Bio

Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing to Dr. Halsey at michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."

Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org

Also:

Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582

Friday, April 24, 2015

CINDERELLA ALWAYS GETS HER FELLA VI

"Atlas Shrugged," is one huge novel containing 645,000 words taking up 1,168 pages which Ayn Rand wrote to explain her philosophy of life and liberty. It is her magnum opus. One chapter is of particular interest--it's the climactic radio speech of the hero, John Galt, which Rand uses as a plot device to express her guiding principles of life and thought.

Rand said that as she approached that chapter, she had a sense of dread because she knew it would be THE chapter, the one toward which the story had been gunning since her first keystroke. She anticipated that it would take her three months to write it. She was wrong. It took two years.

Wait. What? One chapter takes two years of a person's life? Just how long is that speech? Let's put it this way, the speech consumes 60 pages of closely written text as John Galt speaks without interruption for three hours on the radio, which is about how long it would take you to read the monologue aloud. 

MAKE IT INTO A MOVIE?

How about making a movie of "Atlas Shrugged"? A movie with a three-hour speech?  President Clinton's State of the Union Address was a "mere" one hour, twenty-eight minute, and 49 second speech in January 2000. There's no way I'm going to sit through a three-hour speech which delivers the objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand. (Or any three-hour speech, even if it delivered my philosophy.) 

But Galt's speech is the heart, the soul, the core of the book. That speech is essential to the plot (and her philosophy) because it explains the reasons for the disappearance from society of the brilliant, the movers, and the shakers. But, if a movie's to be made of "Atlas Shrugged," that speech must be omitted or cut severely, say, from 60 pages down to one page or paragraph or so.  You've got to put a huge part that speech on the cutting room floor.

When one director approached Ayn Rand about making a movie of the book, she agreed; she agreed, that is, until he told her the Galt speech had to be cut way, way back. She balked and never relented. She demanded that all the speech, every word,  had to be in the script or she wouldn't sell him the rights to make the movie. To Ayn, the issues were too big, to vital, for her to agree to the director's scissors. They had reached an impasse; there was no movie.

APPLICATION TO CHRISTIANITY

The gospel basically revolves around three issues: the need of salvation, the basis of salvation, and the means of salvation. An evangelistic encounter must involve man's need of salvation (he's a sinner); it must involve the basis of salvation (the death of Christ, the Son of God), and it must involve how one receives eternal life (by faith). The evangelistic encounter must include the resurrection, since a dead savior can't save anybody.

These vital issues are not entertainment, but the medium of film is and must be entertainment. Therefore the motion picture format for the gospel is wanting, to say the least.To make the gospel entertaining is to abuse it. Jesus didn't come for our amusement.

You might be thinking, "But if the movie presents the gospel, doesn't that take it out of being entertainment?" Not so fast. Neill Postman, in his classic study on television and the effects thereof, writes, “The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining, which is another issue altogether… No matter what is depicted or from what point of view, the overarching presumption is that it is there for our amusement and pleasure.” ("Amusing Ourselves to Death") He would say the same about movies. 

TROY DONAHUE?

Back in 1998, Dr. William F. Russel was riding a student bus across a university campus. In front of him were two undergraduate students who looked to be sophomores or juniors. The two girls were talking about something they'd been reading and both were having a hard time figuring out the meaning of a certain section of the textbook which referred to "the wooden horse of Troy."  The last thing Dr. Russell heard them say as they got off the bus was, "And who in the world is this guy Troy, anyway?" 

These two presumably bright and competent students had never, in all of their education, heard of the story of Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships, the Trojan War, and didn't know anything about the the second greatest deception in human history, the Trojan horse. 

But the story doesn't end there. Where were the two girls going? On what part of the campus did the bus stop and let them out? The School of  Education of the university. They were studying to be teachers who would be teaching, guiding the learning of somebody's children somewhere in America. 

If that was status of  education back then, then what must it be now? Let's transpose this bus scenario to biblical literacy and the results are even more dismal. We encounter people with no basic framework for understanding the gospel: "sin" isn't in their vocabulary because all is relative, "finished work of Christ" sounds esoteric, and  John 3:16 looks like "John three, colon, one six" with no biblical framework (the first two chapters and 15 verses of the book) in which to put it. They can't look it up or turn to it because they don't know the code. "Grace" to them has to do with figure skating or an Olympic diver gong off the high board. And what about "repentance?" Forget it. 

THE ILLITERATES ARE AT THE GATES

These are the illiterates to whom we'll be speaking more and more, just like Paul did when he went to the gentiles. The gospel demands an explanation, but movies don't welcome definition, declamation, and discourse. Movies crave action with dialogue lean and spare. One of the longest speeches in movie history by a single character (Orson Wells in "Compulsion," 1959) clocks in at fifteen minutes and would push and punish the patience of audiences today. Movie dialogue must look like Cassius who, Julius Caesar said, "hath a lean and hungry look." Film abhors an action vacuum.

Speaking of discourse, John records Jesus as giving seven lectures, each defining His Person and His work: "I am the bread of life," I am the good shepherd, etc. In Matthew, Jesus' longest lecture took three chapters to record, and the book of Acts contains references to the discourses of Peter, Stephen, and Paul.  Our hearers are like the Ethiopian to whom Philip said, "Do you understand what you are reading [ in Isaiah 53]?" To which the official answered, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” 

We find ourselves like Paul who told the Philippian jailor, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved," and then we learn, "And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house." "Believe on Lord Jesus Christ" needed a conversation, an explanation as to who Jesus is and what He has done. In other words, it needed dialogue. Movies need action.

To be continued.

Friday, April 17, 2015

CINDERELLA ALWAYS FINDS HER FELLA V

In considering the content of the gospel in movies, let's take a look at "Chariots of Fire," which won the Academy Award for the best picture in 1981. The movie is a British production with an inspirational story of the training and competition of two great athletes, Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell, climaxing with the 1924 Olympics in Paris. The film has no church connection and was not classified as a "Christian movie" per se, but church people flocked to it, since it told the story of Liddell who later became a missionary to China and died in a Japanese interment camp on February 21, 1945, just months before the end of WWII. 

An odd fact about the movie is that it was originally rated "G" in America, which would have been its kiss of death at the box office, since people would have assumed it was a children's movie. To remedy the situation, the director and the scriptwriter inserted an obscenity early on and that gave the film what they wanted:"PG."

In the film, Eric Liddell speaks often of God, as he tells his sister, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. When I run, I feel His pleasure." In a scene at the Olympics before his important race, someone slips Liddell a piece of paper on which is written I Samuel 2:20. Eric carries the piece of paper with him and wins the race. Furthermore, there's a brief scene of Liddell speaking to a group of people in the rain where we hear him quoting of Isaiah 40:3, and a scene at the conclusion of a Christian youth meeting where Liddell is holding a hymn book and tiding up after the meeting.

THE SABBATH

Liddell is famous for refusing to compete in the Olympics in his strongest race because the competition fell on a Sunday. To him, Sunday was the Sabbath and therefore sacred. If he had only understood dispensationalism, he would have run and probably won the gold. What he did was to import law into grace, Judaism into the church, and fold up like a tent on Sunday, erroneously thinking it's the "Christian Sabbath," an abhorrent term, if ever there was one, sort of like "a Halloween Christmas tree."

Unfortunately, the film made it likely that the non-Christian would leave the theater thinking that Christianity was all about "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy." But it gets worse.

THE EXPLOSION OF CONFUSION

As part of his talk to a small group standing in the rain, Liddel says,

"You came to see a race today. To see someone win. It happened to be me. But I want you to do more than just watch a race. I want you to take part in it. I want to compare faith to running in a race. It's hard. It requires concentration of will, energy of soul. You experience elation when the winner breaks the tape - especially if you've got a bet on it. But how long does that last? You go home. Maybe your dinner's burnt. Maybe you haven't got a job. So who am I to say, "Believe, have faith," in the face of life's realities? I would like to give you something more permanent, but I can only point the way. I have no formula for winning the race. Everyone runs in her own way, or his own way. And where does the power come from, to see the race to its end? From within. Jesus said, 'Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. If with all your hearts, you truly seek me, you shall ever surely find me.' If you commit yourself to the love of Christ, then that is how you run a straight race."

We can easily spot the problematic sentences: he says that each runs the race in his or her own way, from which some might conclude that all roads lead to God; then he says that he can't offer them something permanent [yes we can], and that a person needs to commit himself to the love of Christ. For some, they may conclude that salvation is the committing of oneself to the love of Christ or running life's race having faith, but faith in what? This speech is confusing. 

Eric Liddell's life was heroic, inspirational, and commendable. Since the movie ends with the 1924 Olympics and the return home of the British athletes, the movie-goer doesn't know of his missionary work in China, his winding up in a Japanese interment camp and his refusal to leave when a number of prisoners were exchanged, deciding to let an expectant mother go in his place, although Churchill had arranged for the famous athlete to be freed in the prisoner swap. A written statement appears on the screen which tells the viewer some of the above, but not all.

However, it's impossible to evaluate the accuracy of the gospel content in "Chariots of Fire" because there's no gospel in it. There is the quotation, "They shall mount upon wings as eagles," the I Samuel text, the refusal to run on Sunday, and there are short scenes of Christian meetings, but no gospel presentation. If a Christian left the theater thinking the gospel was in the film, it was because he imported it into it. It was inspirational, it was moral, it was wholesome, it was entertaining, but that was all she wrote.

YET THE GOOD PART

But "Chariots of Fire" shows us what a movie can do--it leaves the viewer with a stone in his shoe, a nagging question of purpose and meaning in life. Harold Abrahams wins the gold, but at the end of the day,  ponders the meaning of his life: "I'm forever in pursuit and I don't even know what I am chasing. . . And now in one hour's time I will be out there again. I will raise my eyes and look down that corridor; 4 feet wide, with 10 lonely seconds to justify my whole existence. But will I?"

The movie has raised a question which it doesn't answer, but leaves the viewer to think about it. This is an example of the "slant" spoken of in an earlier article. It's an example of the message not being allowed to overwhelm the story. Who would have thought that a secular film about a Jewish athlete, to whom the audience is sympathetic, would end with that question?  

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST

What about he Christian movie of all Christian movies, the one hailed as THE Christian movie of all time, 'The Passion of the Christ"? The Barna Research Group did extensive polling of those who saw the movie and the results of their poll, their words, "stunned them."

They found that "despite marketing campaigns labeling the movie the 'greatest evangelistic tool' of our era, less than one-tenth of one percent of those who saw the film stated that they made a profession of faith or accepted Jesus Christ as their savior in reaction to the film’s content."
 
They reported that "equally surprising was the lack of impact [the movie had] on people’s determination to engage in evangelism. Less than one-half of one percent of the audience said they were motivated to be more active in sharing their faith in Christ with others as a result of having seen the movie."

This demonstrates an inherent danger with Christian movies, but no fault of their own: they lead to an attitude of, "If I can just get people to see 'Fireproof,' 'God is Not Dead,' 'The Passion of the Christ, 'Left Behind,' and 'Persecuted,' the movies will do evangelism for me." No fuss, no muss.

To be continued.
______________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing to Dr. Halsey at michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."

Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org

Also:

Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582






Friday, April 10, 2015

CINDERELLA ALWAYS FINDS HER FELLA IV

We saw early on that the motion picture is a powerful medium. Back in 1915, people chose to riot in Boston, Philadelphia, and in other cities, over D. W. Griffith's "Birth of A Nation," a film so controversial that it was denied release in Chicago, Ohio, Denver, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Minneapolis, and in a total of eight states. Subsequent lawsuits and picketing dogged the film for years when it was re-released in 1924, 1931, and 1938. 

GROWN MEN CRYING

On a calmer level, a recent poll showed the power of film when 73% of the people polled said that they sat in a darkened theater and wept together when Bambi's mother was shot. Grown men said they cried during "Field of Dreams" when Kevin Costner asked, "Hey Dad, wanna have a catch?"  Think about that power--strangers sitting in the dark, eating popcorn, and crying together.

On the other side of the emotional spectrum, in 1943, at the conclusion of "Action in the North Atlantic," people in American theaters,  stood as one and cheered when the Russians rescued Humphrey Bogart's crew and ship. (They didn't know it at the time, but the screenwriter, John Howard Lawson, a communist, wanting to create a favorable impression of Stalinist Russia had manipulated them.)

As a further testimony to the power of the motion picture, we can point to "Philadelphia" as the movie which "almost single-handedly rewrote public opinion about the AIDS crisis and homosexuality," according to Rebecca Cusey in "National Review."

WHY SUCH POWER?

In order to understand another inherent problem with the Christian movie, we need to ask, "Why were the above films accompanied by riots? Why did they produce tears, elicit cheers, and change the thinking of millions?" We find the answer in two words: "The story." The visual stories told in those motion pictures were powerful ones which conveyed a message; for good or bad, they conveyed a message. But it was HOW those movies told the story that's important: it was the story that drove the message, not the other way around. 

Let's think about this.

That's the problem with Christian movies--the message is preeminent, the message drives the story, and overwhelms it, causing the movie to come across as forced, contrived, preachy, stilted, a sermon, and unrealistic. When the message drives the story, we immediately know that the writer of the screenplay has an agenda.

In contrast, in "Field of Dreams," grown men cried at the scene of an adult son and his father playing catch, because when they were boys they played catch with their dads. But no dialogue explained the significance of the scene, yet, it connected with the men in the theater who were thinking, "Yeah! That's me! That's my Dad!" Had some character in the movie explained, "The three points of why looking back at playing catch with one's father is emotional and important," that would have ruined the scene, the story, and the movie. It doesn't have to be explained, it just is. To explain it is to kill it. Speechifying in movies is the kiss of death. The story, the scene, not an explanation or a discourse about it, carried the message of reconciliation with the main character's father.

SIT DOWN, FRANCIS

But by it's very nature, we HAVE to explain the gospel; this is contrary to St. Francis of Assisi's unbiblical dictum, "Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words." Paul wrote to Timothy, "Preach the Word." The Christian movie must explain the gospel to the audience and that creates the inherent rub of Christian films. A motion picture is entertainment and is not geared to have people sit and listen to explanations because the more the explanations, the less the entertainment. Many movies fail at the box office because they talk us to death.

In the New Testament, Paul explains the meaning of the death of Christ and the meaning of the resurrection in his evangelistic encounters recorded in Acts, as well as in I Corinthians 15 and Romans 1-8. As Ravi Zecharias said, "In the beginning was the Word, not, in the beginning was the video." So this message-overwhelming-the-story dooms the Christian movie from the start. It doesn't reach and can turn off the intended audience which leaves the theater having been "preached at," and they don't like it. What's happened is that the message has overwhelmed the story. 

The audiences of such films as "Philadelphia," and "Action in the North Atlantic," had been "preached at" too, but they didn't realize it because the skillful script writers did what Emily Dickerson recommended, "Tell all the truth, but tell it slant--Success in circuit lies." (This is not to say that the writers told the truth; it is to point out how they got their message across to the audience--they told the message "slant.") 

Jesus told all the truth, but told it slant many a time. How? The parables. And that's it--a parable IS a story and an interesting one at that! He captures our interest immediately when He says, "A man went up to Jerusalem and fell among thieves," or "A father had two sons and one, in a display of disrespect for his father, wanted his part of the estate right now." We're hooked. We wonder, "What will happen to this arrogant youth?" The truth about repentance is embedded, but not explained in the story of the Prodigal Son.

So, because of this inherent problem of the message overwhelming the story in Christian movies, the question is, "Is film a poor medium to convey the gospel?" 

But wait. There's more.

To be continued. 
_______________________________________________________________________________


Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing to Dr. Halsey at michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."

Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org

Also:

Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582


  

  

Friday, April 3, 2015

CINDERELLA ALWAYS FINDS HER FELLA III

The Christian movie follows a template, a simple pattern. From a writing standpoint, the writer's aim is to build toward an evangelistic encounter which will result in a conversion and a dramatically changed life. To get there, he follows the formula for a Christian movie:

1. The story line must be dramatic, emotional.
2. The story line, to be emotional, must contain tear-jerking scenes and a dramatic event, such as a sudden death, a life-threatening diagnosis, a disfiguring accident, a pending divorce, etc.
3. This dramatic event leads to an evangelistic encounter.
4. The evangelistic encounter leads to a conversion
5. Dramatic, wonderful results follow the conversion.
6. The person converted and those around him lead a life of happily ever after

PROBLEMS WITH THE PATTERN: CONVERSION

In a movie, how does the screen convey a conversion to Christ? Do the lights burn brighter? Does the convert burst into song? Is there a hop, skip, and a jump in his step? Does the sun come out from the clouds? Forgive my hyperbole, but, bear with me, I'm trying to make a point. How DO you portray a conversion to Christ in a Christian film or any movie?

This is an inherent problem for a Christian movie because a conversion to Christ is passive, not active, that is, trusting Christ alone through faith alone is as one receiving a gift (John 1:12). A conversion takes place on the inside when a person's faith meets the right object, Jesus Christ. The problem is that a movie, to be interesting, must have action, drama, emotion, something the audience can see and feel. But a conversion, by its very nature is a passive placing of one's trust in Christ.

Therefore, to remedy this problem, the Christian movie has to jazz up the conversion by showing dramatic, emotional, energetic sometimes tear-jerking results. This complicates things because a conversion to Christ may not produce any results from which you'd make a movie. Has the conversion of a child ever been made into a film? Why not? The results aren't dramatic. Has someone made a Christian movie about a dedicated child evangelism worker? They are some of the most modest, humble, dedicated believers I've ever met, yet who's made a movie about them?

The movie therefore creates a false impression--all conversions, to be "real," must be like Paul's on the road to Damascus. Whereas the circumstances and results of his conversion were dramatic, thousands aren't, yet all who trust Christ apart from a blinding light are just as saved as Paul.

PROBLEMS WITH THE PATTERN: 100%

The formula demands conversion. The hero must convert, thus giving the idea that if you talk to someone about Christ and he doesn't trust Him, you must not be doing it right, certainly not like the fellow in the movie did it; he does it right. The witnessing Christian in the movies never stumbles over his words, is articulate, always knows the right thing to say, and has an answer for every problem.

But the reality is that the return on our evangelistic encounters aren't100%; the truth is that we'll sometimes lose friends and people in our own churches will pick up rocks, metaphorically speaking, to stone us. Paul said that he bore the scars the grace message may bring.

PROBLEMS WITH THE PATTERN: TEARS

The template demands that the main character must be going through a crisis which will be the trigger to the conversion. This is a plot device to keep the audience interested. But the truth is that people trust Christ without being disfigured, getting a bad diagnosis, losing a loved one, or standing on the brink of divorce. This plot device re-enforces the time-worn argument against Christianity that it's a crutch for weak, emotional people. The reality is that some, after getting a bad diagnosis, don't want to hear anything about Christ and immediately change the subject. Let's not be naive.Some on the brink of divorce may be angry and don't want to hear anything from us.

The truth is that millions have trusted Christ by reading John 3 (George Whitefield), in the middle of a sermon, while talking to a friend, and one person I know trusted Christ while studying for a sermon! There was no dramatic, tearful, emotional, crisis event that led them to place their faith in Christ, their conversion was crisis-free. We could point to the woman at the well in John 4 and the Ethiopian official riding in his chariot, reading Isaiah 53, and then talking to someone he'd never met (Acts 8).

One youth pastor pointed out a problem with a-crisis-is-needed-portrayal-before-conversion-when his youth group started to pray for bad things to happen to their friends so they would "come to Christ."

In this same category of trials and tears, the writer is compelled to make the dialogue periodically dramatic. In "Fireproof," one character tells another, "You gotta beg God to teach you to be a good husband." The story line is that God wants the protagonist to become a good husband, that it's His will. But then the wiser character tells the hero, "You gotta beg God to teach you . . ."? That's dramatic.

Wait. What? Such dialogue is dramatic, but misleading and impugns the character of God. It implies, "It's God's will all right, but unless you beg Him, it's not "gonna" happen. This type of dialogue destroys grace--"If you want it, beg."

PROBLEMS WITH THE PATTERN: THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER

In the movie, "Fireproof," a Christian talking to another person about his own life conveyed the impression of a "happy-ever-after-life" by repeating "It [the problem, the difficulty] was before I gave my life to the Lord." In the conversation, he repeated the sentence three times when discussing certain difficulties he'd faced in the past. This repetition implied to the audience, "After I gave my life to the Lord," "After I gave my life to the Lord," "After I gave my life to God," I've had no more struggles.

This scripting implies that once a person "Gives their life to the Lord," they live on a Beautyrest mattress. Yet, "after he gave his life to the Lord," David lied, murdered, and committed adultery, and before him, Saul, "after he gave his life to the Lord," committed suicide. Before Jonah "gave his life to the Lord," he hated the Assyrians and "after he gave his life to the Lord," he still hated them.

In the New Testament, after Demas "gave his life to the Lord," he fell in love with the world and abandoned Paul. Hymenaeus and Philetus, after "giving their lives to the Lord," strayed from the truth. Paul tells Timothy of those believers who did not keep the faith, but rejected it. Since all epistles are addressed to believers, we learn from Peter that it's possible for a Christian to suffer as a "murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler."

By following the pattern, the Christian movie, to say it euphemistically, gives an unrealistic and unlivable picture of life.

C. S. Lewis called this unrealistic pattern, "egoistic castle-building," and by that he meant taking a person and placing him into the most admirable character in such a way that he desires the reality that the character enjoys. He so wants it to be true that he overlooks reality.

In egoistic castle building, the Christian college freshman defeats his atheist professor, God saves the hero's marriage, and televangelist is so powerful, he's framed and hunted down by the government. The movie-goer sees himself in the hero of those movies. This is nothing more than wishful thinking; he's being manipulated by the script he desperately wants to be true in his own life. He's built his "egoistic castle," as Lewis would say. Get real.

To be continued.
_______________________________________________________________________________