Commitment; I’m weak in the face of it. Oh, I know what commitment is, and I am committed to some things. I’m not talking about such things as writing in my journal every month without fail for the past seven years. Although some might argue (some who don’t know me very well, or don’t quite grasp what it means to really be a Christian), I’m also not that committed to God, or as committed as I should be. How many of us can actually say we are?  I'm more committed to God than some, but in my eyes, I’m still lukewarm. Jesus, I'm sure, would agree.  I should be more committed.  I should always strive to be more committed.

But you don’t have to go far in the Bible before coming across a role model who was very committed to God: Noah. For 120 years, Noah spent his life building an ark for God. He was the only godly man left on earth – God could find no others; that’s why God wanted to flood the earth and start from scratch. He was grieved that he made man. Yet Noah was a man so committed to God that, amid the certain laughter and disdain of the sinning populace, he continued to build that ark. The people must have thought he was nuts – completely out of his mind! I’m reminded of Bill Cosby’s old classic routine where Noah’s neighbors drop by while the ark sits in his driveway as the hugest of “white elephant” monstrosities. ("Ri-ight.  What's a cubit?")  They must have thought he was even more bonkers when he and his sons went about the task of collecting two of every animal known to exist, and aside from the task of just building that ark and stocking it with enough food for him and his family, the task of collecting all these animals and enough food and material to care for them was even more of an immense undertaking! Not only did God ask Noah to spend his life being a ship maker, he then asked Noah to become an expert zoologist as well. Talk about commitment!

Part of having role models is not just admiring them, but following in their footsteps. One of the reasons I admire such intelligent political pundits as Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and Benjamin Netanyahu is that they are more intelligent than me, or at least more committed to staying on top of things and having strong opinions with good reasons to back them up. But that admiration surpasses just liking them. I want to be more like them. I want their passion, and I want what is in their heads to be in mine, because without it, I’m an idiot, and no good at debating the issues with the predominately liberal populous. One of the columnists on Townhall.com, film reviewer Megan Basham, was working out with her personal trainer when he started talking about how horrible President Bush is, spouting all the liberal jargon that has seeped into his head by the left-saturated media, and he just assumed that she would agree, because in their minds, everybody must see the world the way they do, don’t they? Well, to put it bluntly, no! Yet she was able to tell him how wrong he was, and have an intelligent political debate with the guy. I would have certainly let him know how I feel, but would have been ill-equipped to debate the issue with him beyond much of the surface jargon on both sides of the issue. I make a poor Hannity or Gingrich, that’s for sure, but the point I’m trying to make is that they are role models not because I like them and find them so damned intelligent, which I do, but because I specifically want to be more like them, and walk in their footsteps.

I know nothing about Noah other than what it states about him in the Bible – I don’t know how intelligent he was, or how good of a speaker. I don’t admire him for those strengths I see in the likes of Hannity and Gingrich because I don’t know if he had them. In fact, I know from what occurred after the ark set down on dry land, with Noah getting drunk and being naked in front of his sons, and then handing down a curse to Ham and his descendents, that despite his determined commitment to God, he still wasn’t much of a role model beyond that trait. How many drunken, naked, cursing people do I really want to emulate? Yet there is still that commitment thing. I don’t want to be Noah, or have his alcoholic addictions, but I really do wish I had his commitment to God. A role model need really only have one trait I want to follow, and Noah’s main virtuous trait is more than enough to earn him a spot on my list of role models. If I had Noah’s commitment to God – hell, if we all did – it could change the entire face of this world. I know that’s what awaits us in the next life, and I want more than just a little piece of it here.

Those two famous, identical notes sound, and the audience knows it’s time to solve another murder mystery, whether it’s with the casts of Special Victim’s Unit, Criminal Intent, or the original Law & Order. These are ratings powerhouses, along with all the other mystery shows, whether it be medical mysteries found on shows like House, Grey’s Anatomy, or the long-lived ER, or other law and order shows like Cold Case, Crossing Jordan, NCIS, or the current ratings juggernaut CSI and its spin-off shows for New York and Miami. What popular shows like this tell us (and let’s not forget the likes of blockbuster action soap operas like 24, Prison Break, and Lost, which have their own ongoing puzzles to solve) is that people love a good mystery. They love to be presented with the evidence and solve the case, and stick around to see how the outcome plays out. One look over our past shows us this has been an ongoing fascination for centuries, from TV's Perry Mason, Murder She Wrote, and The X-Files to the popularity of the mystery genre in the world of books, whether from the more modern likes of Jonathan Kellerman and Mary Higgins Clark to the days of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie way back when, and all taking their genesis from the real life crimes and crime solvers of their days.

We, or more personally I, have been presented with just such a mystery in the character of Melchizedek, a character who is barely mentioned in the Old Testament, yet is apparently of great importance. In my search for biblical role models I've been going through the bible from chapter to chapter and I had actually thought the person to be listed next for a character study after Noah would be Abraham. Instead, it was Melchizedek, who Abraham meets in Genesis 14: 17-20, and then is only briefly mentioned again once in the Old Testament in Psalm 110.

A lot more is said about Melchizedek in the New Testament; specifically, all of Hebrews Chapter 7, which delves into a comparison of Melchizedek and his existence as a King and Priest, and Jesus Christ, the eternal King and Priest, but also in the two preceding chapters 5 and 6.

Like some of these mystery shows and books that we love, part of the fascination of Melchizedek lies in attempting to solve the mystery of who he is, what he is all about, and just what his special connection to Jesus Christ really is. And like these other mysteries, it’s an investigation that can take us all over the place. Beginning in Genesis Chapter 14, a good study bible will lead a person to Psalm 110 and Hebrews chapters 5, 6, and 7 for more answers. Going to these places in the Bible begins to shed light on the mystery (not necessarily ever intending to fully solve it, however), and leads us to new places, such as Acts 2: 32-35, and several passages from Revelations.

Genesis Chapter 14 is the only book of the bible to tell the actual story of Melchizedek. The mentioning of his name in Psalm 110 and the three chapters in Hebrews all refer back to that one brief mention of him in Genesis Chapter 14. A great war had broken out between many different Kingdoms, including those of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Lot and his family had been captured as part of the plunder. When Lot’s Uncle Abraham, called Abram at that early time, heard the news, he involved himself in their war to save his nephew. After doing this, Abram had a meeting with the king of Sodom and also Melchizedek, who is described as “the king of Salem and a priest of God Most High.” Melchizedek “brought Abram some bread and wine” and “blessed Abram with this blessing: ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who has defeated our enemies for you.’ Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of all the goods he had recovered.”

That’s it. That’s the story of Melchizedek, and on the surface, it doesn’t seem like a lot to ponder. He’s a King and Priest of God Most High who meets Abram, offers him bread and wine, blesses him, and then receives as a gift a tithe from Abram. End of story. Or is it? There’s a lot to ponder in this simple story, and a lot of questions. Who is this Melchizedek? Why is he called a “King and Priest of God Most High”? (The Levitical Priests would not come along for at least another six centuries). Why does he bless Abram and God, and what does his blessing mean? Why does Abram give him “a tenth of all the goods he had recovered”?

A lot is written about Melchizedek then in Hebrews 5, 6, and particularly chapter 7. The writer of Hebrews (who is actually unknown, but could have been Paul, Luke, Barnabas, Apollos, Silas, Philip, or Priscilla, among others) talks about Melchizedek quite a bit in explaining who he was, and in the process, clarifies some of the questions about his comparison to the Messiah mentioned in Psalm 110. The fact that he is a “King and Priest of God Most High,” which is further clarified in Hebrews 7: 2 (“The name Melchizedek means ‘King of Justice,’ and ‘King of Salem’ means ‘king of peace’”) suggests he was a Priest before God instituted the priestly line of Aaron’s Levitical decedents, and a King before God promised David that all Israel’s kings would come from him. One line of decedents, the Levites, would provide the nation’s priests, and another, David’s, would provide the nation’s Kings, yet both Melchizedek and Jesus transcend these human lines and genealogical records.

As a role model, the two things we know about Melchizedek from his story in Genesis is that 1) He is a devoted follower of God, but 2) he is not a Jew or one of Abraham’s tribe. Hebrew tradition says he was Shem, Noah’s son, who at this point in his life was currently the longest-living man, and a King and Priest. Others suggest he was just a ruler, and that the name “Melchizedek” refers to a type of person rather than a real person. Still others, due to some of the references to him in Hebrews, believe him to be Jesus Christ Himself in some sort of pre-incarnation. Whoever he was, he was indeed a role model because, more than anything else, he was a God-follower. If this little investigation teaches me anything, it is that, like Melchizedek, we can also led by God.

Our Sunday night Bible group meets every other Sunday, and as I write this [July 30 - these Townhall blogs I share are usually taken from old journal entries of mine], we must go tonight and share a Psalm we picked out. Isn’t it convenient how this one (Psalm 110) just managed to drop in my lap after studying about the rather obscure character of Melchizedek? By the same token, it’s funny how this particular Psalm just happens to not just be about Jesus Christ, the Messiah, but is described in my NIV Compact Bible Commentary thusly: “No other psalm in the book of Psalms is as clear about the identity of the Promised Seed as this one.” Jesus quotes it twice in references to himself as the Messiah (Matthew 22: 41-45, Mark 12:35-37), and, as explained in the notes in my new Life Application Study Bible, the psalm paints the picture of the entire post-tribulation reign of Christ as is explained in the Book of Revelation (which was the last book we investigated in our Sunday night group), and referring to events outlined in Revelations 6-9, 20:1-7, and 19:11-21, namely, “Christ’s reign on earth” and the “look forward to the final battle on earth when Christ will overcome the forces of evil.” (Page 963, hardback personal size version) - All of this from a study of the rather obscure and mysterious biblical character Melchizedek!

In light of what’s going on all over the world (North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, here in the US, or more specifically, Lebanon and Israel and the fight against Hezbollah), perhaps God is trying to tell me something. Melchizedek was a God-follower, and as a God-follower myself, perhaps God is leading me as he led Melchizedek. I certainly feel led by God these days, but if so, there must be a reason. Part of these journal writings are all just an attempt to understand what it all means. The investigation of the mystery continues…

A little over a decade ago, in 1995, my Dad had already been gone for a year. As I related in my journal at that time and many times since, I started really searching for meaning. That’s when I found God.

At about the same time, I began looking for better music. I was growing weary of the pop and rock music scene with its nihilism, overt sex, and general liberal air. Even before Dad passed away, I had grown weary of secular music, and began looking to other musical genres to fill that void that the superficial music of the day couldn’t fill. For instance, before getting into the Christian music scene in 1995, I began experimenting with different sounds the likes of Garth Brooks and Vince Gill, Harry Connick Jr., and even Michael Feinstein. Although they still have their place in my past, and I still feel their musical influence, the likes of Blondie and Madonna just weren’t cutting it any more for me (I guess you could say they were too far out on the cutting edge for my tastes anymore).

I wanted something different. That’s why I started listening to Garth Brooks and Harry Connick Jr. in the first place, and why they became favorites of mine for a time in the early 90’s. The secular music world had become so cheap, one-dimensional, and crude - as it always had been I suppose. I just didn’t fully recognize it until I began my spiritual search. That search led me to Garth and Harry at first, but after Dad passed away and I began to explore Christianity, I wondered about the Christian music scene. I knew of a few people like crossover Amy Grant, Christian music staples Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman, wisps of rumors about bands like dcTalk and Jars of Clay, and my older brother told me he thought I’d like this artist named Carmen. But other than Amy Grant, who I thought was just okay, I hadn’t really heard any of their music. When I thought of the Christian music scene, I thought of Christy Lane and “One Day at a Time.” I tried the Denver Christian stations of the day and all I got was lily-white choirs that Christy Lane would enjoy or black gospel, the type parodied in movies like The Blues Brothers. Where was all the Christian music of the times, I wondered, to compete with the likes of Prince and Bruce Springsteen over on the immoral and liberal left?

Then I found Wow 1996, released at the end of 1995, almost to the day when I began wanting to hear more. I tried out a few tapes (I collected tapes back then instead of CDs) by some of the bands on this CD, and even though I wasn’t blown away by most of what I heard, I still loved the music collected on Wow 1996. Over the years, they released more Wow Collections, and I really started getting into some bands and Christian music. Some of the Christian CDs I bought over the years I haven’t listened to much – but others I’ve cherished, no more so than the Wows. My point is that, at a time when I was searching for more, God flooded me with so much that I now feel somewhat overwhelmed. A little over a decade ago, I didn’t know anything about Christian music. But look what I know now! There is so much Christian product out there now that I just love that I have to start limiting my choices. For my last birthday, I got new CDs by Casting Crowns and Warren Barfield. I just bought new CDs by Jars of Clay, FFH, Brian Littrell, Mercy Me, Bebo Norman, Mark Schultz, and Salvador, not to mention Wow Hits 2007. We also have diverse Christian stations playing everything from gospel to rock, most notably K-LOVE. A little over a decade ago, I didn’t know hardly any Christian artists. Now I know so many that I can barely keep up with them all. That’s the nature of God: If you ask for something, and it is in His will to grant your request, you will get what you asked for in abundance.

That brings me to Carrie Underwood. Written up for the cover story in Parade Magazine in the paper on Sunday, October 22, 2006, she states in the opening line, “I never, ever had my heart set on being a singer. That was something I thought I would like to do, but I always knew most likely it would never happen.” Then the writer of the article, James Kaplan, says, “But, oh, how it happened.”

She was the winner of the fourth season of American Idol, a show I’ve not only written about many times in my journal because I like it so much, but also each annual American Idol CD they’ve released and the season 5 concert I just went to a few months ago. At the beginning of the year, I named three successive Idol runners-up as Favorite Artists AND Role Models: RJ Helton, Josh Gracin, and John Stewart. I know real talent mixed with a caring, humble heart when I see it – and these guys have it. So does Carrie. (The jury’s still out on Clay Aiken and Diana DeGarmo I’m afraid, for various reasons.)

Carrie thinks like I do, explaining why she’s always been a fan of country rather than some of the other musical genres. “To me, it was the least tainted. It wasn’t about sex or how well you could dance… To me, it’s the most respectable kind of music. It’s honest. The people are genuinely talented. I don’t know one country artist who has ever been accused of lip-syncing.” For the most part she’s right. There is humbleness and an attempt at righteousness at the core of country music. Oh sure, you can always find the morally questionable stuff if you choose to look for it, from the scraggly, drug induced hobo warbling the likes of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, who shouldn’t be anybody’s role model, to the kind of acts that would be debatable as to whether or not they’re really country, such as Hank Williams Jr.’s continuous redneck party music (country’s version of rock and roll-biker/leather-with-chicks-on-Corvette-hoods music) or even Garth’s light-hearted heavy metal bent. Even Johnny Cash did his time over in those dark woods. Most of the big-wig country acts that have been around for decades have their demons. Take Loretta Lynn and George Jones for instance. When they sing about cheating spouses and getting drunk from heartbreak, they’re singing from experience!

Carrie Underwood is unlikely to sell out like Kelly Clarkson did. She’s in a field of music where it is less likely for her to change for the worse, she still has that endearing quality where she cares more for others than herself, and her first smash hit is a Christian song, “Jesus, Take the Wheel.” Kelly strikes out on all those counts. That’s why she’s not a role model. (For heaven’s sake, no! Have you seen her latest videos?)

I gravitate towards those kinds of people, the kind like Carrie Underwood. I want more of them in my life, whether personal or those in the celebrity spotlight I choose to follow from afar. It’s certainly true of American Idol: As role models or people I admire, I chose Christian RJ Helton over shallow Kelly Clarkson; I chose country act Josh Gracin over the soulful Reuben Studdards; I chose crooner John Stewart over either bubbly Diana DeGarmo or Fantasia Barino; and all because I see within them the strains of a gentle, considerate heart and a modesty about them you won’t find in the others (are Rueben and Fantasia so modest?). I’m still not sure about Katherine McPhee or Taylor Hicks from this season (as people to admire, I tend to like Mandissa or Kevin Covais more). Likewise, I think for the fourth season, along with Carrie, Anthony Federov seems to have this kind of considerate, humble heart.

Carrie realizes her luck has come from God, and perhaps that’s as good a reason as any to cite her as someone to admire. “I always told my mom, ‘If I am supposed to sing, then doors will open,'" she said in the article.  I feel like God totally stepped in and opened those doors for me.” Unlike the vain Kelly, Carrie realizes her talent is not her own, but was a gift from God… for a purpose.

She came from humble beginnings in Checotah, Oklahoma, a place she wants to return to someday. “I felt like there was a lot of stuff I hadn’t seen and done,” she said to Mr. Kaplan in the article. “And now that I’ve seen a done it, I want to go home.” I bet you vain Kelly doesn’t want to go home. I bet you vain Kelly wants more fame, more money, and more power. She certainly acts like it. Oh, but not Carrie Underwood. Having achieved the success and fame some of us can only ever dream about, she’s already had her fill, and would be willing to trade it all for just a bit of that simple life again. How more centered and humble can you get?

Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Samson; these are just ten of the most noteworthy men in the first seven books of the Bible who have a special relationship with God. In 1 & 2 Samuel, we can add to that list men like Eli, Samuel, Saul, and of course David. Yet the one thing we learn while reading about any of them is that they are far from perfect. Only God is perfect. These men, for however much God loved them, and however much they loved God, were not perfect. God realized this. No man on Earth is going to be perfect, so God must work with imperfection due to the choices he gives us, the fall, and man’s lust for sin.

Adam was a perfect creation, yet God gave him the free will to “poison” himself with the knowledge of good and evil if he so chose. God gave man the ability to make his own choices, even if that meant those choices led to a path away from God; if God had not done this, than mankind would be no different than the little computer characters that populate my Sims game. In the Sims, you control what they do; you tell them when to eat, shower, make friends, read, sleep, play, build relationships and careers, and even when to go to the bathroom. Based on the choices you make for them, they can be successful or you can make a total mess of things, but the choices are yours as the game’s controller, not theirs. There is a cheat to the game that allows you to give your characters more autonomy, so that they’re more likely to go to bed when they need sleep or use the bathroom when they need to empty their bladder, but the major “choices” of what they will do with their time and their “lives” is all up to you as the player of the game. What a cheat it would be in our lives if God were only playing with us as part of some game. The Bible teaches that this is not the case. According to scripture, God made man to be in his image, like him, and only by giving us choice – to ultimately believe in him and follow him, or not – can we be like him, in his image. Adam was not only the first man, but that meant he was the first to make choices on his own, without God controlling him like a fictional character that the writer makes all the decisions for. Adam was his own person, and (with Satan’s prompting), chose to do the one thing God had forbade him to do for his own good. We have been following in Adam’s footsteps ever since.

The point is that God loved Adam, and this first man God ever created also became the first to make choices, and in at least one instance, made not just a wrong choice, the THE wrong choice! The others are all similar. After the great flood in Genesis, when the ark comes to rest on dry ground, there’s a story of Noah becoming drunk, the result of which ultimately causes him to curse his son Ham. Abraham is considered righteous by God, but he also was not perfect. For instance, on several occasions, he told a half lie to save his life, not once but twice, telling other rulers that his wife was actually just his sister (a half lie since Sarah was, in fact, his half-sister, but also his wife). Isaac played favorites between his sons, preferring Esau to Jacob, and thus alienating his wife. Like his father, he too resorted to lies at times. Jacob’s name means deceiver, and he, true to his name and with the help of his mother, tricked his brother Esau out of his inheritance by deceiving his father. Joseph, in his youthful pride, caused his brothers to turn on him and they sold him to Egyptians as a slave. Moses, even after being raised as the son of Egyptian royalty, didn’t have much self-esteem, and when God called on him, he stammered and made excuses. He also killed an Egyptian. God made Aaron the High Priest, but even he sinned when he created a Golden Calf at the urging of the Israelites. Samson was a man set apart for God, but did not fulfill his potential. He broke God’s laws sometimes, let his lusts overtake him, confided in the deceitful Delilah, and used what God had given him unwisely. Even Joshua, whom the Bible doesn’t seem to record any weaknesses, was not perfect, and that goes for Jonathan too. Only God is perfect!

So none of us is perfect. No nation is perfect. No nation or man or woman has ever been perfect except Jesus. No matter what nation God chose to spread his word and his love, it would be imperfect, just as Israel was imperfect. In fact, a lot of the time it was nowhere near perfect! No matter what man or men (or women) God might choose, or who would choose God, they would not be perfect either, due to original sin and our love affair with Satan. So it actually comes as no surprise that David, considered to be Israel’s greatest king and described in detail in these two books, was also imperfect. He had a lot of noble traits, and did live for God, giving him glory in all the things he did, yet he was also a sinner, lusting after Bathsheba, committing adultery with her, and having her husband Uriah the Hittite killed in a very sneaky way that Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Lady Macbeth would appreciate. And even though he was a man of God, and God forgave him for his sins, he still had to pay the consequences, when not one but two of his own subjects stirred up the people against him, one of them being his own son Absalom!

The good news we can garner from all of this is that even though these people were far from perfect, God still loved them and was able to use them.  One needs look no further really than King David to see the relationship God can and does have with some of us, despite our flaws, if we will only choose to let Him have this kind of relationship with us.  That brings me to the second thing we learn from all of this.  We are not Sims.  God does not control us.  He could if He wanted to but He gave us the gift of freedom to choose whatever path we want to follow.

Do yourself a favor.  Choose God.  As your creator, He deserves it.  He deserves at least that... and more!

The little movie that could! First off, it kind of offends me that the critics shunt this movie off to the sidelines as “Christian product,” writing a mere blip about it and comparing it to old After School Specials for it’s clichéd, hackneyed plot and characters, giving it no more than just a D+ (Robert Denerstein of the Rocky Mountain News) while heaping praise on stuff like Jackass Number 2, All the King’s Men, and even worse, another couple of clichéd football movies that don’t have the inspiring Christian message, Invincible and Gridiron Gang. Yet Facing the Giants really is Christian product, so while it struggles to gain an audience, earning just a little over 2 million dollars in as many weeks, The Departed and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning come along and earn over ten times that amount in just their opening weekends. Does anything show a clearer picture of modern pop culture and the world we live in than that?

Yet this is a different kind of film, and therefore, perhaps needs to be judged by different rules. Being an independent film, it was made by a church in Albany, Georgia for a pittance, so even though it only earned 2 million in 2 weeks, it’s turned a profit already, and all the money is going to Christian causes. The actors are not actors but volunteer members of the church, and I’m sure all the stony critics out there were just dying to say something like, “It shows.” But you know what? They pulled it off – with aplomb! This movie, despite its low budget and clichéd story machinations (another football movie?) is one of the most inspirational movies I’ve seen in quite a while. We laughed, we cried, and when was the last time you went to a movie where the audience actually cheered? I’d have to say the last time was when I went to a midnight showing of one of the Lord of the Rings films on opening night with die-hard LOTR fans, the kind who don’t realize its author was a Christian, and some of whom were dressed like elves and wizards! Cheering in a movie is for die-hards. Yet none of the Lord of the Rings films, as good as they were, moved me like this little film moved me – and this coming from someone who is not a real big fan of football or football movies (and although I’ve seen a lot, only a few stick out as being way above average, most notably Rudy). Plus, the fact that it earned a million dollars in its first week, and as much in its second week, shows that it may just have long legs like Little Miss Sunshine, and may find its audience gradually through strong word of mouth, or later on DVD and foreign markets. With little marketing, that’s the way independent films like this usually have to survive, and Hollywood won’t really take notice unless Christians can give this thing longer life. If it makes ten million dollars in ten weeks, then the critics writing little blips about it while devoting full page spreads to The Guardian and Open Season won’t be able to inflict much damage on it, and will look all the more foolish for not seeing it’s potential or knowing the audience they write to. We as Christians must make our voices heard, here and elsewhere, like those little Who’s in Horton Hears a Who. Can you hear us Hollywood? Can you hear us Mr. Scorsese and Mr. Shallit and Mr. Ebert? Let’s all say it together, shall we: “We’re here, we’re here, WE’RE HERE!” And we’re not going away! A majority of others may still prefer to watch Johnny Knoxville make a Jackass out of himself (again), yet there is a large segment of the population that cares not for such blustery crap. Give us quality!

Yet, even with all of that said, there is still one little thing: As I said before, this is a different kind of film. It would look much more at home sitting on my movie shelves surrounded by other Christian product like The Gospel of John, Jesus of Nazareth, the Left Behind movies, and Joshua rather than the secular movies that cover the rest of my DVD shelves. What’s more, the film is such that it would seem to enjoy it’s inclusion with these other, littler Christian films that feel like such a different animal. The same rules don’t apply to films like this that do for ordinary movies, but that’s okay. I don’t think they were meant to. Though very beautiful as Christian product, (and I hate even saying this) the critics are correct when they point out that there are clichés in this movie that do seem to come straight out of those old After School Specials – I noticed it a few times, though to the filmmakers’ credit, they handle such moments with as much subtlety as possible. For Christians and even non-Christians, there are superb glimpses here of how Christians really are in their day to day lives and struggles, and that’s what is so great about this movie, but there are also a few moments that get a little preachy, the kind of moments that Christians just love and get choked up over, as did I, but that everybody in the secular world roles their eyes at – hence, the low grades from critics.

Yet one thing is certain: At least for Christians, this movie was very poignant and captured the very heart of what it is to be Christian. In a way, the critics are right: Atheists and non-Christians just won’t get it, and would see this film as a joke (the same way they see Jesus). But for Christians, man, do yourself a favor and SEE THIS MOVIE. I guarantee: You won’t be disappointed!

Recently in my journal, I tried to make sense of the barbarism of the Israelites during the time of the book of Joshua, asking questions about what God’s purpose could be for such supposedly God-directed acts of cruelty. I reasoned that God’s purpose was so that the Israelites would not be affected (or infected) by their pagan neighbors. The outcome of their failure to be utterly barbaric to their neighbors can actually be seen in the book of Judges. They were, according to scripture, unwilling to completely destroy their enemies. Because of this, as is seen time and again in the book of Judges, they were given over to other nations, and God forsook them. Samson, for instance, had the potential to be a great Judge for Israel; he was born a Nazarene, a person set apart for permanent service to God, and was blessed by God with great strength, such as being able to kill a lion with his bare hands and carrying away the heavy gates of Gaza. Yet instead of using these gifts to strengthen and lead the nation of Israel, he squandered them, and was undone by a deceiving woman named Delilah who sapped all his strength by cutting his hair, which had never before been cut in reverence to the Lord, and which was the secret of his strength. The Philistines easily captured him and gouged out his eyes, and his revenge years later, after his hair grew back, of bringing down the temple on all the hundreds of Philistines who were at the pagan temple that day was a hollow victory. There is a seemingly endless cycle here of the people sinning and, as stated in Judges 17:6, doing “whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” (If I didn’t know better, I’d say that describes this nation’s preoccupation to a T!). They of course cry out to God when things turn not so rosy, and God then sends a deliverer, or Judge, who saves them for a time until the Judge dies and they go back to their sinning union with these pagan cultures and religions, infecting them with their ungodly ways and practices (such as human sacrifices and prostitution being an integral part of worship at the temple).

Through it all, the nastiness continues. For instance, when Ehud became Israel’s deliverer, he paid a visit to King Eglon of Moab, who had a God-granted temporary control of the Israelites due to their sinning once again, doing “evil in the Lord’s sight.” When they again cried to God for help, Ehud went to King Eglon, described as a “fat” king, and he plunged his knife into the king’s belly until “the king’s bowels emptied.” That’s rather depraved, and a graphic description of the king’s gruesome death! These stories are violent, and these people, God chosen or not, are rather unpleasant and bloodthirsty, and I can’t quite comprehend it, even if I can understand the reasoning for it. In essence, if Israel had done what God commanded them to do in the first place, Israel wouldn’t have experienced that endless cycle of falling away from God, being forsaken and handed over to their enemies, finally crying out to God again for help, and then being delivered by a Judge until the whole process started over again. The only thing that separates it from what the Muslims are doing these days is that the nations these Israelites were driving out and destroying were evil and their religions were pagan with sin incorporated into the very fabric of their religious lives. Muslims, on the other hand (at least the extreme ones) are killing all infidels, including those who follow a religion of love, like Christians.

I guess it all comes down to what side of the fence you’re on and your point of view (the dreaded moral relativism), because when push comes to shove, it all comes down to war – literal and spiritual. You see, even a religion of love and light will have opposition from the world of hate and darkness. What are we going to do? Lay down like little sheep and allow this evil to destroy us, or turn and fight? In the end, according to the book of Revelations, that’s what it’s all going to come down to: an all out war between the forces of good and the forces of evil, and the main thing separating the two camps, from a morally relativistic point of view, is the concepts they stand behind and believe in. I know, being a Christian and a disciple of Jesus and a brother to all other Christians means I cannot just sit back wrapped in Jesus’ love and light. In a sinning world full of real evil, I am also asked to fight – to fight for the souls of others, and to fight against the evil of this world. Our religion teaches that Satan is real, and dangerous, and not an entity to take lightly. Contrary to popular belief, our religion is not just a cushy one of joy and love exclusively, though at times we’d like it to be, and it is often portrayed that way, and although it may one day be this in eternal heaven, anyone who is alive knows it is not this now here on earth, and anyone who believes and has read the book of Revelations knows it’s going to get a whole lot worse. The bible states this time and time again: Part of being a Christian means being a warrior and fighting the spiritual war against evil and Satan.

There are a lot of months I say little in my journal about what’s going on in the world because I’m too lazy to pick up a newspaper or turn on the news, and with Fox News, I can’t use the excuse that I don’t watch the news because of the conscious or unconscious liberal slant of most reporters. Yet when I really pay attention, it seems as if there is simply too much. I don’t even know where to begin, and putting my own spin on it would only help to make my comments that much longer. I’m sure if I really tackled it, I could write a whole book about just this month’s happenings, right here and now! For you see, paying attention, I know about the Pope’s quote, Hugo Chavez calling Bush Satan, Mike Wallace’s loving visit to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran and Ahmadinejad’s subsequent visit here to “spit” on our country. I know about Cindy Sheehan and her cause and about Rosie O’Donnell’s rant against conservative Christians on The View and the mysterious death of Anna Nicole Smith’s son. I know about the rash of school shootings such as the one here in Colorado that left a girl dead or the one in Wisconsin where a student shot his principal several times or the one in Pennsylvania that ended in the deaths of six Amish school children in a little school house that only holds 27 students. I know about the rash of lying homosexual governors and congressmen on both sides of the political fence, and about the Path to 9/11 movie which I watched and Clinton’s finger wagging at Chris Wallace. With a little help from Brent Bozell III and Michelle Malkin on this very website, I now also know about sweet little Charlotte Church who has now turned into a foul-mouthed version of Rosie O’Donnell over on a talk show based in England and about Melissa Gilbert (so innocent as Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie) making an appearance on another disgustingly filthy episode of Nip/Tuck, going to the guys to have them repair her missing nipple, which was bitten off by the family dog whom she went to for “comfort” while her husband’s fighting in the war, and with Rosie O’Donnell (again – third time is NOT a charm) playing – surprise – a lottery winner who pays one of the doctors to… well, you know – it’s too gross to even think about, let alone write about! And let’s not forget that new Showtime show Dexter the critics are raving over that portrays a serial killer as a hero!

So Pope Benedict XVI quoted a Byzantine Christian emperor from the fourteenth century who called Muslims to the carpet for spreading their faith by sword. The Pope’s speech was about the need for reason within faith for faith to be of value. Of course the Muslims were outraged, demanded an apology, and then they set about to prove the Pope wrong by displaying just how reasonable their faith really is when they burned the Pope in effigy, converted two kidnapped Fox journalists to Islam at gunpoint, killed an innocent nun, and spread more destruction and hate propaganda around the globe. Hey Rosie, if you really want to compare Christian radicals to Muslim radicals, take a look at how those Amish parents reacted when their children were mercilessly massacred, which my local pastor was kind enough to point out: In the name of their god Allah, Muslim radicals strap bombs to their children and send them out to kill themselves and murder as many other people as they can in the process, yet in the name of Christ, these Amish Christian radicals forgave the man who heartlessly slaughtered their own beloved sons and daughters. Do you see any difference?

But these days, everyone’s a victim. According to the liberals, the Muslims are only retaliating for Bush invading Iraq. Former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey hawked his new book on Oprah and introduced the world to his new gay lover, some Australian businessman, after his scandalous fall from grace. He was a victim, he explained to Oprah and Matt Lauer while also revealing how he picked up strange men at rest stops and was having sex with another man while his wife was in the hospital giving birth. For more on this, read Kevin McCullough’s wonderful article on the subject, “Why Liberals Love Adultery” from September 24^th. Just recently, former representative Mark Foley was sending overly friendly and suggestive emails to some young male pages, but of course he’s a victim too, and he checked himself into an Alcoholic Rehab facility. It’s not him, you see – it’s the alcohol. Clinton, by the way, didn’t have sex with that woman, and while verbally whipping Chris Wallace on camera, explained that in the War on Terror his hands were tied. You see, he’s a victim too – that’s right, the former president is a victim. If only the lousy, stinkin’ military had done what he wanted in the first place and raced out and assassinated Osama bin Laden like he always wanted then we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now, he lied, and perhaps the right would get off his back and realize that President Bush is to blame! Boy, what a crazy, crazy world we live in!

ELEMENTAL TRUTH # 2: God is a Thinking God.

Once you determine that there is, in fact, a God, one must then determine what type of God He is. Is He Allah, Vishnu, Buddha, Nirvana, Zeus, Yahweh, Jesus, or any number of other interpretations, or is there more than one? Is He like Q from Star Trek or Morgan Freeman from Bruce Almighty, or perhaps the Architect from the Matrix trilogy? Once you determine that the scientists don’t have all the answers and there are serious doubts surrounding evolution, which, even after all these years is still only a theory, there are still a ton of variables to consider once we determine that there is a God or gods. Yet if you can get past evolution and the idea that there is no God – and let’s face it, millions cannot or don’t want to get past this - there are lots of things that can now be considered. First and foremost is the evidence that surrounds us that I wrote about last month in my journal, the same evidence that led me to disbelieve in the theory of evolution (and if you really want to delve into some of this evidence, check out Ann Coulter’s Godless: The Church of Liberalism). The reason I bring up this evidence here is to show that God is a designer. If you are going to latch onto the design theory then you must also believe at the same time that God is cognizant with the ability to think – otherwise, how would He be able to create. To create, one must first have a blueprint or an idea of what the finished product is going to be. If I write in this journal, I must first have thought. The same thing is required of God, and if you don’t agree, you may as well just believe in evolution, because a God without the ability to at least think cannot create. This would tend to negate the idea of an impersonal god who rivals the Force from Star Wars, a concept very Buddhist in nature. To create this intricate universe, God would have to have abilities beyond our understanding, but He would first and foremost have to have the ability to think.

I’m not trying to put God in a box here, or under a microscope, as if I could even begin to explain Him. Yet there are still certain things I can conclude from the evidence. If I drop an egg on a hard tiled floor, it will first fall and then break, unless something occurs to keep that from happening, such as someone else catching it before it hits. From this evidence, I know that gravity, or something like gravity, exists. (I say “something like gravity” due to some quantum physicists who have postulated a force other than gravity for what holds us to large planetary bodies; more like a bending of the ether - like a heavy marble rolling across a spongy material that gives way as it rolls.) But whatever the physical laws are that exist here, the simple fact is that these laws can be tested – like dropping an egg on a hard tiled floor. Everything that exists, whether natural or man-made, can be tested or examined in some way to make determinations about them. Why, that’s the very nature of science! And these very same tests and examinations that we can use to show God’s existence can also show His cognizance. In fact, in my view, to deny it is more akin to putting God in a box than to acknowledging it. This is not arrogance on my part, daring to assume that I know the mind of our All-mighty Creator; rather it is a mere examination of the evidence. If I conclude from the evidences within nature that God must exist, then that same evidence shows me that He is also aware, and not some impersonal force or “NO THING” as some eastern or new age spiritualists like to think of Him. (This “no thing” terminology comes from the school of thought that God cannot be defined as a “thing,” and therefore is termed a “no thing” by some, which seems repugnant to me for coming too dangerously close to calling Him “nothing.” Of course, it fits right in line with the liberal/atheist school of thought.)

I cannot define God, but I can determine facts about Him based on the evidence of all He has created. An impersonal Force “No Thing” that binds all life together is no better than a rope. Equally disillusioning is the concept that God is just the combination or culmination of all things, which itself has no intelligence outside of trillions or zillions of other tiny little brains that help to make up the ultimate creature “god.” I mean, even ol’ Oogie Boogie from A Nightmare Before Christmas, who was made up of all kinds of creepy crawly bugs, had the ability of conscious thought! Not so for the impersonal god or gods of some pantheistic eastern or new age thought, who are not very different from the electricity that powers your coffee maker. Likewise, a house is a culmination of all the people and things who dwell within it, but outside of fiction, a house cannot think. Neither can the pantheistic god.

So if Elemental Truth #1 is that God exists, and we determine this mostely from the evidence of design in nature, then Elemental Truth #2 must be that He is a Thinking God, who can reason and design and create just like we little humans can, and that’s a very comforting thought for a man whose Uncle tried to convince him that Christianity is just a crutch, or that God was not very different from a piece of twine that ties up a bundle of tree branches, or no more cognizant than the bundle itself. I’m not the one trying to put God in a box! Leave it to man to limit God and to determine that our creator is not even as conscious and sentient as his little creations are, or to mock those who would come to understand that God is so much more, and then some…

The book of Ruth shows how love can prevail in times of hate and war. Naomi is a Jew, and her daughters-in-law are both Moabite women. They are all widows now, and Naomi releases them to go back to their Moabite towns and marry Moabite men from those towns. One of the daughters-in-law, Orpah (not Oprah), did just that, but the other, Ruth, wouldn’t hear of it. “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” (Ruth 1:16, 17)

So even in the midst of war and death and sin and brutal violence, as was shown in the book of Judges (the same period the book of Ruth is set in), we have the story of a Moabite woman from a pagan town and religion, having such faith and love in her mother-in-law that it carries over into her faith of her mother-in-law’s God and people, and Ruth gladly leaves everything behind to follow Naomi to an uncertain future living as a foreigner among Naomi’s people. The Jews were “God’s chosen people,” and yet here we have the story of a Moabite woman who loved God, and who God loved, and used, and she became the great-grandmother of King David and part of the lineage of Jesus Christ himself. In her story, we can see that God didn’t just love the Jews, but merely used them as his chosen people to spread his love and his message throughout the world in a time of savagery (and looking at the state of the world, whether today or recent history, we can see much of that savagery has not really diminished).

Love and Hate, War and Peace; they are, of course, strange bedfellows. But since we are all humans of this world, we must learn to walk the tightrope that binds them together. As much as we may want peace, war will always be with us, just as it always has been throughout every corner of history. Now as Christians, we are asked to love others – so much so that we hate the evil that separates them from God and His love. The Bible, of course, talks about peace, particularly in the New Testament, but it is also filled with stories of war, and these are wars sanctioned by God. That’s because this is a world full of Satan’s influence, and in the end, things might come closer to being like the movie Constantine than we’d like to admit, where a holy war constantly wages between the forces of light and darkness. Yet evil isn’t just another point of view as some would have us believe. The main problem is that the only ones who can see this are those who choose the moral path.