Puritans & The Passion

No list of Puritans, who by the way made excellent beer, just read the 2nd commandment, and similar passages, and come away from it telling me it's okay for you to image God in way you feel like it. God doesn't want us, let alone need us, making Him culturally relevant. Culture is the product of what man believes. Man does need to see that he is relevant to God and when he does, then the knowledge of God will then determine/predicate all his reality.
Luv ya dude

Your dad is cool.

uh oh. i'm back for a minute. here is a note from my pastor concerning The MOVIE (he is doing a review in an upcoming newsletter so there is more with scripture ref.), but i tend to agree with it and since I'm a 5) b) i'm going to pass on seeing the flick:

(1) The second commandment does not deal w/ movies, it is about Israel making images of the invisible God and using them in worship.

(2) The Reformers typcially cite this commandment, and appropriately so, against the use of icons in worship. They were criticizing the RCC and Eastern Orthodox Church's use of icons in worship. The only picture of Christ that God has ordained for worship is bread and wine.

(3) We have to be cautious against the heresy of docetism or gnosticism. Jesus was a real person in history in the 1st century. We should not therefore become so extreme on the matter of Christ appearing in movies that we end up practically denying the historicity of the incarnation. Is the first 33 years of the first century off limits to movies b/c Christ was incarnated? I don't think so.

(4) This does not automatically mean that everyone should go to see this movie. Why? I'm doubtful as to its accuracy given Gibson's committment to Roman Catholicism. At the same time, I don't want to criticize what I haven't seen. However, issues of RCC theology aside for the moment, there are too many evangelicals who think this is the greatest thing since the incarnation, and I'm not exagerating. I read a quote where someone said precisely that. There are some, such as Rick Warren's church (Purpose Driven Life), who are telling their churches to go to the movies on Sunday instead of church. This is definitely a violation of the 2nd commandment, big time. There are others who think that this is the greatest evangelistic tool. While I hope that some good comes out of it, preaching is the primary means of evangelism, not movies. I saw Bill O'Reilly review the movie and he thought it's message was, be nice and love others (i.e., the Social Gospel). Is that the message of the Gospel? I don't think so. The only good that will come out of it is that if people see the movie and then go to their Bibles or to a church to hear the preaching of the Word.

(5) Is there any reason why someone might be able to see it? Perhaps. If they can accomplish two things:

(a) Go to it as if it were any other movie--i.e., a movie about a period in history and the knowledge that w/ any movie, the book is always better. All movies generalize and condense for the sake of presentation. Go knowing that you will watch a distortion of the truth.

(b) Go to it in the knowledge that you won't carry the visual images w/ you back into worship. Some may have doubts that they can do this and if they doubt it, then perhaps they should not go. Better to be safe than sorry.

I have to disagree with 5a Turd, can I call you Turd, it is much more fun than crosby. Anywho, 5a falls under the Last of the Mohicans fallacy, although in a general sense I suppose it is true.

Fight Club. The book made little sense, but the movie was coherent and pointed.

The Bourne Identity. The book was melodramatic, overwrought and ridiculously complicated, whereas the film was lean and tense and gripping.