One good thing I can say about James Cameron’s Lost Tomb of Jesus media blitz: It pays Christianity a great compliment by accepting the religion’s claim to be about something real. The basic idea motivating Cameron’s project is that if somebody finds the body of Jesus Christ, the whole Christian thing is over, finished, based on a mistake. Christians claim Jesus came back from the dead with a new kind of life, and that’s a claim that’s either right or wrong. Bring me an ossuary filled with Jesus’ physical remains, and I’m looking for a new religion. (Aside from the theological blow, this would cause lots of family tension too: I’d probably become a Nietzschean humanist, but my wife would just worship the sun, and how on earth would we raise the children? As Coppertoned Übermenschen?)

So even though this particular “bones of Jesus” thing will likely be over before it’s started because it overreaches so desperately on such a slender evidential basis, it’s nice to have truth claims taken so seriously. There are always wooly-minded folks out there who are capable of believing Christianity is true even with a permanently dead Savior. Yes, you read that right: some people have faith in a dead man to save them. You either have to be very dumb or very smart for that to make sense to you; those of us somewhere in the middle recognize it as nonsense.

As an example of a very smart person who talked himself into this, take the German theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965), who spent much of his life teaching in America.
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No, seriously! I was just walking through this graveyard near Los Angeles, and I look up, and there it was: Clear as day, “Jesús” written right on a grave stone. And as if that’s not enough to let you know that I of all people have found the very grave of Jesus himself, look at the top: The grave stone has a cross right there on it! How much more obvious could this be? In fact, I think whoever buried Jesus here (no doubt his wife Mary Magdalene and their son, li’l Judas) felt a bit guilty and left a clue about what they were up to: Notice in the middle of the cross, the letters I. H. S. What do you think that stands for, written in the middle of a cross here on the grave of Jesus in Los Angeles?

I’m. Hiding. Something.

Yep.

And get this: Not only did I find a grave that said Jesús, but I looked around at some other graves nearby, and I found a José and lots of Marias. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, how much proof do you people need? It is so clearly the grave of Jesus that I don’t care what anybody says.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an archaeologist. I’m also not a theologist, a dig-up-stuffologist, a scholarologist or even a symbologist. I’m just a humble movieologist and the KING OF THE WORLD!!!

And by the by, this is absolutely not a publicity stunt. Ab-so-lute-ly.

There is one place in scripture where the sheer greatness of the gospel is most profusely described: the blessing with which Paul opens the epistle to the Ephesians.

Paul begins by praising God for the gift of the gospel, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ,” and then he takes a deep breath and starts counting out those blessings, one after another, in a 202-word avalanche of praise without pause or punctuation from verses 3-14. Paul speaks here from the fullness of his heart as well as the keenness of his insight. The theme of “blessing” overwhelms him, and pushes him to compose a correspondingly overwhelming sentence. It runs from heaven to earth, taking sudden turns and detours as it doubles and triples back on itself, oscillating between God and man, and circling its subject to view it from every angle. For all this wildness, the blessing has also a stateliness and coherence which reflects the wisdom which it praises. No translation or paraphrase can capture it all definitively, but here is one of the possibilities:

God chose us in Christ
before the ground of the world was laid
to be holy and blameless before him;
In his love he determined us in advance
for adoption into sonship through Jesus Christ
through the good pleasure of his will
to the praise of his glorious grace
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I was reading a book once in which the author, having made a great theological point, went on to say “we would do well to note this and remember it.” Now this was a famously feisty Swiss author, given to using exclamation points and double dashes throughout his prose. So “note this and remember it” seemed a bit too polite and reserved, perhaps a bit too British to be the kind of thing he would say. So I hauled out the German original to check up on the work of the translators. What I found is that the most literal translation of what the author wrote would be:

WE MUST GET THIS FACT IN FRONT OF OUR FACES AND HOLD IT IN FRONT OF OUR FACES !!!

What’s the difference between “note and remember” and the type of, erm, facial proximity with dwell time advocated here in the muscular teutonic phrasing? “Noting and remembering” sounds like something angels and reasonable people do, but “getting something in front of your face and keeping it in front of your face” is more along the lines of human nature as we all live in it every day. William Wilberforce (1759-1833) says something truly wise about this in his Practical View.

“The state of man is such, that his feelings are not the obedient servants of his reason, prompt at once to follow his dictates, as to their direction, and their measure.” That is, even when we know intellectually what’s good and bad, our emotions don’t attach to the right things.
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William Wilberforce (1759-1833) admits in his Practical View that his definition of religion runs pretty close to what most people would call a definition of fanaticism (or, in 18th-century terminology, enthusiasm). He calls religion

the implantation of a vigorous and active principle; it is seated in the heart, where its authority is recognized as supreme, whence by degrees it expels whatever is opposed to it, and where it gradually brings all the affections and desires under its complete control and regulation.

That makes it sound like a dangerous force from which one ought to keep some critical distance. Christianity like this, in the estimate of all the worldly wisemen, is to be handled with care: “It’s a good thing in moderation, but don’t get too involved in it.” Wilberforce begs to differ. In the first place, a “vigorous and active princple” implanted in the heart is not something you ask for a little bit of, and what would “moderation” even mean when we’re talking about loving God? But in the second place, a little bit of Christianity is a recipe for a permanently grumpy semi-Christian, who can’t enjoy heaven or earth. It’s not the totally sold-out saints who mope through life disappointed with everything, but the ones who are hedging their bets and keeping a few options open. Wilberforce says:

“Drink deep…or taste not,” is a direction full as applicable to Religion, if we would find it a source of pleasure, as it is to knowledge. A little Religion is, it must be confessed, apt to make men gloomy, as a little knowledge to render them vain: hence the unjust imputation often brought upon Religion by those whose degree of Religion is just sufficeint, by condemning their course of conduct, to render them uneasy; enough merely to impair the sweetness of the pleasures of sin, and not enough to compensate for the relinquishment of them by its own peculiar comforts. Thus these men bring up, as it were, an ill report of the land of promise, which, in truth, abounds with whatever, in our journey through life, can best refresh and strengthen us.

Bad spies! No promised land for you! Caleb never bored us with cliches about moderation…

Consider airplanes. They are simple structures, with a certain minimalist elegance. They are necessarily aerodynamic, with the happy result that their sleek horizontal lines appeal to the eye of any aesthete. The binding logic of motion and force dictate most of their structure, including the delicately nuanced perpendicular of the wings sprouting from the body.

Add to these smooth lines the optical magic of a propeller in motion (how DO you draw that?), and it’s no surprise that a young artist would become fixated on capturing the visual phenomenon of airplanes.

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Click here for a comic book explanation of icons.

It was originally published as a chapter in Dr. Doctrine’s Christian Comix, issue 2 (InterVarsity Press, 1998). This was a way-ahead-of-its-time set of comic books that took on serious theological topics in a cartoon format. It was so far ahead of its time that the citizens of earth-present did not purchase many copies, apparently thinking it was intended for citizens of earth-future. Big ideas in little cartoons, reverent theology and irreverent fun, etc.

But if your idea of a good time is to hear a talking sheep interview the church fathers, then here’s something you don’t want to miss. John of Damascus’ On the Divine Images with a cartoon sheep.

(The Dr. Doctrine character, by the way, is qualified to do the interview. In addition to his doctorate, he holds a B.A.A.A. and Master of Ovinity degree.)

The William Wilberforce movie is coming out, and I hear it’s pretty good. Here’s hoping the movie is at least good enough to get William Wilberforce back in the public eye.

Wilberforce is justly famous as a man of action, and his legislative victories in the cause of justice are the thing we should never forget about him. If he had just done the things he did in the british Parlaiment, that would be enough. But he was also a good enough communicator that he managed to capture his life-message in words as well as deed. His excellent book has this (not) catchy title: A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. Published in 1797, it is a classic statement of evangelical Christianity. Wilberforce’s Practical View is especially eloquent about how real Christian faith moves the heart and motivates social action.

But his opening gambit in the book is to lambast the lukewarm Christians of his day for not knowing their doctrine, and in particular for neglecting to cultivate proper theologies of Christ and the Holy Spirit. If the nominal Christians of Britain are ignoring gross institutional wickedness like race-based chattel slavery, it is because their hearts are cold; and their hearts are cold because their heads are empty. What Dr. Wilberforce prescribes is a big dose of “the peculiar doctrines of Christianity:” not morality or piety in general, but the core doctrines which we only know from special divine revelation in Scripture.
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John Teter’s 2003 book Get the Word Out: How God Shapes and Sends His Witnesses is a great little introduction to evangelism. Teter is obviously very (veryvery) passionate, but he writes with a disarming breeziness. He develops his ideas through stories and personal illustrations, so by the time you’re done with the book (an easy read at 168 pages of biggish print) you’ve met a lot of interesting people and watched them in their encounters with Christ and each other.

Get the Word Out is insightful and informative, but also probably 40% motivational, which I’m discovering is about the right proportion for books about evangelism. Most Christians don’t need amazing new ideas about evangelism; they need encouragement to try it and to keep at it. This book is not just a pep rally — it’s got strategic recommendations (small-group evangelistic Bible studies), sobering advice (”It is not a good investment for witnesses to spend countless hours building trust, serving and teaching the Word to people who have no desire to change.”), and theology aplenty (”Witness is a gift of grace from God for the disciple…”). But if you’re out of pep and need to rally, just admit that a book of strong encouragement is the thing to read.

Where Get the Word Out breaks some new ground, however, is in Teter’s decision to develop the whole project as an interaction with the gospel of John. Teter’s central ideas are all straight from the theology of witness in John, and every major point he makes is drawn back to a story from that gospel. That makes Get the Word Out a kind of sermonic commentary on the Johannine theology of witness, and puts readers into direct contact with God’s word over and over.
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For Lent this year, I have decided to give up the liturgical calendar.

It’s a big sacrifice, but I think I will learn a lot from this voluntary abstention.

Could somebody please e-mail me when it’s time to start up again? That would be a big help.