I'm not typically into "the awards season" as a co-worker called it yesterday. But, after hearing which films were awarded Golden Globes last night, I felt compelled to provide my commentary on them. You can go
here for a list of the winners. The three awards I feel deserve commenting are these:?
Brokeback Mountain, Winner of Best Picture - Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Song.
Summary, from IMDB.com:
An epic love story set against the sweeping vistas of Wyoming and Texas, Brokeback Mountain tells the story of two young men - a ranch-hand and a rodeo cowboy - who meet in the summer of 1963, and unexpectedly forge a lifelong connection, one whose complications, joys and tragedies provide a testament to the endurance and power of love.
In case you live in a cave, the "lifelong connection" isn't exactly of the "just friends" variety.
In case you live in a cave, the "lifelong connection" isn't exactly of the "just friends" variety.Capote, Winner of Best Actor in a Leading Role - Drama for Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Summary, from IMDB.com:
In 1959, Truman Capote, a popular writer for The New Yorker, learns about the horrific and senseless murder of a family of four in Halcomb, Kansas. Inspired by the story material, Capote and his partner, Harper Lee, travel to the town to research for an article. However, as Capote digs deeper into the story, he is inspired to expand the project into what would be his greatest work, In Cold Blood. To that end, he arranges extensive interviews with the prisoners, especially with Perry Smith, a quiet and articulate man with a troubled history. As he works on his book, Capote feels some compassion for Perry which in part prompts him to help the prisoners to some degree. However, that feeling deeply conflicts with his need for closure for his book which only an execution can provide. That conflict and the mixed motives for both interviewer and subject make for a troubling experience that would produce an literary account that would redefine modern non-fiction.
In case you live in a cave, "partner" doesn't mean co-worker in this case.
Transamerica, winner of Best Actress in a Leading Role - Drama for Felicity Huffman, who also happens to star in Desperate Housewives.
Summary from IMDB.com:
Bree, a pre-operative, male-to-female transsexual, holds down two jobs and saves every penny so that she can pay for one last operation that will make her a woman at last. One day, however, she receives a strange phone call. It appears that on the other side is Toby, apparently her son, who must be the product of a somewhat clumsy sexual encounter years ago when she was a man. He stays in New York, incarcerated. Bree flies from Los Angeles to New York in order to get the boy out of jail. At first she is reluctant to do so, but her therapist convinces her to face up to her past. The boy is handed over to her without a word of explanation and Toby believes the woman to be some Christian missionary determined to convert reprobates to Jesus; Bree sees no reason to clear up the misunderstanding. However, she finds out that the boy just wants to escape from her and hitchhike to Los Angeles. She persuades him to accompany her back to the west coast–secretly planning to leave him at his stepfather's along the way. Toby is happy to take her up on her offer.
Even if you live in a cave, I probably don't have to explain any of this to you. Continue reading this post »
"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
-Mother Theresa
With the exception of Zac Taylor, very little good has ever come out of Oklahoma. That being said, I was very impressed with Tom Coburn, a Republican senator from the Okie state, when I heard his remarks in Monday's opening round of the Biden, Durbin, & Kennedy Three Ring Circus, err, I mean Judge Alito's confirmation hearings. For most of the day on Monday, I thought Kennedy had just brought a tape-recording of his testimony during the Robert Bork confirmation hearings. Mark my words, between now and the end of the hearings, Kennedy will issue a statement about "Samuel Alito's America" consisting of predictions about women's rights being taken away, African Americans being sent back to plantations, cats and dogs living together, and Democrats, women, the disabled, and minorities having their birthdays taken away if Alito is confirmed.
But, back to the distinguished senator from the great state of Oklahoma (did I really just write that?). A complete transcript of his opening remarks is available here. But, this is the part that really caught my attention:
As I've listened today, we've talked about the unfortunate, the frail. The quotes have been "fair shake for those that are underprivileged." We've heard "values, strong, free and fair, progressive judiciary." We've heard "the vulnerable, the more unvulnerable (sic), the weak, those who suffer… the fact is that you can't claim, in this Senate hearing, to care for those that are underprivileged, to those that are at risk, to those that are vulnerable, to those that are weak, to those that suffer and, at the same time, say I don't care about those who have been ripped from the wombs of women and the complications that have come about throughout that.
First of all, I was pleasantly surprised that a politician would be so forthright and bold in addressing this issue. You can't really read his comments any other way, and it's refreshing to see a senator take a position that there is no way they can back away from.
Continue reading this post »
My friend Keith Ghormley
makes a good point about the character Mr. Eko on the show LOST. Mr. Eko is the only Christian character on the show, at least in any relevant sense, and he also happens to be Nigerian. There are other characters that seem to be "religious" in the same way that some people are blonde or like caramels. It's kind of part of who they are, but it doesn't make that much of a difference.
Contrast that with Mr. Eko. He knows the Bible (can you honestly say that YOU know ANYTHING about the book of 2nd Kings?), his faith impacts his life in a real and powerful way, and he is "different" than the other characters. That is not to say that he's the perfect example of what a Christian should be, but Keith makes the point that there is something about Eko that is "otherworldly, powerful, and mysterious."
Compare that with the milk-toast Christianity that is extremely commonplace in America. We throw silver fish symbols on our cars, wear W.W.J.D. bracelets (next to our yellow "Live Strong" ones), and go to church a few times a month. But, the bottom line is that American Christianity is a rather tame animal, the "stuffed kitten alternative to the African Lion" in Keith's words.
It says a lot about American Christianity that the writers of this show had to turn to Africa for their bold, powerful, courageous Christian character. Again, as Keith points out, this is just the perception of the writers, but "this perception says something about the American Christian that doesn't rhyme with 'well done thou good and faithful servant.'"
You can check out Keith's blog, The Presbyteer, for yourself. It's pretty interesting, including some pretty cool photography.
There has been a lot of talk this year as to whether or not the 2005 USC Trojans were the
best college football team ever. I guess
last night's game went a long way in answering that question for us. Of course, USC should still be considered among college football's greatest dynasties because they won back-to-back national championships in '04 and '05, at least according to the AP and the NY Times. And, I know I believe everything the media has to say, especially if it's from the New York Times, although, I seem to remember LSU winning the BCS game in 2004 and USC playing in the third-place game that year. I wonder how that works out…?
What I don't understand is why this question keeps coming up. I thought everybody knew that the 1995 National Championship winning Cornhuskers were the best team ever. Jeff Sagarin says so, end of story. That team was amazing on both sides of the ball, and their season culminated with a 62-24 win over #2 Florida in the Fiesta Bowl.
ESPN spent a lot of airtime this season discussing how different historical teams would have fared against one another. Here?s my analysis of the ?95 Huskers versus a number of different opponents:
?95 NU 63
?05 USC 28
*Comments: USC?s defense is at least 1 point worse than Florida?s in ?95, probably more. Also, the ?95 Blackshirts make the ?05 Longhorn defense look like the Red Hat Society in terms of speed, strenght, and swagger. USC scores at least 10 fewer points on the 'Shirts than the 'Horns. Leinart leaves the game in the third quarter after Jared Tomich collapses his facemask so severely that it actually breaks Matty Boy?s nose.
?95 NU 87
?05 TX 21
*Comments: NU scores 12 TDs and a field goal after a drive stalls due to a phantom holding penalty against Adam Treu. Vince Young scores two on the ground and one in the air. No field goals for TX, obviously, since their kicker sucks.
?95 NU 14
?86 Chicago Bears 13
*Comments: NU gets touchdowns from Frazier on an option keeper and Tyrone Williams on an INT off of Jim McMahon which he promptly takes back to the house. Bears offense struggles all night, and Walter Payton tells reporters after the game that he hasn?t seen a defense this relentless in his entire career. The Bears kick two field goals in the first half, and then pull within one point on a TD by The Fridge late in the 4th quarter. Unfortunately, the 2 point conversion is not an option in the NFL at this time, and the Bears lose by one.
?95 NU: 0
?Eternal God of the Universe: Infinity
*Comments: The only entity in the history of the Earth who could possibly beat that ?95 team would be the Sovereign God of the universe. He is God, after all, which puts the Cornhuskers at a significant disadvantage.
My friend Dan Dittman raises an interesting point, though. Can God create a football team so powerful that he can't beat it? Interesting question, Dan. Well done.
In an effort to understand "the other side," I browsed around a few Arminian websites just to get a feel for what they believe and their reasons for believing it. First, let me just say that I was surprised to learn that Calvinists and the Boogey Man are cut from the same cloth. One site,
baptistfire.com, actually has an
entire section of their website devoted to warning Baptists of the impending doom Calvinists are bringing into "The Church" (for those of you that don't know, that's the Southern Baptist Convention). The main recurring theme is that Calvinism is contrary to evangelism, and that a church will grow stagnant and eventually die if Calvinism is allowed to creep in unchecked.?
One of the most troubling of these articles was written by Bobby Welch, the current President of the Southern Baptist Convention. In his church's newsletter, Welch gives a lengthy excerpt from a paper by Dr. Steve W. Lemke, Provost and Professor ad New Orleans Baptist Theology Seminary. In this paper, Lemke addresses the question of, "How does Calvinism and great commission evangelism connect?"
Lemke's premise, like so many misguided Arminians before him, is that Calvinism pours water on the fires of evangelism. His route to proving this theory is an interesting one. He and a colleague "compared the baptism, worship attendance, and membership patterns" from 2004 in Southern Baptist churches that are endorsed by Founder's Fellowship. The study produced "startling results" in his opinion, though one should not be surprised that Lemke's study miraculously supported his ideology. Please feel free to read the entire article if you would like, but I will do my best to summarize his findings below. To be fair, I should also point out that Lemke was rather gracious to Calvinists in most sections of the full paper, with the exception of his handling of Calvinists and evangelism.
Here's a look at the data Lemke compiled. He found that not a single one of the Founders churches (FCs) had more than 40 baptisms, and 80% had fewer than 10. Their baptism-to-member ratio was 1:62, compared with 1:42 in "normal" Southern Baptist churches (nSBCs). Over 42% of the FCs had fewer than 100 members, compared to 24% of nSBCs. He also found that FCs were 10% more likely to be "plateaued or declining" than nSBCs. He then politely lists George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and D. James Kennedy as token Calvinist evangelists, though Spurgeon was peculiarly left off of the list (the Prince of Preachers happened to be Baptist AND a 5-point Calvinist). Lemke then urges us to "look at the hard evidence" when we try to judge Calvinism's impact on evangelism.
Man, based on such "hard evidence," what is a Calvinist to do? As for myself, I'm headed straight to CBD.com to grab a copy of Chosen But Free as fast as I can. Continue reading this post »
Since New Year's Day is being observed today, I thought we could all use some help toward our list of "resolutions."
Jonathan Edwards came up with some good ones, and you can read his Resolutions here.
Also, did any one else think it was odd to have nary a bowl game on January 1st this year? Strange. Very strange.
RSS 2.0
