the scope of orthodoxy or tradition, the pastor and elders of the concerned congregation are questioned and held responsible for their decisions. Humans are liable to fail; it's not that leaders are held under constant suspicion, just that there needs to be some way to keep them accountable when they stray from the standard to which their denomination is supposed to hold them.

When assemblies throw off the authority of denominational headship, their leaders become autonomous heads with no effectual accountability. There may be accountability among the elders themselves, but beyond that no one can approve or reject whatever decisions they make, whether good or bad. Even if the congregation is assumed to provide a form of accountability, the leadership too often makes decisions without consulting the congregation, or irrespective of their desires and opinions.

The Western emphasis on individualism suggests each human being has a destiny to fulfill on their own. That ideal has crept into the Church, but it's far from God's ideal. Christ's people are meant to work together in His name, partly because there's strength in numbers, partly because human beings can't be trusted to hold themselves to the standard Christ calls us to.

It's not just the Church itself that benefits from denominational accountability; it's the unbelievers we're called to evangelize. Without denominational headship, congregational leaders will find it all too easy to dilute, mispresent, or oversimplify the Gospel. This isn't due to any malicious intent or purposeful lack of faithfulness, but simply due to our human propensity for error. Essential elements of the Good News are too easily left out, especially the difficult-to-accept parts like the need for repentance, the importance of holy living (perseverance of the saints), and the utter helplessness of humans to save themselves because of their utter wickedness.

A central doctrine of Christianity is that it is Christ who keeps His people in the faith. However, as the Westminster Confession so aptly puts it, the Lord uses secondary as well as primary means to accomplish His ends, and He intended the Church to be a joint effort, not a mere collection of dissociated individuals. Of course, one's soteriology will largely determine one's ecclesiology, but that's another post altogether. For this one, let if suffice to say God's people are meant to be held accountable at the congregational and denominational levels, for the preservation of orthodoxy and orthopraxy, and the benefit of both believers and unbelievers.

Loose Canons II: Authority vs. Authoritarianism

Libertarianism (and its more radical corollary, anarchy) is predicated on the idea that men are capable of governing themselves; Christianity, on the idea that they are not. God revealed His Law to humans with the intent that it would be obeyed, and it was specific on all counts because none of us are capable of knowing good except through divine decree.

Our propensity for lawlessness isn't absent within the Church. Doctrinal heresies like antinomianism are just one form it takes; probably the most prevalent is the readiness with which division is embraced. All division is ultimately a result of sin, whether of practice or belief, and therefore all division is in some way associated with lawlessness. It happens at all levels, within sects, denominations, and local assemblies—even the cliques that form among portions of individual church bodies are the result of lawless division, a lack of unifying love between Christians.

Every Christian is guilty of this. I am ashamed to think of the times I've participated in divisive talk or behavior. It doesn't help the Church of Christ in any way, it only keeps the Body from its ultimate goals and makes it harder for us to grow spiritually. If this is true on an individual level, how much more so on a denominational level?

Schism, however, is often accompanied by a yet more dangerous sickness: authoritarianism. Authority is required for the Church and individual churches to function properly. Pastors and elders are intended to care for congregations and larger groups, to hold one another accountable, and to guide their charges in holiness and doctrinal advancement. Since we can't govern ourselves, men are selected to govern the Body of Christ in God's name and with God's authority.

But they only do so with this caveat: That they are held accountable both above and below, by other elders and by the congregations which they serve. Without the accountability of the people they serve, elders are likely to fall into sin; without the accountability of other elders outside their congregations, they're likely to become authoritarian.

Authority is a delicate responsibility; authoritarianism is the reverse, in which the leader sees the delicate people beneath him as having a responsibility to him. True leadership in the Church is predicated on unswerving dedication to the Gospel, and to genuine servanthood. There is no "greater" or "lesser" among God's people; there are degrees of maturity, but no one has a right to rule his brothers and sisters, only the duty to obey Christ in all things. If an elder is chosen from among his peers, it's not because he deserves to lead, it's because through his character he's been deemed a worthy leader.

Leadership is never something a Christian should seek, at least not in a governmental sense (and here I mean specifically a Church governmental sense). It should be accepted in humility, and only with a sense of service to God and other Christians. In some sense, it should only be accepted reluctantly.

Forming a new denomination when things aren't going a certain way isn't a sign of servant-based authority, it's a sign of authoritarianism, even if only in its infant stage. A leader who decides to splinter from another group may not consciously desire to lead at all, but the kind of thinking that leads to division too often leads to control. If it's true that mankind is incapable of self-government, that the "masses" will always stray unless held back, isn't it equally true that the leaders of those people will find it hard to hold themselves back once they find themselves without constraint of their own?

Christians are all slaves to Christ, and His is the ultimate authoritarian rule. But that role belongs to Him alone, and any action that facilitates an assumption of too much power with too little accountability on the part of a leader of Christ's people is at the very least ill-advised, and at most a danger to the reputation and function of the Church universal.

The Problem with Loose Canons, Part I

This post is largely inspired by Adam's comment on yesterday's.

One of the salient features of North American Christianity is the diversity of its denominations. (I'll save the question of non-denominational congregations for later.) Citizens of the United States have always been notoriously nonconformist. If we don't like the way one group is doing something, we start our own and do whatever it is our own way. Unfortunately, the Church has adopted that same attitude.

I'm not against denominations. Not at all, in fact—they provide necessary parameters both for doctrine and practice, and can even facilitate reconciliation between groups. What I am against is the ease with which denominations are formed.

There are almost always better options than starting from scratch. Let's say you're the pastor of a church, and your denominational heads have become increasingly liberal; you could start your own version of the parent group, a "purer" or "more traditional" version....or you could investigate other denominations and lead your congregation into the one that offers the best fit. (With the plethora out there, a similar organization has to exist.)

Or you're a parishioner, and your church body is going off the deep end. You don't just go do your own thing, you find another church already doing something similar to what you believe. That's one of the central doctrines of ecclesiology, in fact; the Church is a body, and congregations cut off from the rest are likely to die, if not through disbandment, then through spiritual decay, the acceptance of false doctrine, or unaddressed sin problems. The same applies to individuals—separated from the larger assembly, growth and faithfulness become impossible.

I'm not suggesting a return to Catholicism. The current trend toward Medieval Christianity is a significant step backward, and the Papacy is a defunct doctrine on many levels, not least because no single human man is competent to shepherd the entire body of believers. But the idea of authority is important to the health of the Church universal as well as local assemblies, and the maverick attitude adopted by many church leaders these days is a significant break with the doctrines of Luther and Calvin.

Simply starting a new denomination because you don't like the old one is no way to resolve issues. I wonder sometimes how far away from orthodoxy some groups would have strayed if their faithful constituents had fought for truth and not left at the first sign of trouble. I understand and respect the reasons many have for leaving assemblies rather than working toward reform, but if everyone keeps leaving groups and forming new ones, the Church universal will eventually become anemic, and bleed out slowly from a thousand different wounds.

Except that Christ is in control, of course, and that will never happen. That assurance doesn't mean, however, that the Church can't go through periods of sickness and danger. It simply means that, given the very real external and internal threats which dog Christ's people, our aim should be increased rather than less unity. Sectarianism, division and splintering won't contribute to that end; the Church must learn to heal its wounds collectively rather than continually making new ones in the strange and empty hope that they will make it stronger and more pure.

Nebulous Nonsense

If it was anyone else I'd politely refrain from mentioning names, but since Douglas Wilson has no qualms about pointing fingers I'll be direct. On the site Goodreads (where members tell other members what books they've read, review them, and discuss them), Mr. Wilson has written 1,452 reviews. A lot of them are short, many of them very short, like his review of N.T. Wright's Millennium Myth: "Really good." Some are half that length.

Those aren't the ones that bother me. While they aren't very helpful for someone who doesn't know anything about the titles they purport to review, at least they indicate Wilson's opinion of them. The ones that bother me are quite different.

For instance: concerning a book titled If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit he writes, "Good or atrocious, depending." Or this one for William Beveridge's A Short History of the Westminster Assembly: "Good. Poor."

For a man who took it upon himself to defend Christian truth and meaning against atheist bulldog Christopher Hitchens, these reviews seem like rank hypocrisy. "Good. Poor." sounds like a review for two different books. Which, given the number of reviews he's bestowed on Goodreads members, may be the case. Maybe he simply forgot to save and continue before passing judgment on the next tome in his queue. Or maybe he hasn't read any of these books at all, and simply can't help telling people what to read and what to leave on the shelf.

Except, if that last possibility is the case, wouldn't he want to be less vague?

Whatever the case may be, nebulous reviews that tell readers nothing—that in fact obscure meaning and truth—are unacceptable, especially from a self-appointed defender of the faith.

Here's one for Nietzsche's The Anti-Christ: "Green vomit." Thank you for that, Mr. Wilson. I have no love for Nietzsche, but if that's all you can come up with I think it's best you leave your comments to yourself. Of course, when you get to the point you think everything you say is gold, it's probably tough to sort the worthless from the worthwhile.

Again, none of this would bother me if Wilson was just some schmoe who had no life apart from the Internet. But he's not: he's published numerous books on mostly Christian topics, he pastors a large church in Moscow, Idaho, leads a growing denomination of Christian churches, interacts publicly with non-Christians like Hitchens and Christians like Mark Driscoll, and generally makes himself as well-known as possible. It would be nice if he could stop talking long enough to realize he doesn't have all the answers, and that a lot of what he says is just plain incomprehensible.

St. George and the Dragons

"Read This Book" wasn't a very good title for a blog like this. I never intended to limit myself to books, and will probably end up writing less about them than more. My goal (as stated before) is to engage culture from a thoroughly Christian perspective.

In the old legend, St. George slays a dragon, thus freeing England and winning the hand of a beautiful princess. It's the kind of story G.K. Chesterton loved, the kind he felt best described the nature of Christianity—with sin and the devil as the dragon, the Church as the princess, and Christ Himself as the knight in armor defeating evil and taking us to His heavenly palace.

As Gilbert Keith would have said, it's the story of a hero among dragons. Not, by contrast, the story of a dragon among dragons, which makes no sense but which is such a common theme today. I'm no hero, but I am at war with the dragons, and I'm on the Hero's side. In that sense I'm St. George, and the dragons are the scions of evil cropping up in their various guises pretty much everywhere we turn.

So "St. George and the Dragons" seems a much more appropriate title for this blog. It's a tip of the hat to the best fairy tale of all time and the greatest Christian writer of modern times, and good guys vs. dragons is never boring. I'll do my best to make sure this blog isn't, either.

The Post-Apocalypse of St. Nihil

I'm as guilty as the next guy—sometimes the lure is too powerful, and I find myself imagining the buildings around me broken down and covered in vines, the little remaining technology resembling a steampunk fantasy, people roving in groups for protection and all heavily armed. It's the post-apocalypse, and it's appeal has long since broadened from the daydream of a few geeks to a firm position within the broader context of pop culture.

Some pretty entertaining video games and movies have been made about a devastated Earth. When societal constraints crumble, the result is chaos; the chaos in movies like Doomsday, Six-String Samurai, and the Mad Max franchise just happens to be really cool. Anything can happen, from rockers carrying katanas to biker punks fighting knights in armor to vigilante justice in the Australian Outback. Which is what people love about the Post-Apocalypse.

If civilization dies, so do rules. Every man is free to do what is right in his own eyes; and will, as the book of Judges clearly demonstrates, probably the closest thing to a post-apocalyptic novel the Bible contains. No one can tell you not to wear black leather, drive a gnarly hog, or carry an arsenal wherever you go once government ceases. Many people assume they'd be a lone good guy against the hordes of evil, but when everyone is fighting for the little food and comfort that remains, it's a blurry distinction between right and wrong. Which is what is so appealing about a world after destruction.

The post-apocalypse is about as postmodern as you can get. Nihilism prevails; when no standard exists, there can be no values or judgment. Everyone is a maverick, and every maverick creates his own moral code, and that means truth and meaning are dead.

Worse, the post-apocalypse is anti-Christian. When the world ends, it won't be cause for despair, at least not for the children of God. Christ returns in glory and all creation acknowledges His lordship; Earth is remade, and God's people rest in His glory as resurrected people. The proverbial End of the World doesn't result in a worse situation than what we have now, it heralds a true beginning, a brighter and more limitless future than humans can comprehend or imagine.

As fallen people, we all want autonomy. The post-apocalypse, aside from any other trappings, offers just that, but it's a false hope. In the end, the remaining humans would simply continue to perpetrate the evil they practice now, and there would be no change. God's Word teaches a fundamental change, that the end of the world as we know it is nothing to fear for those who trust the Lord, but rather something to look forward to and hope for.

One of the best interpretations of what the post-apocalypse would probably look like is Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's hard to say whether his view is Christian or not, but he doesn't have any misunderstanding about how human beings would react to complete freedom. He also realizes the hope of mankind then and now is goodness, not autonomy. Our hope as Christians is in the ultimate goodness, Jesus Christ. Only He can save us from certain destruction, and only He will carry us safely through this present age into the glorious Age to Come.

Joined at the hip.

Last night I described hipsters to my parents. We live in a small town, and my parents don't get out much, but eventually they got the picture. I told them about the tight jeans and striped shirts, the moustaches that somehow detract from the wearers' masculinity rather than supplementing it, the reliance on mom and dad for money, the artsy nonsense that passes for deep or meaningful, all the stereotypes and signs of a true hipster.

Two things struck me.

Thing One: It wasn't just hipsters I had to describe; my parents needed the whole backstory. What is indie music? they wanted to know, so I told them. I told them how shopping at Goodwill is a mark of coolness, not a reflection of good money management skills. Or the way hipsters swill PBR in cans because a lower-class ethos is supposed to be way more cool than their parents' gentrified suburban attitudes, despite the fact that upper-middle-class or wealthy mom and dad foot the bill for everything, including the Goodwill hoodies and the cheap PBR.

The most ironic element of my parents' lack of knowledge about hipsters is that we live in Oregon, one of the hipster-est states in the Union. Granted, ours is a farming and logging community where plenty of people still fly Confederate flags from their jacked-up pickup trucks, but an Oregonian who can't define "hipster" is like an Eskimo who has no concept of snow. My folks' ignorance kind of made me happy, though.

Thing Two: Our culture isn't as homogeneous as many claim. Which is really the more important of the two observations. It's taken for granted by many that every movement within American society is known by all, that media disseminates the same information to everybody and levels the field, creating a monolithic society of similar people. That's probably true to some extent, but guess what? if you conscientiously reject the media most Americans think they can't live without, you'll escape the faceless sameness to which they all seem doomed.

I'm not making an argument for rugged individualism here. I'm just saying that Christians are called to look, act and think differently than other people, and that not immersing oneself in the broader popular culture is a significant step toward that goal. Knowing about hipsters certainly doesn't make you sinful, but it might be easier to avoid certain worldly attitudes if you don't.

Not knowing about them probably isn't the key; it's not caring. If a bunch of young people with poor hygiene and too much of mom and dad's money want to strut around self-importantly and be elitist, let 'em. If they aren't Christians, they need to hear the Gospel; if they are, they need to be told that identity or image isn't their primary concern, the Word of God and the Gospel of Christ are the only important things.

I'm glad my parents aren't hip to the ways of the hipster. I'm also glad they devoted themselves to teaching me what's important and what's not. I hope it's a lesson they never stop teaching, and that I never stop learning. I also hope I never see my dad in skinny jeans.

Dragons Among Men

One of my favorite Chesterton quotes involves dragons: "You can make a story out of a hero among dragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons. The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of to-day discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world." In the past, this nonsense was perpetrated metaphorically; nowadays, particularly with movies like Shrek and Tangled, it's done blatantly.

Shrek and Tangled are essentially fairy tales, but they reverse everything we know about monsters, princesses, and "once upon a time." In Shrek, the hero is the ogre; in Tangled, the princess saves the prince. It's deconstruction of the worst kind, because on the one hand we're led to believe it's done with no sense of purpose, while on the other the purpose is very clear: these new stories tell us that nothing we know or believe is as it seems.

I expected to hate DreamWorks' How To Train Your Dragon. I figured it would be more of the same, a fairy tale turned on its head, a story about how dragons are the good guys and men are just a bunch of brutes who like picking on animals. What I got was something completely different.

Yes, it turns out dragons aren't exactly what everyone thinks they are. And yes, the main character (Hiccup by name) is kind of scrawny and not good at the normal Viking pursuits his father (Stoic, the village chieftain) and the rest of the village hold in such high esteem. But Hiccup is the hero, and he becomes so through equal parts ingenuity, bravery and sheer nerve. He also becomes the greatest dragon slayer who ever lived.

The filmmakers redeemed fairy tales in two ways. First, they didn't get rid of a big bad dragon who wants to kill and eat everything and must himself be killed. There's a ferocious battle near the end, and Hiccup ends up victorious. Second, while it seemed like they might make tough-girl Astrid the hero in the end, they didn't; it is Hiccup who saves her, and wins her heart through unaided heroism and pluck. So what if he rides a dragon around and smaller dragons are more like dogs than reptiles? It's just a clever touch to an old story.

Also, unlike so many animated films, the animation was actually good, and the humor was actually humorous. Hilarious, in fact, and there was no reversion to the usual crass jokes and stupid slapstick that so many studios (DreamWorks in particular, ironically) rely on. It was largely visual, largely intelligent, and largely not "adult" in the sense that phrase is usually meant in our cynical era.

I'm not usually a fan of animated movies, but I loved this one. I'll buy it, watch it again, watch it with my kids. Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson in the same cast was pretty awesome. I'd say something negative if I could think of anything, but I can't. Well, one thing: I consider this a fluke, and don't expect more of the same from DreamWorks. Still, one major success is worth a good word, and I offer mine here without reservation.

N.T. Wrong Part II

I think some clarification of yesterday's post is in order.

A covenantal view of God's people entails continuity between the nation of Israel and the Church, which is Christ's body. I embrace that view wholeheartedly, both as a student of Scripture and a Reformed Presbyterian. Dispensationalism is nonsense; there is no dividing line between Old and New Testament believers, we are all saved by the blood of Christ and faith in God's promises. In that sense, there isn't much discernible difference between Jewish and Christian doctrine, as far as both are presented in Scripture.

As far as both are presented in Scripture being the critical clause. The doctrine of first century Jews was not demonstrably orthodox; while proponents of the New Perspective often argue otherwise, they also interpret "orthodox" differently than most Reformed Christians. More importantly, they flip the order for determining what's orthodox and what isn't. In other words, the views of first century Jewish theologians are used as the rubric for reading Paul's theology, and what Paul is saying is determined from the context of his Jewish contemporaries.

The traditional approach is to use Scripture as the guide for orthodox doctrine. Inasmuch as N.T. Wright has abandoned that approach, he's in error. I'm not saying the attitudes and ideas of first century Jews can't shed some light on our interpretation of Scripture, but I am saying that Paul's project was to develop Christian doctrine from the Old Testament scriptures, not the Jewish systems he would have been familiar with.

As for Wright's article, I think he makes a fatal mistake I didn't mention in the previous post. He assumes that because certain ideas didn't exist in complete form previous to Paul's writing, that Paul would or could not have developed them himself. He says (as if this proved anything) that Jewish thinkers had no real concept of the individual immortal soul, and extrapolates from that to say Paul would have had no similar idea, either.

Does Wright reject the doctrine of the Trinity, too? That word didn't show up till around AD 120, but it's now accepted as central to our doctrine of God Himself, and indeed to our whole system of orthodox Christian theology. What kind of argument is that? It seems beneath as able a thinker as Bishop Tom has showed himself to be elsewhere. Maybe he was tired when he wrote his article. Maybe (as he hints at one point) the whole thing is just a thought experiment.

Whatever else it may be, the essay is wrong. Not only from a doctrinal perspective, but from a logical and philosophical standpoint. A friend recently warned me not to harbor pet doctrines; maybe Wright's particular understanding of bodily resurrection has become his pet doctrine, and he uses it to interpret every other doctrine, idea and passage of the Bible. At any rate, the solution to noumenal/spiritual disjunctions and modern Gnosticism isn't to swing into the overly-physical reverse Gnosticism that most people mistake for agnosticism. And the solution to Dispensational anti-theology isn't to embrace everything grouped beneath the heading "Jewish" without reference to biblical and doctrinal precedent.