I met Sarah Palin at a book signing. I said, “Having autism, I really appreciate what you do as a special-needs mom.”

She said, “Thanks for the encouragement. How old are you?”

“Twenty-one,” I answered.

“How’s that going?” she asked.

“Great,” I answered as I walked off. ”I’m in school.”

The form of autism that I have is called Asperger’s Syndrome. It’s very mild. I’ll be able to get married and have a decent job. My social impairment is much milder than my obsessive interests. In some ways Asperger’s is a gift. It gives me a certain kind of intelligence. People with Asperger’s tend to have positive personality traits.

Throughout my life — even before I was diagnosed with Asperger’s — my parents played an important role in helping me to deal with it. Now that I have been diagnosed, my parents know more about the challenges I face. My mom has been helping me to figure out “dating,” and my dad helps me with issues related to jobs.

Many people with special needs face greater challenges than I do. Some of them will not be able to get married. Others will not be able to hold jobs. Does this mean that they cannot experience fulfilling lives? Does this mean that they are not valuable members of society?

I believe that God has a purpose for each person. God places people with special needs into the world for many reasons. One reason is to help families and society to become more caring. A child with a  mild disorder will cost parents extra time and money. A child with a severe disorder will cost a great deal of time and money. Spending resources on another person is not a burden but a privilege. Through taking care of a special-needs child, parents come to know more about God. They learn to see that each human life has intrinsic value. They learn that real love involves costly sacrifice.

“I hope I’ve confused you a little bit.” Peter Kreeft intrigued the approximately 100-member audience with this concluding statement of his lecture titled “The Philosophy of Jesus.”

A philosopher and author of over 55 books, Kreeft was invited to speak the night of Nov. 6 by the Newman Catholic Association. The event was sponsored by Newman, but funded in part by the University Park Allocation Committee. The lecture was prompted by a list of 177 thought and study questions that were given to the audience.

Attendees ranged from believers to non-believers, skeptics to lovers of faith. David Hanson, a senior in aerospace engineering and an atheist who attended the lecture, said he could not agree with Kreeft on much of what he said, though he added the speaker is a good guy with good intentions.

“Most Christians are nasty about it, but he wasn’t,” Hanson said, adding he does not like the in-your-face strategy of many Christians when it comes to their faith. “Ghandi said that he likes this Christ guy, but not the Christians. I think Peter Kreeft is the kinda Christian Ghandi would like.”

Kreeft dined with members of Newman the night of his lecture and played board games like chess throughout the day. He preferred a laid back atmosphere and “did not want to be entertained,” he said.

Kreeft’s philosophical career began and will continue due to a mentality few would expect.

“I write books about stuff that I want to read about,” Kreeft said. “I write the books other people should write but don’t, so I have to write them.”

To hear lectures by Peter Kreeft, visit http://peterkreeft.com/audio.htm.

Now picture the quintessential American Thanksgiving dinner.   A dining room filled with  colonial furniture.  A table that could have been decorated by Martha Stewart. Well dressed aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents sipping from wine glasses. Before they start eating, someone suggests that they offer a prayer.  The room is filled with an uncomfortable silence.  They know they should be thankful for all that they have, but like most of us they take their fortunes for granted.  Waves of white middle-class guilt wash over them.  Finally, one brave person clears his throat. He offers thanks for food, for friends and family, for health and wealth and times of peace. And everyone responds with a hearty “Amen.”

This classic American Thanksgiving prayer and the prayer of Ricky Bobby are eerily similar.  And something about them is equally troubling.  The circumstances that we enjoy are so comfortable and fortunate compared to the way people have lived in other places and times. Many have endured poverty, sickness, war and oppression. Yet they had rich experiences and meaningful lives.  Many of them were quite happy, even happier than us.  So when we give thanks for the things that make life better, did those things actually make life better?  Are those the things that truly matter?

For a fresh perspective on the meaning of Thanksgiving, a good place to look is the book of Psalms.  Psalms span the full range of human experience.  The emotions expressed in Davidic psalms do not always correspond to the circumstances of David’s life.  Were the psalms he composed when he was a king any happier that those he wrote when he was a lowly shepherd boy?  Not really.  Some of his most triumphant and praise-filled songs were written in times of hardship and war.  And during periods of success and prosperity, he often expressed frustration and agony.  Psalms show that there is a spiritual component to life that transcends our possessions and circumstances.

In Psalm 33, the author is praising and thanking God – not for anything that God has given him, but for the goodness of God himself.  Consider Psalm 33:12: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance.”  At first glance, this is what I thought it meant: God’s people are fortunate because they are God’s heirs; he has written them into his will as his beneficiaries.  But what the psalmist is actually saying is that God’s people are his portion and inheritance.  God is rejoicing because he has acquired us.  He is literally thanking himself for us.

What a strange and magnificent thought.

As we celebrate this great holiday, as we reflect on the blessings we have received, we should also consider God’s unfailing and unmerited love. We are his most treasured possession.  We are his blessing and his joy. If there ever was a reason to be deeply grateful, I think this just might be it.

I’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong with the Christian church these days. Some of my friends see  back-biting, infighting, inter-church animosity. Others see a lack of church growth. I suspect they are mostly concerned with the lack of growth in numbers, which I agree is serious.  But that is a sign of the lack of inner growth, which is my main concern. 

Here are some trends that get me riled up.  Why do churches reject glorious old hymns, preferring anything written less than one year ago if it features drums and syncopation? Why are we so quick to jettison 2,000 years of Christian culture and embrace the latest fashions and trends of the world?

Why do Christian publishers rewrite the great old books with less actual thought and content?

Why is so much programming on Christian television and radio so specious, shallow and melodramatic?

Why do we make our services flashy and slick but muzzle the preachers, restricting them to a secondary role, like a quick half-time show?

Why do people not really do the work of the church, but content themselves with talking about it and analyzing it and writing about it ad nauseum? (Perhaps I’m shooting myself in the foot here. But I am also learning that this problem we see from various angles is nothing new. It has a diagnosis. Bear with me.)

In short, “Where’s the beef?” What we have is a deluge of milk. Even in my own church—which I regard with special fondness for its depth of Bible study—many sermons are written not to provide rich nourishment for hungry souls, but seemingly to entertain them, to make them laugh.

I think this is simply a lack of maturity. We are remaining as children. Here is what Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes in The Basis of Christian Unity. He is discussing Ephesians 4 regarding what leads to spiritual maturity (and thus to unity) within the church. He comes to Paul’s words in verses 14-15:

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him that is the Head, that is, Christ.

Here is what Lloyd-Jones writes:

The apostle says that we must “be no more children.” It is interesting to notice what he says about children. What are their characteristics? They are unstable, fickle, ignorant. They like novelty, dislike work, but like play. They dislike being made to think and to reason; they like entertainment and excitement. Children, unfortunately, are very susceptible to showmanship and to that which is plausible and meretricious. These are their obvious characteristics. But, above all, they are liable to be deceived by that which is false.

When I look at young (and some older) Christians, many of them are about showmanship, not content. They want to play more than work. They want to rock and roll, not worship or lead others to worship. Reasoning and study are as foreign to them as hard labor. In short, the church as a whole seems to be getting younger, not maturing. And why shouldn’t this be so?  It is their expressed goal to draw the young and focus on the young, to supplant the old with the new. They jettison anything that smacks of maturity. It reminds me of the angry mobs who devastated old churches during the Reformation, smashing anything that was carved or decorative, just because it was the trend.

Youth has almost become an idol. We kneel before the young people as “the next generation” and are even willing, it seems, to compromise the gospel itself to draw and hold the attention of the young. Instead of promoting maturity, we dumb down our worship and sermons to the point of providing only what infant Christians can accept.

Although serving our youth is a noble goal, such over-emphasis—giving young people exactly what they desire—is a common parental mistake which promotes selfishness and narcissism. It may cause the mature to regress or seek another church.

I’m not saying that “old wine is better” just because it’s old. In the Christian life, we need a healthy respect for both the old and the new. We need both milk and meat. Or do we want to remain as children? Peter says that pure spiritual milk helps us grow up in our salvation [1Peter 2:2]. But Jesus didn’t just serve milk. He offered his flesh and his blood, the bread and wine which symbolize our sanctification, worship and spiritual sustenance [Jn 6]. And Paul made it clear that we need to introduce solid food into our spiritual diets. He wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:1-4:

Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?

That was the situation in first-century Corinth. And it also seems to describe us today.  We are worldly, not mature. We want to enjoy, to play, to compete with the next guy (or gal) or the next church. We collect toys and spend our days in fantasies rather than in mature work. As someone once told me, “The church is so worldly and the world is so churchy that you can’t tell the difference anymore.”

Growing up, like being born, is never easy or painless. For the mother, it is sheer agony. And some babies (especially boys) almost resist being born. They want to stay someplace cozy and warm. After being born, some resist being weaned from milk to solid food (again, we noticed this in our boys).

Like the boys in Peter Pan, we resist the discipline and self-denial of growing up. It seems that our whole Christian culture is stuck in Neverland.

What is the solution?  Just grow up. This answer is not likely to be popular. But it’s what Peter and Paul both said.  The job of parents is to ensure that this happens. Spiritually, we are all children of God, if indeed we have been born again. That means we have to grow up.

Preachers, teachers, Christian leaders and parents: Let’s stop pretending that to remain as children is okay. Jesus didn’t denounce Pharisees as “old wineskins” because they were mature. He did so because they thought they were spiritual when they were not.

Let us, therefore, forget what is behind and press on toward the goal: that we may become like Christ, and that we may finish the race, win the prize, and win our world for His kingdom. This isn’t a matter of more education or sophistry. One doesn’t become strong by reading muscle magazines, but by hitting the gym, exercising, sometimes getting really sore or even injured. We can’t win a race by analyzing it from the sidelines, but by long hours of training and sweating and not giving up.

Spiritual maturity doesn’t come to Huck Finns who live for themselves and the next adventure. It comes to those who deny themselves, take up the cross and follow Jesus.

Every Sunday evening, I’d stare at the big grandfather clock…waiting, wishing.  7:45pm. It takes me five minutes to get there…I’m too anxious, so I leave. 

I walk up the dark streets, watching the light bulbs flicker off when I come their way.  The streets are covered in acorns.  Acorns and cicadas. 

Their dead skins crackle beneath my instep.

I was thinking of him, that man.  Man, I say because he was more of a man than any other I’d met.  Not only was he charming, with gorgeous eyes, high cheekbones, and a muscular face, but he was intelligent, brilliant even.  A man who followed Christ with his whole heart, mind, soul, and body.  The words he spoke were like angelic chords, God’s light on the darkness of my life.  This man let Jesus work through him.  Because of that, I love.  Because of that, I care.  Because of that, I am free.  More free than ever before because, honestly, I was living a lie.  Stuck behind the bars of my own sin.  Inhibiting me from living, truly living.

So I looked forward to these Sunday night Bible studies before I even knew what was happening to me, to my soul. 

I looked forward to getting goose bumps, and hyperventilating, and feeling like my “ideals” were being ripped into shreds, being made into true moral values.  Because there was something about this man.  Something about his words, his charm, his charisma. 

Truth poured through him.  Truth that I could not get enough of, that I craved.

I sat down amidst the amoeba of bodies, all as eager as I to hear the words Matt had to say.  Even the atheists listened.  The agnostics more so.  He drew us.

When Matt spoke, he painted a picture with his words.  He took the initial breath stroke that had been painted in our brains, all crusty and falling apart, and painted over it, erasing it.  Erasing what we thought we had, what we thought we knew, replacing it with a gentle stroke that no person could argue against.

The looks of your painting depended on your heart.  It depended on whether or not your heart’s door was open.  How far open didn’t matter.  Because even if you opened it a pin-prick, Jesus could get through.  Matt’s words helped open it further.

The sad part is that some people shut it.  Once it was open and kept open, the love and beauty and understanding and peace of Jesus flowed through it like an ocean, without end.  But some saw the then unknown overflow creeping through the open door and got scared.  Panicked.

Faith?  What a scary thought. 

What an impossible dream to believe in such a loving and forgiving God.

All it took was a leap and I was hooked.  I thank God every given day of my life for having made me, out of all the billions of people on this earth, one of those fortunate enough to know and serve Him.

All it takes is a little faith.  A little leap. 

You might let go…but He never will.

So…

Why am I not the spitting image of my five closest friends?

Who am I?  I am God’s child.  A creation protected from the sin that I am so surrounded by.  I’m not perfect, but God certainly has protected me.  Like a laminated sheet of paper.  It was nothing I did.  It was God’s grace that engulfed me.

God is my Closest Friend.  He is my Five Closest Friends.

That does not mean I am His spitting image.

I’m not God.  I’m not Superwoman.  I am me.  But that me was not shaped by a death-ridden society.  That me was baptized and prayed for by too many to count.  That me was given grace and protected from the flames of moral corruption.

He is my Five Closest Friends.

So when I walk down the street with a big smile on my face as I look up to the sky, I am talking to Him.  At times I see large groups walking, yet I am alone.

Why don’t I ever feel alone? 

I never feel alone.

Ever.

I think I might just go as far to say that my Five Closest Friends are the absolute Five Closest Friends.  Because He’s not only mine.  He’s yours. 

And that’s what I’m about.

♥ Social mistake number…?  Took me a Second.  But He is my Five Closest Friends.♥

Everything was going great for me: I was a straight-A student, on the varsity basketball team, was the youngest in my ballet class to start toe shoes, and my family and social lives were going great.  Perfect, right?  Well, it wasn’t.

I attended church, but never paid much attention—I didn’t think I should have to…I felt pretty satisfied with my life already.  It came the time for me to get confirmed and I had to take a Catholic education class in order to do so.

I attended public school and my friends, knowing I was Catholic, always asked questions like: why are you pro-life? Why are you saving yourself for marriage?  I never knew the answers.  I didn’t know why the Catholic faith taught these things. 

When I took that confirmation class, I found all the answers.  Anything and everything I had ever questioned was answered.  Everything seemed to make sense.  I had finally heard Truth.  A couple of weeks into the class, my teacher noticed that I was liking what she was teaching, fully understanding, and craving more.  So, she suggested that I attend daily mass with her.  Daily mass?!  I thought church was a Sunday thing.  And now she wanted me to go every day??  It seemed excessive.  But I went, just out of curiosity and to make her happy. 

Turns out, it was one of the most inspirational experiences of my life.  I saw everyone kneeling, praying the rosary.  I was watching faith in action.  I had always thought that faith was like a set of guidelines, rules that we had to strictly abide by, but I never realized how much more it could become.  I looked on in awe as they spoke those beautiful words, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee.  Blessed art Thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.  Amen” in unison.  I couldn’t explain it at the time, but there was something inside of me that wanted, deeply, to take part in that beauty, that love that illuminated those prayers’ faces.  My curiosity compelled me to go back the next day.  Awed by their dedication, I kept on going back: again, and again, and again…. 

Eventually I stopped going back out of curiosity, and started going because I wanted to for my soul.  I felt in my soul that I had to go.  I enjoyed going. 

This had a ripple effect on my whole life.  I began going to Adoration, and praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  I started opening up more during my nighttime prayer, and doing so more often.  I finally gained the courage to speak the Truth to my friends about the moral issues they had been asking me about all along.  And I successfully made them speechless.  After all, they had never heard anyone defend the Catholic faith before.  They had never heard the Truth.

Most importantly, I was happy.  I had finally found something that truly fulfilled me.  Having everything I had just wasn’t enough; I was missing something, or rather, someone: Jesus.  I finally could stop searching because I had Jesus, who fulfilled me completely so much that I sought nothing else. 

And right now, I seek nothing else.  Jesus is here.  He’s in me.  He’s in you.  He’s in everyone and He’s not going anywhere.  It’s all a matter of seeking Him out. 

We all have reason to believe that Jesus was the happiest man on Earth.  He lived and loved completely.  Find Him, and you will too.

That social mistake just keeps growing.

[Editor's note: Natalie is the Poet Laureate of Seed.  She is a Penn State undergraduate majoring in Communications, is an active member of everything, and likes to drive editors crazy by including unusual typographical symbols in her writing.  Enjoy.]

Wait a second…

I have always heard that one’s five closest friends added together, give or take a few complimentary idiosyncrasies, mixed up, and spit out—personality, humor, charm, morals and all—equals oneself.  Because truth is, we choose our friends based off of these criteria.  If we don’t smoke, any smoker “friends” we may have are probably better titled “acquaintances”.  We bond with who we relate to.  To what degree this is true, I know not.  But I have been an inhabitant of this earth long enough to know that most of the time, it proves to be true.  One night I sat on my bed pondering all of this.  I thought about all the cliques in my high school and how alike those within each clique were.  They were all on the same sports teams, went everywhere together, loved the same movies, laughed at the same kind of humor.  I thought…and I thought. 

Then I thought, why am I so different?

My five closest friends, if you could even call them that close, were among those called “high school drop-outs,” “depressed,” “boring,” “awkward,” “anti-social”.  As far as I knew, not to be too presumptuous here but, according to my standards and the standards of my family and the standards of society, I was none of those things.  I’m in college, certainly not a high school drop-out.  I’m too in love with life to be boring, depressed, or anti-social.  And I can only hope that I’m not awkward, but I could be wrong ☺.

All that said, if I am nothing like my five closest friends, different from my family (that’s even more complicated), and not the human concoction studies have made me out to be, then who am I?

Whose spitting image am I?

Second day of high school.

I walked through the maroon-colored cafeteria doors.  My heart stopped.  Not again, I thought.  Why do I have to go through this horrible process of finding an eating area where only embarrassment and silence seemed to emit from my soul?  Gosh.

I dragged myself over to the lunch line.  I was one of the few whites who bought lunch.  Social mistake number one. 

After I got my oh-too-sloppy joe, I headed over to the condiments table, stalled a bit.  A bit longer.  And longer, scoping out the tables to see a kind face, a nice gesture, an inviting hand.    No one.  Nothing.

You see, I was not like Yvette and Mildred in “The Wrong Lunch Line,” by Nicholasa Mohr.  I had no best friend.  No one to sit with.  Not a soul.

Then I saw them.  Perfect as could be, I thought.  Why not join them?  If I sit with the popular people, maybe I’ll become one of them. 

My heart raced as I made it over to the already over-crowded table.  There had to be at least 15 girls sitting at this single 6-foot diameter surface.  Social mistake number two.

I squeezed in with them, not really saying much and ignoring the sideways glances. 

Why do you hate me? I thought.  Just smile…maybe they’ll like that.

So I smiled.  And smiled.  And my upward grin turned into an awkward line as I listened to the silence.  Most of the girls had already finished eating.  Except for me, of course.  Social mistake number three.

Two girls waited up for me.  Nice enough, right?  Not really.  The next day was the same story, but no one waited for me.  I felt the embarrassment that Yvette felt when that teacher called her out in front of everyone.  I felt like I had done something out of my place.  Like I didn’t belong.  People were calling me out for it with their stares. 

That day I found a note the girls were passing around about me.  “Please don’t let me cry, thought Yvette” (Mohr, 55).  Please don’t let me cry, I thought.

It hurt.  Really bad.  When people write that you’re weird and you have no friends and that they don’t like you in high school, you believe it.  It tore my insides apart.  I could not function for the rest of that day.  I was like a zombie, one with too many tears to hold back.

I nearly jolted home. 

That’s when I got down.  On my knees, I mean.  In front of my window, right at the foot of my bed.

“God…”

Tears ran down my cheeks.  Tear after tear and soon I was bawling.  I couldn’t breathe.  Who was I?  Why was I?  What was I to do?

I looked up and saw the answers.  I listened and heard the answers.  I knocked and the door was opened for me.  Social mistake number four .

The forum will take place in the Memorial Lounge of the Pasquerilla Center from 7:00 to 9:00 pm.  It is hosted by Disciplemakers Christian Fellowship.  For more information, contact Brian Seay, seayb@dm.org.

Last month, I attended a weekend forum sponsored by ACT 3, the ministry of my friend John Armstrong.  The forum was led by Peter Enns, who spoke on topic Reading the Old Testament as Jesus Did.

Enns is the author of a popular but controversial book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (2005, Baker Academic).  In this book he addresses the difficult question of what Christians mean when they claim that the Bible, a book whose words were written by men, is also the inspired word of God.  Enns presents an incarnational model that upholds divine inspiration while acknowledging the contextual and cultural influences of the human writers.

Throughout the forum, Enns suggested that we approach the Old Testament as the writers of the New Testament did.  How did Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul and Peter handle the OT?  Not very well, if they are judged by standards of modern evangelical scholarship.  Suppose one of these NT authors was enrolled in a modern seminary that holds to the inerrancy of Scripture. And suppose he applied verses from the OT to Jesus  in the manner found throughout the NT.  What kind of grade would he receive?  He would fail.

Yet that same seminary would consider the NT author to be inspired by God. 

At the very least, this should make us wonder whether our methods for approaching the Scripture are reasonable.

Here is a simple example.  Matthew 2:14-15 describes how Joseph took Mary and the baby Jesus and fled to Egypt to protect them from King Herod.

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Matthew is referring to Hosea 11:1:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

When we examine this passage from Hosea, we are faced with two undeniable facts.  First, that passage is not prophetic.  Hosea is writing about the past sins of his people, not making predictions about future events.  Second, that passage is about Israel, not about a coming Messiah.  To use that verse as Matthew did is to ignore Hosea’s original intent and to apparemtly take it out of context.  This is exactly what seminarians are taught not to do.  Poor Matthew flunks out.

But poor Matthew isn’t stupid.  He knows the OT very well, even better than we do, and, from the earliest days his writings were considered authoritative.   So how do we reconcile these facts?  To do so, we need to understand that the NT is not simply a continuation of the OT.  The NT is truly “New.” The NT presents a radical reinterpretation of Israel’s history in light of the death and resurrection of Christ, which were not on the OT writers’ radar screen. (Yes, the death of Jesus is foreshadowed in the OT, but the OT authors didn’t realize it.  And we search the OT in vain to find any clear description of the resurrection.)  The death and resurrection of the Messiah were God’s best-kept secrets, truly startling and revolutionary.

So what is Matthew really saying?  By applying Hosea 11:1 to Jesus, he appears to be saying that Jesus Christ is the new Israel.   Some passages in the OT (for example, Exodus 4:22) portray Israel as God’s firstborn son.  Matthew takes this privileged position of Israel and applies it now to Jesus.  The juxtaposition of Israel and Jesus is found in other places in the NT as well (Gal 3:16). So Matthew knows what he is doing.  He is not simply looking at Hosea 11:1 and asking, “What is the contextual meaning of this verse?”  He is scanning across the panorama of OT history and reinterpreting it in light of God’s new revelation of his kingdom.

In discussing how the NT writers approached the OT, Enns suggests that we look to the Talmud.  The Talmud is a rabbinical discussion of Jewish law and history that was written shortly after the NT.  Talmudic scholars also took verses out of immediate context.  They were, in a sense, trying to accomplish the same thing that the NT writers had done.  They were reinterpreting the history of Israel in light of the terrible recent events, including the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.  They were trying to understand whether the Jews were still God’s chosen people, whether God still had a plan for them, and what that plan might be.  But because they had rejected the resurrection of Christ, they ended up with a very different perspective.

For scholars who want to address the difficult questions that modern people are posing about the Bible, conservative doctrines of scriptural inerrancy are a virtual minefield.  Enns frequently ventures into this minefield.  He acknowledges that the Bible was not written as a modern history book.  The order of presentation is not necessarily chronological. Events are described multiple times from different points of view, and the details in various accounts do not always agree.  One of the best known examples is when Jesus drove moneychangers out of the temple.  Matthew, Mark and Luke place this event during Passion week, just after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  But John places it at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, just after the wedding at Cana (Jn 2:12-22).  Some have tried to resolve this dilemma by supposing that Jesus cleansed the temple twice, once at the beginning of his ministry and once at the end.  Enns does not support that view.  He believes that the literary forms used by the NT authors did not presume that every detail of every story would be a precise, factual record as might be obtained if the events had been captured by a video camera.  Small discrepancies were an acceptable part of oral history and did not cast doubt on the truthfulness of the story or the spiritual messages it was intended to convey.  For his willingness to voice these opinions, Dr. Enns has been sharply criticized by some former students and colleagues at Westminster Theological Seminary.  I am not familiar with the specific charges and issues of this controversy, so I will not say anything more about it.  I will say, however, that after listening to this man lecture for approximately six hours, I was impressed by his thoughtfulness and sincerity, his deep respect for the Scripture, and his refreshingly winsome approach to the Bible.

The forum was attended by approximately thirty Christian leaders from a wide variety of denominational backgrounds.  About one-third of the time was devoted to discussion among Dr. Enns and members of the audience.  Despite varied backgrounds, we were kindred spirits and learned a great deal from one another.  One lesson that emerged again and again was this:  Much of the Bible remains a mystery to us.  The Bible is a rather messy book, and we don’t need to be embarassed by its messiness. God could have given us a book of rules and doctrines with apparently perfect internal and external consistency.  But he didn’t.  He gave us a sprawling narrative written by real people over long periods of history.  History is filled with difficulties, and these show up everywhere on the pages of Scripture.  Yet we also believe the Bible to be God’s word, written exactly as he wanted it to be. 

Today’s young Christians – the next generation of spiritual leaders – are not afraid to ask the tough questions that some of their immediate predecessors have been dodging.  Too often, my generation haa responded to tough questions with pat answers, disapproving glances and exhortations to “just believe.”  Yes, God wants us to believe.  And he also wants us to be brutally honest.  He gave us a Bible that is brutally honest.  He respected us enough to give us a messy book, trusting that we have the maturity to handle it as creatures of reason and good sense.  For that, we should be thankful.

[Editor’s note: The author is a Penn State undergraduate majoring in Media Studies.  He is a self-described nerd who loves film, books and politics.  He has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism, which he regards as a spiritual gift. Please don’t compare him to the Rain Man!  More of his writings can be found at his blog, Tuttle’s Journal, which he updates weekly.]

As part of my major, I have taken two classes on film.  Film is a modern form of narrative.  A much older form of narrative is mythology.  I’ve studied mythology and seen how it influences fantasy film.  All forms of narrative seem to point to certain fundamental desires, and these desires are closely related to our desire for God.  I would like to mention three particular desires that are often seen in films.  

The desire for a savior.  A savior is a person who sacrifices something to take a person or group of people out of a bad situation into a better one.  Superhero films are stories about saviors. For example,  the savior of The Dark Knight is Batman who fights to make the people of Gotham City safer.  To keep the city safe, he must sacrifice his relationship with a girl named Rachel Dawes.

The desire for a relationship with one’s father.  In many films, the main character reconnects with his father and repairs the relationship. One obvious example of this is Finding Nemo.  In some movies, the main character has no chance to reconnect with his father, and this creates a struggle.  He may find a mentor to be the father figure.  One example of this is how Obi-Wan Kenobi mentored Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.

The desire to be part of a greater cause.  Although American films tend to be individualistic, they also present heroes who perform good deeds for society. A prime example is The Matrix. In that film, a man named Neo discovers that his world is a virtual reality, and he begins to fight for those who are trapped in this virtual reality.

I have mentioned three desires which are commonly found in film narrative. Each of these is related to our desire for God.  And each one finds fulfillment in the basic teachings of the Christian faith.

Consider our desire for a savior.  Jesus is our Savior.  He was God incarnate, one of the three persons who make up the Trinity.  (Don’t ask me to explain that; it’s too difficult.)  According to the Bible, we are doomed to die because we have sinned (Romans 3:23, 6:23).  This death is eternity apart from God.  Jesus died as the punishment that we were supposed to receive.  Jesus’ sacrifice of his life allows us to live for all eternity in a relationship with God.

Jesus’ sacrifice also reconnects us to our Father.  In the book of Genesis (chapter 3), man sins and becomes separated from God.   The rest of the Bible is the story of how God makes it possible to reconnect with Him.  When a person comes to Christ, his relationship with God is restored.  God even works through his Spirit to influence people to reconnect with him.  As long as a Christian remains on earth, his relationship with God has problems.  But once the Christian enters eternity, his relationship with God is perfected.

What about our desire to be part of a greater cause?  Christians have a mission is to help other people reconnect with God.  There are many good causes to which we can belong, but bringing people to God is certainly the greatest.  This is the cause to which God has devoted himself since the beginning of history.  God wants us to join him in this cause.  If we do, he will give us the power to do any work he asks of us.

These are just three desires which I have found in film narrative.  I’m sure that you can think of more. Feel free to point them out by leaving a comment below. You may even want to discuss some of your favorite films.