Evan Almighty

A new film due out on August 3rd, about a modern day Noahs Ark, there are some good links and resources on the re:jesus website .

The Hollywood Jesus site has a review of the film, and a link to an interesting interview with the director, Tom Shadyac.

It sounds like God (played by Morgan Freeman) has most of the best lines: "you want to change the world, son, so do I." Wonder how many people in Gloucestershire will want to see it....

John Simpson on suffering

Richard Franks ever-excellent blog links today to a piece by John Simpson, the BBC correspondent, on the change in his attitude to suffering following the recent birth of his son. For one who's been in on most of the major conflicts of the last 30 years, and seen so much war and destruction, it's quite striking to hear what he says.

Fresh Expressions of disagreement

Stumbled across an interesting 'debate' this morning, via things like this:

I think the basic idea is to question some of the buzz-words in what's called the emerging church movement (which has some overlap with what the CofE/Methodists call Fresh Expressions), and to put up a few warning signs. It's easy to use words and jargon phrases without really thinking them through, and to end up falling into a big hole a result. I must confess, I've been talking with people recently about letting 'church' emerge from the activity of mission, rather than having a pre-set form. However, is saying 'we want to be open to new ways of being the church' is also another way of saying 'we don't know how it's supposed to work?' It could be, if we're not careful. Just seeing this poster makes me think that I need to do a bit more thinking on church and mission before going round talking like I'm some kind of expert.

Here's another one, also quite potent, especially given what's in the picture.

You can find the whole set of 20 here, including one involving U2 that was a bit too close for comfort!! If you've read some stuff on the emerging church, they'll make sense, if not, several of them will be quite bewildering.....

They don't tell the whole truth, but I like the discussion they're trying to kick off. If you want to follow the discussion, some of it is happening at tallskinnykiwi, one of the most popular emerging church blogs.

Welcome Aboard

Good to see that Ian Green has joined the ranks of reverend bloggers in Yeovil. Ian's the Baptist church minister in town, and you can find his new blog at

http://iancgreen.blogspot.com/

I think that now makes 3 church leaders blogging in Yeovil, Nigel Coke-Woods being the other. St. Johns Yeovil has gone one better and put all their sermons on the web. If you want to be edified, go to http://www.sjayeovil.co.uk/ and click on 'Sermons and Talks'

Unfortunately, Blogger, who host this site, have got rid of the feature which allows you to click any word in someone's profile and see who else mentions it. I used this a few months ago to find out who else was blogging in Yeovil, but it's now disabled. If anyone knows of any other new Yeovil blogs done by Christians, let me know.

Heroes

Heroes is the latest serial to come over from the US trailing awards in its wake, and has been relentlessly plugged by the BBC in advance of the 1st 2 episodes on BBC2 last night. It starts promisingly enough, and confirms the sci-fi/fantasy genre as TV's preferred medium for exploring spiritual issues....

"Where does it come from, this quest... this need to solve life's mysteries when the simplest of questions can never be answered?
Why are we here?
What is the soul?
Why do we dream?
Perhaps we'd be better off not looking at all: not delving, not yearning.
But that's not human nature, not the human heart. That is not why we are here.
Yet still we struggle to make a difference, to change the world, to dream of hope, never knowing for certain who we will meet along the way...who among the world of strangers will hold our hand... touch our hearts...and share the pain of trying."

And immediately we are into a multilayered drama which seems to be asking spiritual questions, woven around a kaleidoscope of characters who all seem to be discovering supernatural powers around the time of a solar eclipse. What links them, and how they might be able to come together to stop a nuclear explosion in New York (predicted by one of the number who foretells the future with his paintings), seems to be the initial set-up. There's stuff about destiny, value, gifts and calling etc. Unfortunately they couldn't resist throwing in a serial killer storyline, and as its a TV drama the killer has to go about his business in a more gruesome and bizarre way than the serial killer in the last TV series. So I won't be watching any more, which I have mixed feelings about - I'd like to watch it, but I'd also like to watch TV that doesn't leave me feeling polluted.

In the meantime, it's fun to work out how many other shows Heroes borrow from to make it's own cake: mysterious symbols (Lost), humans evolving into having super-powers (X-men), shadowy suited men trying to thwart the heroes (X-files, Matrix), the heroes having a mysterious destiny that they still have to discover (Matrix), a race against time (24), the mass cast with multiple back stories (Lost), and so on.

The good news is that, since it's already been shown in the USA, if you want to know what happens without having to look at dismembered bodies just go to http://www.tv.com/heroes/show/17552/summary.html
and there's a blow by blow account of every episode.

Deathly Hallows discussions

If you don't fancy trawling through the 10,000 or so comments on places like Mugglenet or Leaky Cauldron, there are other Potter discussions going on exploring the Christian allegory aspect of Deathly Hallows, and a whole bunch of other things too:

Harry Potter, Catholic Boy looks like it was posted a while ago, but is v helpful in getting into the symbolism of the books and what some of the Latin stuff really means. Lupin as St. Francis? Enlightening.

http://hogwartsprofessor.com/ has some pretty profound discussions going on, which get a bit beyond me once folk start talking about the parallels in Greek mythology, but plenty to chew on and respond to here.

Hollywood Jesus, who do a lot of good stuff on film and culture, posted this article after book 6 on Harry as a Christ figure, makes interesting reading in the light of book 7!

a thread from the 'sword of griffindor' blog explores whether HP experiences parallel temptations to those of Matthew 4. In fact, once people have drawn the conclusion that Rowling is a new Tolkien/Lewis they seem to see allegories of Jesus everywhere... There's also this article http://swordofgryffindor.com/2007/06/08/loving-lupin-dumbledore-harry-and-jesus/ which also looks at the Christian angle.

Is JK Rowling a Christian? is explored here. This blog, http://beholdaphoenix.blogspot.com/ is dedicated to Christian themes in Harry Potter and has links to similar sites elsewhere. The author posted on the site, 2 days before the book release, a speculation that HP would die and rise again. 10 points.

soon I'll just start posting about normal stuff again.

HP Source

Have just been emailed by someone asking me to stop mentioning H**** P****r as they've not finished the book yet. Apologies to people who's enjoyment my blog has ruined, can I ruin it some more? MORE SPOILERS FOLLOW, BEWARE!

Interesting to see that the Harry/Jesus/Aslan connection has been picked up in the discussion threads at Leaky Cauldron and the other main HP fan sites. Some of the tone seems to be 'couldn't Rowling think of a better way to wrap things up?', and maybe the fact one of the most creative and original storytellers of her generation falls back on the death/resurrection motif says that really, you can't top the old old story.

Another theme which has been buzzing around for me in the last day or two, of the absent saviour. For most of the book Harry is pursuing his own quest to destroy Voldemort in secret, hiding away for fear of discovery and capture. His absence creates space for others to step into leadership and to grow into their potential. One small group starts up a pirate radio station, another trio takes on the leadership of the resistance at Hogwarts. We see a significant stage in the growth of one character (Neville), who in book 1 is portrayed as a wimpy weakling, into someone who is strong, courageous, and a leader of others. He's got there through the encouragement of friends (Harry and co), and his own hard work at overcoming his weaknesses, as well as discovering what he is good at. By the end of the book, he is a professor at the school.

Lots of links there to how the disciples are challenged to keep faith with Jesus even when he wanders off, or does things they don't understand, and how God's people as a whole before, and after Jesus, face the challenge of keeping faith with a saviour who we don't see, but have to trust. We carry on doing his work, in the hope that he will return and complete the job. In the meantime, the very absence of the saviour creates space for God's people to grow into their full potential. 'You will bear much fruit, because I am going to the Father'.

the ad for this years main Alpha launch in the autumn. Clever. Had a planning meeting for a town-wide launch for Alpha in Yeovil today, lasted 5 minutes on the steps of the church as we couldn't get in. Uncomfortable, but highly efficient!