I say that because someone I know erroneously mentioned that "The Golden Compass" was written by the 'same guy' who wrote "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".
C.S. Lewis wrote the entire Narnia series.
Philip Pullman, who wrote the book upon which the "The Golden Compass" is based, was no fan of C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia".
According to Focus on the Family:
Pullman represents the polar opposite of Lewis. Pullman has repeatedly—and with apparent glee—lashed out at both Lewis and the faith he represents. "I hate the Narnia books, and I hate them with a deep and bitter passion," he told one interviewer, "with their view of childhood as a golden age from which sexuality and adulthood are a falling-away."
You can read that entire article here.
Here is brief synposis of the "The Golden Compass" from Wikipedia:
The Golden Compass is a fantasy film based upon Northern Lights (titled The Golden Compass in the US), the first novel in Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials.The story concerns Lyra, an orphan living in a fantastical parallel universe in which a dogmatic dictatorship, the Magisterium, threatens to dominate. When Lyra's friend is kidnapped, she travels to the far North in an attempt to rescue him.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Compass_(film)
So, should you take the young-uns (or yourself) to see this movie?
Focus on the Family had this to say in their review of "The Golden Compass":
This epic journey to a world in which a theocratic agency [the Magisterium]kidnaps and tortures children is grim and joyless. The violence may be generally bloodless, but the tale's tone is anything but inviting. No matter what the ads may say, it fundamentally lacks the wonder and the splendor of C.S. Lewis' and J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy creations—not to mention their grasp of spiritual truth.
Read Focus on the Family's complete review of "The Golden Compass".
Christianity Today offers this insight:
And so we come to the film's treatment of religion. Serafina [the witch who serves as the films narrator] says the coming war—which, in the second and third books, is revealed to be a war against the Judeo-Christian God—will bring an end to "destiny" and establish a new era of "free will." What that means exactly is not spelled out, not in this movie, but we can get a sense of it from the fact that nearly all of this film's villains work for the church-like Magisterium, which spends much of its time "telling people what to do."
Read Christianity Today's complete review of "The Golden Compass".
Movieguide (Dr. Ted Baehr's organization) wrote:
THE GOLDEN COMPASS is not a great story like THE LORD OF THE RINGS or THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, after which it is purposely patterned. Many of the themes of atheist Philip Pullman’s book are merely reactionary devices to the CHRONICLES OF NARNIA that try to express his hate for parents in general, his hate for Christianity and its leaders and people, and his hate for authority. The book is also designed to motivate the reader through fear and self-gratification.
Read his full review here.
Some other troubling concepts arise in this film.
From Focus on the Family:
Every human being in Lyra's [the films protangonist] world has a dæmon, an external animal representation of their souls. Dæmons shift form while a child is growing up, settling on one particular animal in adolescence. Even though dæmons are a part of each person, they have a functionally independent identity and personality, appearing to be something along the lines of what our world refers to as familiar spirits.
Dr. Ted Baehr adds this:
...in the interest of self-satisfaction, it motivates children to seek to be joined with occult, demonic powers and principalities to get their own way. The official website has an area where children can meet their own daemon. It says: “To discover your very own Daemon, look into your heart, and answer the following twenty questions openly and honestly. Your true character and the form of your Daemon will be reveled…”
Not cool.
On the secular front, most reviews have been less than stellar. So far the film has only garnered a 44% positve rating from Rottentomatoes.
The attacks on Christianity from Pullman in his writings are hard core, but we serve a very big and very real God.
This is but one sign that the fires of adversity are being stoked against the American church.
But we are about to enter our finest hour.
This adversity will only help to burn the idolatry, laziness, nihilism and complaceny that has has gripped us through false prosperity (materialism and greed).
So if men like Pullman want to turn up the heat...BRING IT!
Stuff doesn't make us happy. Jesus does!"Be careful to guard yourselves from every kind of greed.
Life is not about having a lot of material possessions."
Stuff breaks or ends up in garage sales. Jesus never does!
My relationship with Christ is eternal and valuable beyond the big screen trinkets of life.
I was shocked to see that people were camped out in front of Best Buy since the day before Thanksgiving this year.
But am I against stuff? How can I be, since I myself have my fair share.
Am I against Black Friday? Not really, I know retailers have profits to make and employees to pay.
What I stand against is the never ending hunt for bigger and better stuff in an attempt to fill the empty void in our lives.
Stuff can't do that. Only Jesus Christ can.
There will always be bigger TV's, faster computers and cooler I-Pods.
Jesus is the only constant that never changes.
Jesus is the only one who can truly add value and purpose to our lives.
Only Jesus can fill the aching void deep within.
With Jesus, everything changes.
Historically, Jesus was crucified and died on a Friday. That was the day he purchased us from the mastery of sin.
That was his Black Friday.
He went shopping that day on the cross of Calvary.
What he bought was you. The currency he used was his own life.
If you don't know him, today is good day to invite him into your life.
A simple prayer is all it takes:
"Jesus I need you, give me a new life, a new start.A pastor I know had quite an experience recently at one of his Sunday morning services.
I will recall it as best I know how:
Apparently, at the tail end of the worship service, his worship leader shared with the congregation what he felt the Lord was saying to his heart.
"It's time! " he said as he played his guitar, "The Lord says the time is now!"
After this, the pastors wife got up and told everyone how she was feeling a sense of urgency from the Lord.
"Don't let this moment pass... " she stressed as the musicians played spontaneously behind her.
There seemed to be an atmosphere for people to make some important decisions about their walk with God.
Suddenly, the word "disarm" went through the pastor's mind.
Was this word of the Spirit of God or just a random imagining?
Then he saw it... In his mind's eye, he saw his pulpit (he uses a rather fancy music stand as one) tilted on its side in front of the altar.
That was it.
When his wife had finished speaking, he shared that word with the congregation.
"I keep hearing the word 'disarm'" he said, "I think we should take anything that we have right now that is a symbol of all of our strengths, gifts, talents and abilities and lay them down at the altar before the Lord. We need to disarm before God."
At that point, he lifted the pulpit and said "Right now...this pulpit serves as the symbol of my authority here in this church. We teach from it, we preach from it...So...I'm going to lay it down at the altar..."
At that point, one by one, people began to flood the altar.
A Berkely music school grad, along with a local business owner, a member of the local Chamber of Commerce, a head of a local ministry, and others came forward. Each of them either kneeling or spreading themselves face down on the floor before the Lord.
Even the worship leader took his guitar and laid it on its side as he prayed.
After a few moments, the pastor said he fought every inclination in his soul to try and "explain" to everyone what was happening.
"This too was symbol of my strength..." he said.
So off came his headset mic as he continued to kneel at the altar.
Minutes later, amongst the weeping, the prayers and the soft music being played by what was left of the worship musicians, a few people at the altar spoke up.
One said the Lord was requiring this time of surrender inorder to prepare His people to effectively minister to others.
Another cried out to the Lord that we would all continue to pursue and not miss the will of God for our lives.
Finally, someone shared that this 'disarming' was an experience of being naked before the Lord.
They continued to say we should even lay down our righteousness before Him. This was to be in gratitude for the righteousness that was all his to begin with. We took what we grasped as our own and acknowledged it was never ours to begin with.
This truly was a day of being weak and naked in the presence of God.
1 Corinthians 1 (AMP)
26For [simply] consider your own call, brethren; not many [of you were considered to be] wise according to human estimates and standards, not many influential and powerful, not many of high and noble birth.
27[No] for God selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame.
28And God also selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is lowborn and insignificant and branded and treated with contempt, even the things that are nothing, that He might depose and bring to nothing the things that are,
29So that no mortal man should [have pretense for glorying and] boast in the presence of God.
30But it is from Him that you have your life in Christ Jesus, Whom God made our Wisdom from God, [revealed to us a knowledge of the divine plan of salvation previously hidden, manifesting itself as] our Righteousness [thus making us upright and putting us in right standing with God], and our Consecration [making us pure and holy], and our Redemption [providing our ransom from eternal penalty for sin].
31So then, as it is written, Let him who boasts and proudly rejoices and glories, boast and proudly rejoice and glory in the Lord.
He's back. This time with a chip on his shoulder and an axe to grind.
In our previous Pop Culture post, we hoped for the best in Spider-Man 3.
We weren't hoping that the movie would smash every box office record in existence (which it did), but rather that it would retain the innocence and values of the last two movies while keeping the main character relatively squeaky clean.
In other words, we were hoping that Spidey would remain kid friendly and mother approved.
After viewing the movie, I can sigh a sigh of relief. Hollywood did not inject this one with its patented, morally perverse world view.
Amidst the dark tones (Spidey's new black suit amplifies his lust for vengeance, power, and fame), Spider-Man 3 still delivers a character kids can count on.
There's plenty of morality in this movie.
I was surprised to find such strong messages on self-sacrifice, forgiveness, repentance, redemption and choices.
Don't be afraid of Spider-Man's brief trip to the dark side. It's a lesson for all of us on the destructive power of pride and the deadly sting of sin.
We all have a "black suit" we like to wear from time to time. And like Spidey's, our black suit wants to bond with us and take over our lives, creating misery in us and in the people around us.
Spidey's black suit was eventually called "Venom". Ours is simply called "sin".
But just as Spidey goes to the cross to rid himself of his "Venom", (in the movie, he battles his black suit persona in the bell tower of a church), so we must go the cross of Christ to rid ourselves of ours.
Hebrews 11 reads:
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith,
let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.
And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame.
Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.
3 Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people;
then you won’t become weary and give up.
4 After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin.
Spider-Man 3 brings to the summer movie screen the "struggle against sin" in a big budget super-hero parable.
In his review for Focus on the Family, Bob Hoose writes:
"...the CGI web-slinging and sandy shape-shifting may be right off the pages of a comic book, but the struggle it represents is of biblical proportions. (Romans 7 chimes in with, "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.") And the movie's ultimate resolutions take on a scriptural tone as well."
(Click on the link above to read the entire article or click here.)
Last summer's comic book adventure, Superman Returns, gave us a super-hero as a saviour.
This summer's comic book adventure, Spider-Man 3, gives us a super-hero in need of a saviour.
Spider-Mans back in black? Yes he is, but thank God he doesn't stay that way.
Friday, May 4th heralds the return of pop-culture icon Spiderman to the big screen in this summers pending hit, "Spiderman 3".
To be sure, I liked both Spiderman 1 and 2. Surprisingly, so did my wife (maybe that's just because she loves me, but that's another blog entry...).
I'm reminded of a story I first heard regarding a draft of the script for the first movie. Apparently, someone wrote a scene where Spidey wields a knife and attacks a bad guy, injuring him fatally. To the rescue came the producers who basically said "You can't do that!"
They knew a scene of that nature with Spiderman would have destroyed the entire movie series.
This is one of the reasons I enjoyed Spiderman 1 and 2.
Here is a fictional hero in today's culture that keeps it relatively clean.
Even at PG-13 (for stylized action/violence and mild language), the innocence of Spiderman/Peter Parker shines through.
Will Spiderman 3 hold up in that department?
Will it still herald the classic values of family, love, responsibilty, friendship, fatherhood, and purpose?
Will kids (including the one in all of us) still be able to look up to him as a good guy whether he's in or out of costume?
Lets hope so.
Healings
"Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give." Matthew 10:8
Three people testified of supernatural, physical healings by God this past Sunday at church.This woman's testimony dates back to our 4-22-07 service, where she entered the church with a walker but left walking without it. She testified she has been "walker free" ever since.
This woman entered the church with pain
in her arm and neck area. She usually sings on the worship team but had to sit out that morning because the pain was too great.
At the end of praise and worship, she came to the mic and testified the pain was gone. She was even able to lift and hold this little baby for its mother as the mother received prayer.
Another woman came to the mic and testified that a pain in her shoulder disappeared during praise and worship.
He is a wonderful God, people!
What a spirit of love and praise! We had people come up to the platform and actually 'join the band'! We had kids come up to play percussion instruments and sing back-up. A singer from the audience came up to the platform and sang an improvisational song from his heart about the saving grace of God! You can listen to the song by clicking the "Julius's Song" link above.
Have you joined the Lord's band? He wants you to join today. Race, color, gender, age whatever your thing...He wants you in the band!
Ask the Lord Jesus to come into your heart! Give him your life!
And welcome to THE BAND!
You can view more photos from this mornings service here.
