When I Look to the Heavens

    If you’re seeing this post a little bit late, it’s probably because of my proximity to a gravitational anomaly, which has slowed time for me, while time runs faster for you.

    I saw Interstellar the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was a beautiful cinematic excursion into the cosmos, set in a fascinating near future. It was hard sci-fi, which to the best of its ability, wove current ideas of physics into an intriguing plot carried by vibrant, realistic characters. (In other words, I recommend it.)

   Going into the movie, however, I could already guess the theme: we as humans are masters of our own destiny. Humanity will continue to better itself through evolution, and is the ultimate source of meaning in the universe. I was right. It was a story driven by humanism.

    How did I see that coming? Well, it was a hard sci-fi space epic. In today’s world, scientific progress, space exploration, and stories about them, are equated with a humanistic worldview.

    The modern era has seen reality split in two. There is the sacred reality- religion, morality, and the like- and the secular reality- things like science, and discovery. The church was kicked into the sacred reality box, and has frankly been quite content to stay there.

    Humanistic scientists, however, have not held up their end of the deal. They are looking out into the universe for answers to the big questions of life. They are not staying in their secular box. That’s because reality doesn’t come in two separate pieces. Truth is truth.

    Take, for example, the Rosetta project, which recently landed a small probe called Philae on the surface of a moving comet called Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The multinational group of  scientists who sent out Rosetta are hoping to find data concerning their hypothesis that all life on earth was seeded by a comet.

    People aren’t researching, experimenting, and exploring just to crunch numbers, or use tax dollars. They want answers about the meaning of life.

    Why should we as Christians care? We already know the ultimate answer. And that is exactly why we should care. I have a twofold reason for this answer.

    First, we know from Romans 1 that there are things that can be learned about God from His creation. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)

    When we look into the sky, or into an atom, we can learn more about our smallness, and God’s greatness. We can get a glimpse into the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice for us by seeing His handiwork in a subatomic particle, or a supernova.

    

Secondly, we should care about the exploration of the world around us, because people who don’t know God are looking there for meaning and purpose. When we get involved, we can show the world that the answers they are looking for are found in the creator of everything!

    

So, let’s unabashedly pursue the knowledge of God through every avenue in which He reveals Himself. Let’s look forward to the findings of the Orion Mars missions, because our God is great, and He made Mars! Let’s speculate about the what-ifs in story and art, because our God is vast, and glorious, and mysterious. Let’s turn the tables so that society stops assuming that every space movie is a hot mess of humanism, and every comet lander is looking for our amino acid ancestors.

    Most of all, let us look to the heavens, and fall down and worship our king. Let us humble ourselves as King David did, when he wrote: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,what is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:3-4)

Keep on glowing in the dark,
Elora

Utopia Reaches for Us (Part 2 of 2)

  

 So, the last Wednesday post left us in a pretty bleak place. Humanity is always looking for a perfect society that deep inside we know we were built for. In and of ourselves, however, we just can’t find it. There’s the recap of the bad news.

    Here’s the good news.  God, who authored the ultimate and only utopia, desired to restore us to that utopia. His own Son died for this rescue, and then came supernaturally back to life to complete it.

    You see, when we were striving vainly for a perfect world, and trying to be our own gods, the true God was reaching down to us to fulfill our need for utopia.

    When we allow Him to take hold of our lives, (however that happens to work. I don’t know. Please don’t debate Calvinism with me right now. Maybe later.), We are transferred from the broken tyranny of sin that we sold ourselves into at the fall.

“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,  in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14, NKJV).

    Christ brings us into His restored utopia. Someday, all of us who receive Him will dwell in the  sheer and unbounded perfection of that Kingdom for all eternity. Let me tell you a bit about it:

It will be perfect-

“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."  Then He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ And He said to me, ‘Write, for these words are true and faithful’” (Revelation 21:3-4).

    That’s right, perfect. All the problems and pain we’ve accumulated since we left Eden will be done away with .

It will fulfill us completely-

“ For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:3-4).

    It will satisfy all the desires we were originally created to have, and our true life will be revealed!

It  will be all of us-

“And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it” (Revelation 21:24).

    Members of every culture will be a part of this heavenly community-male and female. Our favorite humanist sci-fi authors so often long for this. What they don’t realize is that only in God can the best in every culture, and both genders, be brought together. He is the one who created them, after all.

It goes into eternity, and we are part of it right now-

“ For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).

    We really don’t belong to this messed up world anymore. We were rescued in a time-transcending rescue plan, remember, remember? So, now, we are aliens on earth- members of a truly perfect world trying to spread the truth to other humans. That is cool. In fact, I don’t think there’s anything that can make a geeky heart, (or any heart), happier.

    This all sounds like the ultimate utopia to me. God does it way better than we do. And by His grace, utopia reaches down to us.

Be encouraged! I'd love to hear any questions or comments (other than Calvinism debates), down in the comment section!
Keep on glowing in the dark,
Elora

God's Not Dead Movie Review

   Hey all! The promised post is finally here. Today, I will give a review for the recently released Christian film, God’s Not Dead. This is my first time writing and publishing a movie review, so I hope you enjoy it. If you have any thoughts on the movie, or suggestions for future reviews, please leave a comment. And if you haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t worry. I’ll stay spoiler free!

 God’s Not Dead is a movie about….well, a lot of things, actually. Though the main storyline is about a Christian college student standing up to his aggressively atheist professor, there are quite a few subplots, some of which I found even more compelling. It takes most of the movie before we start to see these plots come together, and the way they all tied together in the end was a bit weak in my opinion. However, in these scattered anecdotes, there is some very strong, moving storytelling. I felt an emotional attachment to certain characters, cared about what happened to them, and was surprised by a plot twist at the end.

  The characters of this movie are pretty black and white. In general, you can tell which people are the good guys, and which are the bad guys. This is not necessarily detrimental to the story, though, and most of them are written and acted genuinely.

 

   Theme is most definitely the core aspect of the story. There is heavy-handed Christian and apologetic content- which fits into the stories which were being told. The movie does not try to conceal its message. At all. The title is the thematic statement: God’s Not Dead. I didn’t notice too much deep, underlying symbolism, but meaning was not at all lacking. One minor element I thought may have detracted from the message was the occasional relativisation of truth-claims in the dialogue. For example, one of the characters made the statement, “to me, God’s not dead”. That seemed to push the idea of God’s existence into a relativistic domain. However, this only happened a few times, and I’m certain it wasn’t intentional. The writer(s?) wove in a few literary references, which I would not have personally brought up because of their own themes, but they seemed to fit the worldview of the characters who mentioned them. ( Of course, I try not to think about The Grapes of Wrath at all, much less mention it in my stories.) The production quality is the highest I’ve seen in a Christian movie probably since the film Soul Surfer came out. Music was used well, and the few special effects that were needed were believable.

  

   Overall, I don’t think God’s Not Dead is a groundbreaking movie. I do think it is a good movie. I came into the theatre expecting to be disappointed, and came out pleasantly surprised. I had a good time watching it. I’d recommend the film to anyone who wants to enjoy a well-made, Christian worldview film, and support similar endeavors in the future. That, I think, is the most exciting part of God’s Not Dead. It’s a sign that more and better things are ahead for Christian cinema (like maybe a sci-fi movie? Maybe? Perhaps I should learn how to write screenplays…).

Keep on glowing in the dark,

Elora

Here is a bonus, super-fast review!

My least favorite part of the movie: No one mentioned subatomic particles! They got so close, so many times, but they never did mention them. Alright, in seriousness, my least favorite part was the excess of break-up scenes.

My favorite part of the movie: There was a twist at the end that I actually wasn’t expecting. Some people I went to the movies with said they saw it coming, but I did not. It can be really fun to be caught off guard in stories. Also, the reporter girl’s subplot was touching, and it was cool to see cameo appearances from the show Duck Dynasty.