Wherein I get to announce news that hasn’t officially been announced only because somebody else beat me to it and, well, it’s no longer news, now tell you what I’ve been itching to say for the past [undisclosed amount of time] because the news has been embargoed till now. Whew!

Update 10/28/2008: This post has been updated with information from the October 28 Muskegon Chronicle news story. See below …

Update 11/07/08: ChristianityToday.com interviewed Zondervan CEO, Moe Girkins, on the recent acquisition of the Bible Gateway and Gospel.com. See: “Why Zondervan Bought BibleGateway.com: CEO Moe Girkins wants to take the site beyond just verses. iTunes-style commentaries, anyone?” (Interview by Jeremy Weber)

Ever since Gospel Communications announced the closure of their Internet division and Web-hosting ministry (as I noted here), there’s been a lot of speculation about the eventual fate of the Bible Gateway, one of the most highly-visited sites anywhere (Alexa.com ranks it as #1,837 as of today). Friends from CTI speculated that it would get snapped up by one of the Bible Societies, friends on Twitter wondered whether it would fade away, others wondered who could do as good a job.

I’m happy to announce, though, that the Bible Gateway has been acquired by my own employer: Zondervan (which is owned by HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corporation). Though Zondervan hasn’t issued a press release yet, and it’s officially still a secret, Larry Tomlinson (DotComLarry) broke the news last Thursday at 1:32 PM via Twitter:

BTW, I couldn’t talk about this yesterday, but BibleGateway and Gospel.com has been bought by Zondervan publishers.
01:32 PM October 23, 2008 from web, view Tweet

dotcomlarry
Larry Tomlinson

Apparently, when a “confidential” announcement was made at the recent Internet Ministry Conference it was being streamed live online — thus, several Twitterers, live-bloggers, and stream watchers, uh, paid attention. :: whoops! :: So, that cat’s out of the bag, but there are still further announcements regarding the fate of the rest of the GospelCom properties waiting to be made. Viewing the Twitter stream regarding GospelCom, it does look like there will be some continuity of mission and purpose. Somewhere.

Meanwhile, there are big plans in the works for extending and expanding the Gateway. I don’t know what those plans are (I’m not privy to those official discussions, really), but the rumors are interesting. And, really, it’s just like putting peanut butter in your chocolate to mix a Bible gateway with a major publisher of Bibles and related materials (commentaries, exegetical tools, Bible studies, curricula, devotionals, and on-and-on).

I only hope that we keep the spirit of the original Bible Gateway’s mission alive and that it remains one of the most truly useful online Bibles ever created.

Update: Before I got a chance to post this, I received three pieces of communication. One came from Moe Girkins, my über-boss at Zondervan, officially announcing the acquisition internally. To my surprise and delight, I learned that, “In addition to BibleGateway.com, our agreement also gives us rights to Gospel.com, an online community of Christian organizations.” Even better, Moe writes, “BibleGateway.com will not be just a Zondervan initiative. Rather, our vision is for this to continue as truly cross-publisher and the result of a team effort of a wide variety of content providers focused on meeting the needs of Christians and seekers alike.” And just to help make the transition smooth, half-a-dozen or more GospelCom employees will be coming to work at Zondervan immediately.

The second piece of email came from long-time friend, Peggie Bohanon, of Peggie’s Place, who wanted to let her readers know about the acquisition. Peggie also let us know that the acquisition deal does not include the ministry Web hosting provision, which kept over 300 non-profit ministries afloat on the Web. Fortunately, there’s 5Q Communications to help with the hosting (founded by former GospelCommers, some of whom I’ve meet and can recommend as smart, quality guys). That is, in fact, where ol’ Peg-leg’s moving, herself. So, if you’re looking for hosting, they might be worth looking into.

The third piece of email came from Moe Girkin’s executive assistant, green-lighting my release of this news here, now. So, you (may have) read it here first.

Enjoy!

Update (10/28/2008):

Today the Muskegon Chronicle announced this story (by Clayton Hardiman, who also broke the news of GospelCom’s closing back on September 12), “Gospel Communications Online Sold.” Strangely, the main story is not yet online, anywhere, but here are some salient quotes from the paper:

The future of Gospel Communications’ ministries had been in a state of limbo since early September when the agency’s board of directors, promoted by at least two years of fiscal difficulties, informed partner ministries it would shut down its Web-hosting services. …

Gospel Communications … began operations as Gospel Films Inc. 58 years ago … [and] became the largest distributor of Christian films and videos in the world. …

As part of the acquisition, eight [GospelCom] staffers … have been hired by Zondervan to continue their work on BibleGateway.com.

(The article notes that the BibleGateway was born in 1995 and was developed by Nick Hengeveld. Actually, the gateway was announced to the world on Tuesday, December 28, 1993. It was then hosted at Calvin College, where Hengeveld was a student and network administrator. However, when Nick came to Gospel Communications as their first webmaster, he brought his gateway with him — much to the delight of his new employer, I’m sure. When Hengeveld left in 2006, his brainchild stayed behind.)

The Grand Rapids Press also weighed in with its story, “Zondervan acquires religious site BibleGateway.com,” by Julia Bauer. It pulled in a quote by CEO Moe Girkins:

“Our vision is for BibleGateway.com to be the premier online aggregator of Biblical resources, blending relevant content and community features for anyone searching for information to help them in their spiritual journey, wherever they may be,” said Moe Girkins, Zondervan president and CEO.

(Again, in the interests of full disclosure, if you haven’t noticed by now, I work at Zondervan, though not in the business unit that will be working with the Gateway.)

It’s an interesting time to be a part of Zondervan’s story!

Every day, headlines assault us with troubling news. These recent titles from a local news website are just a small sampling:

• Two Shotgunned to Death [source]
• Joyriding Gang Member Slain; Crash Injures Family [source]
• Local Soldier Dies in Afghanistan [source]
• School Gets Tough on Commencement Outbursts [source]
• Wife Gets $184 Million in Divorce Ruling [source]

From international to household warfare, roadway to classroom outrage, and mortal to financial loss, such stories reveal our fallen, human propensity to sin.

The cause of these impulsive, sinful outbursts is no secret: When we want what we cannot get, we lash out.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight (James 4:1-3).

Although this passage does not seem especially applicable — after all, not many of us are covetous murderers — it echoes Jesus’ words from the Beatitudes: “You have heard that it was said … ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21-22, emphasis added). Indeed, both these exhortations address the church, not the headline-generating unbelievers that feel comfortably distant from us.

Frustration Is the Key

But the root problem is the same for us all, believers or not: frustration.

“The source of anger is often unmet expectations or personal rights,” writes Os Hillman in his devotional on anger. “We believe we are entitled to a particular outcome to a situation. When this doesn’t happen, it triggers something in us.” This thwarted desire triggers more than mere squabbles, says Martyn Lloyd-Jones; it can even lead to international war.

But just because frustration “triggers” anger — as a physician’s tap triggers a knee jerk — it does not provoke a hardwired, truly uncontrollable response. Rather, says Hillman, “We all choose to get angry. No one else is to blame for our anger. … Anger only reveals what is inside.”

Such anger does not always express itself in physical confrontations like war. Often it is subtler, masquerading as rationalization and self-righteous criticism. Pastors know well these guises of anger, for the one behind the pulpit is familiar with the disappointment and critique resulting from a congregation’s high expectations. In “Why I Expect Conflict,” Pastor Ben Patterson describes two church members who simultaneously abandoned the congregation for opposite, rational reasons: one wished the pastor were more conservative, the other more liberal.

Simple disagreement is natural in any ministry relationship. But when competing interests cannot be resolved, frustration festers and chaos results. As Patterson explains,

Differences, even clashes, between parties in a church do not in themselves constitute conflict of a destructive kind. They can be signs of vitality. … It is when they defy peaceful resolution and become protracted and entrenched in the life of a church that they become sinful and destructive.

Dragon Droppings

The primary evidence of this sinful self-interest is a restless and inflammatory tongue. Just a few of the evils that the apostle James warns can emanate from an undisciplined tongue include blasphemy, profanity, boasting, flattery, complaining, murmuring, deceit, hypocrisy, and mockery. These myriad sins are comparable to the fiery exhalations of dragons, as Marshall Shelley aptly states in Well Intentioned Dragons:

Dragons are best known for what comes out of their mouths. At times their mouths are flame throwers; other times the heat and smoke are not apparent, but the noxious gas does the damage. Their tongues may be smooth, but they are usually forked.

Fortunately, the antidote to heated tongues — or frustrations — is fairly straightforward, though it may be difficult to swallow.

R_x: Stop Talking

The first prescription is to close our mouths. “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry,” James suggests, “for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires” (1:19-20; see also 1:26 and 3:2). Describing our typical response to maltreatment, Mike Zigarelli offers a solution to undisciplined behavior: “Injustice visited us and we threw objectivity to the wind. We responded instinctively. Quickly. Verbally. Probably improperly. Such a response is a function of the way we’re made. … The first step in responding to unfair treatment is to tighten the reigns on our tongue and initially to retreat.”

R_x: Start Praying

The second mandate is to pray. But not just any kind of praying. It must focus on the necessary and helpful rather than on the hedonistic. “You do not have, because you do not ask God,” James explains. “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (4:1-3).

Choosing prayer “will be the turning point,” Zigarelli promises. We should specifically ask God to “reveal the source of that anger,” Os Hillman suggests. “Ask him to heal you of any fears that may be the root of your anger. Ask God to help you take responsibility for your response to difficult situations.”

Often, however, our immediate response to difficulties is not prayer at all. “In many areas of our lives, we simply do not consult God. … He is not opposed as much as merely ignored,” Terry Muck admits in his helpful book Liberating the Leader’s Prayer Life. Muck also echoes James’s counsel on slowness to speak, applying it to speaking to God as well:

At times, our prayer requests go unanswered because they are poorly formed or presumptuous. We do not take time to discover what the true, pure desires of our hearts should be, and thus offer up incomplete, half-hearted requests that God would be a fool to answer.

R_x: Start Submitting

The third medication is to submit. A dose of repentance and humility can aid us in deciding which desires to relinquish, and which to pursue.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.

Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up (James 4:7-10).

As we submit to God, we also need to submit to others. “We must develop an accountability relationship with someone who can provide grace, understanding, and tough questions,” suggests Jim Burns. And to overcome submission to the devil, we must pull out our “I-mean-business” card, as Rich Miller calls it. For resisting the devil demands serious spiritual warfare.

R_x: Start Doing

These three spiritual prescriptions, however, are useless in theory only. We must also act, as James exhorts us. “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (1:22).

When we recognize that frustration is the root of anger, we can begin to understand the reason for the troubling headlines in our news. And we can ask God for help to control our desires, manage our tongues, and keep us out of the news!

(Your comments and thoughts are welcome!)

—

Originally published at CTLibrary on June 13, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today International.
Used with permission.

(Note: Most of the articles linked above require paid membership at CTLibrary.com to view, but if you’re the kind of person who enjoys reading Christianity Today, Leadership, Books & Culture, or Christian History & Biography, it may well be worth it. Also, though I was once employed by Christianity Today, I do not personally benefit from any transactions through these sites.)

And it has begun. I’d say the issue is now real.

While it hasn’t surfaced within the Assemblies of God yet, I suspect it will within the next few years. Meanwhile, The Church Report Online released a special report in its May 2007 issue, titled: “Identity Crisis: A Transgender Minister Reappointed to Lead Church.” MinistryToday magazine’s weblog quickly picked up on the story. And the story threatens to go national now that a CBS affiliate has featured the item (includes video).

On May 25, at a previously unheralded United Methodist Church in Baltimore, the Reverend Ann Gordon announced her gender reassignment and consequent name change to the Reverend Drew Phoenix. And while the UMC has rules of discipline regarding “sexually active gay clergy,” there’s nothing on the books about transgendered clergy. So, for now, for the next year at least, Phoenix remains pastor.

(It is no coincidence that the timing of the announcement syncs with Pentecost Sunday, when we celebrate the founding of the Church and the empowerment of the Spirit for ministry.)

Meanwhile his more clear-headed colleagues from the Baltimore-Washington Conference are calling for a review of the decision. Good luck with that. And a conservative UMC group, UMAction, is petitioning the UMC General Conference to come up with a position paper. Good luck with that, too.

As Ann Gordon/Drew Phoenix said, “I want to be the face for an issue.” Phoenix will get his wish. And the issue is going to steam-roll the United Methodist church. If anybody thought that the Gay and Lesbian clerical issues were difficult to resolve (and largely remain unresolved), wait’ll this hits the debate floor.

Here, for your consideration, are the comments I posted to the Ministry Today blog, which asked: “How should the Methodist Church respond to this situation? What would you say?”

Yikes.

I’ve blogged about this nascent issue on my own weblog. Churches simply aren’t prepared for this. And the mainline churches who gave up the struggle on ordaining homosexual ministers will probably have to roll over on the issue if they’re going to be consistent in their rejection of orthodox Biblical values.

While the Bible does not directly speak to sexual dysphoria or sexual identity issues, I believe there is a Biblical foundation for rejecting the claims of the transgendered proponents.

The creation account clearly depicts the inception of two sexes: male and female — not some admixture of the two. And as God created man in his image, clearly expressed gender identity is very likely a part of that imago dei. Any confusion regarding one’s innate gender would, therefore, be a result of the Fall, sin, and its many effects. To surrender to the dysphoria and adopt a new sexual identity does not clarify the chaos, rather, it cements it.

The Apostle Paul makes it clear that our identity in Christ is not tied to our “meat space” identity. He encouraged the Corinthian believers not to waste their energy in changing their social or psychological circumstances:

“Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. … Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him.” (See 1 Corinthians 7)

I’m sympathetic to circumstances where gender dysphoria arise from true hermaphroditism (having both male and female sexual characteristics) or where sexual genitalia are opposite one’s genetic endowments. In such circumstances, I believe acting out a sexuality or gender that is at odds with one’s innate physical genitalia creates a self-contradictory gender image — and this does violence to the “image of God” within.

Our denominations will have to wake up to this issue, like it or not. I’ve called for my own Fellowship to respond to this — years ago, and it hasn’t happened yet. But the trend is inexorable and we must respond now.

Regards,

Notes from around the Blogosphere and Web

• The Albert Mohler Radio Program: “Gender Identity Disorder In The Pulpit” (with MP3)
  “When the former Rev. Ann Gordon returned to her congregation at St. John’s United Methodist Church as Rev. Drew Phoenix, the regional leadership of the United Methodist Church was faced with something of a dilemma. Their decision to reappoint Gordon/Phoenix has ignited a firestorm of controversy and we’re joined by Mark Tooley, of The Institute on Religion and Democracy, to analyze the issues involved in the case.”
• Teflon at MoltenThought says, “We are created with the proper gender, and those afflictions of body, mind, and soul not self-inflicted do not excuse us from proper behavior. … Is it not more likely that the creature is twisted and the Creator straight and true?”
• The Baltimore Sun: “Transgender minister is reappointed”
  “In explaining yesterday’s decision to the conference, [Bishop John] Schol said he looked at the Book of Discipline, talked with fellow bishops and other experts and ‘learned that there is nothing in our discipline that speaks to transgendered persons, learned that there is nothing in our policies or guidelines that speaks to transgendered persons.’ According to the Book of Discipline, to be a pastor, ‘the person has to be of good character, and faithful to the church and effective in ministry,’ Schol said in an interview. Phoenix is all of those things, he said.”
• UMC.org: “Pastor speaks of transgender experience“
  “Phoenix believes his transition is making him “even more effective” as a pastor and said his greatest concern “is that the congregation continues to grow and thrive.”"
• Darrell at Dow Blog in “Post-Modern Gender Confusion” writes: “Is there any doubt that we are living in an era of sexual and gender confusion? In our post-modern mind, we ourselves determine what it means to be man and woman, to be human. The Author of creation is cast aside as the goddess science is enthroned and worshipped, even in the ‘church.’”
• MBT at Right Pundits in “Transgender Methodist Minister Is Reappointed” comments: “I wonder if a pastor with a conservative bent would even get ordained anymore in the Methodist church, let alone become Bishop?”
• And more…

Some GodBloggers have been critical of the whole “movie-based Bible study” enterprise. Not surprising, really: using Hollywood movies to teach Biblical truth is a little like using dance to teach worship, or wine to serve Communion. There may be a place for it, but it’s going to generate controversy somewhere.

I’ve been asked before to justify how I could write a Bible study with a movie as its context. After all, if I’m writing a Bible study, how can I presume to use a movie to develop themes? And if I’m so big on biblical theology, hermeneutics, exegesis, and expository preaching, then why would I water down the message of the Bible or jeopardize the faith of weaker brothers and sisters by endorsing a movie? After all, this is Hollywood we’re talking about and nothing good comes from there. Right?

So, I will clarify: any Bible study or discussion guide I write that uses a movie to illuminate and illustrate biblical themes is not an endorsement of that film.

The Debate

So, when Andy at Heart for the Lost posted a blog critical of Detweiler’s Spider-Man study, I offered up my own version and asked for commentary. (To be fair, Andy was re-posting an item from A Little Leaven.)

Instead of actually reading the study (or my study, at least) it seems Andy’s audience is ready to reject the idea outright, for the usual notions of avoiding “fellowship” with “the world.” But, in my view, writing a critical Bible study using a film as its thematic base is not about being unholy or about sullying the Word. It’s about reaching a culture steeped in godless ideology, and subversively redeeming secular entertainment for evangelistic and edifying purposes.

One commenter, Leonard, asked:

How can you feel right about joining God’s Word to us with such an anti-Christian gnostic film?

I feel like Leonard hasn’t actually read my Matrix study before judging it, or possibly even the Spider-Man study. I suppose, though, if Leonard is morally opposed to mixing film and theology in any way, he might be concerned that reading my study would be a sin, that it might jeopardize his eternal future. Its hard to say. But it’s clear he believes I’m engaging in a sinful enterprise.

My position and answer to this question follows. But first a word from John Calvin:

“From this passage we may infer that those persons are superstitious who do not venture to borrow anything from heathen authors. All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God. Besides, all things are of God; and, therefore, why should it not be lawful to dedicate to his glory everything that can properly be employed for such a purpose?”

 —John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, Trans. by William Pringle (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library). [Calvin makes this statement in commentary on Titus 1:12. — Rich]

There is no truth that is not ultimately God’s truth.

And there is no man perfect and without a hint of sin or untruth in us. If it is acceptable for a rank and vile sinner like Leonard or me to teach the perfect Word of God, and if it was appropriate for the apostle Paul to quote pagan philosophers to teach God’s truth (see sidebar), and if it was appropriate for apostle Paul to stand in a pagan worship center in Athens and use their heathen altar to teach God’s truth, then I don’t see how using a story written by pagans to also teach God’s truth is a sin.

I suppose my critics might be of the mindset such that when they preach or teach they only use quotes from the Bible, they only use illustrations from the Bible, they only use the text of the Bible in their presentations, and they only ever refer to events in the Bible to make points. If that is one’s philosophy, it would be difficult to say anything other than to simply quote a Bible text and sit down because otherwise we’d be adding to the Scripture and invariably marrying God’s holy Word with sinful ideologies.

“But there’s sin in them flicks!”

Interestingly, though, one major plank of my critics is that secular films portray blasphemers, adulterers, and rank sinners. But I am painfully aware that for all its faults, the heathen Hollywood elite end up painting a more accurate picture of life than the lily-pure world of Christian movies and books where nobody cusses, chews or dates the girls who do. The Christian entertainment industry with few exceptions simply doesn’t reflect the mud, grit, and sin-laden pain of stories from the Bible itself where men rape women, soldiers raze villages, adulterers murder husbands, men sleep with their father’s wives, and friends betray the Messiah.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all the sin recounted in my R-Rated Bible it’s this: Sin and error don’t have to be applauded or endorsed to be useful for edification and instruction. Life’s most instructive moments are often found in the errata.

And while Hollywood is not good at showing us the path to purity and perfection, it excels at showing us the myriad ways fallen men fail. What Hollywood glamorizes in film and New York immortalizes in print can be redeemed with the light of the Word. If we would but pay attention.

What are they thinking about?

You see, if you’re going teach others what God wants us to know about how to love him, serve him, worship him and live holy lives, we should spend some time connecting those sacred truths with what people are actually thinking about. Sometimes they’re reflecting on tragedies like the recent massacre at Virginia Tech. Should we also not refer to that event because it was planned, perpetrated, and promoted by a media-savvy godless murderer? Sometimes folks are pondering the most recent Spider-Man or Matrix movie, the latest Ridley Pearson novel, or the latest New Yorker cartoon. If my critics were consistent, we should never mention those things except to denounce them because every word and deed therein are damnable lies.

Perhaps, in my critics world, we should simply pile those things up and toss a match.

Credibility begone! Hello folly…

But you know what happens when we simply denounce everything that isn’t “churchy” and fail to engage? The people listening to us snicker. Because they’ve seen the movies, read the books, and enjoyed the cartoons. And they know that while there are significant problems with them, not every word is a lie. When we superstitiously presume otherwise, we not only lose credibility, we make ourselves look foolish.

Only foolish Christians think they have the only truth. Only foolish Christians think everybody else is ignorant of even the slightest glimmering of light. Only foolish Christians would be so blind.

Please note, I’m not saying Leonard or my critics are foolish. I do think they’re sensitive to the perils of encouraging believers to consume what Hollywood produces uncritically. I commend Leonard and his friends for their care and concern for the mental and spiritual health of believers. Because, really, there is danger in consuming what Hollywood produces uncritically. But these films already shape how people think. It’s up to us to redirect those thoughts, to train people to think critically about the claims made in these films, and ultimately to help them reject the message.

Stop hanging out with sinners!

Leonard continued:

Maybe it is time we remember that as the Body of Christ, we don’t join ourselves to the world. We are in it, not of it. We do not fellowship with the world. Our only real relationship with the world should be one of ministry.

Au contraire, mon frere! Paul encouraged us to disfellowship ourselves from believers who are charlatans. He did not discourage fellowship with pagans, rather, see 1 Corinthians 5.

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

If we ever hope to have anything relevant to say to pagans and seekers, if we hope to do the ministry you speak of, we need to not only know what sinners are thinking about, we need to enter their thought-space and know what we’re talking about

We, like Paul, should spend some time in the Areopagus of this world pointing at the altars to the unknown gods, saying, “Hey! Look! This thing you built in ignorance actually points to God. Look at it this way with me for a moment.…”

Trivial persuasion

After a few more words, Leonard concludes:

Maybe instead of trying to link the Bible with such things as the matrix movies, we should tell the Body of Christ that they should steer clear of such things and run to God. Trivializing God’s Word for the sake of itching ears is wrong.

I can only assume Leonard hasn’t read my studies, else I don’t know why he’s saying I’m trivializing the Word of God. I don’t believe I am. Otherwise, please point out how, exactly, I am trivializing the Word? Because, frankly, that sounds rather insulting. But perhaps I am misunderstanding Leonard.

I invite you, my faithful readers, to set me straight.

Teaching the Word of God is an awesome and frightful task. (In one sense, the mere act of attempting to deliver the message trivializes it immediately. How can you or I or any sinful man or woman hope to adequately explain an convey all the truth contained in even one verse of the divinely inspired Word?

We cannot. Our very presumption to attempt it is trivializing in itself. Further, by our very sinfulness we soil the Word any time we lay hands on it or attempt to interpret it.

But that cannot be our concern because we have been given the task of not only studying the Word, but teaching it, conveying it, preaching it, and delivering it. That is not only our honor, but it is our duty. It’s our mandate.

So let us leave aside these concerns about somehow gutting the Scriptures by presuming to highlight was is good and what is not good about a film in a discussion guide. I suspect God has the power to preserve his Word and I won’t be single-handedly tearing it down in my lifetime.

In reality, the greater danger is not to the Word itself, but to the films we discuss. My hope is that the moral and philosophical framework behind these secular fables will be redeemed, not that God’s Word will somehow be destroyed.

Warning: the following contains spoilers! Stop now and do not read below this paragraph if you hate knowing anything beyond what the trailers reveal.

Spider-Man 3
The greatest battle lies … within

The first two Spider-Man films established Peter Parker and his super-heroic alter-ego as a popular and profitable theatrical draw: Spidey is loveably unstoppable and Peter Parker is the nice boy everybody wants to see “get the girl.”

But Spider-Man 3 severs those silky threads of comfortable niceness, dumping Peter Parker and Spider-Man into a dark abyss where evil infects the heart and vengeance slakes its thirst.

This guide will help you discuss some of the spiritual themes of Spider-Man 3, focusing on pride, the struggle against sin, and forgiveness. Feel free to use this as a starting-point for discussion and explore any other themes you feel appropriate to your small group.

Movie Summary

In Spider-Man Peter Parker was an excited kid testing his boundaries and learning how to use fantastic powers responsibly and for the good of society. In Spider-Man 2, he was sick with unspoken love and the unbearable burden of using power wisely. Laying aside his suit and mask, Peter Parker became nearly impotent until Mary Jane’s life was threatened and he rediscovers his purpose through sacrifice. As that film closes, Mary Jane at last learns of Parker’s love for her, and his super-hero identity.

As the third chapter in Parker’s life opens, we fully expect to hear wedding bells. Instead, we see Parker still in love but struggling with commitment and insecurity even while a crime-free city celebrates his alter-ego, awarding Spider-Man the key to the city. Parker is trapped in a knotted skein of conceit and self-doubt.

The film starts out romantically enough, with the timeless beauty, Mary Jane, lounging in the center of Parker’s web and still the center of his life. But an ominous falling star is prelude to a venomous creature quietly attaching itself to Parker without his knowledge. The action starts When Harry Osborn, Parker’s best friend and heir to the Norman Osborn legacy (insanity included), attacks the love-struck Parker, nearly killing himself in the process. In short order Parker saves his mortal enemy’s life only to permanently disfigure him later, spurns Mary Jane with a thoughtless bit of grandstanding, learns the true identity of his uncle’s killer, is infected by the evil ooze from outer space, attempts murder himself, and faces a tremendous battle on multiple fronts, both internal and external.

If warding off Harry as the new Green Goblin isn’t enough, Spider-Man also has to face Flint Marko, his uncle’s killer, who — by way of the usual freak accident — has become a nebulous shape-shifting whirlwind of sand. When the space-borne symbiote infects Parker, he gains even more power and abilities than he previously enjoyed, but along with the power comes a compulsion to aggression and vengeance that the proud and complacent Parker is unprepared to resist.

As the film concludes, Parker has to find a way to not only resist the symbiote but also to destroy it as when its new host, Eddie Brock, joins league with the Sandman to threaten Mary Jane and destroy Spider-Man for good.

Discussing the Scenes

Select one or more of these themes to discuss:

• Pride Before the Fall
• The Battle Within
• Forgiveness and Redemption

1. Pride Before the Fall
(Proverbs 11:1-3; Proverbs 16:8; Proverbs 29:23; Psalm 10:4)

The film opens with Peter Parker introducing himself in voiceover, and it’s difficult to ignore the subtext of both pride and lingering insecurity:

“Its me, Peter Parker, ‘Your friendly neighborhood —’ you know. I’ve come a long way from being the boy who was bit by a spider. Back then nothing seemed to go right for me. But now? … People really like me! The city is safe and sound.

“I guess I’ve had something to do with that.

“My uncle Ben would be proud.”

Later, when Mary Jane is struggling over critical reviews and her own insecurities as an actress, Parker offers up less-than-helpful clichês from his own experience as Spider-Man who has — he admits with vanishing humility — “become something of an icon:”

“Listen … this is something that you’re going to have to get used to. Believe me: I know. Spider-Man gets attacked all the time. … You can’t let it bring you down. You just gotta believe in yourself, and you pull yourself together, and you get right back on the horse . …”

Parker’s ultimate fall begins as he infected by evil, surrendering to a hunger for vengeance — and becoming enslaved by it. As the dark symbiote threatens to take over not only his suit but his very soul, he revels in a new-found “bad-boy” persona. We watch the devolution of Peter Parker as he maims his best friend, struts and flirts audaciously, destroys his uncle’s murderer Flint Marko, humiliates his newspaper rival Eddie Brock, and uses his lab partner, Gwen Stacy, to crush Mary Jane’s heart.

Pride is the exaltation of one’s self above all others. As Peter’s arrogance swells, he sees Mary Jane’s plight only in light of his own conceit. And even as M.J. reaches out to him from her own pain, knowing that Parker is giving in to blood lust for Flint Marko, he rejects her help, cutting her off: “Okay. I get it. Thank you, but … I’m fine. I don’t need your help.”

The moment Parker isolates himself in misery, cutting himself off from others, that’s when the symbiote takes over.

• Have you ever found yourself rejecting help for no good reason other than pride? How did you come to recognize the pride? What did you do about it?
• Even though Peter has already wounded her, when Mary Jane learns about Marko being uncle Ben’s true killer, she reaches out to Parker and offers help. How does pride come into play when you are the victim of someone else’s ego? How do you deal with your own wounded pride?
• How does Jesus’ command to offer forgiveness “seventy times seven” times combat pride?
• How do you guard against the effects of pride when helping others who are hurting or who are bound by sinful habits?
• What is the chief danger of doing ministry of any sort with pride in your heart?
• The proud are often unaware of their condition. What proactive steps can you take to avoid and address the sin of pride that may be lurking in your heart?

2. The Battle Within
(Romans 7:14-19; Romans 8:5-17; Romans 12; Philippians 2:1-18; Philippians 4:8-9)

Immediately after learning that Flint Marko killed his uncle Ben, Peter Parker wants justice, but wants it on his terms, in his way, by his own hand. Ultimately, Parker’s desire is not for mere justice but vengeance, which Aunt May describes this way:

“It’s like a poison it can — it can take you over before you know it — turn us into something ugly.”

All sin, vengeance included, is transformative: it corrupts from within, working its way out through our words, actions, and even inaction. When caught or snared in sin, even the believer has a difficult time doing what is right. As Paul describes in Romans 7:18-19:

“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing.”

Read Romans 12.

• If sin corrupts and is transformative, what is the antidote? What attitude and actions are necessary to reverse the corruption and to be transformed the way God wants?
• Do sinful desires themselves cause us to sin, or is there something else at work? Besides a desire or temptation to sin, what is necessary to lead to sin’s bondage?

  Leader’s Note: In Romans 7, the key to freedom from sin is to have our minds set on what the Spirit desires. But what does the Spirit desire? Romans 12, says that when our mind is transformed and renewed we will know God’s will — what the Spirit desires. Philippians 2 further promises that as we work out our salvation with the attitude and mind of Christ it is God himself “who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

• If the way we think is the key to living either in bondage to sin or as a slave to righteousness, then how should we go about changing our minds? Like Peter Parker / Spider-Man in the movie, how do we throw off the sin that entangles us?

  Leader’s Note: Try to guide the discussion toward repentance as a first step, which involves not only recognizing that one’s actions have been sinful, but also involves a permanent rejection of those sins. Subsequent steps would involve worship, prayer, and reading and meditating on Scripture.

Read Philippians 4:8-9.

• Regular spectator sessions in church aren’t enough to change thought-patterns or behavior. Saying a few prayers here and there aren’t enough, reading a daily Bible verse isn’t enough, and neither is hanging out with good, upright Christians. Righteousness doesn’t “rub off.” In light of this, why is Paul’s advice to the Philippians so critical, and so effective?
• How have your thought-habits changed over the years?
• How have these habitual ways of thinking changed your behavior?
• What’s been the hardest pattern to change?

3. Forgiveness and Redemption
(Matthew 6:9-13; Matthew 18:15-35; Luke 7:36-50; Luke 11:2-4; Ephesians 4:29-32)

The primary emotion driving Peter Parker / Spider-Man throughout this film is vengeance. On the surface, Spider-Man is just doing his job: helping to stop crime and fight evil. Even if he felt nothing toward Flint Marko, Spider-Man would still have had to stop the Sandman from theft and mayhem. Even if he had never seen the black, gooey parasite from space, Spider-Man would still have had to stop it in whatever form it took. And even if Parker had not been Harry Osborn’s best friend, he would have still had to deal with Harry’s madness, just as he had to deal with Norman Osborn’s insanity.

But each of these cases it gets personal. Parker has a real hatred toward Marko for having killed his uncle Ben, and he intends to make him pay with his life because “he deserved it.” And the infected Spider-Man taunts Harry with mocking words, goading him into carelessness and justifying a satisfying coup de grace. With Venom, it became personal because Parker not only opposed its new host, Eddie Brock, but he utterly humiliated him, destroying his career and reputation.

Of course, other characters also struggle with forgiveness and old grudges. Harry Osborn is being driven mad in his belief that Peter Parker as Spider-Man killed his father. Eddie Brock cannot bring himself to forgive Parker for revealing his deplorable journalistic ethics. In fact, he prays to God: “It’s Brock, sir. Edward Brock, Junior. I come before you today, humbled and humiliated to ask you for one thing — I want you to kill Peter Parker.” Mary Jane struggles with her humiliation when Spider-Man kisses Gwen Stacy in public — with their kiss! Marko’s wife cannot forgive his sin, and Marko cannot forgive himself.

While all the crossed lines of bitterness and sin don’t get resolved in the storyline, by the end of the film, Peter Parker releases Marko from his debt of guilt, Harry Osborn releases his unfounded bitterness and forgives Parker, and Mary Jane forgives Parker for his actions while under the influence of pride and the poisonous goo.

But the most stunning sequence in the film is when Parker literally tears the black ooze out of his body in the form of the black suit. It is almost a near-perfect metaphor for repentance and redemption as he crouches underneath the cross free of his stain, washed clean by rain from above.

• Much has been made in popular literature of the need to “forgive yourself” before you can forgive others. What do you think of this concept. Is it biblically valid? Why or why not?
• In Matthew, while speaking of forgiveness, Jesus describes our act of forgiveness as both binding and losing things in heaven and on earth. What do you think this means? How does forgiveness — or the withholding of forgiveness bind or release?

In Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4), Jesus gives us a model for prayer. In it, he demonstrates how we ought to pray regarding forgiveness: “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.”

• What implications does this part of the Lord’s prayer have for us regarding forgiveness?
• What happens to our ability to pray effectively if we are knowingly harboring grudges? Why does this affect prayers?
• If we are entangled in sin ourselves, what does that do to our own ability to forgive others? What should you do if someone asks you for forgiveness for a sin you commit yourself?
• How does forgiveness provide a release? What kind of release? If someone withholds forgiveness, what doesn’t get released?
• Have you ever sought forgiveness for something and had your request rejected? How did this make you feel, what happened as a result?
• What is the hardest thing for you to imagine forgiving? Why? Is it possible for you to forgive anything, and if so, does that make you weak, or is it a sign of strength?
• Is there a difference between forgiveness and apathy? Or between forgiveness and being “a wallflower?” What’s the difference? How do you know the difference when you see it?
• How do you let go of the anger and hurt when you’ve forgiven someone?

As the Credits Roll:

• Why do the Spider-Man films resonate so much? What made first two films so popular (to the tune of $1.7 billion grossed worldwide)?
• Do you think this third film is consistent with the spiritual themes from the first two movies?
• What encourages you in this film?
• What is hard to swallow philosophically, morally, or theologically?
• What do you think the major characters in this film “learned” by the end of the story? How were they changed by events?
• What do you think about Eddie Brock’s prayer, that God “kill Peter Parker?” Was the venomous ooze depicted as an answer to prayer? Ultimately, Peter Parker was not killed, so how does the storyline change how you perceive that scene?
• At the end of the film, Peter Parker says, in voiceover:

  “Whatever comes our way, whatever battle we have raging inside us, we always have a choice. My friend Harry taught me that. He chose to be the best of himself. It’s the choices that make us who we are, and we can always choose to do what’s right.”

  
  What do you think about that? Do our choices make us who we are, or are we revealed by the kind of choices we make? What’s the difference?

Based on:

Spider-Man 3 (Columbia Pictures and Marvel Enterprises, 2007); screenplay by Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, and Alvin Sargent; directed by Sam Raimi; based on the Marvel comic book character, Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Rated PG-13.

—Study by Rich Tatum, blogger, freelance writer,
and former CTI online media editor.

Copyright &copy 2007, Christianity Today International, all rights reserved.
Used with permission.

In early 2005 I wrote a Bible study for the Spider-Man 1 & 2 movies, currently only available via ChristianityToday.com. Last week I stopped by the offices of Christianity Today International and “volunteered” to freelance the Bible study for Spider-Man 3, as well, opening May 4 in a theater near you. (Here’s the official site. Here’s the IMDB site.)

So, this coming Tuesday, thanks to CT Movies editor, Mark Moring, I will attend a screening of Spider-Man 3 at 10 AM in downtown Chicago. Wahoo! After that, I will put on my thinking cap, review my extensive notes, think hard and start writing about the many redemptive themes from the film to weave into a Bible study useful for small group discussions and after-movie coffee binges. The Bible study I write will be truly Bible-based, pulling in not only quotes and themes from the movie, but tieing them into Biblical themes, sometimes expanding on the film’s premises, sometimes redirecting, sometimes contradicting or refuting.

What’s nice is the Spider-Man movie franchise has consistently provided a wealth of material to reflect on. In fact, Spidey 2 was so packed with religious themes and imagery some suspected that the director, Sam Raimi, might have been intentionally making Spidey look Messiah-like. But, no, Raimi hasn’t gone all “Jesusy” on us — it’s just hard to pull of heroism without being at least a little like Jesus, our ultimate real-life hero. Even the Wachowski brothers couldn’t avoid it with Neo in The Matrix (incidentally, I also wrote a Bible study for the three Matrix films, available at CTI as well).

More good news, according to my editor at CTI, I may be able to republish my original, unedited studies here on my blog for your delectation. I’ll keep you updated for details.

Rich

I’ve blogged on tragedy before:

• Church shooting at Sash Assembly of God, Sash, Texas and a survivor’s reaction (”God Protected Her“)
• Katrina (”On Moral Levees,” and “Nature, God, Blame and Shame“)
• Former A/G youth pastor, Eric Brian Golden, who murdered his wife (”Youth pastor slays wife, confesses. Why, oh why?“, with several updates)
• And 9/11, five years later (”September 11 and a Terrible Joy“)

But since the massacre at Virginia Tech, I’ve been at a loss for words. I’ve wanted to try to research this to put it into perspective for myself and perhaps my readers — as if anyone could. But it’s still too grisly and horrifying. I only know I’m already sickened of the politicizing going on around the tragedy.

So, I am relieved that a fellow Christian blogger has put what I think is the true proper perspective on this or any other tragedy. Kevin Stilley, of Encyclopedia Kevannica, writes:

Today and for the rest of the week every radio talk show and television news program will be discussing yesterday’s events at Virginia Tech. They will host philosophers, theologians, psychologists, and sociologists who will discuss the problem of evil ad nauseam. They will try their best to help the populace make sense of the senseless.

And, when they get tired of those topics they will move on to the political issues; — gun control, campus security, the cultural ramifications of violence in movies and music, etc.

On Sunday morning pastors will stand in their pulpits and explore such themes as the depravity of man, the comfort of God, trusting God when we do not understand, and more.

What a shame.

All of those issues are important and need to be repeatedly revisited and explored in depth, but ….

Jesus said that when we become witnesses to the unexpected tragedies of others to whom we are not personally ministering our response is not to be voyeuristic gawkers, philosophical soothsayers, or even theologians. It is a time for personal reflection and repentance.

It’s a great article, and a sobering one, putting our response into the proper perspective.

Encyclopedia Kevannica
“Our mishandling of the Virginia Tech tragedy“

I would simply like to add that when we are ministering to folks experiencing their own chaos, we should practice the proper response as modeled by Jesus … what Foursquare pastor Jerry Cook calls the Jesus Question:

Yet, here is Jesus Christ stepping out of eternity to reveal the only God there is, and He says, “I haven’t come to be served.” Now to me that doesn’t make sense. Again, my question is, If You haven’t come to be served, why are You here? Why did You come? Again His answer is, “I haven’t come to be served , but to serve.”

Immediately I begin to recall all the questions Jesus asked throughout the Gospels. Almost always they came down to this: “What can I do for you?” What were His first words to blind Bartimaeus? “What would you like Me to do for you?” What about the lepers? “What can I do for you?” What about the man at the pool? “What can I do for you?”

Indeed. How can we help?

How can I help?

Central Bible College: Our First Act of Civil Disobedience (via Soulforce)

We arrived to Springfield, Illinois [knowing] at the beginning that it was likely that Central Bible College would not be as pleasant a stop. We relentlessly pursued conversation with the administrators at the school, who told us again and again that our voice was not welcome, that this was a conversation that the school did not need or want.

Arriving at CBC, the protesters found the school ready, with police and security from Evangel, CBC, and the General Concil all around (all hands on deck, apparently). After loitering on the sidewalks just off campus for several hours, silently reading their bibles, Abigail Reikow and Brandy Daniels entered campus through the main gate, walking toward the chapel when they were arrested, frisked, sent downtown and charged with a misdemeanor trespassing violation. The group left around noon. Apparently even non-violent protests give way to lunchtime hunger-pangs.

Prior to this, the Springfield News-Leader quoted campus pastor Ron Bradley:

“We have no difficulty discussing this issue (of homosexuality),” said Bradley. Instead, it is the organization and its method that led to the decision, he said. “Their track record has been ignoble at best. … “Our concern, having studied their patterns … is while their initial contact calls for dialogue, their pattern has been much more combative and on some campuses, deceptive.”

I don’t know what dialog this group hopes to foster, and I’m too pressed for time to research their claims or their theology. However, whatever one believes about sexual “orientation,” I believe it’s clear that Scriptures teach that it’s not the impulse to sin that marks the sinner (we all are tempted) but the behavior itself and the act of entertaining the temptations — nurturing sin in our hearts. Just by analogy, straight men are sexually tempted as well, but it’s not the temptation to have sex that marks the straight man as a sinner or even unregenerate: it is the behavior and the lust that defile.

Thus, I believe it’s possible to be a believer and a disciple while experiencing same-sex attraction — or any-sex attraction. Yet if obedience to Christ is the mark of a disciple, I am not as agnostic about salvation and the practice of gay and lesbian lifestyle choices.

But all that’s been discussed elsewhere and on other fora ad nauseum. If you want to see what the A/G teaches about it, review their extensive ephemera at the ag.org site here.

But the transgendered issue is still a relatively open discussion. There’s virtually nothing about it on the ag.org site, and there’s certainly no position paper on it.

Elsewhere, I own and moderate an email-based A/G discussion group. One of the long-time members of that group was a transgendered (male to female) participant who had not disclosed his/her gender mashup until another enterprising member discovered it and disclosed it publicly on the forum and called for an ousting. This was back in late 2003.

If it were just that a member on the forum were cross-dressing or undergoing gender reassignment, it wouldn’t have been a huge issue for me. We have sinners of all stripes on our message boards. Being an unbeliever, a pagan, or a sinner wasn’t a reason to get kicked off the forum or castigated. What made the ousting a bigger issue, for me, was that the individual involved was involved in lay-ministry at her local Assemblies of God church

Ouch.

So, I found myself struggling with the question: Is it possible to be a post-operative transsexual and remain a Christian?

I wasn’t sure, and still am not entirely certain of my position, but I suspect maybe the answer is similar to this question’s conclusion: Is it possible to divorce and remarry while your first spouse is alive and remain a Christian?

Personal View

My personal view is that the transgendered operation should only be embraced by those who are born hermaphrodites or whose sexual genitalia are opposite their genetic endowments. I do not currently buy the view that being “mentally” or psychologically a woman and “physically” a male (or vice-versa) somehow justifies surgical change. The mental phenomenon may or may not be legitimate, but that’s irrelevant to me. For a believer, I don’t believe the experience justifies the surgery.

By analogy, a mental or genetic predisposition to violence doesn’t justify abuse. Similarly, a mental or genetic predisposition to thinking like the opposite sex, or being attracted to the opposite sex, also doesn’t justify cross- dressing, transsexualism, or homosexuality.

I don’t endorse the view that “God doesn’t make mistakes, therefore, nobody is ever born with homosexual or transsexual desires.” Clearly, children are born with physical defects and abnormalities, as are others are born with mental defects and abnormalities.

Current research, while controversial, seems to deny that there is a “gay gene” or a truly gay “brain shape.” And I am not certain there is such a thing as an opposing-gendered mind trapped in the wrong-gendered body. But, however the research pans out, maybe it’s possible there is a truly homosexual brain formation, or a truly transsexual self-image reflected in deep mental structures. But whether homosexuality or transsexualism does or does not have an ultimate basis in biology is irrelevant to me.

In the first case, I believe the homosexual behavior is sinful, and that would be true regardless of any biological justification. After all, biologists have been telling us for years that males are driven by biology to have sex with as many females as possible. So what? Our values and morals are not founded on biology in a fallen world. Rather, they are based on God’s Word and his nature.

In the second case, I believe that acting out a sexuality or gender that is at odds with one’s physical genitalia creates a self- contradictory gender image — and this does violence to the “image of God” within.

Marriage, by Analogy

Bear with me as I take a slight digression to reveal my thinking here. I believe the fundamental reason divorce is unlawful in God’s eyes is because he created Male and Female to not only bear his Image independently, but also to bear his Image in union — through marriage. The marital union is the only relationship on Earth that mirrors and symbolizes the relationship between God and his Bride, the church.

In the same way that murdering another person violates the image of God within that person, divorce similarly violates the image of God within the marital union. Marriage is sacred, not just because of the vows surrounding the ceremony, but it is sacred because the image of God, and God himself, is present in the marital union in a way that it is not present in any other kind of relationship we know and enjoy.

Gender and the Image of God

But marriage of this kind requires the two genders that God created to be joined as one. God created male and female, from the beginning of time, to not only bear his image independently but to combine to symbolize his relationship to Man.

In light of gender being a fundamental part of God’s design for his creation, and in light of gender being an indispensable part of the marital union and all that is symbolized therein, I therefore believe that to deny one’s gender or to confuse the matter by switching genders, violates God’s design and intention.

Tentative Conclusion

Is it possible to have committed this sin and remain a Christian? Probably. Is it possible to fail to repent of this sin and remain a Christian? I don’t know. I wished I did.

But on the safe side, I follow the example shown in the early Church. If God has poured out his Spirit on and individual and that person bears the evidences the fruit of the Spirit in discipleship — especially obedience and chastity  — then I’ll treat that person like a child of God.

But, meanwhile, I feel it’s necessary to draw the line at ministry leadership. In the same way that divorced and remarried men and women are not allowed to hold ministerial papers in the A/G (I know many here will disagree with this), I would posit that transgendered or cross-dressing men and women also not hold positions of ministry. In my mind, that would include teaching Sunday School, leading outreach ministries, writing devotionals (with a byline), and so on.

This is one of those contemporary issues made possible by advanced medical technology that never faced the early church. Sure, I expect there were homosexuals and even cross-dresses in every age of mankind, but the ability to cross-dress the flesh itself is new. And the Church, by and large, has yet to figure out how to respond to this.

Interestingly, in 2003 and beyond, I know that the executive A/G leadership has been made aware of this issue. And yet, no studies have commenced, no committees formed, and no positional papers issued.

I suspect that’s going to have to change. And soon.

Read along with me:

• Springfield News-Leader: Gay-rights group plans Monday visit to CBC
• Springfield News-Leader: 2 Soulforce members arrested
• The Chronicle of Higher Education: Gay-Rights Activists Arrested at Oklahoma Baptist U. [cached]
• Vanity Prayer Request: Gay Christians coming to Central Bible College Springfield Mo. for dialouge.

We all like lists. They help create organized presentations, and they are easy to remember. Perhaps that is why God chose a list format to present some of his most well-known laws. But what if we took that list — the Ten Commandments — and reduced it to its essence? What basic sins would we identify? One hopelessly alliterative preacher condensed the Decalogue to a clever three-point quip: man’s chief temptations are “gold, girls, and glory.” Gary Downing, in his article “Accountability That Makes Sense,” agrees, calling them “the three issues with which we all struggle: money, sex, and power.”

But perhaps we could distill even further, to a sort of grand unifying sin: greed. It is the misplaced love and desire that drives broken hearts to seek joy, fulfillment, and significance in anything other than God.

That is, in fact, how Randy Rowland describes greed in his piece on the seven deadly sins. “Greed can take many forms,” he notes. It can be “the desire for money, position, power, prestige, perks … an insatiable hunger for bigger budgets, bigger buildings, and more bodies in the pews.” Greed always lurks nearby wherever sin resides. In fact, it is a surprising accompaniment to three rather familiar sins.

Greed is more than just another word for materialism; it also expresses itself in sexual sin. Why else would God command us, “You shall not covet … your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant” (Exodus 20:17, emphasis mine)? When the usual suspect, material lust, couples with sexual greed, the result is America’s porn industry, which began to flourish in 1958 with the publication of Hugh Hefner’s first Playboy. In less than half a century, one lonely man’s misplaced desire has turned our entire culture upside down. For according to Read Mercer Schuchardt in “Hugh Hefner’s Hollow Victory,” Hefner and his ilk earn over $10 billion a year capitalizing on consumers’ thwarted longing for love.

Our natural drive to love and be loved, when frustrated, suppressed, or abused, can mutate into a consuming greed for unnatural relationships or extramarital sex. In the Leadership Library book Sins of the Body, counselors Hal B. Schell and Gary Sweeten describe how their clients fall into the trap of sexual addiction. For many of them, including Don, a frequent customer of prostitutes and porn shops, Claire, a high-priced call girl addicted to prostitution, and Jan, a church musician compulsively seeking homosexual experiences, greed begins in a wounded heart. Trauma and repeated bad choices pervert natural desires for love, significance, and relationship into greedy addictions to sex, power, and abuse.

While helping these clients, Schell and Sweeten employ a team strategy for their counseling sessions in order to prevent transference and temptation. The risk of temptation is significant, as a 1988 Leadership poll on pastoral indiscretion proves. One out of every five pastors who admitted to sexual contact outside marriage indicated the encounter arose through a counseling situation. A more recent report on internet porn use among pastors suggests leaders are prone to sexual greed when they fail to nurture loving and healthy relationships. “Pastors are as vulnerable as anyone else to sexual sin,” notes therapist Harry Schaumburg. “In fact, they may be more vulnerable. Isolation and loneliness are inherent to the position. And many pastors neglect their personal relationships for the sake of ministry.”

Such obsession with work can be another manifestation of misplaced or frustrated love. In “Confessions of a Workaholic,” Ralph Milton explains how the work-addicted person attempts to become indispensable on the job, failing in the process to nurture his relationships with others. Then when his relationships sour, work becomes an escape from painful reality. In fact, Milton even suggests “dependence on overwork and dependence on overeating are psychologically very similar to drug dependence.”

And yes, greedy eating can also bear out this distorted longing for love and comfort. The Christian dieting industry, however, often avoids the terms greed or gluttony. An observation Dennis Okholm makes may explain why: “Of the seven deadly sins, gluttony seems the least culpable because it is a vice that arises from our nature. We require food to survive, and food usually brings pleasurable sensations to the palate.” But when the belly becomes a god, the proper balance between need and pleasure disappears. The evil of greedy eating is not in the food itself, nor in its accompanying pleasure. Instead, the sin lies in how we think about food and why we consume it. Gluttony “refers to a desire or a longing that seeks filling. It is an ‘exaggerated and misplaced longing.’”

Indeed, whatever the addiction or vice, each is symptomatic of unfulfilled longing, misplaced love, and debased worship.

—

Originally published at CTLibrary on February 14, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today International.
Used with permission.

(Note: Most of the articles linked above require paid membership at CTLibrary.com to view, but if you’re the kind of person who enjoys reading Christianity Today, Leadership, Books & Culture, or Christian History & Biography, it may well be worth it. Also, though I was once employed by Christianity Today, I do not personally benefit from any transactions through these sites.)

About an hour northeast of Indianapolis on April 26, 2006, a tractor-trailer drifted across the Interstate 69 median. In its path: ten students and staff in a Taylor University van. The tractor ripped through one side of the van, scattering wallets, purses, and debris across the dark roadway and sending five souls into eternity.

In the accident’s aftermath, one survivor was identified as Laura VanRyn, and officials contacted her family as she was airlifted from the site in a comatose state. Over the next several weeks the VanRyn family kept constant and prayerful vigil at her bedside while she struggled out of her coma.

Then came the shattering revelation: the young woman they lovingly watched over did not answer to the name Laura VanRyn. Instead, a battered and broken stranger lay in her place: fellow Taylor student and co-worker Whitney Cerak. Laura VanRyn had not survived the accident and was already buried under a headstone bearing another name.

And so, even as one family plunged from hope into confused grief, another family was delivered from mourning into sober joy. One daughter presumed to be in heaven remains on Earth, and the other thought to be alive and recuperating had long departed for eternal life.

Reading this we might wonder, How on earth could such things happen? briefly forgetting that on this side of eternity we stumble through a fallen world filled with imperfection, confusion, chaos, and randomness. The ordered illusion of our daily grind lulls us into slumber; but suddenly we are reminded: this dark highway we travel is littered with the debris of the cosmic crash of sin and paradise. A midnight collision, death, and the mystery of misidentification briefly wake us from our dreams.

But all is not chaos; we have hope. Some things remain certain and absolute, if not now, then surely in the life to come — eternity awaits. Though mere humans might mistake one departed soul for another, we trust that the Shepherd knows his sheep. And whether you have welcomed the God of eternity into your heart or you have barricaded it from within, in the end you will know and be known, without misidentification. You will enter into eternity identity intact, whether to heaven or to hell.

But what do we know about eternity? What can we profitably speculate on, and what’s mere fanciful fodder? How much of our identities will we retain in the afterlife? Will we know our children? Will our parents recognize us? If God transforms my broken body in eternity, will I recognize myself?

Many questions about eternity don’t come with easy answers — if any. Some questions come with controversy. With few exceptions, the men and women of Scripture had not seen heaven or hell, and those who did had more pressing concerns to relate. Paul the Apostle could not describe his vision (2 Corinthians 12:2-4). John, in his Revelation, focused on the endgame victory. And Jesus insisted we choose the proper destination without providing a glossy vacation guide to heaven.

Nevertheless, the Bible says much about the life that continues after death. And a quick search through the CTLibrary archives offers up a dizzying array of articles with enough insight and controversy to feed and enlighten your imagination. You could head on over and start searching immediately, but be warned: querying for heaven returns a mountainous 3,437 articles, hell presents an abysmal 1,747 hits, and the combined heaven and hell search still uncovers a daunting 737-item reading list — good for about five weeks of non-stop, eight-hour-a-day reading.

But, before launching into a prolonged click fest of eternal verities, allow us to offer a few suggestions for orientation.

A good place to start in any discussion of the afterlife is ground zero: the soul. Writing for Books & Culture in “Is Science Good for the Soul?” Matt Donnelly introduces us to the debate over the nature of the soul — whether the Bible describes the soul and body as two separate things (dualism) or as eternally inseparable (nonreductive physicalism). And why should this matter? “While talk of conscious robots or cloned humans may sound like science fiction, Christians must be prepared to engage this brave new world by articulating a vision for the future of humanity that combines scientific knowledge with biblical wisdom.”

Or you could go back in time to explore early Christian beliefs about eternity in Jeffrey Burton Russell’s article for Christian History, “Goodness, Gracious(ness), Great Balls of Fire.” Russell provides a handy roadmap covering Irenaeus, various apocryphal texts, Augustine, the Venerable Bede, Dante, Thomas Aquinas, and more. We should study these ancient texts because, as Russell notes, “the modern worldview assumes that material things are more real than spiritual things. Perhaps this is why so many people have impoverished ideas about heaven and hell — places they cannot see or touch and therefore fail to imagine.”

Writing for Christianity Today in “Afraid of Heaven,” Kenneth Kantzer offers more reasons for our impoverished eternal imagination. First, we fail to truly believe heaven exists, only grasping for heaven as death nears or suffering escalates. Then, more damningly, Kantzer suggests, “we do not yearn to be near God because we do not find sin utterly repugnant or goodness rapturously attractive. … We cannot imagine [heaven], we cannot anticipate it, and, therefore, we cannot long for it.” Thankfully, Kantzer offers hope for those prepared to submit: “By [the] regenerating and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, we are bit by bit restored so as to become prepared for eternal life in God’s good kingdom.”

And for those who are prepared? What clues does the Bible provide? Peter Kreeft, writing for CT in “What Will Heaven Be Like?” addresses 35 popular questions about life in heaven, while Anthony Hoekema brilliantly surveys the biblical evidence in “Heaven: Not Just an Eternal Day Off.”

Regarding the unprepared, The Evangelical Alliance published a comprehensive report summarizing what can be said of hell. Fortunately, CT had Robert A. Peterson on hand to boil it down to simplicity in “Undying Worm, Unquenchable Fire.” And Tim Keller’s Leadership article, “Preaching Hell in a Tolerant Age,” outlines some persuasive reasons why we postmodern Christians must believe hell exists.

Even if we had guarantees for long and healthy lives, barring rapture, death remains certain, respecting neither power, prestige, wealth, nor identity. But an even greater certainty looms over death, nullifying its sting, providing us hope, and drying our tears: the hope of heaven.

If heaven’s been on your mind lately, we pray these articles help you grow in knowledge, wisdom, and passion for the certainty of heaven’s reward.

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Originally published at CTLibrary on June 14, 2006
Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today International.
Used with permission.

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