Scott tagged me to fill out a list on his book meme. I'm not usually one to jump on the meme trains - because I rarely find them that interesting (hmm, Jim Hart used to do some decent ones if memory serves). But this one seemed vaguely interesting and I figured it'd give me something to post (which is, I imagine, the reason for memes in the first place). And so: One Book.

Note: For the purposes of this list, I'm excluding all divinely authored, spiritual texts. Thank you.

1. One book that changed your life:

Changed my life? Really, now.

I've yet to find a book that one could accurately term: "life-changing." Everything that one reads or takes in affects one's perception for sure, but generally in those less-perceptible ways such as: I like reading detective fiction now; or, Hm, I'm going to try to think more reasonably about things; or, Wow, I really should be placing more emphasis on the gospel in my thoughts and deeds. So really, the question is unsuitable and I refuse an answer.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:

Watership Down by Richard Adams. With all the people who have read The Lord of the Rings several times over (myself included), I still find it fascinating that when all is said and done, this little book about rabbits is just plain better.

3. One book that you’d want on a desert island:

One with waterproof, untearable pages. You know like those topographical maps you can get for backpacking.

Hrm, okay, a real answer? Volume II of Raymond Chandler's complete works. This is another kind of silly question as any mere book is going to get really dull, really quick if you were alone on an island and those pages were your sole written engagement. At least Chandler's funny.

4. One book that made you laugh:

Most recently? And one that I finished? Anasi Boys by Neil Gaiman. Lots of books make me laugh, but Anasi has a special place in my heart.

5. One book that made you cry:

I'm not sure that a book has made me cry, really; but I would have dropped a single tear while reading Gods and Generals nearly a decade ago , my eyes were that moist with the folly of men. Jimmy Corrigan gets a simmilar mention.

6. One book that you wish had been written:

I wish John Byrne would have finished his series, Next Men instead of merely finishing an arch and leaving the characters in limbo. It was easily his best work and I was sad that it didn't sell well enough for him to continue it.

7. One book that you wish had never been written:

I don't wish books hadn't been written. There are a couple that I wish I hadn't taken the time to read. For our purposes here, I'll simply leave it at volumes 1 through 3 (and about eighty pages of volume 4) of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time thingy. Blech, talk about an over-heated typewriter.

8. One book you’re currently reading:

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel. This is thoroughly amusing. It took me a few tries to get going, but I'm now a third of the way through and am positively loving it. It's like Pride and Prejudice, only without the romance and girly stuff. But with magic instead. I'm still trying to figure out who would be the Mr Darcy character... Oh yes, it's thoroughly footnoted.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:

Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission. It looks thoroughly intriguing. My only regret is that it seems a bit shy on the OT side of things. Of course, both authors are NT guys, so I guess that makes sense.

10. Now tag five people:

No. I don't believe in tagging. Peace out homes.

Three Horrible Old Women. And a Monkey.
For some reason that slips the pale of both memory and intelligence, I had totally forgotten to mention this. A few weeks ago, it was brought to my attention that The Amazing Screw-On Head had been animated and the pilot has been made available for free viewing. This is an astounding thing.

I first ran into The Amazing Screw-On Head in 2002, when Mike Mignola published the first and only issue of the comic of same name. It was a one-shot, intended to be a single issue - self-contained and glorious. It was, and remains, the funniest thing I had ever read. Mignola, who created, scribes, and illustrates the Hellboy book brought in his dark minimalism, but added irreverent and abstract comedy for a senseless romp through a 19th-century adventure. The pilot essentially retells this story, but adds a lot and changes the details.

I highly recommend it. It's only 23 minutes long and once it gets rolling, it presents some of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen in a cartoon. As well, Mignola's unique artistic sense is retained beautifully by the (probably) Korean animators. Good stuff. And please, after viewing, be certain to take their short survey - whatever your flavour on the piece.

Last Night: 'Nuff Said

So I just figured out the allure of transformationalism. I know, I know. It took me long enough. But for you unbelievers, here it is. If I, as a believer, redeem previously worldly things by simply interacting with those things as a believer, then I will never have to defend myself against charges of materialism. I can amass possessions for the glory of God, because what I do, I do for the Kingdom.

And let me tell you, I am sure looking forward to redeeming myself a PS3. All for the Kingdom brother, all for the Kingdom.

I've decided that the best way (and likely only way) for me to actually finish Peter J. Leithart's dip into the seemingly surreal, Against Christianity, is to go bit by bit through, and blog my thoughts. The furthest I've traversed previously in the book is about twenty pages.

It was grueling.

Not because Leithart is anywhere near as mind-numbing as Donald Miller but because he frustrates me. He frustrates me on two points: a) he defines things wholly other than usual and then argues his points based on these unwieldy new definitions; and b) he seems to work at intentionally pissing off the outsider - those who aren't in his circle of boosters. You'll see what I mean.

And with that...

Travelling Against Christianity

Part I: Lose Friends and Nurture Enemies—The Easy Way

On the plus side, after the main part division Leithart's book is divided into nice, easily digest bits that I hesitate to call chapters as they range in length from a sentence to about a page and a half. They come off as self-contained thoughts and often stand alone with little extrapolation. This makes it easy to find stopping and starting places.

And yet, I think this style of writing often serves to increase frustration rather than to nurture reflection. Highly flammable statements are not couched in explanation. They are not given the safety of context. Instead, they often just sit there, like a rotting corpse. Daring people to move along - as though there was nothing to see.

I have been recommended this book by several people, but have yet to see why. I'm hoping this will change and that the things that make reading the book a tiresome exercise will be alleviated by magical incantations such as the Balm of Explanation and the Aura of Good Sense.

Here's one thing that might explain to you why I have such a difficult time moving forward with the book. I read Chuck Palahniuk's Survivor and adored it. I saw the movie adaptation of Fight Club and loved it. I came to trust him as a reliable author, so I purchased another of his novels: Choke. I read the first page, put the book down, and never picked it up to read it again. He begins with: "If you're going to read this, don't bother." If the author himself is going to sabotage the book and tell me he's doing so on the first page, it's obviously not worth the time. I only wished that I hadn't paid for the book.

Leithart does the same thing.

Here's how: In what I presumed was suppose to be some sort of hook to draw in readers, he begins with two statements that seem patently ludicrous. Especially from a PCA minister. "Christianity is gnostic, and the Church firmly rejected gnosticism from her earliest days" (1.1). "Christianity is the heresy of heresies" (1.2). Without explanation, he launches into what can only be described as, well, lies—unless one presumes that he is choosing odd and errant definitions of Christianity, which was my presumption and seemed to be born out after a few pages of reading.

In any case, with such a blatant self-sabotage on the opening page of the book, my confidence in the author is understandably low. It's as if Leithart spoke from the pages, saying, "If you're going to read this, don't bother."

And yet, because he and his writing are influential in small circles on the internet, I will bother. I'm going to try to set aside the biases that Leithart himself worked to engender in me. I am going chronicle both what is said and how I react to it. This is the only way. May Pete have mercy on my soul.

Someone purporting to give sound Christian advice under the nom de flume, Professor Theophilus, just, well, isn't. Really, he's just giving his advice based on nothing so much as his own opinion. An opinion that displays a marked lack of faith in Christian marriage and the sanctifying work of the Lord of Christian marriage. The real sad thing is that he chastises the girl asking the question for having better faith than he has.

This situation pans out as thus:

There is a girl engaged to a guy who was once a homosexual. After his conversion to Christianity, he quit that lifestyle. Still, he struggled with pornography for a number of years. And then he put that behind him. The girl knew of this past and, rightly, held none of it against the man, both putting faith in the redemptive work of her saviour in the man's life and humbly recognizing that it was not just to hold such things against him (for who is innocent of sin in their lives). She comments that recently she discovered from him that in the months before they started going out that he had finally forsaken masturbation. She confessed that it was hard for her to deal with this revelation, but concludes graciously that "his past doesn't change who he is now. I can forgive the things in his past because I know and trust the man he has become under God's rule."

If I were to add anything to her statement it would be the addition that (having read Romans 8 and Philippians 1) she knows and trusts also the man that he is becoming as well as the clarification that she is not trusting so much in the goodness of the man as she is trusting in the promises of God. The reason why I find the prof's wisdom so irksome is that it fails so succinctly to take into consideration both the nature of man and the nature of what "conversion" means.

Though he recognizes that conversion is more than just the soul's initial turn toward Christ, he loses sight of the full implications of such a change in light of man's inability and God's covenant promise to his people. Conversion, as mentioned, is not merely some point of faithful assent, a moment to be remembered fondly as a singularity from which man translates from damned to not-damned. No, conversion (biblically speaking) is a change from child of serpent to child of Life. Conversion is far from trivia, a date to be noted as a "spiritual birthday," and reflects rather one's continual state as a child of the King - as one who is daily conformed to the image of the Son.

And this conformation can be relied upon.

If one truly has his part in the kingdom, his transformation is inevitible because - quite simply - God has promised it would be so. There are no maybes here. Those who are characterized as the overcomers, those who abide in faith, will be changed - for he who began that good work in them will continue it unto its completion. The prof is mistaken in his evident subtraction of the divine from the question. His advice would be fine in an unbelieving world, where people are reliant solely upon their own devices for the manufacture of righteousness. Fortunately, this girl shows better sense and puts faith in the redemptive work of Christ in her fiancees life. Unfortunately, the odds are high that she read this guy's advice.

The other thing this conversation draws up is something that has bothered me for awhile. The treatment of sexual sins in the past of repentant believers by the Christian community. Prof. Theophilus says of the man in question: "Already-forgiven sexual sins, for example, may leave not only damage in the body, but deep stains in the imagination and desires, as well as injuries in the part of us that loves the truth. These stains and injuries generate stronger-than-usual temptations to relapse into the sins themselves."

Look. I understand that sin is bad and that sexual sin is bad and that there are consequences and reprecussions for sin felt even after one is forgiven (as aptly demonstrated in O Brother Where Art Thou). Still, the man had shown a marvellous track record of sanctification. He gave up homosexuality. Then he gave up pornography. Then he gave up masturbation. Seems to me that the work of conversion is alive and well in him. Yet still, the Prof. issues warnings against him due to the nature of his sin.

It reminded me of that lamentable piece by Doug Wilson a while back* wherein he commended Christian men who refused to consider women who had repented of a sexually active past, determining only to marry a virgin. I was disgusted by that bit of hypocrisy then and perhaps the flavour of that taint still lingers and I'm applying it to Theophilus here, but I can't help but see a similar sense in his words.

*tried to find it online but couldn't - though Valerie might know where it is, as it was she who introduced it to me.

So I'm trying to figure out this Federal Viswion hullabuloo and I am frustrated at every turn by the proponents penchant for speaking past the unitiniated. I've been moving slowly through "An Examination of the Federal Vision Controversy" at the recommendation of several and I suppose it's good because it quotes liberally from the real deal, the men behind the curtain. The problem is that not a lot of it makes sense yet. The authors use typical language in arcane ways. And you know you're in trouble when the the author says: "Douglas Wilson clarifies..." Because whether you like his works or not, there is little that he clarifies.

Still, despite obfuscation, I soldier on because it's seemingly more and more important to know why people are converting to a perspective that nobody seems able to explain in any clear, sensible manner.

From my reading, it seems evident that reinvention of common terminologies seems to lie at the core of many observations that FV proponents are talking past the traditionalists. In the first page of my reading alone, I was mystified by what seemed to be completely foreign understandings of of words and ideas that I knew, and had heard spoken of for years in churches and in readings.

Further, deficits in elocution make deciphering these authors an arduous affair. "All in covenant are given all that is true of Christ." As pretty as this quote by Steve Wilkins may sound, it does little to promote clarity. Given a little time and patience one may work out his meaning, but why must FV proponents make things as difficult as all this? Why not just state what one means for once? Why not talk to the level of iniates? Or even lower, the uninitiated.

Immediately in reading the article (which was supposed to clear things up for me), contradictions become apparent. Or perhaps the they are only aparently contradictions? I suspect that because they seem so upon-the-face-of-it contradictory, these problems are due more to my misunderstanding of what the authors mean by the words they use—because really, who would ignore such obvious problems as the ones detected at a glance? Either that or they just ignore such obvious problems.

Wilkins says that all those who are in covenant with Christ are given "all that is true in Christ." It is later said that all those who are in covenant are not true believers in Jesus Christ. Fair enough, I guess. But then it gets sticky. Ignore for a moment that we just said that even the unbeliever in our midst is a son of God, granted every spiritual blessing, and ruling at the hand of the Father in the heavenly places—even as Christ is, has been, and does.

According to the article, all covenant members are saved in some sense, enjoying the blessings of union with Christ, for a time. Strange. I can't for the life of me (to revel in cliche) recognize how the unbeliever in our midst is saved (even for a time) or what they are saved from. There is certainly no hope in Christianity (common usage here, not some Leithartian redefinition) for those who are perishing that I can fathom. It wouldn't even be entry into a wonderful sort of life for early "converts" as persecution and suffering are the predicitons of Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John. The only enjoyment I could see for the unbeliever is false hope and social networking. But perhaps I'm missing something. Or perhaps I just don't know what is meant by "saved," "enjoy," or "blessings."

Then there's this superfluous bit by John Barach (who always struck me as a nice guy, by the way, back in the early days of blogging) where he speaks of every member of what we commonly know as the visible church having been elected and how this allows us to preach the gospel to the gathered congregation as if it were true of them. The funny thing is that this has never been a problem in the archaic, pre-FV church because we were always able to proclaim these things to the gathered membership without making it a lie because it is assumed that when I say, "Brothers in Christ, you are the inheritors of life everlasting! You are citizens of heaven and the bride of Christ himself!" that I am speaking to you as if the testimony from your lips is a true one. It's like if you tell me you are the unbeaten champion at Unreal Tounament and I tell you that you are the best Unreal Tournament player ever. I'm not lying or fabricating. I'm simply telling the truth based off my presumption that you aren't lying. You, of course, being the truth-teller or liar will know whether my words truly reflect your position or not.

Hm, well, I'm clearly frustrated. I plan to continue with this article until I find one that really explains the position. Maybe I'll decipher it by the end regardless. In any case, proponents of FV aren't doing themselves favours by mystifying the doctrine with foggy explanations. And largely, it seems to be rather ghettoized, which doesn't help matters much either. If someone is a fan of Leithart, Jordan, Wilkins, The Dougs, or any of the Credenda crowd, it seems they favour the ideology. If they don't know who those people are, FV just comes off as mystery-doctrine.

I'm skeptical and have yet to be given any reason not to be. And I need to be able to comprehend the reasons before I can accept or reject them. *sigh*

So a few nights ago, I went ahead and saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2.

For those who have seen it, can anyone explain to me why on earth Ms. Knightly was, in the opening scene, sitting in the rain in her wedding dress? It's a very nicely shot scene and looks like it must be some flashback or something because of both the method of its display and the fact that there is no context for it. Unfortunately, there is never any context for it and it hangs, not unlike a halibut, around the neck of the entire proceedings. So if anyone can offer a good explanation for it, I'd be plenteous happy.

In any case, Pirates 2 provides a lot of what one should come to expect from a summer blockbuster. Largely good effects, grand scenery, and large casts. It's got all that for sure. After leaving the theater, I was certain I had seen a movie. Of that much, there could be no doubt. Beyond that, I felt pretty empty.

Whether one was a fan or not, the first Pirates had verve and spark and good humour. There were characters who were engaging. There was a certain sense of adventure. The sequel has none of that. Rather, it presents caricatures of these things. Hollow mannequins and crepe facades.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was, in fact, soulless.

I knew I was supposed to be having a good time. There was swordsplay. Betrayals. Slapstick. And more deaths than you could shake a stick at. And yet, it felt empty. Not only did I never laugh or jump, but I was never tempted to do either. Despite wanting to and anticipating that I would, I couldn't be bothered to care. I'm not sure what was missing, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would hazard that Joy was missing.

The first film seemed to be an exercise in fun. The second appeared to be a crass discipline in commercialism. I won't say it was a bad film, because it wasn't. But it certainly wasn't good. 2 and 1/2 stars. Out of 4. And may the masses have mercy on its soul (if ever they do find it).

p.s. in short: A Scanner Darkly—go see it.

p.p.s. I still hold out some hope for Lady in the Water.

Linklater's films make good summer movies. They exist as an antidote, as it were, to the kind of bloated, gratuitous, overly anticipated blockbusters that typically rule the theater from Independence Day to Labour Day. Where the likes of Will Smith, Tom Cruise, (once upon a time) Arnold Schwartzeneggar represent the pathogen, smaller names like Wiley Wiggins, Rory Cochrane, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy pace the boards of Linklater fare. Two summers ago, anticipation for Spider-Man 2 took a far back seat to my need to experience another—a better—sequel: Before Sunset.

Linklater's latest film opened opposite Disney's summer BangForBuck extravaganza (which I do intend to see), Pirates of the Carribean 2. As much as I enjoyed the first Pirates and as much as I enjoy watching Johnny Depp act like a swishy, actiony Hunter S. Thompson with a cutlass, there was no way I would be tempted from A Scanner Darkly. And, no, I wasn't disappointed.

A Scanner Darkly, an adaptation of a novel by science fiction author, Philip K. Dick, presents a world in which a large segment of the population is addicted to a new drug—happily called "D"" for those of us with short attention spans. This world is seven years hence and the film's particular milieu is Orange County. Everything is wrong and everything is screwed up and the haphazard condition of the soul is aptly represented by the film's animation.

Like Linklater's Waking Life, the current film uses a style of animation known as rotoscoping. Used several times in the late-'70s/ early-'80s films of Ralph Bakshi (notably in The Lord of the Rings, Wizards, and American Pop), rotoscoping involves animating over live-action footage and creates a surrealistic world that mirrors the one we know while subtlely mocking it. A Scannar Darkly may be the best example of this style thus far crafted as the technique is awe-striking in instances. Heads float with only a languid attachment to the bodies to which they belong. Furniture floats as if bobbing in a lightly reckless sea. Features change inexplicably, modulating faces and expressions and painting the horror of this brave new world as if writ large. So integral is the effect that it's hard to conceive that the film would be half as good if it were merely a typical mix of live-action and computer-generated imagineering.

And the film is good.

Though clearly not the kind of story or scene that just anyone will easily digest, for the discerning viewer, Linklater's work here will be rewarding. The story is well-paced, both humourous and sobering, and has twist enough to satisfy most of those who like the suspense of a story well-told without falling into the recent cliche set-off seemingly by the collected works of M. Night Shyamalan. The acting services the story well. Robert Downey Jr. is in his element playing Hunter S. Thompson. Keanu Reeves is still Keanu, but I've never really had much of a problem with him and I think he suits his role. Rory Cochrane is great as usual but either put on a lot of weight or had it animated on. Still, chubby is funny and he's still one of my favourites.

In any case, great film and 3 and 1/2 stars (outta 4) for this piece of cinema-delight. P.S. screw Pirates, this is the one to see in the theater.

This seemed to be right out of The Onion, but it ain't. It did make me laugh though. What I liked the most was the idea that all of the sudden people are trying like crazy to buy up the remaining stock of them. Heh. And heh.