Benjamin Button – more about death than life

I took my wife to see the Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Christmas day. We both enjoyed it a great deal.
It’s a love story, and an adventure story. Someone compared it to Forest Gump, but it’s never as emotional as that masterpiece, nor as funny. But it’s got some humor, I’d give it it [...]

Benjamin Button Biblical?

I’m excited to see “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” I may even go see it tomorrow.
It’s a love story in which Brad Pitt plays a freak of nature who is born as an old man and lives his standard, finite life in reverse… starting out with an aged body but immature mind, and then [...]

Not the last lecture

The world has lost Randy Pausch. Temporarily.

The Carnegie Mellon prof who gained acclaim and then wrote a best-selling book about dying of cancer has passed away in the last few hours. He was 47.
His story is particularly touching to me because he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at precisely the time [...]

Somewhere between nowhere and goodbye

I just finished a couple of major deadlines in my secular work and I celebrated by watching a movie in my hotel room. I’ve seen Million Dollar Baby before, but this movie is told so cinematically, so emotionally, that even when I know the plot ahead of time I find myself going through the same [...]

Q: What about Violence and Lust in the OT?

Eyoel writes:
But I really need your brotherly help this time…
This week, I’m going to debate a [person who does not accept Jesus as the Son but does believe other sacred texts which I do not believe are true]. I have seen [friends like him] pick the violent verses of the Old Testament (and Moses), and [...]

Q: Why was Jesus sent to Earth?

Hi, Brian and Kimberly,
My apologies for taking so long to answer you.
Jesus told us that God’s motivation is love, and that his goal is to bring life to whoever believes in Jesus. John 3:16
Of course, the mainstream traditional teaching is that most people self-select themselves out of that opportunity, by choosing to reject Jesus. My [...]

Happy Heretic, meet Happy God

I’m happy to rediscover Judith Hayes, the Happy Heretic. I’m a happy heretic myself, being convinced that most of Christianity is dead wrong about the end game God has planned. 
In her most recent post, Judith points her incisive wit at the 7 visions of Hell described in an article she reviews. All the views, though [...]

"Gospel of rational hope"?

Pastor Glenn Parkinson of Severna Park Evangelical Presbyterian Church writes in his blog that he is starting to wonder whether the media is doing more than reporting on a culture in crisis. He suggests they are promoting a “culture OF crisis”. It’s a clever turn of phrase, and reflects, I think, a view that is [...]

Heartache

Tragedies like the one at Virginia Tech today just keep on happening. I want this to be unusual and strange; it is not. Connect the dots, and it just gets worse from here.
The oddest thing that I heard today was a “Christian” on a Christian talk radio show expressing anger and concern that “liberals” would [...]

It’s not all bad

The last line of one of my favorite movies, Grand Canyon, says, “It’s not all bad.”
That’s how I felt when I got to see the Da Vinci Code last week. Not all bad, and certainly not all good. Not nearly as bad as the reviewers said, not nearly as good as I [...]