on the nazi occult and evil

I’ve always had a morbid interest in the Nazi occult. Something about the inherent evil of the regime coupled with the possibility that it tapped supernatural forces to further its goals. Add to that the kookiness of the whole thing, the weird personalities involved, the freaky science, the esoteric history and mysticism behind the runes and artifacts, and the terrible majesty of the Nazi war machine, and you have something darkly fascinating.

Now one idea related to the Nazi occult is the Fourth Reich – the possibility that some remnant of the Nazi regime survived 1945 and went into hiding, possibly in South America, Antarctica, the centre of the earth, on the Moon (the possibilities get sillier each time), and has been secretly plotting revenge. So of course this idea is rich fodder for all sorts of fiction. Now my interest led me to two particular comic book series: M Mignola’s Hellboy, and K Hirano’s Hellsing. Both involve some kind of Fourth Reich (in the former, an occult-obsessed fifth column guided by evil gods, and in the latter, genetically-engineered, vampiric panzergrenadiers), and oddly enough both shed some useful light on evil. Continue reading “on the nazi occult and evil” →

08/19/2014 1

wherever you go

Part of growing up is realising that the monsters are not outside – often they’re inside us. It isn’t the world conspiring to do us in, it’s our weaknesses, our desires, our bad choices that find us again and again. The monsters find us always. And how we deal with them shapes who we turn out to be in the end. Continue reading “wherever you go” →

01/19/2014 2

on believing in God

Disney’s Aladdin is flawed in a lot of ways – the cheesy story, the sometimes comically inappropriate racism (though to be fair things were a bit different in the 90s) – but in lots of ways it’s a great movie.

One line has always stuck in my head though: when Aladdin (or Prince Ali at this point) invites Princess Jasmine for a magic carpet ride, he asks her “do you trust me?”

That line for me holds a lot of theological water when we think about our faith. At times we’ve made it all a bit hard to understand, or we’ve made ‘believing in God’ a mark of faith without really defining what said belief means. What does believing in God mean? Believing he exists? Believing he wants the best for me? But I think at the heart of that concept and of our faith is that same, simple question.

Do you trust me? Continue reading “on believing in God” →

10/18/2013 0

on looking out in despair

You remember that scene in Return of the King where Denethor pines over the mortally-wounded Faramir? He thinks his biggest problem is that his son is dead and his line extinguished, but he walks to the edge of the cliff and sees that it’s much worse: the host of Mordor is at the gates and he’s had no idea. And so he despairs, telling his soldiers “Flee! Flee for your lives!” Continue reading “on looking out in despair” →

10/16/2013 3

on the place of the ten commandments

What place would you say the Ten Commandments still has for us today?

It has always struck me that for many non-Christians, and not a few self-professed Christians as well, the heart of Christianity is the Ten Commandments: whether or not you adhere to them, the similarity of your life in comparison to the standards and ideas laid out on those stone tablets. The measure of how good a Christian you are seems to hinge on your ability to mold yourself based on the Ten Commandments, your ability to transcend your own nature and force yourself to become godly and Ten Commandments-y. Continue reading “on the place of the ten commandments” →

10/07/2013 0

on buying things

Money has to be one of the strangest human inventions ever. Back in the dim and distant past our ancestors operated on a barter economy, exchanging certain goods for others – I chop trees, you herd sheep, I want meat and cheese and you want to build a house, there we go – but over time money evolved. Continue reading “on buying things” →

08/09/2013 0

on idolising women

A dear friend of mine and I were recently talking about my singleness. I was telling him that I’m actually pretty scared that I’ll be single for the rest of my life.

Now God has been outrageously, scandalously generous to me all my life. And the takeaway from that, I tell myself, should be the knowledge that there is nothing good that God will withhold from me. The takeaway is not that God has given me all good things therefore he won’t withhold a wife, but the fact that no good thing has been withheld, and if singleness is my lot I won’t merely get by, I’ll thrive. Continue reading “on idolising women” →

07/30/2013 0

on elitism and inclusiveness

What happens when the Christian faith produces its own culture? Christian movies, songs, celebrities and cell groups with the Church stamp of approval, exclusively for Christian consumption so as to avoid secular culture? Or what happens when the Church holds out any group in particular as a special example of fallenness to avoid or resist, and leaves it at that? Continue reading “on elitism and inclusiveness” →

07/27/2013 0

on space jesus

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” →

07/07/2013 0

on lifelong things

How would you qualify a lifelong interest? Something that lasts ten years? Twenty?

In my entire life I would say the longest-running interest I’ve had is in dinosaurs. That interest ran probably from as early as I can remember till I was about 15. That’s 13 years of dinosaur mania.

On the other hand I only started getting interested in Roman history (and ancient history in general) when I was about 16, and that interest is still running. So that’s just shy of 10 years of interest in Roman history.

But I get the feeling that my passion for Roman history will last a long time, if not for the rest of my life. My interest in dinosaurs on the other hand has pretty much run dry. So despite its longer run in my life till now, dinosaur mania still lost out. Continue reading “on lifelong things” →

07/04/2013 0