I'm a little late to the party (long story), but my wife and I just watched the finale -- amazing! I'll just blurt out a few of my favorite scenes and themes from the last episode (in no particular order):

- The whole redemption storyline was perfect. One of the things I always appreciated about Lost was the character development, particularly with regard to the moral imperfections of the each and every primary character. There were no saints on Lost, not even Hurley, the universal good guy. Lost always reminded me of Total Depravity, and Total Depravity reminds me of why we need a Savior. The redemption of all the main characters in the last scene was something special. I'm not sure that it didn't border on universalism, but I prefer to think that they were all chosen, despite their imperfections.

- The scene where Locke forgave Ben was one of the best moments in the entire series. I was always a fan of Locke, and even when he started to go off the deep end a season or so ago, I always held out hope for him. It was good to see the old Locke back there at the end, with his big smile and big heart. Hearing Ben tell Locke how being forgiven meant more than he could say -- that was great.

- Hurley making Ben his Number Two. Again, another redemption scene for the series' quintessential bad guy. Wonderful.

- I've never liked Charlie (and I still don't), but I thought the scene where he recognized Claire and started to cry was very touching. I still don't like that little punk, though. :-) Come to think of it, most the "recognition" scenes were well done.

- Jack is Lost. He's always been my favorite character, and the finale was naturally Jack-centric -- and it would have been wrong for it not to have been. Brandi pointed out that Jack's "recognition" scene all revolved around his relationships with the primary cast members, and not one person in particular. That was in contrast to the way the other Losties experienced their Island recognition; their scenes were usually person specific (e.g. Juliette and Sawyer). Jack was all things to all men; he was always their leader.

- I liked Jack saving Desmond from the light hole, and telling him, "See you in another life, brother."

- Jack and Christian's scene near the end. Jack says something like, "Am I dead?" Christian responds, "Everyone dies sometime, Jack." Yes, Christian! Perfect love drives out all fear, even the fear of death. You could say that the entire series was spent with the Losties being afraid of death, but at the end, no fear, only redemption.

- Jack's death scene on the island was simply heroic. Having him struggle back to the bamboo forest, and to die in the same place where he woke up on the island in the first scene of Season 1, that was some piece of art.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll say I was very satisfied with the ending. It didn't quite match the jaw-dropping "We have to go back!" ending of Season 3, but it was satisfying nonetheless.

Brandi and I don't watch TV; we just don't. We own the box but don't even have rabbit ears to pipe in the free channels, much less satellite or cable service. With that said, I'm glad we were introduced to Lost four years ago via a DVD gift over Christmas. I doubt there will ever be anything else like it, at least for a long time. It's been a fun, informative, thought-provoking ride.

Scientists are trying to figure out why evolution put a spark of the divine in every man.

Jesse Bering's mother died of cancer on a Sunday, in her own bed, at 9 o'clock at night. Bering and his siblings closed her door and went downstairs, hoping they might somehow get some sleep. It was a long, hard night, but around 7 a.m., something happened: The wind chimes outside his mother's window started to chime.

Bering remembers waking to the tinkle of these bells, a small but distinct sound in an otherwise silent house. And he remembers thinking that those bells carried a very specific message. "It seemed to me ... that she was somehow telling us that she had made it to the other side. You know, cleared customs in heaven," Bering says.

The thought surprised him. Bering was a confirmed atheist. He did not believe in any kind of supernatural anything. He prided himself on being a scientist, a psychologist who believed only in the measurable material world. But, he says, he simply couldn't help himself.

"My mind went there. It leapt there," Bering says. "And from a psychological perspective, this was really interesting to me. Because I didn't believe it on the one hand, but on the other hand I experienced it." Why is it, Bering wondered, that even a determined skeptic could not stop himself from perceiving the supernatural? It really bothered him.

It was a very good question, he decided, to take up in his lab.

God, Through The Lens Of Evolution

For decades, the intellectual descendants of Darwin have pored over ancient bones and bits of fossils, trying to piece together how fish evolved into man, theorizing about the evolutionary advantage conferred by each physical change. And over the past 10 years, a small group of academics have begun to look at religion in the same way: they've started to look at God and the supernatural through the lens of evolution.

In the history of the world, every culture in every location at every point in time has developed some supernatural belief system. And when a human behavior is so universal, scientists often argue that it must be an evolutionary adaptation along the lines of standing upright. That is, something so helpful that the people who had it thrived, and the people who didn't slowly died out until we were all left with the trait. But what could be the evolutionary advantage of believing in God?

Or possibly, there might be another reason the human behavior is so universal. Obviously Dr. "Presupposing Naturalism" probably never read the appendix to C.S. Lewis' "The Abolition of Man." I can hear Jack yelling now, "It's the Tao, you nicompoops. And God put it there. These things don't just happen by themselves. Being scientists, you probably ought to know that."

Bering is one of the academics who are trying to figure that out. In the years since his mother's death, Bering has done experiments in his lab at Queens University, Belfast, in an attempt to understand how belief in the supernatural might have conferred some advantage and made us into the species we are today.

Bering has a credo, a truth he says he's learned after years of studying this stuff. "I've always said that I don't believe in God, but I don't really believe in atheists either," Bering says. "Everybody experiences the illusion that God — or some type of supernatural agent — is watching them or is concerned about what they do in their sort of private everyday moral lives."

In fact, Bering says that believing that supernatural beings are watching you is so basic to being human that even committed atheists regularly have moments where their minds turn in a supernatural direction, as his did in the wake of his mother's death.

"They experience it but they reject it," Bering says. "Sort of override or stomp on their immediate intuition. But that's not to say that they don't experience it. We all have the same basic brain. And our brains have evolved to work in a particular way."

Or maybe God made your brains, Captain avoid-the-obvious.

Through the lens of evolution, a belief in God serves a very important purpose: Religious belief set us on the path to modern life by stopping cheaters and promoting the social good.

Why would the human brain have evolved to work in that way?

For Bering, and some of his friends, the answer to that question has everything to do with what he discovered in his lab — the way the kids and adults stopped cheating as soon as they thought a supernatural being might be watching them. Through the lens of evolution then, a belief in God serves a very important purpose: Religious belief set us on the path to modern life by stopping cheaters and promoting the social good.

God And Social Cooperation

Dominic Johnson is a professor at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom and another one of the leaders in this field. And to Johnson, before you can understand the role religion and the supernatural might have played in making us the people we are today, you really have to appreciate just how improbable our modern lives are.

Today we live in a world where perfect strangers are incredibly nice to each other on a regular basis. All day long, strangers open doors for each other, repair each other's bodies and cars and washing machines. They swap money for food and food for money. In short: they cooperate.

This cooperation makes all kinds of things possible, of course. Because we can cooperate, we can build sophisticated machines and create whole cities — communities that require huge amounts of coordination. We can do things that no individual or small group could do.

The question is: How did we get to be so cooperative? For academics like Johnson, this is a profound puzzle.

"Explaining cooperation is a huge cottage industry," Johnson says. "It dominates the pages of top journals in science and economics and psychology. You would think that it was very simple, but in fact from a scientific academic point of view, it just often doesn't make sense." It doesn't make sense because there's often tension between the interests of the group and the interests of the individual. Johnson gives an example.
...
On the other hand, Johnson says, if there are Gods or a God who must be obeyed, these strains are reduced. After all, the punisher isn't a vigilante; he's simply enforcing God's law. "You have a very nice situation," Johnson says. "There are no reprisals against punishers. And the other nice thing about supernatural agents is that they are often omniscient and omnipresent."

If God is everywhere and sees everything, people curb their selfish impulses even when there's no one around. Because with God, there is no escape. "God knows what you did," Johnson says, "and God is going to punish you for it and that's an incredibly powerful deterrent. If you do it again, he's going to know and he is going to tally up your good deals and bad deeds and you will suffer the consequences for it either in this life or in an afterlife."

So the argument goes that as our human ancestors spread around the world in bands, keeping together for food and protection, groups with a religious belief system survived better because they worked better together.

We are their descendants. And Johnson says their belief in the supernatural is still very much with us.

Wow! To borrow from Robert Jastrow's famous quote, I think this may be one of those cases when the scientists will finally ascend to the top of the mountain to find C.S. Lewis, Blaise Pascal and Augustine sitting there saying, "It wasn't evolution that gave each of you an inherent, automatic belief in God, you dummies." Of course they won't be recognized by the new arrivals. The scientists will ask, "Is one of you Charles Darwin?"

"He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." - Ecclesiastes 3:11

He redecorated the Oval office!

the White House ditched the light-colored formal-looking couches that sat in former President George W. Bush's Oval Office. It also jettisoned the former occupant's sunburst rug and cream painted walls.

In their place, there's wall paper with a light beige stripe and caramel-colored, more informal couches that appear to some eyes to give off more of the air of a family room than a formal office occupied by the world's most powerful head of state.

How dare he? I'm actually surprised it took this long...

Gallery of past oval offices.

Here's an absolutely fantastic, short documentary on J.R.R. Tolkien, filmed in Oxford in 1968, with numerous interviews of Oxford students and Tolkien himself. One big treat: Tolkien speaking in Elvish and also in the Black Speech of Mordor.

This is seriously fabulous. Many of the student interviews are very amusing, especially in the middle of the film when the muddled revolutionary ideas of the late 60's begin bollixing up some of the interviewees' terribly earnest monologues. There's one reprehensible chap who thinks The Lord of the Rings is a horrible diversion and escape from more important things, like politics. Hoo boy. Thankfully, there are several students (two in particular), who seem to really understand what Tolkien was getting at in the Lord of the Rings (in my opinion). I would have loved to hang out with their sort had I been in Oxford back in the day.

Another blessed aspect of this documentary is to be able to see again, with nostalgic recollection, the streets and buildings of this wonderful city, I was there last month, and much of it appears to have hardly changed in the last forty two years. In the beginning there are shots of Tolkien's house in Headington, which is the suburb I was staying in during my trip.

This is a highly recommended watch if you are a Tolkienophile.

[H/T Eldest son's facebook page]

The College Football season is upon us. So let's have your predictions.

Who's going to win it all this year?

Though it was decades ago, I remember it like it was yesterday. I was a teenager working at fried chicken place in San Antonio. Over in the corner, the assistant manager and manager were talking. “Woo-hoo!”, the manager finally hollered. And with a big grin he slapped the assistant manager on the back and loudly said, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play!” The basic meaning of the expression was self-explanatory, but I still didn’t know what they were talking about specifically. I asked the fry cook next to me and was told that while the assistant manager’s wife was out of town, he had gone on a date with another woman. I was disgusted. To this day, the memory of his unsuspecting wife visiting the restaurant with their children a few weeks later still fills me with a sadness I can’t put into words.

The truth is this: that man was unfaithful to his wife in his heart before he ever acted on it. The fact that he took advantage of the opportunity only shows what was there all along.

It has been said that character is who you are when no one is looking. If you only do what’s right when you are being observed, then your righteousness is a façade. It’s what you do when no one’s watching, when no one will ever know, that reveals who you really are.

That’s a scary thought. Most of us like to think of ourselves as “basically good” even when we do things that are wrong. The truth is that we can deceive ourselves. “The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out. Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find?” (Proverbs 20:4-5). “All a man's ways seem right to him, but the LORD weighs the heart. (Proverbs 21:2). “As water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man. Death and Destruction are never satisfied, and neither are the eyes of man” (Proverbs 27:19-20)

Don’t listen to the advice of Hollywood which often says, “Follow your heart.” You cannot trust your own heart. It will deceive you. An old hymn says, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here's my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above.”

Unless God himself reaches inside you and changes your heart and its desires, you will keep pursuing things you know you shouldn’t. This is why David, after he sinned with Bathsheba, prayed; “Create in me a pure heart, O God” (Psalm 51:10). He knew that unless God changed his heart he would continue to sin.

If you need someone to talk to, email me at philip.schroeder777 - It's a googlemail email address.

Just thought you should know. :-)

Slogan from an AT&T commercial I just saw (the context is an imagined future elementary school spelling bee that has been going on for 48 hours with no one eliminated):

Access to the Internet makes all of us smarter.

Yesterday at church we had a guest speaker, Dr. Daniel Akin, who delivered a very challenging message on fulfilling the Great Commission. In his message Dr. Akin relayed the following conversation which happens over and over in the life of a Christian college administrator:

Freshman Orientation at a Christian College

Parents (to administrator): Now, I'm expecting you to keep watch over our son. Keep him away from the Big Three [Drugs, Alcohol, Sex], get him in a discipleship group, and make sure he gets plugged into a church.

Administrator: I'll do my best.

Phone Call from Student to Parents, Two Months Later

Student: Mom, Dad, I've decided to switch majors.

Mom and Dad: You have? What to?

Student: I've decided to not get a Business degree anymore. I'm now going to major in Christian Studies. My plan is to do full-time missions-work.

Parents: [stunned silence]

Five Minutes After Aforementioned Phone Call

Christian College Administrator, answering the phone: Hello?

Parents: We asked you to keep our son away from the Big Three, get him into a discipleship group, and get him plugged into a church. We didn't ask you to make him a fanatic!

With regard to the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, most detractors dismiss it as a man in a monkey suit. In my opinion, modern eyes are colored by Hollywood special effects. From what I've read -- and I've read a decent amount on this subject -- if the P-G film was a hoax, it's one of the best hoaxes in modern history. Take 10 minutes to review this film that was aired on the National Geographic channel, because it might make you question your presuppositions.

Back in the day, about 100 years ago or more, liberal Protestant theology was all the rage (or at least gaining in popularity). As a result a group of conservative Protestant clergymen published a truckload of essays that are collectively known as The Fundamentals. From that fertilized egg, the modern fundamentalist movement hatched. (And depending on your point of view, the resulting bird is either a chicken or an eagle.)

Being a center-right guy myself (though not a fundamentalist), I thought it would be fun to start another world-conquering, King James-based movement kick around some ideas of what you all think are the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Here's the way it works, without thinking too much about it, and without looking up your proposed position in Wikipedia, leave a comment detailing your "fundamental" and why you think that point of theology or doctrine is essential to authentic, orthodox Christianity. (You'll get bonus points if you have Scripture to bolster your position. Unless of course your position is something like, Church Tradition Trumps Scripture Every Single Time.) This isn't an attempt to start a flame war, and there won't be any getting up in anyone's face (at least not on my side of things). In short, be nice.

So, I'll start:

My fundamental is baptism. It's essential because a) we're commanded to do it (along with repentance) (Acts 2:38), b) JESUS linked it closely to salvation (Mark 16:16, etc.), c) inasmuch as it is an "appeal to God for a good conscience" it "now saves you" (1 Peter 3:21), d) there is no such thing as a non-baptized Christian in the New Testament.*

That's it. That's my fundamental. It's not what I think to be the primary fundamental of the faith, but I do consider baptism to be essential to an authentically lived Christian life.

Now, what's yours?

*Update -- Except for the thief on the cross.

"Paul was writing his own life story, but Jesus stole his pen."

Love that!

(From this post by our favorite Gospel-wakened Ninja)

I don't think we've discussed this sort of thing recently. What Bible translation are you all into these days?

My childhood was spent with King James. In my early adult years, I was a New American Standard guy. Since roughly 1996 I've been a New King James enthusiast, and here lately I've been reading a lot of the English Standard Version.

I still love my New King James, and I always will, but the English Standard Version is really doing it for me these days. I was recently given a copy of the ESV Study Bible -- it's amazing! Study Bibles can be so ... odd, and I tend to be leery of titles like The Dallas Cowboys Sports Fan Study Bible. (No, that bible doesn't really exist, but I'm sure I'm giving someone a great money making idea right now.) Thankfully the ESV Study Bible is full of good, useful historical and theological information (primarily from a Reformed vantage point), and at the very least it's a good resource to have in your library.

So what do you all like to read? I have no agenda here. I just like to talk about Bibles.

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift in the sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. . . .

If I must boast, I will boast in the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. -- from 2 Corinthians 11 (ESV)

He kind of makes me feel like a wimp.

You ever watch this show on A&E called "The First 48"? It follows real life homicide investigations in the first 48 hours after a murder. An episode I was watching tonight covered a murder investigation in Harris County, Texas, the place of Houston, my hometown. I still have lots of family and friends there, so despite having been gone 16 years, I am accustomed to the growing concerns about crime -- gangs, drugs, illegal immigrants, etc -- in the Houston area. My brother in law is an HPD detective, so I hear some of these concerns from a guy with skin in the game.

It was easy tonight to think, "Man, I'm glad I don't live there any more."

Now we live in Vermont. One of the unofficial mottoes of Vermont is: "What happens in Vermont stays in Vermont. But nothing ever happens here."

But as I reflected upon my relief over not living in Houston any more, I thought to myself how even more dangerous our current home can be. I don't live in a place that even has suburbs any more, but I reminded myself how dangerous it is to live in the suburbs.

How dangerous it is to be rich! How dangerous it is to never be uncomfortable! How dangerous it is to never be sick! How dangerous it is to never lack! How dangerous it is to live a safety-laden life.

In fact, if I'm tracking with the Scriptures on this stuff, I have to realize that safety and comfort are as dangerous to the soul as insecurity and discomfort are to the body.

We posted three videos on a row. What are we, NBC?

As a break in the programming, I'll throw out some quotations from Karl Barth's Evangelical Theology:

The Word of God is the Word that God spoke, speaks, and will speak in the midst of all men. . . . It is the Word of God's work upon men, for men, and with men. His work is not mute; rather, it speaks with a loud voice. (Pg. 18)

That man who refuses to listen and to obey the Word acts not as a free man but as a slave, for there is no freedom except through God's Word. We are speaking of the God of the Gospel, his work and action, and of the Gospel in which his work and action are at the same time his speech. (Pg. 19)

The Spirit is himself God, the same one God who is also the Father and the Son; he acts both as Creator and Reconciler, as the Lord of the covenant. As this very Lord, however, he now dwells, has dwelt, and will dwell in men. He dwells not only among them but also in them by the enlightening power of his action. It is that flowing air and moving atmosphere in which men may live, think, and speak wholly and entirely freed from presuppositions -- for they are men who know the spirit and are known by him, men called by him and obedient to him, his children begotten by his Word. (Pg. 54)

The object of theological work is not some thing but some one. . . . This object is not an "It" but a "He." And He, this One, exists not as an idle and mute being for Himself, but precisely in His work which is also His word. (Pg. 163)

I think a face melting on this blog is way overdue.



Lyrics after the jump:
Read the rest of this entry . . .

I love literal videos!



Disclaimer - I guess this will further solidify my reputation as the Edge-y Thinkling . . .

This video is somewhere between PG and PG-13, lyrics-wise. Just FYI.

I believe Christians will be talking about John Piper hundreds of years from now in much the same way people currently talk about guys like John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and Charles Spurgeon.

In this short clip Piper expounds on Romans 8:31-39, explaining what "more than conquerors" means.