Tag: movies

Our Need For Stories

What in us drives us to create stories? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have my own section at TheologyWeb.com and I invite you to check it out. A few days ago, I made a post about the problem of good vampires. What I am finding amazing about this is that there is a real discussion going on. Sometimes, it’s incredible to see what people comment on.

Just now I was watching The Big Bang Theory with one character asking about zombies. What happens if they don’t get human flesh to eat? They can’t starve to death because they’re already dead. I’m also going through Smallville again. This is my favorite series and started with two guys saying “Let’s tell an origins story of Superman.”

Comic books are well-known for creating massive universes as well and how many times have we had movies about the origin of Batman? These stories have so many installments to them that fans debate amongst themselves for each franchise what is and isn’t canon. You can have contradictory things happen in the stories so much so that DC created the Multiverse which led to several of its own problems.

In the gaming world, I am listening to the audiobook The Greatest Stories Every Played. Talk to some of my fellow gamers and what do we remember about a lot of our favorite games? The story behind them. Would that I could have my memory wiped and go through Final Fantasy IV again for the first time.

Why do we do this? Why do we debate about things that we all know don’t exist? People debating the Legend of Zelda franchise or Marvel comics or vampires aren’t doing so because they believe these exist. Despite that, they debate them and the debates can get awfully heated. Philosophy papers can easily be written on these topics. Indeed, if you want to see some of this, just go to Amazon and type in Pop Culture and Philosophy and see all the books that come up.

As far as I am aware, we are the only species that creates stories. Do we really do that for survival? Doubtful. It is possible to survive without stories, though most of us would consider that an impoverished life. You don’t need to read fiction, but many of us spend our time investing in a world of fiction. How many people can tell you every facet of The Lord of the Rings, for instance?

Lord of the Rings also led to popular role-playing games, including Dungeons and Dragons. Why do we play these? Because we like to use our imaginations and tell stories, but not only that, we want to be in on the story ourselves sometimes. We want to think about what we would do if we were in that situation. It’s easy to watch a movie or TV show or read a book and say to the character from the comfort of our homes, “Don’t go there! Don’t open that door! Don’t trust that guy!” Role-playing games can sometimes be the closest we get to making the choice ourselves and in the case of a game like D&D, if we’re playing with friends and not an electronic version, we can’t think of what we did the last time we played the game. Every time is new.

Today, I was telling another student about my research into video games and Christianity and how I think I am going to focus on stories and quests. Most people who are gamers like myself, we enjoy our hobby, but we also want more. We want real-life adventures more. I suspect this is why men watch the movies we do. We want to be the Avengers or we want to be James Bond.

Here’s another reason I suspect we make stories, which have been going on as long as we know of. Deep down, I think we all know that there is more than just this world. We do make some stories to explain reality, like the Just So stories, but we also make stories to tell for a longing that we have that reality is greater than what we see. A materialistic world is boring. We want a world of life.

I wonder if this could be behind the end-times hysteria many people have. Could it be we so much want to be a part of a greater story that we are convinced we are living in the last generation, even though numerous generations before us said that? Surely we must play a part in this? Could it also be why the belief is so prevalent that God speaks to us individually regularly? Surely I must play a part in all of this! Surely God has something for me and I need to find out what it is.

We can say social media contributes to this by making so many of us narcissists, but social media doesn’t create the idea. It just gives it a place to shine more prevalently. Social media too often just reveals who we really already are. Why do many of us do and say things that we wouldn’t do in person? Because on social media, it’s easy to put on a mask.

Everyone already has a story. I have said before that I think you could make a major motion picture of anyone’s life, and if you have a good director and cast, it would be a major hit. It’s incredible to think how much we are spending every year making games and movies and TV shows all because people love stories!

So I will be watching the debate on vampires and the discussion back and forth and enjoying it. I will continue playing some great new stories waiting to see what happens. However, I hope to continue living out my story and remembering that the story is not about me. It’s really His story. I just play a small part in His story, but I hope it’s a contribution that will make it better.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Of Mario and Bud Light

What can we learn from both of these? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Well, there’s two things you probably never thought would be teamed up. I did go and see the Mario movie Saturday and I definitely enjoyed it. For someone who has been playing video games and been involved with Nintendo for most of my life, I saw so much that I recognized and thought that most importantly, the movie stayed true to the game series.

Not only that, but this movie is setting records and giving Disney competition. Critics are slamming it also while audiences love it, something that again tells us that critics are out of touch with America. Many of the reviews I have heard or seen slamming the movie are completely out of touch, such as asking “How does Bowser wanting to kidnap Peach and force her to marry him work with MeToo?”

Well, for one thing, Bowser is a villain….

I have heard one commentator on this say that Illumination studios did want to put some “progressive” elements in the movie, but Nintendo put their foot down and said no. Nintendo has generally tried to avoid politics. They made it clear that Mario is to be the hero of this movie. Good call, Nintendo. The critics may be laughing at the movie, but Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank.

And they have plenty more franchises that they can make movies out of. Let’s face it. We know the Legend of Zelda movie is coming.

Meanwhile, Bud Light is tanking. They have been silent on social media. Why? Because they got a fake trans activist to sponsor their beer and the consumers did not like it. Now I don’t drink alcohol, but I also don’t forbid anyone drinking it either.

Disney also had movies like Lightyear and Strange World go down. Why? Because Disney has ceased to be family-friendly and if your emphasis of your movie is “Woke”, then families are less likely to go and see it. Families did go see Mario because it was friendly to family and the generation that has families now grew up playing Mario. It was just as much for them as it was for the kids. The older generation like myself can go and see it and get great joy out of it, but there’s enough the younger generation would recognize.

Now we can sit back and say that people don’t want to see “Woke” movies, but you know what other movies they don’t want to see? Christian movies. Frankly, I don’t blame them. The only reason many of us see Christian movies is that they are Christian movies. Non-Christians don’t see them.

Why? The same reason that many of us don’t see “Woke” movies. The emphasis is on the “Woke” in those movies. They mainly want to point out that we have a gay or a trans character. Isn’t that awesome? How many people do you know say “I want to go see a movie. Which movie has a gay or trans character in it?” I remember going to see the latest Power Rangers movie, which had a character on the spectrum in it. I did not go see it because of that. I saw it because it was Power Rangers.

Let’s take this to my own specialty area of video games. There have been Christian video games. Most of us don’t know about them for good reason. They sucked for the most part. Now I did enjoy the original Wisdom Tree trilogy, but the only reason I think I picked it up was it was a Bible game. Turn it into anything else and I won’t. There was a remake of a kind of Wolfenstein game that was Noah’s Ark with him capturing animals, but if you had a choice between that or Wolfenstein, who will play the former? Only someone who already cares about the Bible. The non-Christian will go to the former every time.

A few months ago I watched a video on the history of Christianity and video games. I left a comment pointing out that the original Legend of Zelda had religious references, such as the magic book was called a Bible. Nintendo didn’t really want religious imagery, yet Link’s shield does still have a cross on it. (There is imagery in Japan that indicates Link could be a Christian.)

So let me show you some of the comments from this video and I will be removing names.

“I’m not Religious but if they actually made a bible game that was like Bayonetta, God of war or hell even something like skyrim or Breath of the wild, I’d play it”

“My dream Bible centric game: It just needs to be a reskinned Fallout New Vegas or Witcher 3 but I want Easter Eggs and Bible references out the wazoo.  So your character Ezra will be walking through the marketplace on his way to offer a sacrifice at the Temple. Off to the side are a group of men with one donkey. One of the men will be swearing up and down,” I TELL YOU THE TRUTH! THIS DONKEY SPOKE TO ME!!!” He’ll just be met with jeering and accusations of lunacy. “Balaam you’re going crazy!” Later, you’ll be traveling to the next town and you’ll encounter this Balaam and he’ll be arguing with his donkey. You’d even witness the donkey talk back and make snarky remarks. Because you’re the protagonist, the odd pair will speak freely with you. Because Balaam was a prophet, he’ll have good fortune telling abilities and maybe he’ll join your party. The main thing, the Bible has so many great stories but they’re strung along thousands of years so timelines will have to be compressed immensely.”

“I like how thia video helps evolve the meme-like concept that Christian games are bad to be more of a understanding of the approach these games are made with. They arent there to make a game; they’re there to convert…”

“I am a Christian myself but totally get that you can’t label everything in the popular media with a belief system…music, movies, AND video games, too! This is one of those videos where even reading the comments are fun! I can’t tell you the number of folks I’ve run across that make you feel like an unbeliever when you’re not also signed up for all this additional stuff. I’ve never played one of these video games–never knew they existed!–but I am thinking they stink as much as most Christian music. You just can’t force yourself to like something that you…just…don’t.”

“Would love to see an open world rpg set in the pre flood antedeluvian world that gives you free will choices.”

“I think if christians tried making a good game instead of trying too hard to make it “holy” then they could do it. Im christian and I know there are tons of themes for video games. I mean look at a game like fable. That was an amazing series that could have similar elements to an open world rpg. Like living in the days after noah when the tower of babel is being constructed and living in the harsh middle east. Christians or at that time Yahwists would have still needed to defend themselves from bandits and the like. We live in a much safer society today. Having spiritual beings influence npcs and having the main player set an area right from the influence of principalities would be cool”

Okay. I don’t want to overwhelm you. There’s plenty more. Here’s something else I notice looking through the comments. I don’t really see arguing or bickering and this is a video about Christianity! I see people coming together in agreement.

Ultimately, what’s the secret? What makes Mario a success in the movies? Why did Bud Light bomb?

Because fun should be fun. When people want to do something fun, they generally don’t want a political or religious message thrust upon them. There’s a reason a lecture is referred to as “preaching.” Preaching is in a sense synonymous with boring.

Nintendo followed a simple concept. They made the movie fun. They made it something people will want to see and tell their friends to see and take their own families too.

And notice something from the comments Christians. If we made games and movies that were fun and not just thrusting Christianity down peoples’ throats, they would play it. It doesn’t matter if it’s Bible-based or not. What matters to a gamer is “Is the game fun?”

Now I happen to like playing games that touch on philosophical issues and I like movies and TV shows like that too, but I won’t keep watching something or playing something if it is boring. My ministry partner does this in his videos. Sure. I can watch a video again if I want to go back and get his take on an idea, but I watch them for another reason. They’re fun.

What do we need to learn from this? Make media and make it Christian, but also make it fun. Make it something people will want to watch. If we don’t do that, we’re just as guilty as the “woke” crowd. When the message drowns out any enjoyment, people aren’t interested. It doesn’t matter if it’s “woke” or Christian or anything else.

Thus, i encourage us to start a revolution in this area. Make sure our content is good. If the product is good, people will be interested. If Bud Light wanted to up the sales, the way to do that was not to politicize that. The way to do that was to improve the product. Make a good product and people will buy it. Make good media and people will use it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

What Really Hurts Children

What is the real danger to children? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently, I wrote about the hysteria that comes whenever any new piece of technology comes out. It’s always argued that this will lead to the children being corrupted. The reality comes and goes and there’s no major change. Most of us look at what happened with comic books in the past as silly today. Odds are years from now today’s fear will seem silly.

But yet, no one can deny that children are being hurt. Yes. We do have problems with children committing violence and we do have problems with sexual promiscuity in children. Children often do drugs and children struggle with suicide, depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide.

It’s really easy to blame this on the surrounding culture. It’s comic books! It’s TV! It’s movies! It’s music! It’s smartphones! It’s video games! It’s the internet! I am not denying that some of these can play a part, but there is something far more influential that comes beforehand that if this gets wrong, the others are far more likely to be hazardous to children. If this gets right, they are far less likely to be hazardous.

What children most need right is a stable family.

By this also, I mean that children living with a mother and a father both, and preferably their own biological parents. I realize that sometimes this can’t happen. I have a wonderful friend who’s a widower raising children on her own which is wonderful. A cause like being widowed suddenly due to a tragedy often cannot be helped.

Technically on my end, my sister is my step-sister as we have the same mother, but my mother left an abusive marriage and remarried my father and I come from that one, but my Dad has never treated my sister like any less of his own flesh and blood. I never got preferential treatment growing up that way. You could ask my sister and she would say the same thing.

Today, divorce is often prevalent because if the parents aren’t happy, well surely the children aren’t. Often, with a bad divorce, it doesn’t change the happiness of the children. Sometimes what they want most is their parents to work matters out and it can set the path for them to do the same.

If anyone thinks that’s what happened on my end, no. You can ask most anyone and I fought tooth and nail for my marriage and this was even when wise people told me I should seek divorce. I always said no. If it ended, it would be on her end, but I also told her when she was telling me she was going to divorce that I didn’t want her to do that, but if she sent me papers I would sign them. I wasn’t going to hold her hostage or anything.

Children can wrestle with abandonment over divorce and issues of trust. One reason I am sure of this personally besides my own reading on the topic is I am 42 and divorced and I still wrestle with this as a result of my divorce. It’s far harder when you’re a child who doesn’t have a fully developed cognitive faculty to know how to handle this or a whole worldview behind it. I remember the story of a man in his senior years who at the age of five had his Dad kill himself and he still wondered why his Dad didn’t want him.

Don’t think that just having the right parents is all that matters either. No. Invest in your children. If your children are engaging in media you think is harmful, talk to them about it. Find out why they like it. What are they really gaining out of it?

Don’t think also that if you’re in ministry, you can bypass this. You can’t. Some people can be so committed to ministry that they fail to be committed to their own families. I hate saying it, but Billy Graham was even like this. There’s an account of how he left his wife behind sick once because he had to preach somewhere. If children think your ministry matters more to you than they do, they are more prone to resent your ministry and the God that ministry is about.

Children need to be invested in. We can often think that if we take them to church every Sunday, which we should, then we’re okay, but it needs to be more. Christianity needs to be lived in the home. It needs to be shown. Christians need to do actions that will speak love to their children.

If this is actively going on, you have far less to be concerned about with the media around them. I have been in the world of video games since I was in kindergarten, and yet I have never had a violent streak or anything like that. I was a virgin until I married and will be one, God willing, until I marry again. I never use profanity and I have never had a drug problem. I have struggled with anxiety and depression, but overall, my upbringing has been very helpful for me.

Also, if you are someone alone raising a child, get them involved with someone who can be a role model of their own sex. If you are a man raising daughters, find a woman who is a role model for them and vice-versa for a woman raising sons. Let them know how they are to be.

Your children are yours and they are to be a great investment. You will be the greatest influence on their life. Use it well.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Avoiding Hysteria Over Children

What is really putting our children in danger? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When I was doing through Alexander Kriss’s book, he referred to another book I am going through now called Grand Theft Childhood and the authors are arguing, and I agree, that there is no link between violent video games and violence. I finished a chapter yesterday taking a look through history. There is a trend and the first three people mentioned are people cited in the book, but the rest are not.

First, there was the introduction of books like dime novels and others and of course, this led to a fear over some of the material therein. Anthony Comstock was the main one behind this fear and Comstock laws are named for him. After all, look at the sex and violence. Something odd about this was the Horatio Alger books were written to teach better morals, despite Alger being a Unitarian minister who sexually abused boys. At the end of the day, Comstock insisted that this would lead to rampant poor behavior among the young.

Then it came time for the film industry and even silent films and Henry James Foreman was the main voice here. He wrote Our Movie Made Children which had the exact same fear. Children would see movies about gangsters and people like this and then go out and do what they saw.

After this came comic books and once again, here was someone raising the alarm. This time, it was Fredric Wethram with his book Seduction of the Innocent. (I am planning on getting any book by these people for further research purposes.) Comic books were seen as what would lead to degeneracy and figures like Batman and Robin were obviously in a homosexual relationship. One wonders what Wethram would think about comics today. (And interestingly, apparently, when comics try to make an established superhero gay, it doesn’t sell well at all. The first issue could do well, but no one follows the story as it goes on to other issues.)

A few years later, you had Dungeons and Dragons and The Devil’s Web from Pat Pulling who saw herself as an expert on the occult after the tragic suicide of her son. Fortunately, there was someone like Michael Stackpole who wrote The Pulling Report, which you can read here. Again, the danger is always towards the children.

Then you have writers like Phil Phillips come later who wrote Turmoil in the Toy Box and Saturday Morning Mind Control. You have writers like Phil Arms, who I have reviewed, and you have so much fear and obsession over the Harry Potter books. No matter what, when something new comes out, it’s dangerous and will destroy our children. Not a shock that gaming also has had several people do the same for it.

And then years later people look back and think, “Well, that was awfully silly”, and in reality, we are doing more a disservice to our children. Treat something as forbidden fruit and they are more prone to want to explore it and eventually, they will. They will either do it secretly in the house of their parents or they will do it on their own when they get out.

In all of this, what is missing? Are we spending time teaching a biblical worldview such that if our children encounter anything that is harmful to them, they will know to avoid it? No. Are we teaching them about a biblical view of sexuality so they can resist temptation? No. Are we teaching them about war and peace and when it is proper to use violence and when it isn’t? No.

We are living in reaction mode. This can’t be done constantly. What needs to be done first is to teach our children how to think and fend for themselves such that when new situations arise, they will know what to do. If we think that a book or a game or a movie or a TV show can destroy the faith of our children, instead of going after that thing, maybe we should be looking at building up the children instead.

This is not to say that everything in the media is well and good. I have no problem with parents evaluating what comes into their house and what their children are watching and doing and playing. I have a problem with them listening to alarmist works only and not studying themselves.

We also miss out the bigger problems. There can be contributing factors, but really the reason people sin, including you and I, is ultimately that we want to. Think of the old joke about saying “Lead me not into temptation. I’ll find it myself.” That is how we are often. We don’t need anything to influence us that way.

And speaking of gaming, if this were the case, we would expect matters to be a whole lot worse today than ever. In my Greek class this morning, my professor said he’s played video games all his life and really likes the ones about killing the enemy, but getting into a fight is repugnant to him. I prefer RPGs and I do believe in self-defense strongly, but I am definitely not a violent person. For people who do this kind of violence, usually they have issues long before they ever play a game, and many mass shooters never did games anyway.

Hysteria also leaves us looking ridiculous to the world and them less likely to hear us. It also increases our gullibility factor, much the same way as every end of the world scenario that pops up where this time, the rapture is definitely going to take place. Our focus is to be on Jesus and His message and not just reacting to what the world does. We are to be proactive instead.

No doubt, sometime in the near future, there will be another hysteria going around. I recommend you don’t get into it. Just teach your children well. Share your opinion, but listen to others around you who are Christians who disagree and find out why. Hysteria though is just living in fear, something we are to avoid.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Failure of Bros

Is this due to “homophobia”? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’ve seen on YouTube today a lot of talk about the failure of a movie called Bros. If you haven’t heard of this movie, it’s supposed to be a romantic comedy, but the lovers in this are a pair of men. This was the first of its kind and its fail was tremendous.

Billy Eichner, who is behind the movie, has sadly taken the lower path in handling this. Instead of looking at himself and looking at his movie and seeing why it is no one went to see it, he is instead blaming the audience. Why did it fail? It is because YOU must be a homophobe.

However, if that is the case, then even assuming everyone who saw the movie in America is gay, a lot of them even didn’t see it, so does that mean someone in the homosexual community is a homophobe? Eichner has also been on Twitter sending out regular tweets about this. Little tip here. If you want your audience to listen to you, it’s probably not a good idea to call them homophobes and anything else at the same time.

Well here are a lot of reasons most people didn’t go see this movie.

First, romcoms are normally meant for women. For the most part, men do not go to see romcoms unless their girlfriends or wives insist on it. Men would rather see an action flick of some kind. They want to see some fights, car chases, shootings, and something getting blown up. If they do go see a romcom, they want to at least see a beautiful woman in that movie.

A gay romcom has neither. No straight guy I know of wants to see two dudes getting it on together. Add in there are supposedly multiple orgies in this and we’re even less interested.

While men will go see action flicks wanting to be the man in the films, women go see romcoms because for the most part, they want to be romanced. They like the love story and it’s their kind of fairy tale. They are not interested in seeing two dudes either.

If you’re wanting men to go see your film, don’t make it a romcom.

Second, people don’t want to see something if they think they’re being preached to. Most people do not go to church for entertainment value and there’s a reason we’ve called a long message we don’t want to hear a sermon. There’s a reason we refer to a negative onslaught of what we ought to do as preaching. When people see a system they don’t want regularly put in their face, they lose interest. It’s the whole “Go woke, go broke.”

Consider how it is in superhero comics. Most people I know wouldn’t really care too much if someone wanted to make a gay superhero. What they don’t want is to take a traditional superhero who has never shown any inkling of being gay and then turning them gay to appeal to diversity. People go to comics for entertainment. They don’t go for politics.

Third, yes, a lot of people don’t agree with homosexuality, including myself, but it doesn’t do anything to call us all homophobes any more than calling non-Christians Christophobes is going to get them to repent or seriously examine Christianity. Instead of having any debate on the topic, instead, it is easier to just shout an insult at someone. It doesn’t help your side any.

That means when we go see a movie, we don’t want to see an orgy with a bunch of guys in it. That might appeal to the homosexual community, but not to heterosexual community. We also don’t care for a movie that tells us that we had a good run. You don’t tell us our time is done and then respond negatively when we choose to not show interest in you.

Ultimately, if people don’t like your work, no matter how passionate you are about it, you need to look to yourself. You will never have something that pleases everyone, but I have to do the same thing here. If people aren’t interacting with my content or taking it seriously, I have to look at myself mostly. Now there’s no harm in looking at my audience and asking what they want. I wrote about divorce for quite awhile, for instance, because I saw views were up on my blog when I did that. Give the people what they want.

If someone isn’t interested in my content, I can ask what I can do to make it interesting to them. I could look at my writing style or website presentation or anything else. The first place to start if someone doesn’t like my work is always with me. It is not with the audience.

So Billy, take a look at yourself. How passionate you are about the work doesn’t matter a bit. I can be super-passionate about selling overcoats, but it won’t work if I’m talking to people in the Middle East most likely. I can be super passionate about pork products, but it won’t work with Muslims or Orthodox Jews. Passion doesn’t equal success. Having a good product or service and then knowing your audience well and what they want does.

We just don’t want Bros. Time to accept that and move on.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

What Makes A Movie Bad?

Are our ideas way too simple? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently, I bought a book on Kindle by Roger Ebert called Your Movie Sucks. In it, he goes through a number of movies he thinks are really bad. I’m on the D section right now, as in alphabetical and not gradewise, and some of these movies I have seen and I disagree with. Some I haven’t seen, but I have heard enough to agree. (Battlefield Earth anyone?)

It’s really got me thinking about what makes a movie good or bad. Sometimes, we can be tempted to just look at the questionable content we could find in a movie. Consider that if you look at Ebert’s list of the best movies where he picks one for each year, one year has an R-rated film.

This film has listed as severe on IMDB, sex and nudity, as plenty of times you will see full frontal nudity. It stays on screen for a long time. There is no hiding. This movie is full of women who are naked.

The same applies for violence and gore. The movie is loaded with it. Again, this is not hidden. It is drawn out and you see it all.

And yes, the same applies to frightening and intense scenes. This movie is full of them. If you want to be comforted, you don’t see this movie.

And many Christians are saying “I would never watch something that had all of that.”

Actually, you would. Odds are you have seen it. Not only have you seen it, you think it’s an awesome movie and everyone should watch it.

This movie is Schindler’s List.

Schindler’s List contains all of this, but yet we know it’s a great movie because we understand the purpose of all of this. Why have nude women? Because that’s what happened in the holocaust when millions of Jews died. Why have violence and gore? Because the holocaust wasn’t pretty. The same applies to frightening and intense scenes. This movie should not leave you comforted or feeling good.

I have definitely seen this movie and I definitely think you should as well.

So if you go and look at just things like sex and nudity, violence and gore, frightening and intense scenes, and just go from that, you will miss out on this movie. There’s so much more to a movie than this. For one thing, let’s consider the lesson of a movie that it is trying to teach.

Christian apologist Greg Koukl has talked about Pleasantville before. This one is PG-13 so many might think it’s okay. However, he points out the lesson is that the society is improved when we break free of repression represented by 1950’s suburbia. There’s no right way to live and we need to live free lives, including full sexual expression.

There’s also worldview for Christians to consider. I have many friends who are big into science fiction and really like Star Wars and Star Trek. They are devout Christians who can discern fantasy from reality, and I am sure they would also say they do not embrace the worldview of these movies. Star Wars is greatly influenced by Eastern thought and Roddenberry of Star Trek was heavily into humanism.

For Christians, this means we need to be better at engaging the media. We need to evaluate movies not by how many times we have to use a bleep button or how many times we see a flash of skin. I am not saying these factors don’t matter and certainly if you struggle with lust or can’t take the sight of blood, there are some movies you shouldn’t see, but we need to see movies and all media as teaching tools as they all are.

When you create some piece of media, you are often trying to teach something as well. You are trying to share a piece of how you see the world. Do this right and you can have a great impact for generations. Lewis and Tolkien have had their books done into movies today even though the authors died decades ago.

Can you think of any Christian writers who are doing the same today?

Note when you watch the media presented by others, they don’t come right out and blast what their worldview is because the audience is too stupid to figure it out. You know who does that? Christians do that. When we make movies, they are usually awful. The only people who really go see Christian movies are for the most part, Christians. One great exception to this is actually The Case for Christ. Even on Rotten Tomatoes the film as of this writing has an audience score of 79% and the Tomatometer is at 61%.

It’s not enough for us to make movies that we like. We have to make movies that other people would like. How many of you would really like to take your non-Christian friends to see some Christian movies that you see? If all we’re doing is preaching to the choir, we’re not reaching anyone.

That means we have to make good material.

Considering television, recently I finished going through The Good Place on Netflix. I found this to be a highly intriguing show and no, I’m not going to tell you much about it aside from the show revolves entirely around moral philosophy. Yes. That can be in a show and it can be a good show. You can present a show that touches deep topics.

No. I’m not going to claim to know entirely what makes a movie bad or what makes a movie good, but reading Ebert’s book, I am thinking we need to make better movies. In the past, you had classics like Ben Hur and the Ten Commandments. We don’t have those today.

I also would like to see this move on to Christian music that secular people would like. Also, good Christian video games. Five Nights At Freddy’s, I understand, is made by a Christian. The Castlevania games got their name because of what a Christian said as the original name was something akin to Dracula Satanic Castle.

Also, these movies and games and anything else don’t have to be delusional and present the world as pretty and nice. We can show real evil in them because there is real evil in the world. We can show real loss because there is real loss in the world. (How many of us 25 years later can still deeply remember the death of Aerith in Final Fantasy VII?) We should be the ones showing real heroes, however. It has been said that whenever you have a hero and a villain, somewhere you have the gospel.

So I don’t close this post with any clear answers. I just know that if I see a Christian movie in this book, I’m not going to be surprised. What I would love to see is a secularist make a list of top movies to see and have Christian movies regularly be up there.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

On Celebrity Deaths

What do we do when a celebrity dies? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A little over a week ago, the world received a shock. I remember I was at work that day and I had just randomly started thinking about Betty White’s 100th birthday coming up. In the break room in the past few days before that, I had seen on what I think was Entertainment Tonight that plans were underway for her birthday party. Everyone was ready. It was coming. Let’s celebrate!

Except we didn’t. Before the new year on December 31st, Betty White died.

Then on Sunday night, I received a message from friends about the death of Bob Saget. If your family was like mine at one time, watching America’s Funniest Home Videos was a staple in the household. Bob Saget hosted that and although he was not a bit funny, we did enjoy the videos. I know he was on Full House, but I never watched that so I can’t comment.

When these people die, we mourn and it’s not because we’re normally close to them, but more I think for the nostalgia. For Betty White’s performances, I mainly watched The Mary Tyler Moore Show and I remember her from her husband being the host of Password. I never watched The Golden Girls. I have already said where I remember Bob Saget from.

I suppose you could say it’s like the past dying in some ways. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie Patch Adams, but I have not seen it once since Williams’s suicide. I suppose it’s like my own parents talking back about their past experiences and mentioning someone and saying “They’re dead now.”

Yet there are some matters that need to be said.

First off, most of these celebrities probably had plans, which is not bad, but they never got to pull them off. Saget was on a comedy tour. He had no idea his time was limited to that very night. It’s something to consider that one breath is all that separates you from eternity.

After I get done here, I will take a shower and after some time, I will go to work. I have no guarantee I will come home tonight. I don’t even have a guarantee I will get to work okay. I act like I will and I don’t think we should live in terror that we will die at any moment, but I do need to remember more often that every moment is a gift.

So let’s look at what happens next. What will happen to many of these celebrities? Will they enter into eternity with joy or will they enter it with shame? Will they love the presence of God or will they hate it? Right now, their choice is made and they are done. What would it profit them if they gained the adulation of the world and lost their souls? I’m not saying that happened for sure for either White or Saget. I can’t speak on that. I am saying it could have.

Hollywood is one of the most influential systems in the world today, and we Christians have to admit it’s full of depravity. So what are we doing about it? Do we write them off because they’re celebrities? We often treat them as gods and goddesses and our magazine racks are filled with stories about events in their lives to which I often want to say, “Who cares?” Why should anyone live vicariously through a celebrity? What difference does it make who so-and-so is dating? Don’t you have enough issues in your own life to work out?

However, these people have struggles like everyone else. They have questions and problems like everyone else. They also need Jesus like everyone else. Are we trying to influence Hollywood at all or are we just avoiding it? There is no reason Jesus Christ cannot redeem Hollywood. There is no reason He cannot use you to do it, except for one. You are unwilling to be used. That includes me as well.

When we get to Hollywood also and start making our movies, can we please also make good movies? Right now, for the most part, Christians make movies only other Christians want to see. What good would an evangelism method be that only reached other Christians and never those who don’t know Christ? One rare recent movie I understand was an exception to this was Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ.

Christian movies for the most part are universally bad and Christians go see them because they’re Christian and that’s what you do. Sadly, that’s often the reason we could give for going to church as well. What if we made them so well and they were so popular that non-Christian celebrities wanted to be in them?

There will be other celebrity deaths in 2022. Are we trying to reach these people that seem out of reach with the gospel? Do we consider that they are a breath away from eternity? Do we consider that we are?

God loves them as He loves us. Let’s show Jesus to them as we should.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Review of Paul: The Apostle

What are my thoughts on this movie? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Warning! Possible spoilers ahead!

So last night, my in-laws took Allie and I with them to see this movie. As far as Biblical movies go, I actually thought this one was very well done. I cannot really comment on the acting and such because I really just don’t normally notice that kind of thing. I pay more attention to the story.

The story is set in Rome with Paul being held as a prisoner and Luke coming to see him and staying with the Christians in the area. They are often hiding because Rome wants to kill them, especially since this is set at the time of the fire of Rome which Nero was more than happy to blame on the Christians. Christians were regularly lit on fire to provide light for Nero’s games and for any other events he had going on.

Luke meets up with Paul and encourages him to tell his story in an account, which will be the book of Acts. My question at this point is why is it that if this was meant to be Paul’s story that Luke would include so much information at the start that is not about Paul? This is a question that scholars will be debating on why Luke wrote what he wrote. Still, that is a bit nit-picky, but it’s just something I wonder.

Paul will regularly then recount events that happened prior to his coming to Rome and being a prisoner. You can see events like the stoning of Stephen and the road to Damascus. Sadly, there wasn’t much beyond that. It would be fascinating to see Paul at Mars Hill or in Ephesus casting out demons opposite the failed exorcists there or in the Philippian jail cell or in the raging ocean of Acts 27. Perhaps a fuller movie will come out sometime.

Luke also deals with the Christians in Rome who often have different attitudes with what to do. Some Christians want to take up arms and fight against Rome themselves. Some want to flee the city thinking there’s more good to be done outside. Some want to stay in the city thinking that they can still stay inside.

At this point, I find another problem I have as each person decides to do what they think God is revealing to them to do. This is common terminology in modern Christian circles today, but I don’t think it’s the way the ancients thought. It’s more of our individualism seeping through.  I always get bothered when I see something like this in a Biblical film.

The other major character is a Roman soldier who has a sick daughter and the struggles he and his wife have as the gods seem to be silent and each blames the other. This is the same soldier who also has to regularly deal with Paul. It is quite interesting how it all turns out. I leave it to you to go and see it for yourself.

Many times, Paul and Luke and others do quote Scriptural passages in the film. If you have a good Biblical knowledge, you’ll be able to recognize a number of them. Paul is seen as someone who is willing to suffer for Christ greatly. A great theme in the movie is that suffering is temporary. Eternal joy awaits instead.

Biblical movies have normally been a miss for me, but I think after Risen and now with this one, we’re getting more of a step in the right direction. I’m also thankful that a lot of the sappiness of Christian films was left out of this one. There is much suffering in the film and it should be clear to all that the Christian walk never promises freedom from it.

So yeah, I recommend going to see this one. It is an enjoyable film.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

For Christians Seeing Movies

What should we consider when we see a film? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

My wife and I have some dinner and a movie gift cards, so today we’re going to go see the new Star Wars movie and then go out for a dinner. Some of you might be surprised to learn I’m not really much of a Star Wars fan. I know the basic story, but that’s about it. We went to see Episode VII because my wife wanted to and that’s the same reason we’re seeing VIII.

So I wanted to give some advice about seeing movies. I’m not going to talk about the usual things you might expect such as sex and violence and profanity and the like. That has been said over and over. What I am saying will apply to not just movies, but to books and most any other form of media as well.

When I was a student at a Seminary, we had a professor who really loved movies and wanted to start discussions based on movies. One night at the seminary all students who wanted were invited to watch The Truman Show. I had never seen it and it was a free movie so I decided to go along.

When the movie ended, the professor came out to ask us what we thought and also to talk about the messages that we saw in the movie. Naturally, this is a room full of Christians and I have no doubt many of them wanted to impress the professor and their peers with how insightful they were. I was off sitting more by my self, but I saw student after student speak up and talk about how X was a symbol of Christ.

It’s understandable. In some ways, I think Christ figures are unavoidable in movies. Christ is the ultimate hero after all and the ultimate example of self-sacrifice. What we have to ask is if that was really what was in mind.

This gets down to how to approach any work of media in the world. When someone goes to see the new Star Wars movie, they could see images that remind them of Jesus. That doesn’t mean that that was in the mind of the producer necessarily and even if it was, it doesn’t mean that the producer of the film is trying to give a Christian message.

When you see a work in the media, try to interpret it based on what you think the author is really trying to convey first. Be honest with the work. If the author is not a Christian, he’s quite likely not trying to convey a Christian message. We would not want someone to watch The Chronicles of Narnia and try to find a Buddhist message in it. We know Lewis is talking about Jesus in it.

Also, keep in mind you can enjoy the movie. Just because a movie or a book is by a non-Christian doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it, and even still you can find some glimpses of the truest story of all in there, even if they are not really intended by the author. If the Gospel is what our hearts really long for, it will come out eventually.

If you’re going to see the new film today, have fun and enjoy it, but don’t try to turn a non-Christian film into a Christian masterpiece. Treat the work fairly.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Nintendo, Sega, and the Gospel

What do the console wars of the 80’s and 90’s have to tell us about Christianity? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A friend recently gave me a Kindle gift of the book Console Wars and I have started reading it. It’s all about the war between Nintendo and Sega in the 80’s and 90’s. Now I had always been a Nintendo guy. What made me get into Playstation also was just one thing. Final Fantasy. Reading through this book, I think back to my own growing up time and all the events going on behind the scenes that I had no idea of and the connections Nintendo and Sega had with other events that I was unaware of.

I also am thinking about the Gospel. Sega did take on a giant in Nintendo. Ultimately, we know that they eventually lost to the point that now they make games for Nintendo. Still, there is something we can learn here. If we’re in apologetics, how do we take on the giant of unbelief today? If your objection is that Sega lost the war still, then I remind you that there is no silver bullet in evangelism. Perhaps we can learn from where they succeeded and from where they failed both.

The usual reply I get to something like this is that using some sort of marketing technique will mean watering down the Gospel. Not at all. We do not need to change one thing about the Gospel. We need to say sin is sin and Jesus is Lord and everything else still. What we can do is change our presentation to better reach the people.

Part of this is finding out what drives the desires of the people. For instance, we can consider that we think a series that has a great actor or actress in it could sell well, but this doesn’t follow. The Crazy Ones had Robin Williams in it and yet it only lasted one season. The Big Bang Theory did not have an all-star cast at the start and yet it is just now finishing its tenth season. What did the latter have that the former didn’t?

We’re seeing a lot of superhero movies coming out nowadays. Why? What is it about superheroes that drives us so much? This also includes retro heroes. I went to see the Power Rangers movie as soon as it came out as an example. That is a series that has been going on for over twenty years despite the basic theme never changing. What is it about all of these that is the draw?

Music. This is one area I do lack a lot in. My taste in music is pretty much restricted to Weird Al Yankovic (the greatest musical genius of all time) and video game music. If I had to choose a decade, I would go back to the 50’s and 60’s. I consider too much of modern Christian music to just be light and fluffy. Still, why do people like the songs that they like?

As we come to understand people and what they like, we can come to learn how to approach them. If you go to an honor-shame culture and you give the Gospel in a Western way, you will not reach a lot of people with it. Describing God as a judge to them means He’s someone who can be bought off easily with a bribe. Talk about sin and they’re confused. Talk about broken relationship and dishonoring God and they will understand. In the same way, we have to work with our culture.

We often go on to the truth question immediately, but that might not be where they’re at. If it was truth that was the driving force, everyone would be going to the library regularly trying to study and learn. Perhaps we need to find out what drives the culture and how we can use that.

C.S. Lewis did this with the Chronicles of Narnia. Few little children would really go to a library and get a book about Jesus and study it, but in learning about Aslan, they found they learned about Jesus. Lewis managed to sneak past the watchful dragons of his day. If we present just an argument and have no reason for people to really care about the argument, then the fact is they will not care about the argument.

If you think I’m changing the Gospel, again, I am not. Christians have adapted themselves to the internet, social media, and any other new forum that has come along. My own ministry partner makes apologetics-themed cartoons on YouTube. The material he presents does come from scholarly sources. Again, few people will go out and read those scholarly sources, but having it in an entertaining format brings it to the people. The entertainment factor also makes a point of it. Several years ago Boss Tweed’s biggest problem was a cartoonist named Thomas Nast. Why? Because he knew people would not read articles against him, but they will read cartoons.

As we go into these other areas, we need to make sure we’re producing high quality material. If we make Christian movies and only Christians see them, we really haven’t done much. The Case For Christ movie recently has been a great exception to this. Even Richard Carrier said that it’s a good movie. There was no scene in it that you had the Gospel rammed down your throat. Too often in Christian films, we have thought we had to spell everything out because otherwise, the audience is just too stupid to catch on. It’s worth pointing out that Lee Strobel’s original book The Case for Christ caught on so well because he made it not just a book of facts, but a story with real discussions going on. We could argue that the Da Vinci Code did the same thing. Sure, the information was bogus, but the concept was the same. People started thinking about the claims of the book more and if we wanted academic discussions, that was a gateway to those discussions.

At this point, I’m still pondering how all of this will work out. The main point I have is to find the people where they’re at and start with what matters to them, why it does, and see how the Gospel meets that need. For instance, we can talk about the truth question all we want, but it’s not likely to faze a guy who is not becoming a Christian because he wants to keep having sex with his girlfriend. If you think that scenario doesn’t exist out there, you’re incredibly naive. What we can point out is that the Gospel has an extremely high view of sex (I find it amazing that so many non-Christians treat it as if just a biological function and physical activity alone and we’re the ones saying it’s so much more) and that if we go the path of Christianity and its rules on sex and marry with those, we can have a far better sex life than we would without. We are not opposed to his desire for sex as there’s nothing wrong with that, but we think that the Gospel has a much better way to appreciate it. Note that in all of this, I did not say that sex outside of marriage is okay. It isn’t. It’s just going to be convincing someone that they can hold off on something now so that they can appreciate it in a greater way later on if they marry.

Like I said, I’m still pondering. I’m only about a fourth of the way through the book and I’m sure there’s a lot more to learn. I’m taking Kindle notes regularly to try to see what steps were done that I think correct and what steps were incorrect. How did Nintendo successfully share their product? How did Sega not?

I appreciate any suggestions anyone else has on this. Consider this blog some thinking out loud as you will. This is not the final word on a conversation, but I hope it will not be the only one either. I prefer it to be the first of many here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters