Bully's Blog

Darwin’s Joker
by Gary DeMar

There are no spoilers in this review. I saw The Dark Knight, the new Batman film, this weekend. It’s everything the reviewers have been saying about it and more. Heath Ledger’s performance is certainly worthy of an Academy Award and not because of sentimentality over his premature death. The role was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and he played it perfectly. You will believe he is the Joker. I suspect that Ledger called on some of his below-the-surface struggles, his own demons if you will, to bring the character to life. We all have the potential to play the Joker, but we keep it in check because of the “work of the law” written on our heart (Rom. 2:15).

The movie is disturbing. It’s meant to be. I don’t know the worldview of Christopher Nolan, director, co-writer, and co-producer with an impressive film pedigree, but he got so much right in depicting fallen human nature and the consistency of living out the implications of a worldview without a moral rudder.

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“The Psalms are not full of citations from the Torah. The Prophets are not full of quotations from the Torah and the Psalms. But the New Testament is filled with quotations and paraphrases of the earlier Scriptures. What does this mean?

It means that the renewal of civilisation comes only when we become totally saturated with the written Word of God. This is always true, of course, generation after generation. But it is particularly true at times of crisis, when the wineskin breaks in a dramatic way. Jesus ushered in His New History by calling on men to become radically and totally steeped in the Bible. This is the fountainhead of the whole cycle of civilisation. It all flows from the Grand Imperative of God’s Word. God’s Imperative produces history, and recharges it at every crisis.”

– James B. Jordan, Crisis, Opportunity and the Christian Future. 
Booklet available from www.biblicalhorizons.com

I’ve seen every movie ever made… or one very much like it.

I posted last week a quote from Jordan’s worship series which observed that all western culture flowed from the church. I took my daughter on Saturday to see Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci at the Sydney Opera House. Christian (and Catholic) symbols abound, most notably the spilling of wine on a white table cloth as a challenge to a duel. The loser’s body was later laid on the same white cloth.

The final scene of the movie Fight Club (a film based on a book which is both ingenious and perverse) is more biblical than the author or producers might imagine. [Don't read the following if you haven't seen the film].

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From Steven Wedgeworth’s blog http://wedgewords.wordpress.com

Our Faith is not primarily intended as a way to create a great culture. It is not primarily a way to run for political office. It is not primarily a way to advance literature, poetry, or song. All of these things are great effects of our faith, but they are not the reason to become interested in Jesus. Continue reading

by Uri Brito

James Jordan makes some interesting remarks concerning scientific methods and the questions posed by science. [1] According to Jordan, modern scientific assumptions about the present betray the past and an accurate approach to the future. Science assumes that what we have today (referring to scientific discoveries) is exactly as it was in the past. However, scientific questions posed today are vastly different than the ones posed one hundred years ago. What Jordan is questioning with this reasoning is that science cannot be certain of its claims in the present, hence it must be seen with skepticism and understood for its limitations. When scientists claim certainty in their methods, they are in essence claiming ignorance of the lessons of the past and the future. Jordan writes:

The point of all of this is that the past is not subject to the kinds of controls and observation that science requires. Interpreting the past involves guesswork to a far greater degree than observational science, and thus there is far more room for presuppositions and assumptions to play a role. [2]

Jordan argues that unbelievers invariably are prone to wander in their scientific endeavors. Hence, “unbelieving ‘science’ does not perceive the true nature of the universe.” [3] Their worldviews restrain them from seeing biblical truth exchanging it for a lie. Jordan concludes that “when Christians operate on the same premises as unbelievers, they will not perceive aright either.” [4] Is it any wonder that natural theologians have begun to deny the historicity of the Creation account?

Jordan makes one further assertion worthy of consideration. He argues that Matthew 13 provides an excellent example of the intention of the Biblical record. According to our Lord, the parables were meant to reveal truth to believers and to deceive unbelievers. Jordan draws a similar parallel to revelation in creation. “If creational revelation is truly revelation, then it partakes of this same parabolic nature.” [5] As the written word misleads the faithless, so does the natural Word. Any approach that seeks to dispel the account of the Scripture is prone to self-deception.

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[1] James B. Jordan, Chapter 6, Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One
[2-4] Jordan, p. 126
[5] Jordan, p. 127