Looking for Nutrition at the Drive-Thru

All over the Christian world, critics are rising up to discuss Darren Aronofsky’s new film Noah. Alan Kurschner says the film is straight-up blasphemy. Ken Ham complains that recommending the movie, at all, conflicts with Christian consistency in arguing against abortion. Barbara Nicolosi says that the film contains “dumb, oversimplified liberal utopia nonsense." The list of complaints goes on.

Just to show that I’m not a huge fanboy (nor a full-on hater) of the film, before proceeding further, I’ll post my response when somebody, elsewhere, wanted to know what I thought of it (especially with reference to Nicolosi’s piece linked to above):

I just saw it a couple hours ago. I loved the first 2/3 of the movie. It was a visual spectacle. We may never see the flood rendered in such artistic beauty and simultaneous horror again. There were scenes reminiscent of Gustav Dore's pictures of judgment. I also didn't mind the rock people. I look at this film as another flood story comparable to the Epoch of Gilgamesh. It isn't accurate, but it is an opportunity to think about God's wrath, about coming judgment, and about the truth that God really did wipe mankind from the face of the earth because of its evil. 

Also, the complaint that Noah is a left-wing "environmentalist" in the film ignores the fact that God placed Adam in the garden not to trash it and make it uninhabitable, but to have respect for it because he respected the creator. As Beale says in his New Testament Biblical Theology, Adam was placed in the garden to be a prophet, priest, and king. Part of his priestly duty was caring for the garden as well as the animals. The original environmentalist (properly defined, of course)! Frankly, the complaint that she makes calling it "oversimplified liberal utopia nonsense" shows that the one writing is more influenced by her own political tradition than what the Bible says about man's relationship to the creation. 

But the last 1/3 of the movie? A true mess. The decision to turn Noah into the film's antagonist was an interesting but horrible decision. Aronofsky must have seen it as an opportunity to explore Noah's motives or something, but it just came off all wrong. 

The story was already dark. Aronofsky made it unnecessarily darker. Although I sort of like the idea of a theatre full of nominally religious people looking for something "positive and encouraging" and instead being given an existential schooling. All in all, it was amazingly made, beautiful to behold, horrific in its depiction of judgment, and not such a great story by the end.

Although I’ve been interested in seeing the movie for years (ever since I heard it was being made) I am not a fanboy. I am critical of the film, but I try to criticize in a balanced way, keeping in mind that it is a movie and taking it for what it is intended to be. The criticisms I am seeing from many conservative bloggers (whom I do love and respect as my brothers and sisters in the Lord) remind me of the person who goes into McDonalds expecting a healthy, delicious, well-balanced meal containing all four food groups and then storming out in anger when they wonder why everything is greasy and there isn’t any tofu on the menu. The desire for good food is good, but they are looking for it in the wrong place!

Anybody who goes to see a movie (any movie)…a religious movie, a secular movie, a good movie, a bad movie… should not expect a heaping helping of truth. As with all art that is produced by sinners it’s going to get some stuff right and some stuff wrong (often intentionally so). Sometimes the art is self-consciously dumb like Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans. Sometimes it takes itself very seriously (think of Michaelangelo’s statue of David or every movie ever made by Christopher Nolan).

Furthermore, to accuse this movie of blasphemy seems a bit confused. Perhaps somebody wants to accuse Darren Aronofsky himself, personally, of blasphemy, but does he actually believe the things being depicted in the film? I doubt it. It's fiction. It doesn't say "based on a true story" in the credits. In fact, the only things that this movie and the Bible share in common are a flood and a few characters' names. I don’t think Aronofsky actually believes there were rock giants who protected Noah while he built the ark. He is a filmmaker, not a documentarian. A visual artist, not a journalist. A storyteller, not an eyewitness. And in the case of Noah, his storytelling is—I would concede—not in top form. The director himself claimed that this is the "least Biblical biblical film ever made." Some have taken this as an opportunity to condemn the film, but in fact it shows that there is a self-awareness that this movie isn't trying to present the actual story, but a radical rewriting. In point of fact, this movie has more in common with Lord of the Rings than anything we find in the Bible.

While I’m at it, I want to just mention in passing that comparing a book to a movie is like comparing a painting to a statue. It’s two completely different mediums—both art. To make a statue of the Mona Lisa might (and that's a huge "might") be interesting, but it would also be something completely different from the original—perhaps barely worthy of comparison.

I’m not interested in defending Noah as great art, or as an accurate religious statement. I don’t have to. It’s just a movie. It is not the preaching of the Word, it is not the Sacraments, and it is not prayer. These are the means that God has given his church for her edification and upbuilding. It is in these areas that Christians should demand theological integrity and where battle-lines should be drawn. If you are taking a youth group to this movie (or any movie) because you want them to be fed spiritually, you're out of your mind. (The same goes for taking them to Newsboys concerts as well, by the way.)

I’ve written previously that Christians expect too much from their music, and the same is true of movies. When you go to the Waffle House, expect waffles. When you go to the steak house, understand that they serve steak there. And when you go to a cinemaplex, whose walls are covered with posters with giant robots, wizards, and men shooting webs out of their hands, understand that this place is meant to do one thing well: entertain.

Book Review: Silence by Shusaku Endo

My suspicion is that the majority of Christians in the west, much like myself, have never heard about the earliest Catholic missions to Japan in the 17th Century. The Jesuits came to Japan in 1549, and while I should not (and cannot) here give a history of Christianity in Japan, it is worth admitting that the 1630s and 40s were a time of unbearable persecution. The tortures exacted on the Christians of Japan during this time are horrifying to consider.

Shusaku Endo’s book Silence, a fictionalized account of true events, was written in the 1960s by a Roman Catholic.  I speak of this book as neither a Catholic, nor as someone with any special or unique knowledge of the history of Christianity in Japan. One of Endo’s enduring themes is the incompatibility of Christianity (or any other religion) with the Japanese culture. One of Endo’s repeating themes in this book is that Japan is a “swamp” which takes, changes, and transforms ideologies until they no longer resemble their former selves. From reading the translator’s preface, one can see that there are autobiographical aspects to this argument. Endo sees a struggle within his own heart away from his Catholicism, and in one interview said that in spite of his own religious upbringing, “there was always that feeling in my heart that it was something borrowed, and I began to wonder what my real self was like. This I think is the ‘mud swamp’ Japanese in me.” So for Endo, Christianity can never really take root in Japan unless it changes, transforms, or adapts. Of course, this is a popular modern theme, this idea that Christianity will wither and die if it does not change with the times. It seems harder to believe here in the West where most people still preserve some nominally religious veneer. It’s a bit more persuasive when one considers that less than 1% of people in Japan are Christian. I do not agree with Endo that Christianity must change in order to be received, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this book review. So while I am not sympathetic with Endo’s larger project, I found myself utterly captivated by Silence. Reading this book was a remarkable experience for me. I will try to make the case here that Christians need to be made more aware of this book. It belongs on our bookshelves next to Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer and the writings of Flannery O’Connor in the sense that it asks the hard questions, pushes the reader in painful ways, and does not offer preachy or simple answers.

[I warn that from here on out my review contains spoilers. If you want to read the book, I recommend that you get it and read it right away, but do stop reading this review!] The novel takes place in the 1630s after a Jesuit priest in Japan named Ferreira is reported to have apostatized from the faith. Finding this impossible to believe, the Priests Rodrigues and Garpe make the dangerous journey from Portugal to Japan in order to live as missionaries among the Japanese and also to find out what the truth is of Ferreira’s fate. Half of the book is the written journal of Rodrigues, while the other half of the book is either written in a third person format, or contains the letters of others associated with the narrative. Rodriguez and Garpe are eventually captured by the authorities and witness horrific circumstances as they watch the Japanese Christians laying down their lives for the faith. There is no glory in these martyrdoms, as Rodriguez had always imagined. Rather, there is a brutality and cruelty which he had never imagined. Prior to the arrival of Rodriguez, the Japanese forced the priests to renounce the faith and tortured them until they did so, with none of them recanting. However, we soon discover that the Japanese chose a different method altogether, beginning with Ferreira. They use this same technique to great effect on Rodriguez, as well. Rather than torturing the priests, they torture the Christians, telling Rodriguez that all he must do is renounce the faith in order to end their sufferings.

Some of the greatest struggle in the book takes place as Rodriguez recounts his own psychological struggles. There are hard questions. It is one thing to suffer for your own faith – to endure pain and suffering for the sake of one’s love for Christ. But is it self-centered to refuse to recant in order to end another’s suffering? At one climactic moment in the book, Rodriguez can hear the moaning of the Christians as they hang in the pit, their cries going up and reaching his ears. These Christians have all recanted, but they will not be released until Rodriguez tramples the image of Christ. Suddenly, the image of Christ speaks: “Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know of the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men’s pain that I carried my cross.” Rodriguez obeys, and the Christians are released.

The title of the book, Silence refers to Rodriguez’ constant lament that God is silent as his people suffer. “Why is God continually silent while those groaning voices go on?” At one point Rodriguez is praying and he says, “'Lord, I resented your silence.” He receives a reply: “I was not silent. I suffered beside you.” The book is Job-like in its unwillingness to offer straight answers.

And so the novel forces us to ask if what Rodriguez did is right or wrong. The book implies that he never really gives up believing, but that he spends the remainder of his days as a secret Christian of sorts, outwardly obeying the magistrate. As long as the priests stay away and Rodriguez continues as he is, the authorities promised to leave the Christians alone.

Later in the book, Inoue speaks to Rodriguez and he says, “I’ve told you. This country of Japan is not suited to the teaching of Christianity. Christianity simply cannot put down roots here…you were not defeated by me…You were defeated by this swamp of Japan.”

Another character in the novel who matters a great deal is the weakling Kichijiro, who is a pathetic figure, folding under persecution every time, terrified of the authorities, turning in Father Rodriguez at one point, but always returning, always repenting. At one point Rodriguez is thinking of Kichijiro and he wonders to himself: “How many of our Christians, if only they had been born in another age from this persecution would never have been confronted with the problem of apostasy or martyrdom but would have lived blessed lives of faith until the very hour of death.” What stinging words! To Christians who live in the West, free of persecution, free of tortures and pain it is so easy for us to judge one such as Kichijiro, and yet constantly throughout the novel we are confronted repeatedly by his tragic and pathetic figure. I think that we as readers would be wise to see ourselves in Kichijiro.

There is so much to be said. In spite of the fact that there is a some speculation on all sides of the question, I do not know if Father Rodriguez ever really believed. Endo is more concerned with the experience, struggle, and choices made by Rodriguez than delving into his own eternal election (I use this for the lack of a better word). The fact is, we all experience our lives as a linear succession, just as Rodriguez, and so in a real sense he leaves us as epistemologically unsure of Rodriguez’ eternal fate as we each can be of our own. In the face of persecution, what sort of eternal assurance can a person have who has folded under the pressures of persecution, and especially the kind that Rodriguez faced? Is there a place with Christ for those who outwardly apostatize themselves? Endo certainly appears to believe so.

Endo has complained in the past that part of the reason this book was so controversial in Japan upon its release was that people read the book as theology and not as literature. I’ll resist the urge to follow Endo’s critics into the murky theological waters that one could surely enter after reading this book. Endo’s novel is a masterpiece, plain and simple. Christians need to meditate upon the nature of suffering, the pains of martyrdom, and the difficult questions that confront us in this novel. I have lamented before that Protestant writers seem to be incapable of facing painful and hard existential questions like those in this book without resorting to preachy narrative devices. Silence is the exemplification of how to do a novel tackling the subject of faith and suffering head-on while avoiding the dreadfully tacky literary pitfalls we see all around us.

A Generic Thank You to One of Our Readers

I just wanted to send out a quiet and grateful "thank you" to one of our readers from Florida who anonymously purchased Douglas Bond's book The Betrayal: A Novel on John Calvin for me off of my Amazon wish list. I am absolutely grateful, and it really does feel great to receive some sort of "visible" affirmation of the work I do here at BTB. Not that I don't write because I absolutely love it, but this book was just a great gift, and I can't wait to read it. Whomever you were, thank you for the book.

The Unprofessional Book Review: The Strain Trilogy Books I-II by Guillermo del Toro

If you are a movie geek like me, then you like Guillermo Del Toro. I like his monsters, I like his style, and I just generally like the way he approaches storytelling. Out of curiosity, I started reading The Strain, which is the first book of a vampire trilogy co-written with Chuck Hogan (he wrote the novel that the new Ben Affleck film The Town is based on). Don't roll your eyes at the mention of vampires. As Del Toro said recently in an interview with Stephen Colbert, these are not the sorts of vampires that you would want to take on a date. And boy am I thankful for that! The second book in the trilogy, The Fall (which I just finished reading) was released last Tuesday.

The trilogy starts out with a plane at rest on the tarmac at JFK Airport. The plane full of 'dead' passengers who have been infected with a mysterious virus which kills all but a handful. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, there was a mysterious and ancient passenger on board the plane in the cargo hold, and his arrival in New York is signaling the fruition of a long gestated plan. I won't ruin things by explaining the intricacies of the story. At this point, suffice it to say, the 'dead' passengers don't stay dead once nightfall arrives.

Slowly, (and I do mean SLOWLY) the authorities come to realized that a plague has been unleashed upon the city of New York, and that nobody is immune to its horror. As implied at the beginning, these are not shiny, cute, boy-band looking vampires (a la Twilight), but the really scary kind that eat anything and everything they can get their hands on, and thereby propagating their species further.

Del Toro has intentionally taken an anti-supernaturalistic approach to the creatures, which is fine by me, since from a worldview perspective, they aren't real in the first place. He explains their functions in purely physical terms and describes in tremendous detail how their bodies work. What I did notice (especially in the first book) in terms of 'worldview' agenda was that Del Toro is explicit that religious images (crosses, holy water, etc.) are just 'superstitious' and won't harm the vampires. At one point, a catholic woman throws holy water on a vampire to none effect; realizing she is in big trouble, she quips, "When the power of Jesus fails you, you know you are ---- out of luck."

At another point in the book, the main character in the book, Ephraim, is looking for his friend. As he moves through the train she was on, he sees a room full of recently feasted on bodies. Instead of looking for her face, he doesn't bother. "Nora was smarter than that," and he proceeds forward without looking for her among the dead. I just stopped reading and went, 'Smart enough for what? To know not to die? There may be a flaw in your logic; you'd better look at those faces after all.'

As you can see, this is not the best writing you've ever seen. Moby Dick this is not. But then again, this is pop fiction and meant to be ingested quickly and with little effort. I finished book one in a single weekend, and I took a little longer with book two, even though it was shorter. Overall, these books are entertaining, and a nice respite from the cheesy, schmaltzy vampire junk that's constantly in theaters and on television right now.

I can't put my finger on it, but these books reminded me a great deal of the Left Behind series. Partially, because the writing is literally no better than Lehaye/Jenkins wrote, and partially because a similar grim eschatological pallor hangs over the books as the world descends deeper and deeper into the vampire infestation, and the sole survivors carrying the secret that can save everyone struggle on closer and closer to some sort of resolution. Think of it as Left Behind for pagans.

Truthfully, I don't like to read pop fiction like this very often. But the way I function is by breaking up my reading every now and then, and occasionally feeding my imagination with crazy stuff like this. I find that it keeps my mind 'elastic' if I can use a weird phrase like that, and helps me to be flexible and creative in my thinking. If you're in the mood for a mind-stretch and some freaky vampire hunting, I must say this is the book for you - as long as the thought of blood doesn't make you want to puke.

Father Mapple's Pulpit

In the book Moby Dick, Ishmael enters the mariners' chapel where all the seamen go the Sunday before setting to sea. Never before have I read a book where an entire chapter of the book is devoted to describing in amazing detail the pulpit of a church. And yet, here we have it in Melville's masterpiece:

Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the likeness of a ship’s bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship’s fiddle-headed beak.

What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favorable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick Chapter 8

I love this book. It has already produced within me such tremendous sentiments and sensations as I have never experienced before in reading a book. It's only a shame that I waited until I was almost 30 years old before reading it.