We meet again... unfortunately This is The End.

I have not written anything on this blog in almost three years. You don't need me to tell you that. If you were really curious, you could look at the difference in time stamps on this entry and the one that precedes it, but that really doesn't matter. I'm still on a journey to find truth, purpose, peace, and identity in Jesus Christ as I understand him and his work through the Bible. In regard to posting and freely sharing my thoughts, I have found that laziness is its own kind of despair and for the majority of my absence from writing, I have been stuck in this cycle of laziness that creates despair and then the despair creates creative apathy which then goes right back into laziness. For a long time now it has felt like I'm only doing the next thing I need to do in order to keep going. That's not always a bad thing; some times all we can do is just keep moving our feet and hope that they're going forward and not any other direction. Enough wallowing; I want to get to what I actually was going to post about.


Already more than a month ago, I was talking to my brother Karl; http://abeautifulweirdness.blogspot.com/ and when we were done talking, we agreed on this idea I presented to him. In both of our blogs, we had both dropped off the radar in frequency and total content, even though we have tons of things in our minds and hearts that we'd want to address given that we have forum to air our opinions. So the idea I came up with is this. In order to prompt more postings, when one of us posts something, the other has to post something as well. The second post can either be in response to the original post, agreeing/disagreeing with it, a different take on the same concept/Bible passage/pop-culture reference/socio-political trend, etc. or original content. So I'm taking the first stab at this thing since Karl and I decided to do this. And now to get to what I actually was going to post about.


2001; it was a simple time and the world was a simpler place; with the exception of September 11th, which is another story for another time. Prior to that, life was simple and American Christians, spanning various denominations, were all caught up in the hype and the thrill that was the Left Behind Series. I started reading them myself because a Sunday school teacher told me that I should read them and I didn't want to upset her. By the time I started reading the series, I believe there were already eight books released, but the town I live in was a little slow to jump on to the bandwagon so when I first started reading them, I was given the impression that they were brand new books and that I was really getting out in front of the trend. They were imaginative, well-written, and very interesting. I also thought given that were based on Biblical content, I couldn't go wrong. Eventually I finished the series as it was written, to that point. Though other books in the series came out later, including three prequel books and then a follow up book that covered the 'Millennial Kingdom', I left those alone and kind of left eschatological thoughts to the side for a little while. I then graduated high school and then went on to a college for Ministry and Theological training. So I again was immersed in eschatological thought and belief and I am now much closer to determining what it is that I believe regarding the 'End Times'. Now I told you all that to tell you this. I think we pay too much attention to end times theology and not really the practice of our personal theology.


Now that I've said all that, it would seem like it would be best to wrap everything up in a concise paragraph talking about how we should be focusing on our consistency in the practice of our faith, not being hypocritical and so forth. Then I would exhort my readers who are in the faith, to keep their minds in the present, focusing on how they can be more like Christ now, and actively be a child of God, a city on a hill, a light in dark generation. We're going to wait on that too; now let's get to what I actually was going to post about. (I think there maybe a pattern developing here.)


The whole Left Behind thing eventually faded out the public consciousness but the Evangelical movement and seemingly the rest of society kept the theme of 'End Times' talk and theology in their back pocket ready to talk about it at moments notice. For believers I think it is important to have that info on hand because The Resurrection of Christ and his Return are central to the faith but at the same time the fine tuning of your eschatological view only needs to go so far. I'm repeating that thought from above on purpose and I'll probably say it again. NOW I SHOULD GET TO WHAT I WAS GOING TO POST ABOUT. (Oh, sorry about that, I forgot to use my indoor voice.)


As I was saying, it seems that though Evangelical Christianity bowed out of the race to keep the end times in the public eye, the 'Apocalyptic' torch was handed off to pop-culture and it has most certainly run off with it. Right now, (whenever you're reading this), more than likely there are multiple TV shows or movies playing featuring a small and shrinking group of people who are trying to survive after something terrible has decimated the majority of humanity. At this very moment, enough programs come to mind that you can't even count them on your fingers anymore and starting to count on your toes just seems silly. Why do I even bring this up? Why am I wasting my time (and your time) by making such obvious and un-remarkable observations? Our curiosity as humans often causes us to make great assumptions and connect strings that don't necessarily belong together and often that is very evident in our entertainment.


Recently, I watched one of these movies. I will say now that I am by no means endorsing this movie and if you choose to watch it, that is your decision, there really wasn't all that much to glean from it, but I'll share what I got out of it. Hopefully the clue in this post that told you what I was going to discuss wasn't that hard to find. The movie I want to talk about is This is The End. If you haven't seen it; (again don't waste your time) the plot, according to imdb.com is this, "While attending a party at James Franco's house, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel and many other celebrities are faced with the apocalypse." Now obviously that one sentence isn't enough to explain the whole movie, that's clearly the point of a plot summary; overall theme not details. We need to establish a couple things, early in the movie the 'Rapture' occurs, also as soon as the 'good' people are taken, terrible things immediately start to happen those who were tragically... LEFT BEHIND. (See what I did there?) From there, as one could expect, it gets worse. Those who are left behind are showing their true colors and the worst parts of our humanity are fully exposed in the remaining individuals. Eventually demonic activity and in-fighting split up/kill members of the main cast and the power of true friendship gets the two main characters into Heaven, where nothing is different about them except a change of color scheme. And it's happily ever after but wait a second, they're the same schmucks they were on Earth, only now they're wearing white and have a repaired friendship. So getting to Heaven is the climax of the human experience and all you have to do is live and die in perfect harmony with your friends? That makes sense.

Now you may be thinking, "Adam, why are you expecting Christian values and truth out of a Hollywood production?" Thank you for asking, let me tell you. Short answer; I wasn't. I have no expectations for light to come out of darkness. Jesus said in Matthew 7, "Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." That being said, I didn't expect a Christian message out of this movie. I expected a vaguely anti-Christian message that pokes fun at some of the harder to understand parts of the Bible. If they were going to mock the Bible they could have been respectful enough to put a little more effort in to their "comedy". Let's get back on point here.

As I've already expressed, I had some frustrations with how they depicted, for lack of better words, what it takes to get to heaven. Until the end of the movie, there is really no explanation for why those who were 'raptured' at the beginning of the movie were. In the beginning of the movie, when the "Rapture" occurs the only thing that sets apart those who get taken up to Heaven and those who stay on Earth to face Tribulation is an exchange between a shop owner and potential customers. The potential customers are rudely denied service by the shop owner and they politely and respectfully honor the shop owner's decision. BOOM! "Rapture" happens, polite potential customers taken to Heaven; rude shop owner crushed by a suspended air conditioning unit. So, as you can see it really establishes the standard. How does Jesus play into this whole thing? Is he even a factor? We'll look into that shortly. In summation and concluding the topic of how to be 'raptured' or suffer through 'Tribulation' according to this movie it comes to this, people could either say of another "Oh, they seem nice." or "That guy's a real @#%%!**." and that would be the deciding factor.


Another concern I have is how "truth" is handled. I hope you notice the quotation marks around the word 'truth' in the previous sentence. The reason I did that may not be so clear, please let me explain. I believe and try to act like truth is real thing, though it is not a tangible thing, there is an absolute truth. In certain regards, the relativism of truth was actually a key factor. It seemed like in the midst of chaos, in moments of sheer terror, there was an invitation among the cast to have a little pow-wow, sit Indian style, and based on their opinions of things figure out what was going on. That's all well and good, sometimes you need a town hall to figure out a solution to a problem that is beneficial for all but when the problem is that little Timmy is going to get the marshmallow that fell off his stick into the fire with his bare hands, you get him away from the fire. That is a universal truth, it is not a 'personal truth' found through deep soul searching and personal discovery. If I got burned by something that is hot, I didn't get burned because I finally came to the realization that that thing, whatever it may be, was indeed hot and could in fact burn me; I got burned because the freaking thing was hot. Again, that is universal truth and truth is not something that can be decided by a group of people talking out their feelings about some other thing. We are finite creatures and our thoughts and feelings, though important, are limited. The idea that hindsight is 20/20 is just because of this, we often don't see the big picture until we can no longer positively effect the situation. Though we have the opportunity to be truthful, truth is concept outside of ourselves; we can participate in truth that is already active but, we cannot, I repeat, cannot create it ourselves.


The third and final thing I'd like to focus on from this movie is actually an extension of my previous paragraph's thoughts but a little more specific. To be honest, this particular issue that I'm bringing causes me to have serious concerns for the thinkers and philosophizers of this age. I believe it is an idea that extends beyond relativism and is in it's own little world. There is an exchange between two of the characters that illustrates my concern directly. The exchange is between Jay and Danny. For those of you reading this that haven't seen the movie; from the very beginning Jay is supposed to be the 'good guy'. Danny doesn't care about anyone but himself and at times he does things that may seem good but he benefits from those things just as much as them people he is doing them for. Let's keep that in mind as we look at the exchange. There gets to be a point where Jay thinks all that has happened to them is in fact the events the Bible talks about in the book of Revelation. Jay expresses this concern to the group and immediately Danny shuts Jay down by posing a hypothetical question implying that if the Bible is true what does that say about him(Jay). Well that's the perfect defense, right? Something can't be real if both the believer and the unbeliever fall under the same penalty.
If only that is how things worked out in the real world. Applying this concept to something that is established and universally accepted as truth can show how flawed this thinking is. So let's apply this idea to gravity. Gravity is universally accepted as being true. That's all there is to it. To be fair, the main reason it is accepted is because it can be empirically proven. When you let go of something that isn't already sitting of a firm surface, it falls down, we see it happen everyday. Let's say that I believe that gravity exists and that I have this friend that says he knows and respects that other people believe in gravity but, he just can't accept it. The reason that he doesn't believe gravity is because he really wants to fly, he's not delusional, he doesn't think he has some sort of 'super powers', he just believes that gravity is the thing that is keeping him from unassisted human flight. Even though we disagree about gravity, the effects of gravity still work against both of us. My friend and I are both grounded even though our disagreement should mean that gravity can apply to me but not him. Now I think it is pretty obvious the point I'm making here and as goes with all metaphors if stretched to all potential outcomes it will fall apart in certain respects, because there is no perfect metaphor. Going back to the conversation between Jay and Danny we see how foolish it is for Jay to be so easily defeated by Danny's retort.Truth doesn't fail because it is inconvenient. Often times in life it seems that the more unbearable something is; the more inconvenient, the more truth there is to it. There are of course many true things that are pleasant and easy to deal with but rarely are true things easily won. In our society, it seems that as soon as something becomes difficult we lose interest. We always talk a big game about we'll stand up for what we believe but we give up way too easily. I said earlier in this post that if something is true, it is true independent of us. The other side of that coin is that truth does not always have a voice of its own. This how we participate in truth that already exists. We continue to give a voice to the truth when others try to silence it. Now I think that there should be a difference in expectation between one who has already actively embraced truth and one who is not yet there. When this situation occurs in real life; by situation I mean when someone is challenged in their new understanding of truth, I wouldn't expect them to have all the answers but when someone's reason for believing you are wrong is that they don't agree with you, there is absolutely no reason you should fold.
Now that I've expressed that the truth doesn't fail when it is inconvenient, our ability to adhere to truth when it is inconvenient means everything. This is the essence of faith. Do we trust God when it hurts to follow his will? When we repent, do we fully turn away from our sin, or do fold down a corner like a place mark to start again where we left off? Do we find our identity in Christ, when there are other, easier things to belong to? When dealing with truth these are the questions we must ask because they show where our hearts are.

I'm sure there are more things I could say. I'm sure there are more things I could say more clearly. When it comes down to it, I really don't like thinking about the "End Times". That seems at least a little strange because I'm a white, Evangelical, male with a Baptist leaning. All those factors make me a "Most Likely to Enjoy Heathen Bloodspilling" nominee in the Who's Who Among Religious Bigots in America, but for me it is not like that. While in college I had a lot of time to think about the "End of Days" and I'm torn still to this day. Though I joyously await the day that Jesus calls all of those he has called faithful and friend, to himself, I also worry and hurt for those who whether by willful defiance or willful ignorance will not be called and embraced by Jesus in the end. Today is the day to decide if you will surrender to Christ. Tomorrow is the day to decide if you will surrender to Christ. Every day is the day to surrender to Christ. If Jesus is the Christ, the Son of The Living God and the Bible is true in its teaching, every day is the best opportunity to submit to Him seriously.

In Christ who is able to do all things, Adam

P.S.
I know it is foolish to actively engage a secular movie for spiritual advice but if any of my take on this has helped you in any way or you have any other thoughts, PM me on Facebook, as it is likely that you're reading this because of my link there.