SNAKES ON A PLANE

I saw Snakes on a Plane this afternoon and this movie may be a candidate for a future Theology @ The Movies

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

What struck me most was the depth of theological and spiritual themes that were throughout the film. From one point where a character enacts Genesis and has the opportunity to crush a snakes skull under their heel to how the intiial attacks of the snakes went after those who were guilty of the seven deadly sins.

Eventually once the “sinners” were cleansed from the plane, the snakes then went after the more virtuous ones.

There was a Christ figure image as an older stewardess sacrificed herself to save a woman and her infant from certain death at the fangs of a rattlesnake. The stain on the back of her shirt even looked somewhat like a cross if one looked very closely.

And finally, one only has to harken back to Samuel L Jackson’s greatest role as Jules in Pulp Fiction to remember this quote:

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

It was the quote that he used whenever he was about to do his dirty work. However, note how that quote fits perfectly with his role in this spiritually powerful film. “beset on all sides”, “shepherds the weak through teh valley of darkness”, “strike down…with great vengeance and furious anger thsoe who would attempt to poison…” Stunning the parallels.

Truly a spiritually uplifting film.

Hahahaha. Maybe not. Just 2 hrs of plain stupid fun.

The Network of Spiritual Progressives – is there hope?

I attended a conference here in Sioux Falls today from an organization called Pastors for Moral Choices. Its a local organization of clergy who are seeking to present an alternative voice in public debate and public action to the religious right that seems to believe they have the final word on moral positions. It was a great conference, but the highlight for me was the presentation by a member of an organization called the Network of Spiritual Progressives. Nikola shared about their efforts to not only provide an alternative voice to the religious right (similar to what PMC is doing), but going steps further. They focus on three tenets of their actions:

1. Changing the Bottom Line in America
Today, institutions and social practices are judged efficient, rational and productive to the extent that they maximize money and power. That’s the Old Bottom Line. Now Here is the NEW BOTTOM LINE for which we advocate: We believe that they should be judged rational, efficient and productive not only to the extent that they maximize money and power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity and behavior, kindness and generosity, non-violence and peace, and to the extent that they enhance our capacities to respond to other human beings in a way that honors them as embodiments of the sacred, and enhances our capacities to respond to the earth and the universe with awe, wonder and radical amazement.

Other than the fact that they seem to be trying to do everything at once, there is some great stuff in there. Especially the new bottom line idea. Trying to get us away from the money and power focus of life to a much wider and more compassionate focus on people and their needs in the world. I also appreciate the statement about responding to human beings…as embodiments of the sacred…respond[ing] to the earth and the universe with awe, wonder, and radical amazement.

2. Challenging the misuse of religion, God and spirit by the Religious Right

Educating people of faith to the understanding that a serious commitment to God, religion and spirit should manifest in social activism aimed at peace, universal disarmament, social justice with a preferential option for the needs of the poor and the oppressed, a commitment to end poverty, hunger, homelessness, inadequate education and inadequate health care all around the world, and a commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, environmental protection and repair of the damage done to the planet by 150 years of environmentally irresponsible behavior in industrializing societies.

I touched on this earlier with the hypocrisy of the religious right in America today. How the right can say it has a focus on the things of God, etc but continue to refuse to raise the minimum wage, continue to focus on solving international problems through violence, continue to cut resources to low-income people, etc. NSP’s full covenant goes into some beautiful detail about this as well and their actions towards this.

3. Challenging the many anti-religious and anti-spiritual assumptions and behaviors that have increasingly become part of the liberal culture

Challenging as well the extreme individualism and me-firstism that permeate all parts of the global market culture. We will educate people in social change movements to carefully distinguish between their legitimate critiques of the Religious Right and their illegitimate generalizing of those criticisms to all religious or spiritual beliefs and practices. We will help social change activists and others in the liberal and progressive culture become more conscious of and less afraid to affirm their own inner spiritual yearnings and to reconstitute a visionary progressive social movement that incorporates the spiritual dimension, of which the loving, spiritually elevating and connecting aspects of religion has been one expression (but so has the group-in-fusion experience of the movements of the 30’s and the 60’s and the communitarian aspirations of many other efforts–social healing and health care, progressive summer camps, the wide appeal of service and service learning, the women’s spirituality movement etc).

This statement also resonated. It acknowledges the fact that spirituality is a vital part of the lives of people in our world. We’re not talking about secular humanism here, but instead on how a consistent spirituality can inform and build up a progressive movement in America and hopefully beyond.

Here’s a link to their larger covenant of their positions.

Powerful stuff in my opinion.

7 Years and Counting

Last night, I received an email from my cousin asking me how I ended up here in the midwest. Ironically enough, that message came 7 years to the day after I started in my calling at this congregation. While I sent off a very brief message back, the question kept coming back to me today. Why am I here? Not in the sense of “Why the hell am I in this place?”, but really thinking about the calling I have received and what it means today. To put it bluntly, I am in a very different place today here than I thought I would be 7 years ago today. Firstly, I didn’t think that I would be here for 5 years when I first started, much less 7 years. Second, I didn’t think that I would go through some of the things that have gone on both in the congregation and in my personal life. Third, I thought that by now I’d be living back in the mountains or somewhere along the coast. Surprise…here I am still in the midwest? Why? Easy…calling. Actually, its not that easy because that might imply that being called is somehow easy. Being called means a lot of things and most of them are things that aren’t easy. But its calling that has kept me anchored here and committed here. Its weird, but I really think that I have been called to this congregation several times over the last 7 years. Once when I first started here when I was that glassy eyed fresh-out-of-seminary 26 year old and then several other times since. Instances when I felt like it was truly time to move on to somewhere else and something came seemingly out of the blue to re-anchor me here. God? A likely source.

When I think about calling, I think about a commitment to the people and the mission of God in the world. Its both a general and a specific. A general to do reflect and live out the model set forth by Christ. A specific calling to a specific place and group of people. Both to do those things that I have been led to.

So where am I today? My sense of calling continues to grow more and more specific. Ironically enough, it echoes back to those things that I was so passionate about years ago (and never really stopped, but didn’t see the intersection of those with “professional ministry” before). We live in a media and technologically saturated culture. The elements of media and culture are becoming so ingrained in people that for the church to ignore them would be foolish. However, the church also can’t wontonly embrace these things without serious reflection and consideration. There are questions to be asked about appropriateness, usability, message, and more when using these new tools. I feel that it is this intersection that God continues to lead me.