Fantasy vs. Fantasy: "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter"

Recently, several of people from my church chewed on an idea over dinner:

Is the JRR Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" more acceptable literature for Christian reading (particularly younger readers) than "Harry Potter"?

My pastor and SS teacher sat in opposition to one of my friends and I. They said there is no difference between LOTR and HP. We said LOTR was more edifying for the Christian reader and was a better piece of Literature over all. What do you think?

1. Is LOTR or HP better for Christian readers (young or old)?
2. Why?

J. Gresham Machen's Reasons for Not Accepting the Label "Fundamentalist"

Below is J. Gresham Machen's position regarding Fundamentalist Protestantism in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In case you don't know Machen, he helped found Westminster Seminary and the Orthodox Presbytarian Church in America, and was an ardent defender of orthodoxy.

"Do you suppose that I do regret my being called by a term that I greatly dislike, a "Fundamentalist"? Most certainly I do. But in the presence of a great common foe, I have little time to be attacking my brethren who stand with me in defense of the Word of God (see note 19)."

What he didn't like was

1) the absence of historical perspective;
2) the lack of appreciation of scholarship;
3) the substitution of brief, skeletal creeds for the historic confessions;
4) the lack of concern with precise formulation of Christian doctrine;
5) the pietistic, perfectionist tendencies (i.e., hang ups with smoking (see note 20), etc.);
6) one-sided other-worldliness (i.e., a lack of effort to transform culture); and
7) a penchant for futuristic chiliasm (or: pre-millenialism).

The full text of this short bio on Machen can be found at:

J. Gresham Machen's Response to Modernism (by John Piper)

Church and State Questions for Comment

Question #1: Can we teach morals without religious texts?

Question #2: If not, which religious texts contain authoritative morals?

Question #3: If one text was chosen, to what extent should it affect the law?

Question #4: If so, what is our public morality based on?

A Testimony of Heaven

My grandpa suffered a terrible car wreck when he was middle-aged. He claimed to have seen a vision of heaven at that time that he was near death. I have often wondered about that near-death vision that he claimed was too "beautiful for words."

Don Piper, pastor of First Baptist of Pasadena, Texas tells of his vision of heaven in this book from Revell Publishers.

Recently my father died, and since then I have watched numerous videos on near-death experiences. If you haven't read of these experiences, most of them involve the person's testimony of being transported through a portal toward light, feelings of intense peace and pleasure, seeing a light, seeing loved ones (or seeing hell!), and seeing a life-review.

These testimonies are very controversial. In this book, Piper explains why his experience was not like these. He claims that he saw fellow Christians (some of them family members), and that these people welcomed him into a land (or realm) of intense light and joy, led him to the gates of heaven, and that there was heavenly music composed of thousands of beautiful songs of praise to God. Piper did not stay dead, however, and he attributes this to the answered prayers of a pastor friend who prayed intensely over his dead body at the scene of the accident. He testifies God sent him back in answer to this prayer to testify to heaven.

This book is very interesting. It is my opinion that Piper is being totally honest about his experience, but there will be skeptics, though he was declared dead at the scene of the accident by several trained medical workers. Without an EKG record, some people would never believe he was dead, and others would attribute his experience to the workings of his mind as he slowly died (or at least more slowly than the workers thought).

I believe, based on the testimony of Scripture, that there is life after death. I also believe there are people (Paul and John, for instance), who saw God's dwelling place and re-emerged in the world of the living. Readers will have to judge for themselves whether Don's vision of heaven lines up with that found in Scripture. I think it does. This book will surely capture the minds of those Christians who have experienced the death of a close loved one recently. It will give many hope who struggle in interpreting the Scriptures on heaven.

Lastly, I will say that as Don's friend prayed for him as he lay dead, so I recently prayed for my dead father--but my dad didn't get up. However, as I stood by his death-bed, I also prayed "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away: Blessed be the Name of the Lord." At that moment a picture as clear as day came to my mind: Dad standing on the edge of the clouds of heaven, dressed in a white robe, smiling and waving, and standing behind him was Jesus. That vision in my head gave me so much comfort that day. As I read of Heaven in the Scripture, I rejoice, because I know that of which I read is real, and I'm going there someday--whatever may come of visions in this life.

iPod Shuffle: A cookie-sized sermon library

Here is my newest toy/edifying technological device. If you don't know, it's an iPod Shuffle. I packed four sermons on this baby in about twenty minutes, all told, this evening. This amount of time even included downloading the material in a different electronic format, placing it in a new playlist, and reorganizing it, not just syncing the iPod with my computer. If the files had been on my computer, we are talking five minutes flat! And I have a seven and a half year-old computer! I have been considering this evening how fast good Bible teaching may be dispersed in this age of electronic wonders.

Just think about it...the first disciples hungrily read one, two, or maybe a few NT texts at a time. They could get access a copy of the OT sometimes, but they rarely owned one. If they heard a sermon, it was after a preacher had labored over the texts available to tell the Good News from the available materials, and that was a one-time event the might be similarly repeated from notes or memory, but they had no where near the access to a human voice accurately teaching the Scriptures that we do. I suppose that this is another symptom of the Information Age. Perhaps this has implications for the End Times as well, after all, Jesus says "this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world." (Matt. 24:12). It is amazing how fast the Gospel may be dispersed by new electronic devices.

Yet, I must stop right there. I know what you're thinking: "Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you." (Matt. 28:18-20). I can also hear some of you thinking: "But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." (James 1:22). To these thoughts, I say, "Amen, Amen."

Whatever we as Christians have been given, we have been given, not for entertainment/diversion, but for the conversion of mankind through dispersing the message. Can you imagine God asking us at the last judgment: "What about that iPod? What did you use it for?"

Some of us answer: "Uhhh, well, I listened to music on it."
God says: "What about my Word? Did you listen to my Word on it? The Bible? Or a preacher?"
Some answer: "No God. We did not."
Some answer: "We had sermons on our iPods."
God says: "To the first, you have dishonored me by ignoring the best use of this gift. To the second, you have aggravated your first offense by not obeying what you listened to."

What a solemn thought. The iPod may not be a sign of the closing of the End of the Age, but either way, in owning one...our responsibility as Christians is increased.

Under Sun long ago, we sinned,
The ground was overspread with thorns,
For our crime.

A cloud of doubt darkened the sky;
The presence of God: fear.
For our crime.

And Suns many afterward,
Our Hero bore these thorns,
For our crime.

A cloud of judgment darkened the sky;
The presence of God: fear.
For our crime.

And in the Sun three days past this;

He rose up pierced of thorns but whole,
For our life sublime.

Saved!? part 2

Back in June, I made a post on a witnessing opportunity in which my pastor got to lead a young lady to Christ. I put in that post that we didn't know at the time if she would stay in the church. Praise God, she is still coming! Of course, we would like to see her grow more, and become more involved, but she and her boyfriend talked with my Pastor today about some important spiritual issues.

I am excited that God is working. I still believe exactly what I wrote about witnessing in June, but I have had my joy renewed by seeing her continue to show evidence of being a Christian. This is what we truly ought to hope and work for in our churches--doing the right things continually, based on our conviction that the Truth is powerful and works in God's timing to bear fruit. Of course, this is not as gratifying as assuming people are always converted immediately during our verbal witness, but hey, who said God should stroke our egos? Wasn't our job faithfulness to His commands and worship anyway?

Soli Deo Gloria

Final Comments on "Jesus and Yahweh"

I finished reading "Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine." This book is a powerful illustration of the blindness of unbelief. I recently threw it in the trash because its greatest benefit is that it lets its reader into the religious mind of Bloom. Being that his mind is a confused, error-filled one, the trash was the best place for this book. Some final thoughts on this book:

1. Like most English professors, Bloom relies on assumption to define his view of the Bible. What do I mean by assumption? His assumption is that the biblical text of the OT was constructed according to the JPED theory. The biggest problem with this theory is the it assumes that the content of the OT was written by competing groups of Jews intent on emphasizing different aspects of their religion. The argument goes that the Priestly class (the P source) was interested in preserving their power through sacrifice, and that the J (Yawist) and E writers (Elohist) were also trying to maintain their power through their emphases as well. The D (Deuteronomist) writer attempted to pull these three competing strains of literature together during and after the Babylonian exile, resulting in the OT as we know it, a device they reasoned would pull all Jews together under the one "story." The reason this argument is a problem is because it remains unproven, though some of its historical/archeological observation might be true. Bloom is not critical of this argument at all. He is willing to base his world-view on faith in the observations of man (and these are not likely or clear-cut observations in the least!)

2. Bloom denies the authority of John and Paul to talk about the identity of Jesus. He completely ignores them. His reason is that these writers were not preserving Jesus' opinions of Himself--but their own, and that their theological statements do not match with the Synoptic testimonies--particularly Mark (whom Bloom accounts the earliest writer). Bloom's argument is that Mark is not presenting Jesus as God. Of course, Bloom relies on doctored liberal views of the validity of the various parts of Mark's testimony. In fact, Bloom completely misses Mark 6:50, in which Jesus says while walking on the water "It is I" (literally "I am"!). This lack of critical examination of Mark's text marks Bloom as a false teacher--one who twists and distorts the Bible. In fact, Bloom's love for Shakespeare's "Hamlet" serves as a more of a basis for his character analysis of Jesus. Similarly, Bloom takes liberties with God's OT name, quoting it as "I will be were I will be." This is convenient for a man who feels the Jews have been abandoned by God (based on events like the Holocaust). The horrible fact is that the Jews are indeed "cut off" for the present time. Of course, Satan has used events like the Holocaust to attempt to destroy them, but God has preserved their race because of the remnant Paul speaks of in Romans 9-11.

3. Bloom's last chapters will be an exercise in frustration for many Christian readers. These chapters are all about Bloom's chosen religion--Jewish gnostic mysticism.

4. "Jesus and Yahweh" serves as Bloom's testimony of and justification for his own unbelief in the end. He tries to be courteous to his reader at times, but his effort is an old man saying "this is how it is." It is dogmatic to the core.

"Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine" is Harold Bloom trying to play God by rewriting the truth to fit his own needs. Perhaps that is why his name is nearly as prominent on the book's cover as those of the deities he intends to address within its pages.