kingship – Page 2 – Remember, My Lord

I recently watched Man of Steel, and holy moly what a silly film, but fun. It was basically The Adventures of Space Jesus. The thing is I went into the cinema knowing that it had overt Christian themes, and I was looking out for them. And actually in the end I kind of liked seeing them there. A lot of the Jesus references were a bit ham-fisted, but it was fun, and there are plenty of explosions and fistfights. Plus it’s refreshing to see a big budget Hollywood film play around with Christian imagery and ideas.

Now apparently there are quite a few churches that are not happy at all about the Jesus imagery. Some of them have even labelled the Superman character anti-Christian, because the real Jesus would never fight back against the bad guys, punching and heat-raying them. The most Christ-like figure in the whole film, one critic says, is Kevin Costner’s self-sacrificial character, not Superman. Continue reading “on space jesus” →

On the eve of his execution Jesus is questioned by Pilate about his identity (John 18:33-38). Jesus tells Pilate that he is in fact a King, just as Pilate had been trying to get Jesus to admit all along, but adds “the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of the truth listens to me.”

To which Pilate (you can almost see the sneer on his face) replies “What is truth?”

What is truth? The classicist in me goes first and foremost to the ancient writers: Continue reading “on what truth is” →

In my last post I talked about the research I did for a talk on evolution. Now while it was a very humbling experience it also made one thing clear: our origins matter. Not just in the sense of physically how we were created/how we evolved, but also the very way we think about it, how we approach it, the assumptions and ideas we bring to the table without even knowing it. When approaching evolution and creationism a naturalistic mindset rules out any talk of the supernatural, while a dogmatic mindset rules out any deviation from Genesis 1. Origins matter, because they often determine your conclusions. Continue reading “on filling the earth and subduing it” →