Ah. New Toy.

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Click to enlarge. It's so cool.

I hated it. Sheesh.

Batman movies? Yeah, they all had their high points, and on-net I liked all of ‘em, including the daffy Poison Ivy/Mr. Freeze one with too many characters and not enough story. I'm a sucker for Uma Thurman, I am sorry to admit.

X-Men movies? See: I was a fan of the original school for gifted youngsters, and I lost interest when the Sentinels grabbed Scott and Jean and took them into space and Jean “died” saving the others. But for most people that’s actually when the Golden Age of Mutant Comics started, and even with the weird adaptations made for the big screen, the movies have been faithful enough to the themes of the comics.

Spiderman: loved them – and I can’t wait for “3” even though it is jumping the shark by having too many supervillains in one movie. Fantastic Four? Well, it was better than the first try to make that movie which, thank Stan, you cannot find anywhere; it also had the benefit of really great Human Torch special effects. Hulk? Oh Booyah – it was great. Completely on the money, and true to the story if not the story lines. Daredevil? Fine in spite of Ben Affleck.

But then we come to ... Superman. This is a guy who’s back story is frankly sacrocanct in comic book terms, and frankly Christopher Reeves pretty much knocked the rest over the fence. I really like, btw, Dean Cain on the TV version, and I really like the few episodes of Smallville I have seen even though both are somewhat radical departures from the traditional view of “SuperBoy” and who Clark Kent is/was growing up.

I mean: it’s Superman. It’s not very complicated. One of the seminal issues in the mythology is that he’s a kind of an antithesis of the boy raised by wolves – he’s this son of a ridiculously-advanced humanoid culture with high moral values, and he’s raised by a Kansas farmer and his wife. You know: Tarzan was raised by apes, and that makes him all man plus enhanced by ape. Kal-El is inherently superior (inhuman) to Jonathan and Martha Kent, but in them he gains “humanity” in the purest and most archetypically-heroic sense.

With Batman and Spiderman, the deal is that the anguish is in guilt over unfulfilled responsibility. In Superman, as so perfectly captured by Mark Wade/Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come, the tension is between being perfect in every way – morally, physically, mentally – and fitting in among mere mortals who need his help but do not need his lording over them. Superman’s great attribute as a character and as a hero is that he fulfills all his responsibilities and is enriched and enriches those he is sworn to protect.

Superman is about archetypal heroic achievement. He is not a modern anti-hero. When handled properly, his is a story about the redemption of others through sacrifice. Do not hear me say that his story is about Christian virtues, because it is not. His story is made without reference to Christ. But Superman is not a tragic hero, or a modern hero: Superman is a traditional culture hero whose purpose is to advance the values of the culture he represents.

And hear me: Superman doesn’t represent Kryptonian values. When Shuster and Siegel invented him in the last century, he was invented to stand for, and I quote, “Truth, Justice and the American Way” (TJAW). And that’s not TJAW as you might see it with warts and pimples at the bus stop: That’s TJAW as idealized in the American culture of the 30’s and 40’s.

Now, so what? I’m into page 2 here according to WORD, and I haven’t even told you what I hate so much. Geez: I went to Superman Returns last night, and I absolutely hated it.

Now, let’s be fair. It had some great moments. Clark’s flashback to his days as a boy in Kansas was really fun. Superman dealing with a somewhat-traditional predicament that Lois got herself into was frankly a visual treat for the comic book fan – the details were impeccable from the rate at which his cape flapped in the wind and the way his body cracks the sound barrier when he was flying to the way the metal crinkled when he saved the day. Just plain cool.

But not enough to save the movie. See: Clark Kent is not Peter Parker. Clark is not Bruce Wayne. He’s a very smart Midwestern guy who grew up on a farm with two loving parents, and frankly he’s not an emotionally-disturbed person. In the 70 years or so of stories about him, the ones that work recognize that his greatest problem is that it protects the people around him to conceal his true identity and that his #1 motivation in life is to protect the people around him.

Goofy Clark is the way Superman protects Lois from the danger of being, for example, the father of Superbaby. Goofy Clark is the way Superman protects Martha and Jonathan from the schemes of Lex Luthor. Goofy Clark is the way Superman protects the Daily Planet from being the epicenter of supervillian revenge efforts (as if it wasn’t already). Goof Clark is important to Superman in practice.

And this movie frankly has no idea about this. Yes: Clark acts goofy in this movie. The problem is that Superman doesn’t seem to understand why Clark acts goofy, and he personally has violated and is still violating the hedge of protection Clark creates for the people he cares about.

Goofy Clark is about the moral imperative Superman lives out in protecting others – because as much as he is doing a lot of protecting, the people he is close to must be protected from Superman. Everyone knows the Parker maxim, right? “With great power comes great responsibility.” In Spidey’s case, the application is “you can’t forget that you need to use your powers to do more than make a buck.”

In Clark’s case, the application is, “you cannot let your powers overwhelm those who are around you.” Dude: He’s Superman. He can change the orbit of planets; he can fly back in time; you can’t hurt him unless you have Kryptonite, and even then he’s impossible to kill. I promise you: he can kick your asterisk-dollarsign-dollarsign. If Clark was not careful, and aloof, and distant, and kind, and smart, somebody would be trying to make a god-emperor out of him. So he interacts with people as Goofy Clark, and when they are in a fix they can’t fix themselves he puts on the blue tights and a cape and the big red “S” and goes out there and fixes it up. And they love him because he always leaves on a high note – he never wears out his welcome, and he doesn’t let anyone ask too many questions.

This Superman stays too long. You may think that ironic as some of the reviews out there are complaining that he doesn’t have a lot to say, but I’m not talking about his willingness to break out into monologue. I’m talking about his history of involvement with Lois – which, I admit, is a sort of rethinking of what happened in the original Christopher Reeves movies. Problematically, though, the Chris Reeves Superman knows what I am talking about here, and he broke it off with Lois before she got hurt. This guy in this movie comes back and sneaks around people’s lives as if he really would like to get involved in a different way than he knows he is able. You know: Peter Parker follows Mary Jane around in Spider-gear because he’s too much of a dork to ask her out; Batman skulks around the city because he’s a brooding misanthrope. Clark doesn’t have the emotional baggage these losers have, and for him to be creeping around Lois’ house in the dark is just … it violates the Vulcan T’Hain’s Dictates of Poetics: A character’s actions must flow inexorably from his or her established traits.

All my other objections to this movie – which have a moral flavor to them – stem from the fact that this version of Superman was clearly generated by people who don’t know anything about what Superman represents as a character, or who Clark Kent is.

Go see it or don’t: just don’t talk to me about it because I really have nothing good to say.

Dippy

I promised part 5 of the "Another Dip" series for this week, and I got overloaded at work. Sorry, folks. I should have some down-time over the long weekend to get a couple of posts together on this topic so those of you who are being edified by it can stop mumbling curses at me as you pray for my sanctification.

Thanks for your patience.

It's like a slap in the face

I have been added to the Boar's Head Tavern blogroll. I just saw it on Technorati.

They really know how to hurt a guy, I swear. If I didn't have other things to do today, I'd have a little protest or funeral or something.

When the Pyros and Steve Hays come by to get my TR decoder ring and ceremonial hat, I won't even be able to face them. And Gummby! How am I going to explain this to Gummby and Carla and Nate ... and JIBBS?! Faithful JIBBS! Is this how I repay your years of toadying servility?

I'm not sure I can live with myself. I think I am a victim of my own candor.

Doesn't this violate Rule 40 or something?

Who is my Neighbor?

I was reading this essay by Larry Elder, and it made happy.

the multitude of invalids

We use iTunes to shuffle music in the bookstore, and in among the various bits of music I have mixed in the reading of Scripture – from the Listener’s Bible [NIV] by Max McLean. One of my particular favorites is this passage from John 5 [ESV]:

2Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3In these lay a multitude of invalids--blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

6When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?"

7The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me."

8Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." 9And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now, there’s a lot more to this story – like the apparent offense the Jews take at Jesus healing on the Sabbath, and the working of the Father through the Son – but I want to take a look at something else here for a second.

The first thing is this: there’s nobody in their right mind who would say that the invalid in this story cures himself. He has been an invalid for 38 years, right? And when he answers Jesus’ question “Do you want to be healed,” he has enough sense to say, “I have no one to put me into the pool” – that is, I cannot heal myself; what I want is help because I cannot help myself.

Another thing to take note of is this: there is also nobody in his right mind who is preaching from this passage that Jesus is being cruel to others by healing this man only. One thing apparent to anyone who can read English is that at the pool, in the 5 roofed colonnades, are “a multitude of invalids – blind, lame and paralyzed”. Yet Jesus does not walk out there and lay hands on everyone: he speaks to one man, and it is one man who offends the religious leaders for his disobedience on the Sabbath; and the accusation (if you read on in your Bible – I didn’t paste it here) of the Jews is that Jesus healed this one man on the Sabbath. Jesus’ love is not put into question here over healing one and not all even though it is readily evident that he has only healed one and not all.

You can draw your own conclusions from that, but the next time someone wants to have an argument with you about how God can be loving or merciful if he doesn’t treat everyone identically, open your Bible up to John 5 and talk about this passage.

The Nutter's nutter

Read this post from Mark Dever, and then consider the fact that he's the kind of nutter we should all strive to be.

Let me tell you something: I am teaching a 4-part series at church which ends next week, and I am stunned -- STUNNED! -- by the people who are somehow hearing the message of Jesus Christ as if it was real for the first time!

When we cover the definition of the Gospel next week, I promise you some heads will be turned. May God protect my mouth as we speak of the work of His son to those in His church.

Another Dip [4.5]

I gave you-all a head-fake in the last installment because I said out next installment in this series was going to be Ignatius to the Philippians. Before I get to that, let’s keep something in mind: this series is not as simple as it seems on the surface. One of the big reasons you don’t see a lot of books on this subject is because the primary question – which is, “What did the Ante-Nicene Fathers write?” – is somewhat complicated. It’s not that we don’t know who they are: it’s that there are a lot of issues regarding which letters are real and which are fakes. In Schaff’s ANF, for example, he lists all the genuine letters and all the forgeries but for the most part separates which are which in the intro to the sections.

See: the forgeries have some value as historic documents when they are properly dated, but they’re not very useful for determining what the alleged author had in mind because the alleged author is not the actual author. That seems rudimentary, but it’s part of the reason this series goes so slow: I’d rather talk about the non-phony letters and discourses than all of them as if they all had the same kind of usefulness, but sorting through takes time and attention.

Which, by the way, is why Ignatius to the Philippians was a head-fake: I personally had not been reading far enough ahead, and if it had not been for an alert reader (Jason Engwer) I might have made a research error because I got in a rush to get the next item up in the series. Ignatius to the Philippians is a forgery, so it will not be the next letter in the series.

As I said up above, if this was an easy walk, every kook with a baptismal axe to grind would have his own survey of ECFs posted and QED’d. And because what I do full-time is not research ECFs or church history, I appreciate your patience.

Part 5 of this series will be up this week.

Speak Easy

The Gadfly Collection just broke out with a franchise.

Open Letter

Dear Dr. Caner;

When I heard that someone of your reputation and position was willing to debate James White and Tom Ascol regarding the Reformed doctrines of grace, I was very excited over the prospect that there would be a substantive exchange on this subject -- and, I might add, "FINALLY!"

To my regret, as I have watched the preparation for this debate, I am afraid that whatever happens in October will be nothing of the kind. I think it is curious that, in your most recent e-mail to Dr. White, you have claimed a "high ground" position of "biblicist" when your proposed (and at this point, I think it is rightly called "demanded") thesis statement reads like this:

That God is an Omnibenevolent God to all of humanity through salvation and opportunity.

Now, I have opened up my on-line concordance, and have searched the KJV, HCSB, ESV and NIV -- and I can't find the word "omnibenevolence" (or any of its cognates, like "Omnibenevolent") anywhere in the Bible. To give you the benefit of the doubt, I also could not find the phrase "all good" describing God, even though you and I would certainly agree that God is Good and the giver of all good things, and that He is Just, and Loving, and Merciful, and Longsuffering, and Kind, and He never changes. God is certainly "all good" even if the Bible never uses those exact words to describe Him.

Can you really believe that your method of reading the Bible is so much more superior than Dr. White's that your theological word has a biblical basis, but (as one example) his theological word "monergism" does not? Your tunnel vision on this matter is disturbing because it betrays not only ignorance of your opponent's views, but ignorance of the method by which you yourself reach your own conclusions.

Please: for your own sake, take an hour this summer to reconsider your own preparation for this debate. You are coming into this meeting almost completely unprepared, with little or no understanding of the reformed position regarding God's decrees or calling of men. It would be of great interest to the larger Christian community if your encounter with Dr. White and Pastor Ascol included a substantive knowledge of the reformed position but with a commitment and conviction for any of the libertarian counter-claimants to a systematic understanding of the Gospel, and you could engage in something more than calling Ascol and White "two Jonahs who sink the ship", or (as you have done already) reformed "ilk".

This is an opportunity for you -- if you are right about the reformed position -- to overcome evil with good, and to speak the truth in love. And if you are wrong, this is your opportunity to live on the right side of Proverbs 12:1 and to make peace with a brother in Christ. But neither of these things can happen if you don't really know what you're talking about.

Consider it: what if I was arguing against Islam and one of my claims against it was that it makes no recognition of the Bible at all? What if I was arguing against Judaism and I was arguing that one of its substantive flaws is that it doesn't recognize the necessity of sacrifice for atonement of sin? Would I be arguing against the other position, or against my ignorant understanding of the other position?

You are making errors of this scope and category right now in your public views against reformed theology. For your own sake, and your own reputation, please read something about this subject other than Dave Hunt's illegitimate scholarship on the subject. I have a short list of short books you might find helpful:

Justification of God, John Piper (ISBN#0801070791)
Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God, J.I. Packer (ISBN#083081339X)
The Five Points of Calvinism, David Steele (ISBN#0875528279)
Calvinism, HyperCalvinism and Arminianism, Crampton & Talbot (ISBN#0977851605)

Only the Piper books is academically dense; the rest are frankly easy reads and could get anyone inside the actual issues of the matter in about 2 hours each.

Please consider this.

I leave you in Christ's name and in His hands,

~centuri0n