“He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.  The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.” – Revelation 22:20.21

Over the weekend, I picked up Canadian game developer BioWare’s new fantasy RPG Dragon Age: Origins.  BioWare, more than any other developer, puts a fantastic focus on storytelling in their games, as evidenced by titles such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, and the superb Mass Effect.  Last night, I finally got the time to pop the game into my Xbox for the first time, and though I only went through the character creation process, I already found myself getting drawn into the world of Ferelden.  Much of that is due to the game’s music.  If you still think of video game music as cheap electronic diddies, might I suggest you sample Inon Zur’s beautiful work below.  It’s a great piece of music worthy of a big-budget Hollywood epic, and hopefully it marks the beginning of a great gaming experience.  You can check out and buy the full soundtrack here.

Tim Challies wrote some good post-Christmas reflections over the weekend dealing with how explicitly Christian our family Christmas traditions are.  He echoes some feelings that I’ve felt myself and was really helpful in helping me think through some things.  My family experience growing up was much like his in that we didn’t do many explicitly Christian things on Christmas day.  That’s not to say at all that Christ’s birth wasn’t paramount in our minds, because it surely was.  It’s just that a Christmas Day in our house was mainly about family traditions (watching It’s a Wonderful Life was an annual rite) and togetherness and presents on Christmas morning.  I don’t remember reading the story of Christ’s birth every year or any explicitly Christo-centric traditions, but I also remember that Christmas in our house came with an ever present awareness of what was truly being celebrated.

Now that I’m married with a little girl of my own, I’ve thought a lot more lately about what I want my family’s Christmas traditions to look like.  I’ve thought a lot about how to lead my family at Christmas and I’ve wrestled with a bit of the guilt that Challies writes about in his piece, but I found his thoughts and advice really helpful in trying to understand Christmas rightly.  Christmas shouldn’t be a pagan shrine to the altar of materialism, but it’s not something that we’re commanded as Christians to observe either.  I’ve never thought of Christmas falling under Paul’s admonition about days in Romans 14, but it absolutely does – and as such, it leaves the door open for us to observe (or not) it in many different ways.  The question thus becomes, “How can I live this day, like every day, to the glory of God?”  I think I’ll have a good perspective when the holidays roll around again next year, and hopefully I’ll use them to help my family glorify Christ on Christmas – and the other 364 days a year we celebrate Christ’s birth.

As you reflect tonight on the birth of Christ, have a listen to Sojourn’s beautifully haunting “Amen, Amen,” from their Advent Songs album…

Let every creature rise and bring
Their grateful praises to our King
Angels descend with songs again
And Earth repeats a loud Amen

Amen, Amen
Amen, Amen
I found my life
I found my life in Him
Amen, Amen

Peace like a river from His throne
Will flow to nations yet unknown
His word a light where all hope is dim
And all tribes unite to cry “Amen”

Amen, Amen
Amen, Amen
I found my life
I found my life in Him
Amen, Amen

And in this Child we’ll find our rest
And all the meek and lowly blessed
An infant tongue could sing the hymn
Of Hallelujah and Amen

Amen, Amen
Amen, Amen
I found my life
I found my life in Him
Amen, Amen

Now, of course I recommend one to you every Friday and I’m sure you all plan your weekends around my selections, but if you’d like a few great films from the past decade to catch up on in the coming weeks, you ought to go check out my friend Kenny Montano’s picks for the top 10 films of the decade.  Kenny is as insightful and thoughtful a moviegoer as I’ve ever met while avoiding the pretentiousness that often accompanies people who enjoy great movies.  Rooming with him in college is what’s largely responsible for turning me from a guy who liked watching movies into a guy who truly appreciates the medium of film and the power it carries as a means of storytelling and communicating truth.  His list (and honorable mentions) are full of great films.  While there are a few I haven’t seen, there are none on the list that I have seen that I disagree with him on.  Go check out his list, then check out the movies.

As promised, here are a few theological/worldview aspects to James Cameron’s Avatar that I’ve found interesting since seeing it Saturday night.  You can read my full review of the film here.  Be warned – some of this will necessitate discussion of a few plot points, so consider this your SPOILER ALERT if you haven’t already seen the movie.

1. The film is pretty transparent with its environmental message, and I get the feeling that will rub a lot of Christians the wrong way.  However, as my friend Adam pointed out as we were leaving the theater, the irony is that Christians actually have good reason to be “green,” while the naturalists and humanists usually pushing the agenda don’t.  After all, we believe that creation is declaring the glory of God, so it would follow that we would try to avoid cutting out its vocal chords as much as possible.  I think the reason we usually chafe at anything that might appear “treehuggerish” is because it usually comes wrapped in pantheism (as it does here) or left-wing politics.  With that in mind, I think it’s time to start approaching environmentalism like the church is starting to approach the arts.  It’s very trendy right now to seek to “take back” the arts – understanding their role from a biblical perspective and striving for God-honoring excellence.  We need Christian minds to begin to do the same with environmental issues instead of just debating global warming talking points.
2. Speaking of pantheism, it’s certainly the worldview of choice in Avatar…until it’s not.  The Na’vi worship a deity called Eywa, who is described as their mother, permeating their world and upholding the balance of all life.  Toss in Simba and Elton John and we’d be in full Circle of Life mode.  This is hardly new territory for Hollywood, as any good Jedi knows.  It’s easy to understand why our culture is fascinated with eastern mysticism – it’s tolerant, very user-friendly, and comes with a great deal of mystery and allure.  It’s the perfect American religion – until you start to think about it too much.  That’s what happens in Avatar.  Jake, the main character, clumsily and nervously prays to Eywa before a major battle, asking for help in the fight to come.  Neytiri, his Na’vi mate, informs him that Eywa does not take sides but simply maintains balance in the world.  Jake is visibly disappointed, and the audience is too, but hey, at least Cameron had the courage to stick to his guns and be consistent in his pantheistic worldview.  After all, a pantheistic force doesn’t care who wins or loses, it doesn’t hear prayers and it doesn’t send help – it simply is.  It’s impersonal and transcendent.  However, as the battle turns south and all seems lost, the wildlife of Pandora roars to the Na’vi’s aid, with Neytiri happily proclaiming that Eywa has heard Jake’s prayer.  Apparently, Eywa decided being a force wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be and opted to change into a personal deity so we could get a happy ending.  We westerners love the idea of eastern mysticism, but we don’t like to think about it too much, lest we find an uncaring life-force at the center where we want our personal god to be.  Our culture, through its Judeo-Christian heritage, has at least tasted of the true and living God – and once that happens, nothing else quite cuts the mustard anymore. 
3. Last but not least, I found Avatar to be not just a lot of fun, but a worshipful experience as well.  Now, before you go removing the heretic from your RSS feed, hear me out.  As the climactic battle got underway and the onscreen spectacle ratcheted up to 11, I found myself in abject wonder at James Cameron’s imagination and creativity.  It was like nothing I had ever seen onscreen before – the world, the creatures, the effects, the beauty of the whole thing.  And immediately, I considered this: Pandora in all its digital glory isn’t even a drop in the ocean compared to the imagination and creativity of our God who spoke the world into existence out of nothing.  In fact, James Cameron’s abilities and vision are merely reflections of the creator in whose image he’s made.  As a creature of Yahweh, he’s (unwittingly, from all I know of Cameron) glorifying his maker by being like him in his creativity.  I sat, marveling at the greatness of a mere reflection and it served as a reminder of just how great the true spectacle of this world is and what an amazing mind its director possesses.  After all, he trumped Avatar and didn’t even have the $300 million budget.  He even gave us the very tools (the created world and our own minds) to use and manipulate in order to imagine a variation of that world in the digital realm.  I believe if we’re going to be about engaging culture through the arts (and we absolutely should), then we better do it right.  Art is a channel for marveling at the creativity of other people in such a way that our minds are drawn to the infinite creativity and beauty of our creator.  Whether that happens through notes and chords, paintings, or an IMAX 3D trip to Pandora, the aim is the same.  If you’re going to movies seeking mindless entertainment rather than avenues for worship, you’re missing the point entirely. 

Seen the movie and have other things to add?  Let me know in the comments.

Here’s the third sermon, “Jesus is Born!” from my church’s “Christmas According to Luke” series, preached by Dustin Neeley from Luke 2:1-21.

That’s really the best way to describe what it was like seeing James Cameron’s Avatar Saturday night.  The hype machine has been drumming this one up for what seems like an eternity, and along the way there have been equal parts anticipation to see what the movie delivers and skepticism as to whether the movie could actually be a special as Cameron believes.  After all, when you say your film is going to change the way we view movies forever, you’d better deliver something pretty spectacular.  Well, hats-off to James Cameron, because he absolutely did. 

Avatar takes place a couple hundred years in the future on the alien moon of Pandora.  With earth’s resources becoming scarce, corporations  have begun looking elsewhere for riches, and one has found it on Pandora in the form of a remarkable element they’ve dubbed “Unobtanium.”  Their mining operations have been hampered by the native population of the planet – a race of ten-foot tall blue humanoid tribespeople called the Na’vi.  Their ancient village sits atop one of the richest deposits on the planet, but they’re not too keen on abandoning their sacred land.  With diplomacy having little effect, the corporation is ready to use their private military wing to forcibly relocate the Na’vi.  One of the last efforts to prevent war is the Avatar program, where humans use home-grown, remotely-controlled Na’vi bodies to attempt to gain the natives’ trust and get them to move.  That’s what has brought Jake Scully (Sam Worthington) to Pandora – his scientist twin brother has died, and since Jake shares his genome, he is able to use the avatar prepared for his brother, saving the company the prospect of losing a significant investment.  Jake, a paraplegic ex-marine, embarks for Pandora with nothing to lose and the promise of a fresh start.  However, as he begins to interact with the Na’vi, he finds his task not nearly as cut-and-dry as he initially expected.

There’s a lot that can be said about Avatar, but in a sense no review can really communicate what it’s like to see the film.  Cameron has imagined a world and woven a vision that is truly greater than the sum of its parts.   The story, after all, is nothing new – some reviewers have aptly described it as Dances With Wolves in space.  Cameron’s penchant for one-note, caricature villains is present, as is his usual lack of subtlety in social commentary.  Out of context, these factors might seem like they’d hurt the movie, but when put in the context of the whole experience, they really don’t detract much at all.  Plainly put, this film is so engrossing, so visionary, so unlike anything else I’d ever seen onscreen, that I found myself carried along for the ride and unbothered by any of the film’s flaws.  Much has been made of Avatar’s groundbreaking special effects, and they more than live up to the billing – not by upstaging the narrative, but by serving and carrying it.  More than any other time, I found myself accepting digital characters as characters and not effects, mainly due to the strong performances of Worthington and Zoe Saldana in the leads and the innovative facial capture technology that translated the nuance and emotion of their performances to their digital avatars seamlessly.  This is truly a film that carries you along for a ride and immerses you in another world in a way unlike any other film to date.  As I realized in one of the movie’s final scenes, this is a movie that is essentially a love story between a guy in a wheelchair and a ten-foot tall blue alien, and not once did it ever seem weird.  Perhaps that’s the best way to sum up Cameron’s work on his first movie in twelve years – he took a concept that could have been a digital disaster in the hands of a lesser director and pioneered new techniques in filmmaking to produce a spectacle filled with awe, wonder, and emotion.  The movie offers a lot to talk about from a theological and worldview perspective as well, something I’ll explore in a separate post.  For now, just let me say this: see this movie.  See it in the theater, on the big screen, in 3D, and experience it as it was intended to be seen.  Strange as it sounds, Heather and I both considered the $13 apiece we plunked down on this one to be well-spent. – **** (out of 4)

Avatar is rated PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking.

“Can I be good without God? Sure. Knock yourself out. May I be good without God? Again, sure, but here is where the question starts to cut both ways. The question is double-bladed because it is here that we realize that we are alone by ourselves, and we are not really asking anybody for anything. I may be good without God for the same reason that I may be evil without Him or, as it suits me, indifferent without Him. There is no one here to get permission from. For anything. Mom doesn’t care if I go play ball, and she doesn’t care if I shoot my sister. She doesn’t care because she doesn’t exist. Turns out I have been asking questions of a deaf and indifferent universe.”

- Douglas Wilson

Read the rest of Wilson’s column for the Washington Post’s On Faith section here.

New movies are usually released to theaters every Friday, but who’s got 10 bucks these days to drop on a movie that may well be a load of crap? Given those odds, on Friday I offer an alternative on DVD that you can rent at your local video store (or in some cases, avoid at all costs). Some will be new releases, others you may have to hunt for, but all of them are available to light up your small screen should it be a lazy Friday night.

The Abyss

Perhaps you haven’t heard, but there’s a little movie called Avatar that’s opening today. Director James Cameron is releasing his first feature (documentaries aside) since 1997’s Titanic, and the buzz is that it’s an immersive spectacle unlike anything to ever grace the big screen. Heather and I are heading out to see it tomorrow night, and I’m very excited to see what Cameron has done. He doesn’t make movies very often, but when he does they’re something to see. Most people will immediately think of Titanic or Terminator 2, but if you’re wanting to dip back into the Cameron library this weekend in advance of Avatar, let me suggest one of his lesser-known films – 1989’s The Abyss.

With the Cold War still a reality, an Navy sub mysteriously sinks in deep water in the Caribbean. With a hurricane bearing down on the area and Soviet teams rushing in to try and steal the sub’s technology, a Navy SEAL team is dispatched for a rescue/recovery operation.. As a launching base, the SEALs use an experimental underwater drilling platform, designed by Dr. Lindsey Brigman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and run by her estranged husband, Bud (Ed Harris). As the SEALs and the station’s crew attempt to reach the downed sub, they begin have a series of encounters with strange beings on the ocean floor and find themselves thrust into a struggle for their very survival.

The film is classic Cameron – sci-fi setup, compelling (if a bit over-the-top in some cases) characters, and a weighty, epic feel. It’s amazing how well this film has aged in the last 20 years, a testament to Cameron’s reputation as a visual effects pioneer. In fact, The Abyss features a major cinematic landmark – the first ever use of computer-generated imagery to create an onscreen creature. It’s brief and basic, but the technology used here would eventually go on to make Terminator 2 possible a few years later, and once Steven Spielberg used the technique in Jurassic Park, the rest is cinematic history. There’s more here than just effects, though. The movie does a great job at setting up and maintaining a claustrophobic mood, making the viewer feel the tension of being trapped on the bottom of the ocean. Harris and Mastrantonio’s performances provide the heart of the film. The estranged couple, thrust back together through a chance turn of events, reforms a lost bond as they struggle to survive. These elements come together to form a trademark Cameron movie – a feast for the eyes that ends up surprising the emotions as well. If you can find the director’s cut DVD, I’d recommend that version, but the cinematic cut won’t disappoint, either. Before you head out to experience Pandora this weekend, get yourself ready with a trip into The Abyss. – ***1/2 (out of 4)

The Abyss is rated PG-13.