A Ramble About Galaxy Quest

I was watching Galaxy Quest again last night. This has to be one of my all-time favorite movies. In short, it is a parody of Star Trek starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, the late and inestimable Alan Rickman, and Tony Shalhoub of Monk fame. In it, the actors who play the bridge crew of the titular television show are transported into space onto a full scale working replica of their fictional starship by aliens, the Thermians, who believe them to be the actual people depicted on the show, which of course they are not, and are nothing like.

What I really like about this movie is the change which occurs in the main characters. They go from being squabbling, has been actors, some of which with apparent substance dependency issues and self doubts, to being the competent heroes the Thermians believe them to be by the end.

What effects this change?

The Thermians believed in them. They believed, not in who they were, but in who they believed them to be and could be. They believed in this better version of them so strongly and so innocently that, through failure, struggle, and loss the crew became who the Thermians always knew they were. 

Jason Nesmith, the Captain Kirk like actor, especially undergoes a transformation from an irresponsible alcoholic to the responsible and competent Commander Peter Quincy Taggert and the change is visible in his eyes and manner. In a way, Jason Nesmith is made to endure his own Kobayashi Maru test, and through this test he becomes the real leader he was always meant to be.

Another thing that stands out is the first person to really accept her role on the ship is the person with the arguably laughable job of repeating the computer. As she says, "I have one job on this lousy ship. It's stupid, but I'm going to do it, okay?" I find a poetic irony that she becomes one of the most important members of the crew. You see, the computer had been keyed to her voice by the Thermians. It wouldn't answer anyone else when they made an inquiry. They wouldn't have been able to locate a new power source for the damaged ship without her.

The more you tell someone who they are, the more they will mold themselves to that expectation. Never underestimate the sheer power of believing in who someone can be. Likewise, never underestimate the position which seems laughable. It could become the most critical of all.

Another Ramble about the Matrix

 I was rewatching Matrix yesterday. Among others, this movie and its sequels have a prominent place in my Science Fiction video collection. This time around, what caught my attention was when Agent Smith, the main antagonist of the movie, was interrogating Morpheus, one of the main protagonists, and he was telling him about the first incarnation of the titular Matrix itself.

For those not in the know, within the movie, the "matrix" is a massively multiplayer virtual reality system to which all human beings are connected from birth. Human beings in this dystopian future are grown by machines and implanted with cybernetics so that their brains are linked to the matrix from gestation onwards. The machines do this to use the electrical energy produced by the human body as a power source after all other power sources were destroyed. The human beings connected to the matrix are completely unaware of any of this. They are born, age, live their lives, and die thinking that it is the late nineties. They go to school, go to work, pay taxes, raise families, and retire all blissfully ignorant of what the reality of the situation is. The main protagonists of the movie are those humans who have been disconnected from the matrix and who are trying to free others from it as well. The whole scenario is very much a modern take on Plato's allegory of the cave, and an intentional one at that.

As horrifying as the reality of this world appears, the machines were not intentionally cruel to those human beings they grew as Agent Smith, himself a machine program, explains. The first incarnation of the matrix, he tells us, was meant to be a utopian paradise for humans to experience where no one was unhappy or in need of anything. He then tells us that it was a failure. Whole fields of human beings were lost. Millions dead. Why? Because the human mind couldn't accept the program. It couldn't accept that everything could be perfect. As a result, the machines recalculated and tried again. This time, the world they created was a representation of what they considered to be the height of human civilization, an urban landscape in the late nineties. Imperfect, but the best possible situation the human mind would accept without danger of rejection.

The reason why the machines in the movie are the antagonists and the humans trying to free those still connected are the protagonists is because the machines demand absolute control over the human beings, and those who do not submit to their control are considered a threat which must be eliminated.

There sometimes occurs the question as to why God, if He is all good and all powerful, does not just fix everyone and everything in the world. As I was thinking about this short piece of dialogue, it came to me that He would be no better than those machines if He did. If He just simply rewrote everything to where it would be a utopian paradise, and forced everyone into it, it would be just as artificial and untenable as the matrix.

God respects our free will more than that. He does not hide reality from us, but shows it to us both about the world and about ourselves in all its ugly glory, and He lets us make our own choices as to how to respond. If there is a matrix-like fictional reality in existence, it is one which the collective human mind has created for itself to protect itself from a reality it does not want to face. Human beings want to bury our heads in a fictional world of our own creation rather than face the reality God shows us. The hardest, ugliest truth about the reality we live in which we do not want to face is that we ourselves, human beings collectively, are the architects of the problems we face, and not Him. Our failures and our selfish actions are what has brought the world to the brink of catastrophe in which it finds itself.

Yes, God has the power to just make a paradaisical utopia right here and right now and ignore the consequences of our actions, but it wouldn't be the truth. And because it wouldn't be the truth, it wouldn't be who He is.

A Ramble About the Shadowlands

 Recently, Blizzard released four animation shorts to promote their upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft, Shadowlands. For those who don't know, this expansion takes place in WoW's realm of the dead, divided into four subrealms. These realms are Bastion, Maldraxxus, Ardenweald, and Revendreth and where a soul is sent after death, within this mythology, depends largely on who they were in life and how they lived (like most mythologies). Bastion is the subrealm of those who lived their life in service to the Light (the WoW metaphor for God or the good divinity), Maldraxxus is the subrealm of those who lived and died as warriors, Ardenweald is for those who lived in service to and connected to nature, while Revendreth is a kind of purgatory subrealm for those who lived in pride, cruelty, and evil to be given a last chance. There is a fifth subrealm called the Maw to which go those who are considered completely irredeemable, and most closely equates to Tartarus or the traditional understanding of hell.

One of these animated shorts focuses on a character from WoW lore called Draka. She was, and is in the short, an Orc warrior, the wife of Durotan who was chieftain of the Frostwolf clan, and mother of Ge'ol, also known as Thrall, who would become one of the most important heroes in the lore and arguably the most important warchief of the Horde in WoW history. Draka was sent to Maldraxxus after her death. What struck me about this short was, as one commentator described it, that in spite of all she had been in life and all she had loved in life, she had completely let go of who she was in life to become what she needed to be in the Shadowlands. There was no looking back, no pining over what was lost. The last she had seen of her son, he was a baby in a basket floating down the river while she lay dying from an ambush. Even this, she had let go. When she entered the Shadowlands, she accepted where she was and that everything she had been was now gone, and she moved on, rising in the ranks of Maldraxxus to become it's most important asset.

This was in contrast to the short with Uther the Lightbringer who was sent to Bastion, and rightfully so. He was, in life, a good and compassionate man, and a faithful servant of the Light in life. In Bastion, the expectation too was to let go of one's old life and move on in order to truly ascend. But because of a wound Uther had received to his very soul, he couldn't. No matter how much time had passed he couldn't forget, let go of the wrong which had been done to him, which was very deep and grievous, and move on. As one commentator observed, his very soul had been split in two by the way he died and he could not let that go.

In Matthew 22 (WEB), there is an exchange between Jesus and the Sadducees as once more the Sanhedrin attempts to trap him with a Rabbinical argument:

On that day Sadducees (those who say that there is no resurrection) came to him. They asked him, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed for his brother.’ Now there were with us seven brothers. The first married and died, and having no seed left his wife to his brother. In the same way, the second also, and the third, to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection therefore, whose wife will she be of the seven? For they all had her.”

But Jesus answered them, "“You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. " "For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like God’s angels in heaven. " "But concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven’t you read that which was spoken to you by God, saying, " "‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’" "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”"

Death means a total letting go of those attachments and relationships which we form in life. Whoever and whatever we are in life does not translate to who and what we will be in death. As it is said, we brought nothing with us into this life, and we can take nothing out of it with us. All marital attachments, all parental attachments, and all familial relationships are dissolved upon death. Just as we can take no material possessions with us, neither can we take those relationships with us. Clinging to them, clinging to loves lost, clinging to hurts done us, clinging to those things in this life, no matter how righteous a life might be lived, will only trap us and thrust us into a torment of our own making even though, like Uther, we might be surrounded by the Divine Light. There is no greater hell than that we make for ourselves.

Jesus taught those who followed Him, if they wanted to follow Him, that they had to disown themselves, and pick up the method of their own executions. They had to destroy their psyches in order to save them. Everything He taught was about letting go of something to which one might be attached, whether it be relationships, material possessions, ideas, wrongs and hurts done to you, your own self-identity, everything which might hold you here and hold you back from fully surrendering to His Eternal Life and union with God through Him. Living as though having died means just that. Just as St. Paul wrote, "Be mindful of the things above, not the things on the earth, because you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3-4).

We have a contrast in these animated shorts between a righteous man who couldn't let go, and a warrior woman who accepted her lot and moved on. In the end, Uther's inability to let go led not only to his own corruption, but also the corruption of another, while Draka's acceptance led to her being the key to Maldraxxus' deliverance. Whether the WoW writers intended it or not, there is a truth here to be understood.

When Bible Christianity Becomes a Cult

      This Ramble is likely going to upset some, but I believe this needs to be said and talked about. 

     I was reading a couple of posts by friends on Facebook earlier today. This, in and of itself, is not unusual. I read Facebook every day, several times a day, and far more than I actually should for my own mental health. But there was something about these two, somewhat contrasting posts that I haven’t been able to just let go of. As I thought more about it, I realized there was a profound and uncomfortable truth which Bible churches in the United States frequently ignore or don’t want to see.

     The first post I read was about “Christian Cults” and how to identify them. Of course, the usual suspects were identified: The Latter Day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists. The friend who re-posted the article is a Calvinist and subscribes to Reformed theology so none of this surprised me. The author of the article then went on to define a cult as a group or theology that does not subscribe to one or more of the theological positions so listed:  

1) the full deity and perfect humanity of Christ, 

2) His substitutionary death on the cross for our sins,

3) the Trinity,

4) justification or salvation by faith alone apart from works,

5) the virgin birth of Christ,

6) the Bible as without error,

7) the Bible as the only book that God has given, and

8) the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

     I couldn’t say I disagreed necessarily with any of these theological positions, but there was something about this article which didn’t sit well with me for the rest of the day. Honestly, I couldn’t put my finger on why, but something within me kept saying this definition of a cult was wrong and incomplete.

     A little bit of scrolling through Facebook later and I came across the very personal and courageous description by a friend of the physical abuse she, her mother, and her siblings suffered at the hands of her father. I had known this friend and her siblings from youth group at the church we both grew up in, and knew nothing about this. Her father was a deacon in the church we attended.

     After a while, another realization hit me. I knew the author was wrong about what really defines a cult, but only then did I understand why. Cults, as we understand them in modern society, aren’t defined by the doctrines and teachings they hold necessarily. They’re defined by the secrecy they keep. They’re defined by the half truths they tell their members which then become outright lies meant to keep them submissive and in line. They’re defined by leaders in the church who abuse their power, and a church system that sweeps everything under the rug to protect them. Do we see this in the aforementioned “cults”? Yes. Not everyone though, and not every local church and chapter. But there is no question that it is present, especially in their historical foundations. Do we see this in many Bible churches? The answer there, unfortunately, is also yes. We see this almost as much in “theologically sound” churches as much as we see it in “heretical” churches.

     Many Bible churches discourage reading anything, watching anything, or ingesting any “media” or information of which they do not approve, or of which they disagree. They also tend to discourage honest questions which arise when either history, science, or even Scripture itself plainly contradicts their approved theological viewpoint or point of practice (and often political alignments as well). The truth is that such questions are threatening to them because, frequently, they themselves do not have the foundation or background to answer them sufficiently. Such questions then become a threat to the established theology or ideology which forms the foundation of the members’ faith. When that theology becomes threatened with reasonable questions, the usual response is to attack the questioner and question their faith. I still remember overhearing a conversation between two teenagers about how one’s mother practically silenced him on influence and pressure from her church when he simply asked why he shouldn’t read a certain author’s book. The name of the church he mentioned is part of a well known Bible church “franchise” in California. The teenager was adamant he would never return to that church.

    Pastors and church leaders are frequently placed on pedestals, and there are more than a few that are willing to take advantage of that for personal and financial gain. This is just as true in Bible churches as it is in any other religious body, and especially with very large “megachurches” with well known “celebrity pastors.” Their writings, and most such do publish books, become a kind of deutero-canon for their churches which is virtually never challenged or questioned any more than the Christian practice or “Christlikeness” of the pastor is questioned or challenged. When the pastor uses his position to his advantage to abuse a congregant, frequently the congregant is too frightened to speak up. If they do, they are disbelieved, shouted down, and excommunicated for daring to accuse such a godly man.

    What good does it do for a church if they have a correct doctrine, but their leadership keeps the people uninformed, ignorant, and at times frightened in order to maintain power and cover up their own abuses?

     Christianity, true “Biblical” Christianity as Jesus Christ, St. Paul, St. John, and the rest of the New Testament authors taught is not a set of theological doctrines but a discipline and a practice of submission to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ so that His life would express and manifest within and through you. It was seen and on display for the world to see in the Apostolic Church, and in the pre-Nicene Church of the first three centuries C.E. It was defined, not by one’s theology per se, but by the love, compassion, and power of Jesus Christ manifesting within and through the Christian. They didn’t care what a person said he believed, or even what he taught. They wouldn’t call a person a Christian if that person didn’t live, practice, and act like Jesus Christ.

     Cults teach that everything depends on them, and you can’t be saved without them. Christianity teaches that everything depends on Jesus Christ, and that salvation can only be found with union and submission to His death, burial, and resurrection.