Matt W Cook

Last night Ruth and I snuggled up on the couch and popped in Star Wars, The Phantom Menace. I’ve been a Star Wars fan for as long as I can remember and we figured it was about time to re-watch the series.

Should’ve skipped the first one.

Might skip the second and third ones, too.

Did you ever really watch the original three? I mean really watch them? The originality, the subtle humor, the depth of characters. A space-fantasy that defined a generation. A 3-part work of art. There was nothing like it in its time. George Lucas worked and sweated and fought to have his story told the way he wanted it. And he refused to listen to critics foretelling a failure. It didn’t matter to him what others thought, it was his story and he was going to pour himself into it.

And it paid off. Star Wars became famous. He became rich. Toys, posters, video games, parodies. George Lucas became a god in the movie industry.

And then what happened? Almost twenty years later the creative genius comes out with this? Let’s be honest, if The Phantom Menace didn’t have the name of Star Wars attached to it, it would have been forgotten after a year. Full of plot holes, poor dialogue, superficial, goofy comedy and a child-like feel to the whole story, I was left wondering how the great and mighty Lucas had come up with it.

I wonder. I wonder if Lucas, in looking at his own fame, decided to create something for the audience instead of for the sake of creating. I mean, did he see how ridiculously famous he was, and decide to craft something for the kids of this generation so that they, like their parents, would get hooked and buy his toys and games and such? I wonder if the fame of Lucas did him in. I wonder if he spent too much time looking at himself and what the world and turned him into.

Johnny Depp may be my favorite actor. Every role he plays is unique and he always manages to bring something amazing to the characters. I found out recently that he never watches himself. He doesn’t watch his movies. He just does what he does, and doesn’t think about how he looks doing it.

I wonder if that is the difference between Lucas and Depp. Depp acts and creates his characters for their own sake. He doesn’t try to be original or try to look a certain way. He just does what he does, and does it well. Lucas, maybe, dropped the ball because he was too concerned with what the viewers wanted to see. Maybe I’m wrong.

But I think a point still stands, even if I’m wrong. When we create, do we ask ourselves what viewers / readers will think of us, or are we concerned with creating something true, beautiful and good? The former leads us to consumerism, I think. The later tends toward something eternal.

var addthis_pub=”4a0af351783743a8″;

This is second-hand unless you’re reading it at http://www.theilliteratescribe.com

I just finished an interesting book called The Shack. I’ve heard that it’s very popular in Christian circles these days. Eugene Peterson says that The Shack has the potential to become the Pilgrim’s Progress for this generation. If you haven’t read it, here’s a synopsis (spoilers!). A young girl is brutally murdered. Her father, Mack, sinks into depression and loses touch with God. Three or four years later he gets a note in the mail that seems to be from God inviting him to spend the weekend with him at the shack in which his daughter was killed. He goes and spends a weekend with the triune God, manifested in a black lady (the Father), a middle-eastern carpenter (Jesus) and an oriental woman (the Spirit). Together they work through Mack’s depression, try to answer the question of evil and justice and God in the world, and generally have a good time doing it.

I want to talk about this book.

First I’ll tell you what I don’t have a problem with. I don’t have a problem with this book being wildly popular. We conservative, reformed, ‘capital B’ folks tend to be antagonistic to popular things. But I don’t have a problem with the book being popular. Popularity does not make something bad. The Bible is still the most popular book in the world.
I don’t have a problem with God meeting with a man in this story. God has done things like that before and, besides, this is a work of fiction and it should be understood in that way.
I don’t even have a problem, really, with God taking the appearance of a woman. I appreciate what he was trying to do with that. He was trying to show that our traditional views of God are off. Like Mack we view God as a white-haired old man in the sky. By showing God as a black woman the author is trying to show that God is above all that. God is neither male nor female. He is God. Asking whether God is a man or woman is like a block of wood asking if a human is oak or pine. The answer is ‘no’. If anyone thinks that God being represented as a woman is blasphemous they will need to admit that it’s just as blasphemous, except in the case of Christ, to represent him as a man.

And there are some things that I really appreciated about the book. I appreciated, like I said, the author’s attempt to show that God is not what we picture him as.
I appreciated how he made a sharp distinction between true faith in God and religion.
I really appreciated the fact that the author is a very skilled writer. It has been a long, long time since I’ve read a novel with Christian foundations that didn’t feel like a cheesy soap opera. This author has a lot of potential to bring Christian literature and thought back to the mainstream.

But, in spite of his obvious skill, I don’t think he will bring high quality evangelical literature back to the public eye. This is because the book’s foundation is built on a philosophy that does not mesh with the Biblical view of God.
The main foundation of this book, as I understand it, is God’s attitude and relationship to the evil that happens in the world. Evil, says the book, is the result of the choices humans make. This includes both social and environmental evils like earthquakes and such. God knows that these evils will happen, but he does not cause them and he gets offended at the accusation. At the same time God refuses to stop them from happening because in doing so he would violate the free will of his ‘children’. And love is never forced. God says that when you love someone you never, ever, try to get them to do something against their will because that is unloving. Our power of free volition is the greatest thing we have and worth all the evils of the world. Thus says The Shack.
I say that’s crap. Lots of it. And if you think about it for a minute you will probably come to the same conclusion. Picture this: My wife suddenly decides that it would be a good idea to run into a busy street. What do I do? Do I try to reason with her that it’s not a good idea? Do I beg and plead and command her not to do it? Probably. But what if she doesn’t listen? Shall I say ‘I love her, and therefore I will let her do this thing that she wants to do.’? Of course not! I will use all my physical strength to restrain her and stop her from doing it! Even if she cries out that she desperately wants to run out into the streets I will not listen to her. Even if I have to physically hurt her, I will stop her. She stays on the side of the road, period. Not because I delight in having authority over her, but because I love her. I think, then, the most loving thing God could do if I am doing something destructive, is to take control of my will, melt my frozen heart and cause me to love him. Which is, by the way, exactly what he does.
So the foundation and core of the book is bad. Very, very bad. It makes God into a weak father who wrings his hands saying ‘if only, if only.’ It also makes God primarily a responder. God is not so much the mover in the universe as he is the one who is moved. He doesn’t weave the history of the cosmos into a beautiful tapestry, rather he cleans up the mess we’ve made as best he can. It makes God into a lifeguard who will only go so far into the water to save you, because he wants you to swim just a little bit to him so you can take part in saving yourself. This is not the God of the Bible, though.
Another interesting thing I noticed was when Mack’s first day with God ended. He went into his room and found a Gideon’s Bible sitting on the table by the bed. He started to read it but fell asleep after a few minutes. This was one of the only times the Bible is mentioned at all in the book. And it puts Mack to sleep. The book follows the trend that considers dreams, visions and emotional experiences more solid and real and encouraging than the Bible. I think this is very dangerous because dreams, visions and emotional experiences come and go. And when our faith is based on these things we will, I think, fall into a false comfort that will fade away as soon as we get off our high. I mean, I get emotional experiences when I listen to 80s rock.
His view of sin is also, I think, damaging. Mack, at one point, asks God what he expects of him. God basically says ‘nothing’. There is no law, there is no guilt. Guilt is always bad and never leads to a right relationship with God. This, also, is dangerous. Morality becomes subjective because the only sin is being away from God. But the only test for being close to God is our emotional experiences so I could be living in utter sin and still be convinced that I have a right relationship with the Father. In this book God never rebukes Mack for his sin. He never encourages him to take up a cross and follow him. God does not act, he reacts. He does not take the initiative in the relationship, he waits for Mack to do it.

Free will does not exist. There, I said it. But I probably don’t mean what you think I mean. From birth we are slaves to sin. Our will is bound to sin. Just try to stop and you’ll see what I mean. There’s something in us that just wants to go after suicidal desires. God takes the initiative to deal with that, because left to ourselves we neither would be able or willing to deal with it. I’m not saying we are not responsible, I’m just saying we’re so weak we can’t do it on our own! So God does it for us. The analogy of God throwing us a lift jacket and us having the choice to put it on is not accurate. Rather, God dives in the water, with the incarnation, grabs us and carries us to shore, then pumps the water out of our dead lungs and pulls us into life. The heavy emphasis being put on the gloriousness of free will in this book (and in the church in general) is dangerous and simply wrong.

Has anyone read this book?

I just finished reading Dune by Frank Herbert. I have never read such a well-written, complex, original sci-fi. I recommend it to all.

One of the themes that I picked up from the story was the idea that religion makes a man small, simple and controllable. Here’s aquote from Muad’Dib, the protagonist and a kind of prophet: ‘When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.’

Muad’Dib also mentions how his friends slowly become less than friends as he ascends to his religious station. He seems sad when he realizes that his friend, Stilgar, has become less that what he could have been because of his worship of Muad’Dib.

I think he’s right, in a way. When we worship something we run the risk of falling short of what we are capable of. It all depends on what we worship. Shai-Hulud, the God of Dune, is hardly mentioned at all by the people who claimed to follow him. Muad’Dib took the center stage. He was the focal point of the religion. But in the end he was a man. Even though he had powers that he people could not imagine, he was still a man. His people worshipped something that was only a little greater than them. This limited them. They could not grow to being full people, full individuals. So it it with the religions of today. Any faith that worships a mortal is tied down. Any person who worships the finite, be it a prophet, an idea, an ideology or a goal, is limited by that thing he worships.

But I contend that Christ is different. The God of the Bible is infinite and when we worshop him truly and in Spirit we find that we are not limited because of it. Law and duty do not make us less than individuals. It makes us more.

I just finished reading Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell. Most Christians tend to steer clear of him because of his views on the church, but I think it’s a shame to cut a section of books out just because we don’t happen to agree with the author. I found the book very engaging and I’m with Russell on most of his points. It’s a small book, go grab yourself a copy.

Russell writes about his views on how nations and states and governments should be run, focusing on economic restructuring. He claims one of the greatest evils in the western world today is the wage system because it gives an employer the power to reduce an individual to destitution if he doesn’t like him. He has a lot of neat suggestions on how things can be improved and he makes a lot of convincing points. Here’s a few quotes that stood out:

We see that men’s political dealings with one another are based on wholly wrong ideals, and can only be saved by quite different ideals.

The aim of politics should be to make the lives of individuals as good as possible.
The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest.

The injustice of destitution and wealth alike ought to be rendered impossible. Then a great fear would be removed from the lives of the many, and hope would have to take on a better form in the lives of the few.

Few men seem to realize how many of the evils from which we suffer are wholly unnecessary, and that they could be abolished by a united effort within a few years…with good-will, generosity and intelligence.

The world is full of preventable evils which most men would be glad to see prevented.
Sufficient pay to ensure a livelihood ought to be given to every person who is willing to work, independently of the question whether the particular work at which he is skilled is wanted at the moment or not. If it is not wanted some new trade which is wanted ought to be taught at the public expense. Why, for example, should a hansom-cab driver be allowed to suffer on account of the introduction of taxis?…At present, owning to the fact that all industrial changes tend to cause hardships to some section of wage-earners, there is a tendency to technical conservatism on the part of labour, a dislike of innovations, new processes, and new methods.

Every man who has really sincere desire for any great amelioration in the conditions of life has first to face ridicule, then persecution, then cajolery and attempts at subtle corruption.

Life and hope for the world are to be found only in the deeds of love.

[The man with the right view of things] will not desire for his country the passing triumphs of a narrow possessiveness, but rather the enduring triumph of having helped to embody in human affairs something of that spirit of brotherhood which Christ taught and which the Christian churches have forgotten.

Thoughts?

I realize that we who go by the name Christian ought to work hard for the welfare of our fellow man. I suppose that’s supposed to be obvious, but how often do we really sit down and think about how we can improve the lives of the people around us? Have we really forgotten something that Christ was teaching?

Certainly.

Reading the second part of The Pilgrim’s Progress. In the Interpreter’s house Christiana is shown something that I’ll just reproduce here with little or no comment.

The Interpreter takes them apart again, and has them first into a room where was a man that could look no way but downwards, with a muck-rake in his hand. There stood, also, one over his head with a celestial crown in his hand, and proffered him that crown for his muck-rake; but the an did neither look up nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and the dust of the floor.
Then said Christiana, I persuade myself that I know somewhat the meaning of this; for this is the figure of a man of this world: is it not, good sir?
INTERPRETER. Thou hast said right, said he, and his muck-rake doth show his carnal mind. And whereas thou seest him rather give heed to rake up straws and sticks and the dust of the floor, than to do what he says that calls to him from above with the celestial crown in his hand; it is to show that heaven is but a fable to some, and that things here are counted the only things substantial. Now, whereas, it was also showed thee that the man could look no way but downwards, it is to let thee know that the earthly things, when they are with power upon men’s minds, quite carry their hearts away from God.
CHRISTIANA. Then said Christiana, O deliver me from this muck-rake!
INTERPRETER. That prayer, said the Interpreter, has lain by till it is almost rusty: ‘Give me not riches,’ is scarce the prayer of one of ten thousand. (Prov. xxx. 8.) Straws, and sticks, and dust, with most, are the great things now looked after.
With that Christiana and Mercy wept, and said, It is, alas! too true.

Too true.

PS – I wrote this last week. Now I’m in Murree and giddy. My biggest problem is now the cold. Lovin’ it. Pics to come.

Do you remember Nirvana? Remember that song with the words that no-one could understand? Here’s the chorus:

With the lights off
It’s less dangerous.
Here we are now
Entertain us.
I feel stupid
And contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido

This song is meant as a picture of the world system we are from. Cobain said that he felt a duty “to describe what I felt about my surroundings and my generation and people my age.”(ref) A friend of Cobain’s said “Kurt really despised the mainstream. That’s what “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was all about: The mass mentality of conformity.”(ref) So let’s break it down.

With the lights off
It’s less dangerous.

Better to be ignorant than in trouble. Our culture is blatantly anti-intellectual in most circles.

Here we are now
Entertain us

The replacement for the intellectualism we abandoned is entertainment. Not just a desire for it but a demand for it. The worst thing to be is bored.

I feel stupid
And contagious

The natural result of this, of course, is stupidity. Not just any stupidity but one that transfers itself to others. The idea of ‘cool’ forces us away from diligence and the pursuit of anything useful.

a mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido

Respectively controversy, interesting yet trivial things, useless things and sex. These four represent the new entertainment we want. You can look at popular media and you’ll see that the most popular things are those that are controversial, trivial, useless or sexual. This is probably not unique to our age, but it is certainly more evident now than ever. Looking at the author’s life we can see where such a worldview will end. Depression, pointlessness, boredom and death. Thank God there is an alternative.

About a month back I wrote a short story called Ariel. Out of everything short I’ve written to this date it’s probably favorite piece. It’s very symbolic. Unfortunately it’s rather vague and I never bothered to explain it. I think I’d like to do that now. So here’s the interpretation of my dream.

Ariel is a Hebrew name that means Lion of God. At one point in the Old Testament God laments over his people, calling them Ariel, because they are unfaithful. The narrator represents a spiritual seeker who comes in contact with the established western church, represented by the lady and the house. The woman claims to love her husband (Christ) but it becomes clear that her love is for the house. The first thing she does is makes the man remove his shoes (visible sins or vices) and pile them with the others. The dirty shoes are actually not dealt with, just thrown to the side so they are harder to see. The woman hears the voice of her husband calling her and sets off with the man in a search for him.

The photo room represents all that is prized by the church. An out-of-focus view of Christ may be found if someone digs deep enough.

The kitchen represents the work the church does for Christ. Unfortunately she has made changes. The sink used to flow with living water to refresh the woman, but a useless garden now takes up her time. She used to eat bread and wine, symbolic of communion with Christ, but now the wine is watered down, the bread is unused and she prefers whisky, an intoxicating substitute for the joy that can be found in Christ. Also she refuses to eat meat, symbolic of deep study into the character of God and his Word, preferring water-down milk and bumper-sticker doctrine.

The doctors’ notes are a picture of the messengers Christ has sent ot the church to warn her of her dangerous lifestyle and whorish behaviour. She prostitues herself after anything that is not Christ. The doctors are ignored.

The room where she spends time with her husband is actuall a place for her to be distracted, a picture of how the church no longer seeks Christ himself, but programs and stimilations to fill the gap that seems to exist within her.

The bell tower represents evangelism, a dead art.

And then we get outside. When we look outside we find out something shocking. This woman is not actually Ariel. She’s not actually the church of God. She’s something else. The real church of Christ is outside fighting a perpetual battle against spiritual foes. She is always pressed but sustained by her husband who gives her strength through his words, communion (wine), teaching (meat) and wonder-working power on her behalf (the breath of his nostrils). We also find out that Ariel does not yet have a house, but the lasting house is promised to her once this battle is over.

And then the woman in the house pulls the reader away from the scene and tries to disctract him with anything besides the battle outside, content to dwell in the house that she herself has built.