The remarkable cultural impact of the Matrix trilogy appears to have faded. Apart from the occasional commercial that parodies the technologically innovative fight sequences of the Matrix, the popular hype has settled. However, the sub-popular influence still remains for “real” Matrix fans.

We still find ourselves compelled to occasionally check out the website or throw in Reloaded just to catch one more insight or relish the Burly Brawl once again. I found myself reloading this weekend. Under the guise of ‘checking out my computer speakers’ I loaded Reloaded and watched the first 15 minutes, which contains two pretty impressive fight scenes, a insightful Morpheus monologue and a hoaky flight by Neo, courtesy of CGI. Nevertheless, it was entertaining, engaging and insightful. I found myself observing the periphery rather than the center of the screen, looking for well-placed Wachowski nuances…

Pretty cool. Remember the scene when Smith visits the clandestine meeting of the Zion rebels in the matrix to deliver his earpiece to Neo through the slit in a metal door and then walks off? Well, he pulls up in an Audi with the following license plate: IS 5416 . So, I thought to myself, “What the hec, I’ll check the reference to Isaiah 54.16.” This is what I read: “?Behold, I Myself have created the smith who blows the coals and brings out a weapon for its work; and I have created the destroyer to ruin.” Pretty savvy huh? The question is, what does it mean?

Of course, there is the obvious connection with “Smith” as the blacksmith of Isaiah. Is this just a superficial connection or is there a deeper theological meaning? Are we meant to perceive that Smith is an instrument of destruction in the hands of a sovereign God? If so, where is God in the trilogy? Neo dies or does he? The Eastern concept of balancing cosmic good and evil figures prominently in Revolutions in which universal harmony between the machine and human worlds is secured through the sacrifice of the One (a supernatural figure from the Hindu Vedas). Is this reference just another part of the Wachowski postmodern pastiche? How does IS 5416 figure into our theodicy, our theology of suffering? Does it offer more or less hope than the solution offered by the Matrix? Thoughts? Click on the comment link below.

I have often found myself hard-pressed to find Christian music that I like (besides worship music). Even with the explosion of the Christian music industry over the past ten years, it appears that, as the explosion has cleared, there has been more rubble than riches. Having said that, it’s been a while since I’ve dilligently searched Christian music.

At www.grassroots.com I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across a new musician, John Mark McMillan, whose album, Hope Anthology Volume One, can be streamed for free online: http://www.grassrootsmusic.com/artist/mcmillanjm McMillan creates a folk-rock kind of sound, his whiny vocals calling to mind a younger Dylan. Occasionally you’ll hear the kind of loops and mixes that David Gray does so well. The short album has a nice blend of songs, ranging from acoustic rythms to folk funk. On the funkish side of things is “Ominous,” a song about the radical impact Christian love can have on society,”like a six rounds in the hands of a killer, I am dangerous in Your arms.” The slow groove “Who Can See” begins, “Make my chest a place where your heart can rest.” Amen. A worshipful plea indeed. The chorus is essentially James 4.8 (cf. Ps 24.4), “Who can see the Lord? One whose hands are clean and whose heart is pure.” McMillan blends the essential soveriegn work of the Spirit in our hearts with the urgent imperative that we responsibly pursue purity of heart and hand…and reminds us of the great benefit of purity- seeing the soveriegn Lord! Hope you enjoy it…and here’s hoping for Volume Two- soon!

As I continue to prepare for fatherhood (Robie is in her 28th week), I have been helped by conversations, books and prayer. Today I met with a dear friend whose wife has the same due date (9/11, redeeming that date one birth at a time) to discuss the challenges, concerns and blessings of pregnancy and impending fatherhood. Although we realize we will never be “ready for fatherhood,” we took great encouragement that we are not alone, that we have a heavenly Father who has wired us for this all-important calling. “See how great a love the Father has given to us that we might be called children of God.” (1 Jn 3.1)

Believe it or not, the challenges set in before the baby is born. Although our wives have the hardest part (morning sickness, weight gain, hormonal changes, fatigue, etc.), their challenges call for husbands to relinquish their time to attend to their needs. My friend and I agree that our wives have been incredibly graceful and faith-full as they enter this unusual 9 month experience. Nevertheless, it takes time to pick up the slack, to clean more, to go to doctor’s appointments, to plan for life change. Losing time now is a foretaste of things to come (add to that sleep and sanity).

However, doing stuff isn’t the essence, though its essential, to parenting. In Becoming A Dad, James and Thomas write: “The priorities of joy-filled fathering must never be about doing more, learning more, or acquiring more skills. Rather, our focus as godly men must remain about discovering a life of authenticity and abundance based in the person of Christ…As fathers, we are called to acknowledge and experience the uniqueness of our children. This can only be done by naming, facing, and embracing our losses- the loss of free time, the loss of couplehood, the loss of money, the loss of privacy, the loss of sleep, the loss of freedom, the loss of quiet, to name only a few.” (and reading books like this one!)

Of course, loss is central to the Christian life, but it isn’t an end in itself. “Whoever wishes to gain his life must lose it.” (Luke 9.24) We lose our life, our lordship, in order to GAIN something, namely incomparable life, life filled with the fragrance of Jesus. So, my hope in parenthood is the same as it is in marriage and all of life, that I would gain Christ in every step, wherever it leads. Another father and friend has summed up the essence of fatherhood well: “In order to be a good father, try to be a good son.”

So, the joy set before us is to revel in our sonship. Sure, that will be really hard at times, but its worth it. Although gaining fatherhood isn’t without loss; its also not without gain!

In the recently released, Bono: in conversation with Michka Assayas, French journalist and U2 critic interviews Bono on a host of topics from childhood struggles to adulthood egotism and all kinds of stuff in between. The most authoritative book available on Bono (not U2 per se), this penetrating conversation draws you deep into the dreams and fears, faith and follies of the Irish rock star.

Interestingly, Bono does not back down from the hard questions. Although, at times, he attempts to sidestep them, Michka hunts him down with inquisitive force. As a result, some of Bono’s theology (quite good) is thrust out onto the pages of this exposing 323 page interview.

Michka inquires: “What about the God of the Old Testament? He wasn’t so Peace and Love.” (name of a new song on HTDAAB)

Bono answers:

There’s nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is. I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery. The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that’s why they’re so relatable. But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like the journey form stern father to friend. When you’re a child, you need clear directions and some strict rules. But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.

Film director Christopher Nolan’s (The Following, Memento) Batman Begins, begins tonight, well actually tomorrow, 12:01 for the real Bat-fans. Whereas all previous Batman films have captured the “super” in the hero, apparently Nolan’s film is going to answer the question, “How did the “bat” get into the ‘man’?” Although likely far from Nolan’s existential, The Following, one wonders just how deep Nolan will dig to get to Batman’s beginnings?

It appears that heroes of modernism have been replaced by new heroes, post-modern heroes. Intriguingly, on October 14, 2004 the superhero of modernism, Superman, a.k.a. Christopher Reeve, died the same day as Jacques Derrida, the philosophical hero of postmodernism. Far from burying either modernism or postmodernism as ethical and philosophical frameworks, the deaths of these two individuals are reflected in recent Hollywood heroes. For instance, take the recent Jason Bourne of The Bourne Identity. When compared to the smooth, sexy and confident 007 of the James Bond legacy, Bourne appears conflicted, lost and confused. Bond is a indifferent assassin, whose female relationships are superficial and sundry. Bourne, on the other hand, is a conscientious killer, committed to one woman, a woman whom he loses. Bond appears omniscient, whereas Bourne is ignorant. Suffering from amnesia, Bourne is searching for his identity and is happy to have discovered his name. Bond’s egotism generates an unreal and un-relatable personality; he even goes by a pseudonym, 007.

So where does Batman fall in the superhero shuffle? Plagued by the death of his parents at an early age, Batman is a tortured soul searching for justice and identity. Oscillating between the Bond-like Bruce Wayne and the Bourne Batman, the masked hero simultaneously portrays the images and traits of both modernism and postmodernism. So who is he? Well, Mark Reinhart, author of “The Batman Filmography,” thinks that Batman is who we want him to be. In an interview by Mac Daniel of the Boston Globe, Reinhart contends that Batman is meant to absorb all of our perceptions, that “none of us is more right than anyone else,” making Batman everyone’s hero and no-one at the same time, a classic post-modern conundrum. One thing is for sure, Superman or Batman, Bond or Bourne, only One hero does it for me, one who is the same yesterday, today and forever- Jesus the Christ.

This morning I spent my devotion in 1 John 3. I was struck by the unequivocal, black and white nature of John’s statement: “the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning…By this the children of God and the children of devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God…(3.8, 10).” If I practice sin, I’m a child of the devil?! My first inclination is to harmonize what John says with what he says elsewhere, “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake (1.12).” As a result, I “escape” the exhortation, I soften the blow of John’s bold statement.

But upon reflection, I don’t think John wants us to harmonize. Sure, he wants us to read in context and rest in the cross but he doesn’t want us to stay stuck in 1.12…he wants us to keep reading. Although Christ has come to decisively defeat Satan, I’m still left with a choice. Will I follow Jesus or will I follow Satan? Will I pursue righteousness or sinfulness? Will I behave in such a way today that I am conformed to the image of the devil or the image of Christ? Practicing sin starts now and so does practicing righteousness.

So where might devilish behavior manifest itself? I don’t have to look far. The tendency to complain about the weather, instead of exalt God for his omnipotence over it and his character in it (extreme temperatures reveal the might of God), is one expression of subdued anger (add to this related sins of grumpiness, self-sulking, cutting remarks, etc.). Satan is the epitome of anger, dissent, accusation. He doesn’t trust God in less than desirable circumstances; he blames God. He longs to lull us into subtle sins, sins of complacency and complaint. He plots to conform us to his angry image, to make us like children of the devil.

What would it look like for me, for us, to trust God even in weather we don’t desire? In circumstances or situations that are uncomfortable or undesirable. How might a child of God respond to these things? Will be content or will we complain? Angry or awestruck at God’s awesome power. Oh, to not act like children of the devil but like children of God!

Put ten bucks in the jar. When I recall some of the popular discipleship disciplines I espoused and practiced in college, I shudder. Did I really think that they were biblical or even helpful? If one of the guys I was discipling caved into a particular sin he was “being held accountable” for, he had to put ten bucks in the jar. Sometimes the accumulated cash was put in the offering, other times it was used to celebrate “not sinning” over dinner. Somehow, this practice was supposed to motivate holy living.

Maybe you’ve had a similar experience, one which frequently occurs within the context of what evangelicals call “Accountability Groups”- gatherings in which brothers and sisters in Christ meet together to encourage one another in their journey toward holiness, toward Christ-likeness. Ideally, these groups promote Christian obedience through enforcing biblical standards while also providing an environment of grace in which we experience the pain of confessing sin and the joy of conquering it. Put more positively, accountability groups typically seek to foster personal holiness and faith in Christ through corporate confession, discussion and prayer, a noble aim. Whether you can relate the experience above or not, one thing we all have in common is the struggle against mixed motives and deficient discipleship in our pursuit of holiness.

Asceticism and Confession

Although the aim of accountability groups is good, the practice is often misguided. Accountability groups often smack of asceticism. Failures to trust and cherish God are punished through graduated penalties (an increased tithe, buying lunch or coffee for the “partners,” or unspoken ostracism from one’s peers). Instead of holding one another accountable to trusting God, we become accountable for exacting punishments on one another. The unfortunate result is a kind of legalism in which the healing of confession and the power of God’s promises are substituted by peer prescribed punishments. As a result, our motives for holiness get warped. Confession in such contexts is relegated to “keeping from doing it,” making discipleship a duty-driven, rule-keeping journey.

Alternatively, these sorts of groups can devolve into a kind of evangelical confessional booth from which we depart absolved of any guilt, fearing merely the passing frown of our fellow priest. I confess my sin, you confess yours. I pat your back, you pat mine and then we pray. Accountability groups become circles of cheap grace through which we obtain cheap peace from a troubled conscience. This approach to holiness backfires and we begin to take Christless comfort in the confession of sin (ours and others). Confession becomes divorced from repentance, reducing holiness to half-hearted morality. Accountability becomes a man-made mix of moralism and cheap peace.

Don’t get me wrong; confession is good and biblical: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (Js 5.16; cf. 1 Jn 1.9) It’s a means of grace for spiritual healing, not something we do in order to regain God’s approval. It’s relating to our Holy Father in authenticity and is a holy act itself (not something we do to position ourselves for holiness). The problem arises when we lose sight of holiness and we turn confession into a purely horizontal act, making it an impersonal ritual.

Motivation for Holiness

With accountable asceticism, the main motivation for not sinning is punishment or embarrassment. The idea is that we will refrain from sinning because we don’t want to lose something or to be embarrassed by confessing our sin to a friend. Confessional booth accountability empties the power of holiness by hollowing its motivation. Earnestness for holiness is replaced by ritual regurgitation of our sin. Whether we drift toward the confessional booth or accountable asceticism, what’s common to both is a subverting of the seriousness of sin and a forsaking of holiness, both of which sever us from the joy of Lord. In short, we substitute ritual for righteousness.

So what’s the big deal? What’s at stake in our distorted forms of accountability, in hollowed pursuits of holiness? Well, for starters, our relationship with the Trinity gets short-circuited. The Father isn’t trusted, the Son’s sacrifice is sold out, and the Spirit is slighted. In addition to trivializing the Trinity, we settle for the fleeting pleasure of peer approval or cheap peace when we could have “pleasures forevermore” in our relationship with God (Ps 16.11).

In order to avoid the confessional booth mentality and ascetic accountability, two things are necessary. First, we have to take the threats of Scripture seriously. When God says, “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord (Heb 12.14),” he means it! Gathering together to remind one another of the imperative of holiness is good and necessary. Second, we need to be reminded of the powerful and precious promises of God (2 Pt 1.4). God’s promises aren’t meant for measuring; they’re for trusting. His promises are the path to true pleasure. They are the way to worship. God h
imself is bent on pursuing our pleasure through His holiness: “but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness (12.10).” Did you catch that? The infinite God of the universe is committed to our good, even in discipline! He pursues our true pleasure, knowing that when we trust him we become like Him; we become holy. When we trust in His promises, God is glorified and we are satisfied. Our happiness is bound up with His holiness.

So the next time we gather together, believe the warnings and bank on the promises. Scripture motivates us for holiness with both the pitchfork and the carrot. Encourage one another to not settle for second-rate pleasures, but to pursue the happiness that comes with holiness. Of course, be sure to listen, learn and love, praying for one another so you will be healed. In doing so, we will escape the evangelical confessional booth and axe ascetic accountability, embracing happiness in holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.

Owen Christopher Dodson, due 9.11.2005

Owen Christopher Dodson, due 9/11/2005

Robie and Jonathan in NY

Thomas Aquinas “The Doctor of the Church”

Born 1224/25 in Roccasecca, not far from Naples, Aquinas was a scion of the noble Aquino family. In 1239 went to Univ of Naples to study liberal arts. In 1244 he joined the scholarly, mobile Dominicans who established study houses all over Europe. With an aim to devote his life to the church, he was abducted in protest by his family, spending a year in the famliy castle before they accepted his decsion! Upon his release, Aquinas went to Paris to study theology with Albert the Great. Subsequently, he taught in Italy for 10 years, followed by a career at the Univ of Paris until his stance against Siger of Brabant’s “unicity of the intellect.” Brabant’s teaching affirmed an eternal intellect for all peoples, implying an inferior and ephemeral view of the soul and body, clearly incompatible with Christian doctrine. During the controversty Aquinas took an opposing stance and was ordered to set up a school in Naples.

Aquinas’ view of the relationship between philosophy and theology would set the tone for Christianity for centuries to come. He affirmed the harmony of the relationship between philosphy and theology, perceiving value in each discipline. Philosophy is not to be reduced to theology, although it should not contradict theological truth. Faith is the perfecting ingredient of the pursuit of knowledge. Aquinas did not believe in a necessary illumination for any knowledge, theological or otherwise. Nevertheless, he was a theologian first and a philosopher second, not in skill but in conviction. After producing volumes of philosophical and theological treatises, starting a school and lecturing all over Europe, he died at the age of 49, March 7, 1274. What will you accoplish in the next 19 years, Jonathan?