by Dean | Apr 29, 2018 | General
Natalie Portman, actress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Five women (Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, et al.) investigate a dangerous swampland captured by something known as “the Shimmer,” previously investigated by military operatives who lost their lives. This is the premise of the recent movie Annihilation (2018), a sci-fi tale largely nonsensical and thus inferior—but intriguing too. It is also deeply disturbing, in a way that has the ring of truth about life.
What seems to be the case about the Shimmer area is that it is representative of pathology. It is a place of metastasizing, of mutation, of refracted DNA. The dialogue contains references to cancer, dementia, etc. The women are in a sphere of deadly catastrophe essentially no different from their own. What has to be done to annihilate the annihilator?
Sophisticated acting by Portman and Leigh and others enrich the film, and director Alex Garland “has crafted sequences of strange splendor” (Alan Scherstuhl). Annihilation, in truth, is neither a success nor a failure (I don’t know about the novel from which it is adapted). It is simply disappointing as sci-fi and compelling as representational art.
by Dean | Apr 25, 2018 | General
Did you ever see the late Dr. Richard Eby, a Christian physician, on Christian TV? Like Bill Wiese, he claimed to have visited Hell (in the guise of an unbeliever) and to have witnessed Revelation’s lake of fire. In his telling, the lake of fire is not merely the “second death,” as the Book of Revelation teaches. But Christian universalist Gary Amirault maintains that Eby eventually told him he believes God will save all mankind, and that he read a letter from Eby to his cousin with statements to that effect. Curious. Was Eby not sent to Hell, after all? Did he never see the damning lake of fire? He used to assert that these were loci of everlasting punishment.
Another thing that should be pointed out is that Eby declared on TV that at some point Jesus told him Eby would still be alive when Christ made His second coming. But the man died in 2002. And this is to say nothing about whether in his stories about Hell there are the same kinds of contradictions that exist in Bill Wiese’s stories.
by Dean | Apr 24, 2018 | General
Rembrandt – The Mennonite Minister Cornelis Claesz. Anslo in Conversation with his Wife, Aaltje (detail) – WGA19143 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Taking the existence of God for granted, Silent Light (2009) is a truly religious picture—and a superlative one. In it, the head of a Mennonite family living in northern Mexico has confessedly fallen in love with another woman (“confessedly” because he told his wife about it). That the wife is as understanding and tolerant as she is just might strain credulity, but so be it. What’s important is Carlos Reygadas’s poetic filmmaking for the crafting of something spiritually, metaphysically meaningful.
The first half of this long film is partly about the illusion that sin is some kind of summum bonum—evident in the scene of outdoor smooching between the two adulterers. Assuredly the second half is about sin as well, but the theme of grace also emerges. The “silent light” of the title—since light never makes a sound, it must be a metaphor—is a divine miracle near the movie’s end. It may be a miracle hard to accept, but Reygadas is intimating that the concept of the Deity in control should not be hard to accept.
Silent Light is a Mexican film whose dialogue is in the Mennonite low German language.
by Dean | Apr 22, 2018 | General
For a long time now, the United States has had imposed on it the concept of Salvation By Bureaucracy. Not spiritual but material salvation. Welcome to our welfare state. It isn’t the kind of welfare state we should have, since these bureaucracies are inadequate and wasteful and very expensive, and government deficits are still rising. Every year 70 billion Medicare and Medicaid dollars are lost to fraud and improper payments, which means every year 70 billion is poured down a rathole, thus we often have Salvation By Bureaucracy for people who don’t need to be saved.
I say we ought to do what Charles Murray has proposed: abolish Medicare and Medicaid and all other transfer-payment programs, and replace them with an annual grant of $13,000 to every adult in the nation, 21 and older. The grant would be reimbursed through a surtax placed on what are by anyone’s estimation decent salaries. This way, Salvation By Bureaucracy is attenuated. This way, low wages are less of a burden. This way, Social Security and Medicare never become unspeakably insolvent. This way, bargaining for a particular salary can be a sure thing.
My own view is that at the same time there should be nationwide federal propaganda teaching the American people to use this money for health care, assisted living, car insurance—the important things. It should stress that this is all the government money they will be getting, unless the states are stupid enough to provide some welfare dough of their own. Many will not listen, of course, but others will; and why, in any case, should we have a government which babies American adults? Bureaucrats regularly decide things for low-income people, as though they alone possess the smarts for this. They won’t be propagandists; they’ll be—and they are—nannies. But nannies can’t prevent the staggering debt that will spring up when, in the span of two decades, millions and millions of Americans start receiving Social Security and Medicare. What politicians have recently done is cut taxes by $1.5 trillion, but, well, what’s going on is not exactly economic conservatism.
by Dean | Apr 19, 2018 | General
To redeem us, Jesus Christ did not need to do what condemned sinners are said to do: suffer forever. In Hell. No way. Jesus suffered temporarily. If it wasn’t necessary for the Paschal Lamb to suffer forever, why is it necessary for the unsaved?
From Psalm 22: “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him” (NIV).
The New Jerusalem Bible translates the words for “all the ends of the earth” as “the whole wide world.” The whole wide world will remember and turn to the Lord. All humanity? Seems that way. From Psalm 65: “O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.”
by Dean | Apr 15, 2018 | General
Isaiah (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear” (Isaiah 45, NIV).
This is strong language. What fanfare! But why? Why is it so important that God has uttered in all integrity the not-to-be-revoked “Before me every knee will bow”? A number of Bible translations render the last part of this passage “every tongue will swear allegiance.” Allegiance? Yes, to God. Remember Philippians 2:11 (“every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”). Again, why the fanfare? Is it because all people will ultimately be saved, that this is what it means for every knee to bow, etc.?
