Ground Zero

It's a good thing the internet was around in the 50's or people would have gone bonkers over this. It's a "simulator" of sorts that lets you type in your hometown and then shows you the potential destruction of varying types of nukes. In Chattanooga, for instance, for almost every bomb but the colossal "Tsar bomba" made by the Russians, I'd be fairly safe from the initial blast but I'd eat it with the fallout. Good to know...

Revelation Chapters 8 & 9

Well, I promised my weekly notes on Revelation so... you can get them here.

This week I talked about John's vision of the six trumpets. This passage is one of the more bizarre parts of Revelation and doesn't really make sense until you understand that it has to do with idolatry (which becomes clear in Revelation 9:20). It becomes even more clear when you compare it to the account of the Exodus of the Jews and the plagues of Egypt and see the similarities. Some of the main things about the passage in Revelation include:

1. That God's response to the saint's cry of "How long" is one of judgement (just as it was for the Israelites in Egypt). I intend to explore the subject of God's judgement more in depth at a later time.

2. That God first judges the idols (both in Exodus and in Revelation) to show that they are powerless.

3. That there are demonic influences behind idols, and ironically, the things that we worship end up causing us torment and even death.

4. God intends for judgement to lead to repentance.

There are so many other things to cover but these are some of the main points. You can see it all laid out in my notes!

Fear and the Muslim "Threat"

I've been asked to post my response to an e-mail I received recently concerning a video on Youtube that's been circulating recently concerning Islam. So here goes.

First, the question:

Larry, I know you have done a lot of study on the growth of Islam. How accurate is this video?

Then, the video:

From my e-mail response:

Well, a couple notes about this video.

First, I'm a little put off by the tone of fear from the video. We forget that God is sovereign and is well aware that Muslims are growing as a people group. He doesn't need us to "wake up and take action" to complete His plans. Also, the video creates the picture that there is a vast conspiracy afoot, perpetrated by Muslim leaders, to overrun the worlds population by breeding. In truth, Muslim culture considers child-rearing differently (PDF link) than our secular western cultures (i.e. as a good thing) and really, Muslims move to the U.S. and Europe because they're like anybody else: they want a better place to live. So let's tone down the hysterics first.

Second, it's true that Europe, especially, has been in decline as a culture and as a people group. They're well aware of it, too. In Spain, (and likely in other European states), you can earn a government stipend just for having children. Yes, they pay you to have children because they recognize their population is shrinking. But that happened because God was kicked out of Europe. A cultural shift occurred sometime last century and we now see the results. Muslims are moving in because there are job opportunities and a higher quality of life available to them, not because they want to take over the world. A similar kind of Europeanization and decline is occurring in the states, though it will certainly look different however it pans out.

Third, the narrator throws out a comment at the end of the video about how Christianity is being eclipsed by Muslims currently in terms of numbers. Coincidentally, I was looking into these numbers just last night so I can shine some light into what this really means. Currently there are about 2 billion professing Christians in the world. Only approx. 680 million would consider themselves to be "born again" though, so, for the sake of conversation, we'll consider there to really only be about 1 billion "real" Christians, give or take. Well, we've already lost the numbers game then, because there are about 1.3 billion adherents to Islam. But that's not the whole story. Let's talk about growth rates. Currently, Islam is growing at a rate of about 2.9% a year. Christianity (or those who would call themselves Christians) are only growing at about 2.3% a year. But then look at these growth rates:

- Pentecostals: 8.1%

- Evangelicals: 5.4%

- All Protestants: 3.3%

- Roman Catholics and Others: 1.3%

So what we really see is that nominal Christianity (what I would consider most Roman Catholics to be, and a fair number of Protestants too) is dying, as we would expect. However, the Church is alive and growing much faster than Islam. Are we outnumbered? When have we never been?

The truth is that the Gospel continues to conquer throughout the world, whether we know it or not. On the other hand, America as a nation and a culture is on it's way out (whether we like it or not) and other nations are taking the lead in spreading God's word. Sure, we need to be obedient to God and ministering at home and abroad, but if we weren't doing that already, I'm not sure a video on Youtube is going to make us do that.

One last thing I'd mention. I think Americans don't realize how young our nation is, and how promptly the world changes. Americans are not students of history as a rule, and when change looks like it's coming we tend to panic. The truth is, our nation or culture is not guaranteed to last forever. I'm not saying I'm not unsettled by what's happening in our world. But am I surprised? Would I be surprised to find that the world my children grow up in will be vastly different, perhaps even hostile? Not at all, even though I'm certainly not comfortable with it.

In times like this we need not put our hope in awareness campaigns, programs to increase child-bearing, or even in our nation. We need to look to the God's Word and understand that the Church and the Gospel is eternal, will survive the fall and rise of many nations and religions, and that our hope rests not in this world.

Anyway, I hope that's not too bleak for you. But those are my thoughts.

And some post-thoughts:

It is unfortunate today that people have so much information available to them, but most don't take the time to analyze that information. There are a number of assumptions from the video (such as, all Muslims are the same, believe the same thing, have the same agenda, that what's true of Europe is true of the U.S., and so on) that I imagine many viewers will take at face value. The only good assumption one should make when watching videos like these is this: things are never as simple as they seem.

The unfortunately corollary to the lack of analysis is that misunderstanding breeds fear. I doubt that the vast majority of American Christians watching this video have ever talked with a Muslim, but most of them have preconceptions about what Muslims are like. Saying those words fills me with sadness, as I realize what a statement that makes about Christians in this nation. God desires that no man should perish, and that we should fear no one, and painting a caricature of Muslims as bogey-men will get us no closer to spreading God's love among them.

A Long Revelation

Well, the posts on this blog have dwindled a bit, but for good reason. Most of my creative output has been dedicated to a study on the book of The Revelation of Jesus to the Apostle John as of late, and if you've read Revelation you'll know there's quite a bit to concern one's self with. Anyway, I thought I'd post links to my notes here (perhaps with some comments) so that others could study along if they wanted to. My notes include copious verse references so there's plenty to learn!

Revelation Chapters 1-3. Get my notes here.

For the first week I went over some basic assumptions, basic interpretation models, then covered historical context and talked about the first vision John has of Jesus. My word for this talk was, fittingly, "revelation". I asked the question, "What does Jesus reveal about himself?"

Revelation Chapters 4-5. Get my notes here.

John has a vision of the throne room and of the Lamb who is able to unlock the scroll. The scroll probably represents history itself. I concentrated on the idea that only Jesus is able to redeem history, and even our personal struggles, because only redemption makes sense of suffering and pain. My word was "redemption" and we asked, "How has God redeemed my struggles?"

Revelation Chapters 6-7. Get my notes here.

In this lesson I tackle the contents of the seals on the scroll, which I take the position as being a summary of all history up to the end. Then I talk about the two visions of the multitudes (the 144,000 and the great multitude in heaven). I tied it all together by talking about "perseverance" (my word for this section) and how the saints were encouraged to overcome our current struggles for the hope of joining the multitude who know no hunger and whose tears are wiped away. I asked the question, "What do we hope for?"

Well, that's what I've been doing lately. I'll continue to post each weeks lesson with a little blurb about what I talked about. Otherwise I don't think I'll be able to post much else on here!

Bad Boy, Watcha Gonna Do?

So this is a bit odd... The guy in the video below is being arrested for an outstanding warrant, but says some really interesting things as he's getting arrested. In particular, he calls out to Yahweh and invokes the protection of angels. After that he improvises a really fun song (while being pinned to the ground). The best part? He gets away after being tazed. Watch it all unfold below.

Trite Practices of Hollywood

I've noticed that whenever I watch a movie with a character that is supposed to be a Christian, it often ends up being a fairly clichéd representation, or at least a skewed one.

Many movies I've seen represent Christians as being fundamentalist, judgmental, and often psychotic. For example, in the film Sunshine, one of the characters (the captain of a doomed space flight) is a fundamentalist Christian who is so beholden to his beliefs he will murder his crew to see them through. Somehow, the fact that he screams about God a lot makes him representative of the Christian faith (that's sarcasm folks). The movie There Will Be Blood casts one of its main characters as an off-the-wall Christian type who is, of course, really only seeking for money and power (as a sort of competitor to the main character, Daniel Plainview), not the will of God.

In a slightly different take, I saw The Soloist recently which had a Christian character who wasn't malicious, simply misguided in his efforts to help a mentally ill man. I still felt like this was a damaging stereotype, because he was portrayed as naive, single-minded, and ultimately devoid of any emotional and spiritual depth or insight. I could go on and on with examples of Christians in films who are portrayed negatively.

Most of these films don't outright say, "All Christians are like this!" but because it is such a recurring theme it makes me wonder if some people don't get that impression. It's almost like Christians are a classic bogey-man, alongside the pedophiles, serial-killers, rapists, and other villains that populate movies. This guy here points out that you don't see Buddhists or Hinduists as the villains of films nearly as often. And while Arabs (usually as Muslim fundamentalist terrorists) certainly have seen their days as villains, you've got a lot of films coming out lately that are almost like Muslim apologetics, casting Arabs as wise, peace-loving sages. I understand this is probably a reaction to the Muslim cliché of a terrorist, but nobody seems to care to correct the Christian cliché of a fundamentalist.

Of course, I don't expect this to change much. Hatred for Biblical Christianity has been a constant theme for the past 2,000 years. Our views will continue to be skewed, and our wisdom will be mocked and vilified. Personally, I grow tired of having to swallow such hatred when I'm only hoping for a good movie.

Granted, if you want to see a movie that does portray Christians in a good light, The Mission and Shadowlands are excellent examples of that. Those kinds of movies are out there, but they're rare diamonds in the rough. Unfortunately, the movies that Christians make for each other often end up having little to no artistic merit, for whatever reason, or are so whitewashed they have little meaning even for Christians.

I don't think the solution to this is to complain to the movie industry. I don't think it's such a great idea to make movies only for Christians either, since so many of those attempts have failed to have much mainstream appeal, thus making them fairly irrelevant (arguably so even for Christians) and trying to give Christianity that mainstream appeal is the path to the dark side. I just think this is The Way Things Are, and always will be, until Jesus comes.

A Brave New World?

I'm a big fan of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, a book about how our media obsessed culture is drowning itself in too much information and distractions. I swore off regular TV watching years ago and sometimes think even the internet can be a tad overwhelming.

Anyway, here's a comic book representation of the prologue to Postman's book that is well done, and informative too! Read it here.