The hope of the Christian

Just read this fantastic outline of the message of the book of 1 Peter! Find the book towards the back of the Bible, and read below to get a sense of what it's about.

Facing impending assaults on the gospel, Peter witnesses to the grace of God, the overwhelming reality of what God has done in Jesus Christ. The apostle knows that Jesus rose from the dead; he saw him ascend to heaven. He knows, too, why Jesus died, and what his death accomplished, as he writes: ‘Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed’ (2:24).

The reality of what Christ has done makes sure the hope of the Christian ‘brotherhood’. Christians can not only endure suffering for Christ’s sake; they can rejoice, for in their agony they are joined to Jesus who suffered for them. Their very sufferings become a sign of hope, for, as Christ suffered and entered into his glory, so will they. The Spirit of glory and of God rests on them (4:14).

Whether their neighbours attack or respect them, they can bear witness to the grace of God by their Christian lifestyle. Quietly and humbly they can live holy lives, not seeking to claim their own rights, but honouring others. Such humble living is in no way servile or demeaning, for Christians know themselves to be the royal people of God’s own possession, the chosen heirs of the new creation. They need not avenge themselves, nor need they claim for themselves what is their due; their trust is in the judgment of God. Christians are ‘resident aliens’ in [their towns and cities], but they are members of God’s own household.

The gift of God’s love, the blood of Jesus Christ, has redeemed Christians from the corrupt and empty lifestyle of their God-less past; that grace now unites them in fervent love for one another. They serve and help one another, using the rich spiritual gifts with which God’s grace equips them, ... [Jesus watching over them].

By the victory of Jesus Christ over all the powers of darkness they are freed from the power of Satan. They can repulse the roaring lion; in the fires of trial their faith will not be destroyed but purified like gold in the furnace. They may cast all their cares on God, knowing that he cares for them.

The grace that already fills Christians with joy will be brought to them fully at the appearing of Jesus Christ. The Lord, whom they love but have not seen, they will see and adore. Knowing well the doom and darkness from which they were delivered, the new people of God sing forth his praises. Their hallelujahs ring from their assemblies, their homes, even from the prison cells where their fear of God has set them free from the fear of man. Their witness is a witness of praise. Nourished by the unfailing Word of God, they taste already the goodness of their Saviour. The true grace of God has called them to his glory: everything, even their sufferings, will serve his purpose who redeemed them at such a price.

Some may scorn the comfort and triumph of Peter’s letter as unpractical theology. His answers are answers of faith. But Peter knows that his witness is true, that Jesus Christ is real. He has tasted that the Lord is good, and that his goodness will not fail. ‘This is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it’ (5:12).

Clowney, Edmund P.: The Message of 1 Peter : The Way of the Cross. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., USA : Inter-Varsity Press, 1988 (The Bible Speaks Today), S. 23

Praise the Lord! Praise Him for Peter's witness to us and for the certain hope of being saved by Christ, if we ally ourselves with him and his people on earth. Amen.

What materialism is good materialism?

According to Philip Johnson, through school, college or university many in the West have been given “maps of understanding” where God has been “left off” the map. There is no place for the spiritual in academia (and little in the media). This is what Os Guinness found, who said his education “gave no place to the faith that was vital to him”. So today many, like Os Guinness, may be unsatisfied with us, really searching for meaning which is not found in their place of study/work or in their culture.

For Christians the danger is that we too easily fit in to our society and leave God off the map. We are tempted to do things without investing their true, and highest, meaning in them – studying, working, politics, economics, technology, writing, reading, having fun – it all ought to be done in worship, as we know an inner joy in God through Christ, and seek to live in God’s world God’s way, in response to the gift of Jesus Christ.

In short, here’s the challenge: Godless materialism can not have its way. Its goals and its various manifestations must not become our idols. Only God-worshipping materialism is right – a celebration of the true physical blessings God has given us, turning these blessings into worship. Yes, worship: whether this means sharing physical things, putting them to use for God, not simply for man, or finding satisfaction in using or enjoying them, knowing God is the giver of all good things, and will provide even more satisfying and joyful physical things in heaven.

If you sympathise with this point of view (or do not) it would be useful to hear your thoughts, and perhaps how you have rallied your body to worship of God in your work/play/social life/family life/etc.

Quotes from The Right Questions: Truth, Meaning & Public Debate by Phillip E Johnson, which I don't always agree with, but is usefully thought-provoking.

Manga: Black Jack - Volume 1

A mixture of the unsettling and bizarre combined with the imaginative and philosophical make this classic manga (Japanese comic) a memorable read. It started running in 1973 and finished in 1983.

What I liked:
- The character of Black Jack – cold and mysterious, but able to save lives, Jack seems to always have a handle on the situation. He keeps people at arm’s length at times by charging the rich exorbitant prices for various made-up reasons – this is a nice touch.
- Each story is self-contained (which means you can dip in and out of the book) and tackles a different problem for the brilliant but unlicensed surgeon to try to counter. Sometimes it might be a demonic boil from Japanese folklore, other times it could be trying to save the amazing ability of a chef when her arms have had to be amputated. Pretty wierd and wonderful. Even the importance of psychological healing is shown in a couple of stories.
- My favourite story comes towards the end and has an artificial intelligence requesting to be treated as a patient rather than being switched off and replaced. It seems to be touching on the idea that the creator has a responsibility to the A.I. being she has given birth to, and rather than rejecting her creation, she ought to have invested in it and tried to help it. The problems of a high abortion rate in Asia due to the sex/disability of a child spring to mind, and this issue is touched on elsewhere. But also the idea of treating a patient with respect is highlighted here and elsewhere, as in one story in which we find out that terminal cancer patients were often lied to back then in Japan about their conditions by their doctors and families. It's quite illuminating to read a manga that wants you to think about ethical issues in the world of medicine and surgery.

What I wasn't sure about:
- Although the art is still praised on the internet for the way it draws your eye across the page into the action, the sensation of reading the story was slightly affected by the small panels and plainness of the drawings and character designs in places compared to modern manga.
- Also the way the book plays around with the human body I found a little perverse, although I stress that the book does not play up the horror of the bizarre situations. But in doing so it makes us consider the amazing nature of the human body as well as elements of the supernatural and fantastic which make this a very unusual world that Black Jack is living in.

Also check out: Monster - a more modern manga series about a brilliant surgeon whose own misfortune and character flaws leads him to have a hand in creating a pyschopath. I only read the first part, but it was a compelling opening, setting up some intriguing characters and showing the pressure to be political in the hospital rather than serving every patient equally, and how the stress of pressure from the bosses can have a bad effect on the individual doctor, pushed to his limit. Go read it, if you can find it.

An open book

Having started as an intern on Monday at Granta Books with Granta/Portobello I have been inspired by some of the great writing I've come across there, and surprised by the amount of poor or unsuitable manuscripts they are sent. If you want to check out some good writing, the Granta magazine on "Work" seemed really interesting, and the new one on the theme of "Going Back" has a moving piece about one reporter's feelings towards Sarajevo recalling the awful seige there, which is titled The Book of the Dead. Each of the magazines is like a small book, and contains fiction, non -fiction and occasional poems.

Meanwhile I came up with this opening to a story. Here's my idea: Why don't you finish it? Enjoy the challenge.

"Don't just leave me here, then!"
The sky was fast melding into a blue so deep it didn't seem real, but I couldn't tell you if this was just what creation was doing then or whether it was due to the knock I had taken in the fall.
The sky has funny way of capturing my attention like that. Even then, when I had no idea where Misha had gone. The sky continued to turn itself over as I tried to make out what had happened to the blurry figures who had left me.
Misha's words stank in my ear. Hoarse, they troubled me, like a poison. I felt the guilt he wanted me to feel, and I knew I felt and understood his hurt now. But right now I needed to get up and out, in case he came back.
I'd known he hated me. But I could not have forseen today, in a million years.

Poem: On denying self & paralysing guilt

Bad poetry:

Here am I
The monster in my own life
Grace and art gone to the wind
Because I am languishing
The monster

Good poetry,
Showing signs of improvement:

Where am I
What rod can I branch off
Making the angle required
To support this tree, standing,
And these people?

Ties made or re-made,
With terms of possibility:
Weakness to weakness
To strength that is vital.

For music-lovers, here are 3 playlists of great tunes I have found on Spotify, which I really love. Just click on the links below to bring up the playlist. Finding a band called Band of Horses has been great, also I am enjoying hearing some great Creed songs, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Fleetwood Mac, Vampire Weekend, some top, little-heard Athlete tracks, Owl City, John Mayer, The Pigeon Detectives, Marina & the Diamonds, Katrina and the Waves or even tunes from Seether, Jimmy Eat World, Mighty Mouse or The Cat Empire.

Brand New Day
Spring leftovers
Spring picks 2

To check out my analysis/reviews of a few excellent tracks and albums, start by clicking here or click the "music-related" tag on my blog.

Mini- review of bestseller The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (2008)

Mr Whicher was a famous detective from the first stock of detectives ever produced, back in London in 1842. This non-fiction book mainly deals with a murder case he investigated, that of young Saville Kent, who was less than four, but it also covers most of his life with fascinating detail, especially the parts about his first successes.

The details bring it alive. For instance, he tricked a crook into handing back a stolen diamond shirt-pin in a bar, by knowing exactly how the crook worked with an accomplice. Another time he and two fellow officers got into a scuffle with some thieves, trying to recover some stolen jewels, and we read that Mr Whicher was set upon by a man with a red hot poker.

The details of the murder of Saville in his own house at Road Hill are shocking and by the end of this well-researched book much has been revealed about the need for morality and love in the household and in the family. Other fascinating themes and questions are raised as well as the whole country became obsessed with the case in the 1860s and were not satisfied when they could not see justice done. So the need for public justice is shown, but so is the foolhardiness of many who had little to do with the case writing to Scotland Yard with their own theories about what was done, and by whom. Even Charles Dickens had a theory!

Finally the question of madness interested a casual fan of classic Gothic/sensation literature like me. It really makes you wonder what madness is. Is it getting things in the wrong perspective, like a sociopath who does not see that a certain human life has value? Is it not having the proper feelings there? Is it doing something horrendous, out of character, or out of spite or anger (yet surely this definition isn't too far from things any of us have done). What is madness and what is just plain evil, after all?

The book, which perhaps could have been shorter, brings out all the ways this case became politically and socially important, and finally the sentence is passed and we know who did the terrible deed. Author Kate Summerscale reminds us in the last few pages that we must not allow the tragic loss of a human life to become lost in the intellectual game of finding out "whodunit", which is a brilliant sentiment to end on, and the whole thing is an illuminating and really interesting read.

Seeing and believing

On Wednesday night I went to my house group (a Bible study group that meets in someone's house). As we were looking at John 9 it struck me how easy it easy to get everything totally wrong. Let me explain.

The Jewish Pharisees were so sure their rules of religion were right that when God showed up among them, they discounted him - and worse, opposed him. His work amongst people did not fit into their ideas about what kind of activities could be carried out on the Sabbath - and some held this against him, seeing his new way as undermining what they "knew" to be God's way.

Their desperation with the situation and growing hatred of Jesus is apparent, yet He is the one they must wake up and see is God.

The contrast in the chapter is of course with the man whom Jesus has freed from blindness, who answers their questions plainly and as best he can. His words start to point out the Pharisees' spiritual blindness!

There's a whole lot here to learn about how we must relate to God: humbly, coming to Him for salvation. The gospel comes and it offers a message which is bitter to someone who is confident in their own righteousness. It points us to the ways we have all failed God's standards because it's the inward thoughts and intentions of the heart towards God and others which matter most.

The sweet good news of salvation comes though God's free gift. He initiates rescue, and the Pharisee or the self-righteous can't do a thing to save themselves - we all must only accept this gift by accepting the great Saviour Jesus and coming under his rule. He achieves our salvation by the cross - we merely throw ourselves at his feet and receive this work of grace into our lives.

May I never NEVER never forget this Lord of love and his gift of grace. As I see what He has done, my desire increases for Him. And so I try hard to follow Him in my life.

-----

The sequel to thoughts like this is living this out in reality. Sadly in reality, my desire for and love of God is far too weak. At times I will serve God forgetting that I rely on him and, as Tim Keller describes in his excellent book The Prodigal God, I'll try to control God by doing things I think should please him. And I'll get frustrated when things go wrong.

There's much work still to be done on my heart. I need to tell myself that I need Jesus. Above all else. I need Him as He is my only salvation.

Another thing that spins out of this is how we show this message to others. How do we show people that while being good is important, it's the inner life towards God and others that matters the most? How do we model grace (as Ed Moll recently described it in a talk at my church)? How do we show the love of God instead of dishing out approval or disapproval based on outward behaviour, like the Pharisees would have done? How do we show that God accepts us when we have broken all the rules - when I have broken all the rules? Can we be as accepting of others as He is, and yet, of course, never saying that evil behaviour is right in any way.

I think the way I relate to others rarely shows this. I'm sure that people around me still get the impression that the way I relate to them will depend on their behaviour towards me - this will determine whether I give my approval. Surely God's way is far better! I should love and keep loving whether I approve or not, whether I am treated well or not! I should be patient, generous, giving, listening, bearing with others, when it's far too easy to fit in with the expected culture which shows either that it does not care about a person and their lifestyle, or that the lifestyle ought to be of a certain standard in order for me to pay attention to the the person in question.

If anyone has done some further thinking about how to model grace in relationships, let me know!

American History X

Brutal and horrible, but totally compelling, I wanted to mention this film for a couple of reasons:

1. It's unusual to find a film that deals so convincingly with the human psyche. It shows how one man in American suburbia realises that the militant white power cause he's been living for is foolish and destructive. He sees that the movement has begun to manipulate him, making him a figure to revere because of the two murders he carried out - while he serves a tough prison sentence, alone and friendless.

At the beginning of the story Derek (played brilliantly by Edward Norton) is a neo-Nazi, full of hate, totally unpleasant, power-hungry, manipulative, clever but arrogant, full of testosterone and turning everything into protecting his family from who he sees as the enemy: foreigners and outsiders. But in light of the way he's humiliated in prison (a horrible section) he gets out of that life, which he tells his younger brother Danny is no good for him. He becomes a man determined to change, and to stop Danny following the same rebellious, anti-social path.

Some of the issues this raises are very interesting. For instance - why is it we tend to desire what is best for close family, even if we have given up on ourselves? This rings true.

And it highlights how, without something life-changing snapping us out of it, we tend to believe what is most convenient, what fits with the ideas that have influenced us in the past. This is how prejudices work I think eg. against immigrants. We can become trapped by ideas, which are actually lies, thinking we know all the facts. We weild the "facts" as weapons, or to stir us on.

And such "facts" can be power - a way to put down others and assert oneself or "succeed" in life. Feelings of injustice and resentment find a target. Responsibility is avoided, and so are responsible solutions, as the system is "against us" - let's just take it into our own hands.

The trouble is - when we want to be angry and take things for ourselves: the nonsense "facts" that we want to hear can sound so reasonable. Whether it's anger at local government for making things difficult, or anger at institutions or communities, it can simmer away in us, and we must be aware of this evil in us. It's true what the (supposedly out-of-date) Bible says: the heart is hopelessly corrupt.

2. The focus on inner-city poverty and the lack of opportunities for the poor is interesting too. Despite the bad patterns of family life passed on through the generations, this is a community that will not give up on its characters. And it's refreshing to see this in a film. Especially the bond between the two brothers, where frustration is met with patience, and respect is fostered. Even the teacher, an outsider, Dr Sweeney (a superb performance by Avery Brooks) won't give up on Danny, while Derek talks to his girlfriend (who seems to delight in being near chaos) to try and convince her to leave the movement with him, and others too haven't given up on the loved ones they have lost. Society matters in this movie - life is not throwaway, like the bad guys dying in old James Bond films. People are precious, especially when you don't have much.

The question is what will emerge at the disturbing end of the film? Will the violence cease? What legacy will these two brothers leave on their families, the next genration growing up in the schools, the world around? What lessons will be learnt about the fruitlessness of holding on to a destructive, angry cause?

Mere Anarchy: Bizarre short stories

I happened to pick up this strange collection of stories from Woody Allen recently, and although I wasn't sure if I'd like it, I'm glad I checked it out. he has a knack for coming up with absurd situations (a little like some of Roald Dahl's adult stories) and they are very funny too!

Particulary amusing was the hubris of one two-bit, no-good supporting actor who gets captured by terrorists in the most bizarre cutting-edge film set-up in a developing country. This has me laughing out loud. The actor tells the story as if the whole thing was a "jaunt" over to the studio, rather than the trying ordeal it evidently was. Once you get used to the strange use of language, you'll enjopy the neuroses of the characters, and the cleverly hidden put-downs they use - which show what they are really after, or their real characters.

I was also loving the first story, with biting satire about a get-successful-quick scheme run through a manipulative new-age "prophetess" who has grown men in groveling in her service as they seek to escape their current mid-life crisis. And although some of the stories do mis-fire, one story called "Above the Law, Below the Box Springs" really cracked me up with a running gag about mattress tags, of all things, and another supremely silly story had me trying to imagine a dispute between Michael Eisner and the Disney character Goofy about screen time.

So take a look if you intrigued by something as daft as a man trying to buy a modern suit with built-in gadgets, or a couple whose nanny must be silenced before she publishes a book exposing what they are really like behind closed doors, or parents threatening legal action against the leaders of a ramshackle mountain summer camp who are demanding a stake in the rights deal for a movie sold to Hollywood.... some of these concepts bring out the pathetic, the ridiculous or the downright dirty in the modern Westerner, and it's funny while being kind of true.

This week I should be writing about some other books, including The Prodigal God by Tim Keller and The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. What are your summer top reads, and why?

Film review: The Lost Boys (1987)

Fans of this film at work got me to watch this 1980s classic. So here are some thoughts:

Here is an adventure/horror film which transcends its simple storyline of “kill the vampires to rescue Michael and his family from an evil fate” to deliver something more. This is the birth of “cool” teen vampire, complete with the spirit of rebellious youth, recalling the anti-society and cult-like teen gangs of American suburbia, with their strange initiation rituals.

The film also builds on the idea that everything can take on a sinister implication in a strange new town, and some of the biggest scenes are set within the bounds of the new family home, where trust between child and parent is hard to find. The children are pushed into a strange new world, and as you watch you become gripped by both the seductive quality of the vampires and some thrilling set-pieces, where you are not quite sure what is going to happen to Michael or his brother Sam next. It doesn't hurt that the comic relief of junior vampire “experts” the Frog brothers is pretty good, and they round off an impressive cast of characters, almost creating the illusion this is a family film, which is nearly is. But the themes of transgressing natural boundaries, the mystery surrounding the girl “Star” who rides with the vampires, and the exciting final scenes, are aimed more at the teen or young adult audience, and the horror of the monsters the children face is a focus of the film. You might even feel scared for the characters at a couple of points.

The soundtrack features a strong and memorable rock ballad theme “Cry Little Sister” which captures well the dark struggle that Michael, Sam and Star go through. The only thing I had against the film was some of the cinematography is dated and quite irritating – there's one scene where we zoom in on the faces of the two brothers so many times as they gaze at each other in horror.... it's just too cheesy. But minor slips like this won't stop me recommending this fun, well-produced teen vampire film, which excels in encouraging you to invest in its characters and their precarious situation as they hold out against their supernatural enemy.