Happy Reformation Day!

Our family doesn't "do" Halloween. I get to explain this every year to friendly folks who ask if we'll be going trick-or-treating. To me, it's a bit like a loyal member of the GOP wearing a "Hillary '08!" pin. It is a religious holiday... and it's not my religion!

But, happily, this date does mark another event which I as a Christian do most warmly embrace: Dr. Martin Luther boldly nailing up his 95 theses to the door of that church in Wittenburg. Through the providence of God, the printing press had just recently been put to use, allowing his theses -- which ended up striking at the death-grip in which the Roman church held professing Christendom -- to be broadly and widely disseminated.

The central text that set Luther free was Romans 1:17:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith” (Romans 1:16-17)

Luther pondered and agonized over the meaning of that phrase, "the righteousness of God." It is the key to the central question, "What must a man do to be put right before God?"

(Aside: my pastor, Reddit Andrews III, preached a fine sermon yesterday on Isaiah 53:11-12. If your church didn't do something to hat-tip the Reformation yesterday... well, you have my sympathies, and mild alarm. As a pastor, I found it a wonderful excuse to preach on Romans 1:17 or some other text related to the grand theme that rocked the world in 1517.)

Luther, indoctrinated in the Roman system of mingling God's grace with human merit, was led by God to realise the Gospel truth through this text. "The righteousness of God" is not (as he had thought) God's righteousness in damning us all to Hell; it is His righteousness by which He is righteous, and declares righteous the one who simply and savingly believes in Jesus Christ. Thus was born the Reformation cry: by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

(Aside II: Dr. Luther will, in fact, be putting in his annual appearance tonight to tell my kids about this very truth. He never tires of talking up God's wonderful grace in Christ!)

Enshrine that event, and the truth it brought to the light, in your family tonight.

Brief word on Judge Alito

So President Bush has presented his replacement-nominee for Supreme Court Associate Justice, Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

Based on initial buzz -- and, as always in such things I shall continue to watch Hugh Hewitt -- here's my take.

I'm glad for where we are.

I'm sorry for how we got here.

FURTHER THOUGHTS I: Alito is Roman Catholic. Some remarked that, after conservatives dogpiled on Evangelical Christian Harriet Miers, they'd be unlikely to get another such nominee; and so it is.

Does this bother me? It depends. I would prefer a Roman Catholic SC Justice who reads the Constitution like Christians read the Bible, over an Evangelical Christian Justice who reads the Constitution as Roman Catholics read the Bible.

News flash: many who are going to Hell don't believe in it

I tend to detest polls. I would (half-)jokingly say that I might support a law outlawing polls within six years of any election.

So now comes Fox News with a poll stating that 87 percent of people believe in Heaven, but only 74 percent say they believe in Hell. (As C. S. Lewis observed somewhere, Hell should be capitalized; it is, after all, a place-name.)

All these polls play to the American myth that opinion dictates reality -- that there is intrinsic merit to having an opinion. However, nowhere is sheer sentimentality more dangerous than when it comes to Heaven and Hell, as I discussed a bit earlier.

So, I've observed over at my beloved bad-habit, FreeRepublic, that whenever anyone "we" like dies, he's immediately sent to Heaven, and the great times he's having are celebrated -- regardless of the lack or presence of any love for Christ on the part of the deceased. By contrast, when someone disliked dies, he's sent straight to Hell.

All of which makes me think of perhaps the scariest passage in the Bible, far more frightening than anything ever written by Joss Whedon, Stephen King, Adam-Troy Castro, or Dean Koontz. It is Matthew 7:13-14, 21-23 (with some emphases) --

"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. ...21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' 23 And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'"

Jesus Himself, in contrast to the sentimentalists (and those polled), not only believed in Hell, but seemed to believe that most would be going there. That is frightening enough, for anyone who thinks seriously about Jesus.

But what is more frightening is His prediction that "many," when sent off to Hell, will protest. They'll complain, they'll argue, they'll try to make a case. Clearly, they are shocked to learn that they are going, not to Heaven, but to Hell. Clearly, they fully believed that they would be going to Heaven -- so much so, that they are ready to argue with God about it!

Of course, the argument will be as futile as it will be brief, and they will go to Hell, forever (Matthew 25:41, 46). Among their number will surely be many who did not believe in Hell at all. They will find, too late, that what they should have learned in time also holds true in eternity: opinions do not create reality. Their unbelief in Hell will not cool it one degree. In fact, given that rejection of Hell equates to rejection of Jesus (who surely did believe in Hell, and spoke of it frequently) , and given that no crime is worse than disbelief in God, that disbelief is likelier to raise the temperature than to do the reverse.

All of which makes the question, "How can I know God on His own terms?" all the more pressing -- opinion polls be damned.

Harriet Miers withdraws her nomination

I have extremely mixed feelings about this. I was never completely "sold" on her. I was, however, completely sold on President Bush's right to appoint who he saw fit, and on the reasons for trusting his judgment, which he has earned.

Hugh Hewitt has consistently made excellent arguments for giving her a hearing, for giving W the benefit of the doubt, and not making fools and hypocrites of ourselves by borking her. His last two essays were particularly fairminded and thoughtful. He's been a model of charity, a model little-reflected by conservative opponents.

Miers' opponents, on the other hand, have raised valid concerns and issues -- but often in invalid ways. Personal attacks, ridicule, bringing in irrelevances, refusal to listen or grant personal fallibility, hypocrisy... all on bright, loud, frequent display. I think they've given an arsenal of weapons to our enemies, and undermined our decades-long positions and practices about these nominations.

I read two recently-released speeches of hers. They were miserable. Their contents ranged from ungrammatical, to banal, to very concerning (words of admiration for Barbara Streisand, Janet Reno, Ruth Ginsburg; her phrasing about abortion; her blameshifting on judicial activism). Supporters say maybe she changed her mind in the last 10-12 years -- but they also argue that she won't change her mind (i.e. go Souter) in the next 10-12 years. Hard to make both cases at the same time, it seems to me.

The entire situation put all conservatives in a bad place.

What we have today is, I think, what we don't want to have in the overturn of Roe v. Wade: a good result for the wrong reason.

We want Roe overturned -- but for Constitutional reasons, not as an act of reactive judicial activism.

And similarly, probably Miers' withdrawal is a good thing -- but not for the reasons for which she has withdrawn, and not with the events that have led up to it.

My fear now is that either W will nominate Gonzales, for whom I have NO enthusiasm, but who is qualified, and pretty clearly NOT in our corner ideologically; OR he will nominate an excellent candidate, and our enemies will use the very weapons we just so thoughtfully handed them to oppose him.

And we'll be unable to respond with integrity, having just done the same thing to Harriet Miers.

After we voiced our concerns, this should have been our policy, in my humble opinion:

If one gives an answer before he hears,
it is his folly and shame
(Proverbs 18:13)

Now we'll have to live with the consequences... and I am very concerned about what they will be.

UPDATE I: the wonderful La Shawn Barber is nice enough to link to this post and, in response, gives good reasons to be unenthusiastic about the prospect of an Alberto Gonzales nomination. To make sure I was clear, when I say Gonzales is "qualified," I mean technically so -- i.e. in the ways Miers' critics complained that she was not.

UPDATE II: All Things Beautiful's Alexandra provides comments, as well as links and summaries of many reactions from others.

Suffering and the Sovereignty of God -- and other blessings

First, let me just clue you to a rich resource for lectures, talks, and sermons online: Monergism.com. Most of the material here is free for download, and there are some great treasures made available.

After owning a burner for years, I finally decided to take the plunge and learn to use it last week. I was about to take a mini-retreat up in God's country (the Bishop-Mammoth Lakes area of California's Eastern Sierra Nevada), away from the other country (Sacramento). To make the drivetime most profitable, I decided to burn some sermons to listen to. So I was accompanied by the likes of Bruce Waltke, S. Lewis Johnson, Joni Eareckson Tada, John Piper, Sinclair Ferguson and others. What a rich blessing they proved to be.

Particularly let me single out to you the talks from John Piper's Desiring God Conference on Suffering and the Sovereignty of God. I listened to all except Piper's first sermon, and Carl Ellis' -- which is to say I heard John Piper, Steve Saint, Mark Talbot, David Powlison, and Joni Eareckson Tada. They were all helpful, all encouraging, all a blessing.

I have listened to Joni at least three times so far. Moving, encouraging, touching, chilling, humbling, heartening... I have often said that if I get to take out the garbage in Joni's neighborhood in Heaven, I'll consider myself well-off. What a remarkable woman. What a hard life; yet she bubbles with hope and encouragement and joy in Christ. I listen to her and think, "My brain is too small, my heart too hard and shallow" -- and I learn just a little more on each hearing. What's sticking now is her phrase, "The sheep-dog of suffering." Hear her, see what that means.

And Steve Saint -- it's an odd talk, not really very organized, just a little irritating here and there stylistically... and he pretty much had me sobbing. At one point I had to stop and say "No!" -- and deal with what he'd just talked about before going on. (It's true, I'm a softie. Tell no one.)

He's the son of Nate Saint who, with Jim Elliot and others, was slaughtered by the tribesmen to whom they were reaching out with Christ's love. Money-quote, from memory: "Why do we demand that every chapter be good, when God only promises that the last chapter will be good, and will make sense out of all the other chapters?"

I encourage you to hear them all. Thanks to Desiring God for being so generous with its rich resources, in a time when others are only making sermons available for money. It certainly was a blessing to this broken, struggling, redeemed sinner.

Other audio resources:
SermonAudio.com
Believers Chapel

Muddying the TULIP

In the interests of full disclosure, I round-up to being a 5-point Calvinist.

I say "round up," because I'm technically about a 4.97-pointer. I think T (Total Depravity), U (Unconditional Election), I (Irresistible Grace), and P (Perseverance of the Saints), are all stated directly in Scripture. However, L (Limited Atonement) is not.

However, the inferential and inductive case for Limited Atonement is extremely strong. Its advocates (of which I am one) raise Biblically-oriented questions to which I've never seen adequate answers from other positions. I read "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ," by John Owen, and felt I'd been backed into a corner, inch by inexorable inch. Then I read Lightner's "answer" to Owen, "The Death Christ Died" -- and was all the more convinced that Owen was right. It did not even seem that Lightner understood Owen's case, let alone had a convincing response to it.

Having said all that, I say this: Calvinists often do more to muddy the persuasiveness of our position than do others. We seem all the time to lead with nonessentials, and thus obscure the essentials. Then when others misrepresent our position, we complain -- but too often it's largely our fault that they misunderstand it.

You often see it worst in newly-minted Calvin converts, folks who languished in the cellars of Arminius, or his evil twin Semi-Arminius, all their Christian lives. And then the TULIP broke down the door, they were free, and they want to tell everyone about it.

Telling everyone is great. I'm all for it. But let's be wise and winsome about what we tell everyone.

Many newbies want to start by denouncing, by name, everyone who's doing anything. Name any well-known evangelist or public Christian, and they will tell you everything that's wrong with him or her, in gleeful detail.

Then they'll denounce all evangelistic practices. Invitations? Evil modern inventions. Finneyite -- pah! Worse than that, every single phrase that Christians commonly use to appeal to non-Christians is wrong. "Come to Christ"? You can't. "Decide for Christ"? No free will, so you can't do that, either. "Ask Christ into your heart"? Don't bother. "Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior / Lord and Savior"? He's a great King; you don't accept Him, He accepts you -- if you're elect. "Give your life / heart to Christ"? Feh! as if He wants or needs your filthy heart, your worthless life! And above all, don't tell anyone "God loves you, and Jesus died for your sins," because that person might be reprobate. In that case, God doesn't, and Jesus didn't, so you'd be bearing false witness.

(Imagine the reaction of some of these if told in hushed tones that a well-known Christian figure, when asked "What must I do to be saved?", simply responded "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved." Would they not fault the answer as too simplistic, and the assurance of salvation too facile, hasty, and shallow? They wouldn't if they remembered Acts 16:31.)

Now, all those criticisms have a point of some heft. Light in some cases, very heavy in others.

But we should understand how we're heard, when these are the issues that are big with us. We are heard as being against evangelism.

Now, I know that's not true. Not technically true. But we have to understand that we have probably taken everything that our friend thinks of as Christian evangelism, and trashed it. More often than not, we also failed to establish a real, superior replacement.

Well, perhaps we could point to our well-known leading lights, and how they evangelize. Our non-Calvinist friends can point to Billy Graham. We can point to... to... well, ah....

"George Whitefield! Jonathan Edwards! Charles Spurgeon!" we say.

"Great," our friends might respond. "Do you have anyone who has been dead less than a hundred years?"

And that's the deal. Whatever the reality, however many faithful Calvinist evangelists are working in obscurity, this is what we're best known for: doing a perfect job of faulting the imperfect job others are doing. We're great at that. It's like an art-form with some of us.

Am I saying there is no place for that? Absolutely not. What I am saying is that the fact that we are so singularly well-known for our fault-finding, and not for our right-doing, is not particularly adorning.

I always recall in this connection a story, probably apocryphal, told of a famous evangelist. A concerned fellow announces to him, "Brother _____, I do not approve of your methods!"

The brother replies cordially, "I'm always open to a more fruitful approach. Tell me, what are your methods?"

The critic sputters, "Why -- I haven't any!"

"I like mine better," comes the response.

God grant that I be better known for trying to my utmost, and failing in good conscience, rather than for doing a wonderful job of faulting others who (by contrast) actually do try to do, and not just talk about doing.

...the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason,

full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

(James 3:17)

Touching essay on abortion in... The Washington Post?

I'm pinching myself. I look again. Yes, it's the Washington Post; and the writer is indeed "a former Post reporter and bureau chief." How did The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have slip through?

Hewitt, Miers, Levin, and the authorship of the Pastoral Epistles

Showing once again that he is possibly the best interviewer anywhere, Hugh Hewitt yesterday had a lively, substantive, funny, stimulating talk with The Great One, the ferocious Mark Levin (among other things author of Men in Black [no, not the movie; the book about the Supremes ((no, not the Motown singing group, the High Court))]). The subject was the Harriet Miers nomination, which Hewitt supports and Levin criticizes. Read the conversation in full here.

Hewitt made a point that Levin found unpersuasive: that Miers' seeing the Second Amendment as a personal rather than a militia right is a significant indicator of her overall approach to the Constitution. Here's that part of the interchange:

HH: But I can also point to you the one thing I've been able to find are her statements about the 2nd Amendment being a personal and not a militia right. That's a pretty big deal, isn't it?
ML: I guess so.
HH: Does that matter?
ML: Yes. She's for the 2nd Amendment. Great. How about the other 99% of the Constitution?
HH: I'm just saying it's an indication, because to be...
ML: (laughing) all right. Let me ask you a couple of...
HH: We're running out...we'll come right back with Mark Levin. Don't go anywhere, America. Because the fact of the matter is, I've got him now. Because once you admit you get it right on the 2nd Amendment, which is one of the toughest things to get right, because of politics and opaque reasoning, we've got him. He's in the net. He'll struggle to get out, but we won't let him.
---
HH: Welcome back, America. It's Hugh Hewitt with Mark Levin, truly one of the trenchant observers of politics and law in America, author of Men In Black. Mark,...
ML: I mean, how can I argue with you after you say something like that?
HH: Well, that's intentional.
ML: Yes. Okay.
HH: Now, this is a serious point. The conservative critique of Miers may very well derail the most pro-firearms nominee in modern times.
ML: (laughing) And you base that on what?
HH: On her statement about it being an individual right, and on her gun ownership.
ML: That would be consistent with every other conservative jurist that I know. So that's not particularly spectacular. That's normal.
HH: No, I said of the nominees to the Court.
ML: Where does she stand on substantive due process?
HH: I hope very far away from it, but we don't know.
ML: Okay. Where does she stand on separation of powers?
HH: I think we'll find out that given the policy she advanced in the nominees that she put forward, and in the War On Terror arguments that advanced out of the White House, that she's very much an Article II judge.
ML: But we don't know.
HH: We don't know, although...
ML: Hold on. Now you said your 2nd Amendment. There's a lot of Amendments. I want to go through all of them.

Hugh and Mark know more about ConLaw that I will ever even know that there is to know, let alone know, but -- I think Hugh's is a better point than Levin granted.

There are pivotal issues which are signposts as to a person's overall approach. My impression is that Hugh is right in identifying the Second Amendment as such an issue. Let me illustrate from my own area of expertise.

About twenty-five years ago, a young fellow I knew was on the pastoral search committee of a small, conservative Christian church. They were interviewing a candidate who had taken his degree from Princeton. My friend was only interested in what programs this candidate would bring, what plans he had for making the church grow bigger. Princeton, to him, was just a fancy name. To me it was a warning sign.

So I made a simple suggestion. "Ask him who wrote the Pastoral Epistles and Second Peter, and when the book of Daniel was written."

He looked at me as if I had something in my nose. (I didn't.) He ignored the advice. They hired the guy. I later met and talked with Pastor X. Sure enough, he was a liberal, did not believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture -- though the church did. My question, in under twenty words, would have shown the search committee that fact.

There would have been no point asking him if he believed in the Bible. He would have said "Yes." There would have been no point in asking him if he were a liberal. He would have said "No." Liberals know a thousand ways of squirming around what should be frontal questions.

Why ask about Daniel and the others? Because these were, particularly at the time, lynch-pin issues. If a fellow was wandering away from a high view of the inspiration of Scripture, first things to go would have been those items. Others would follow. Those specific questions located, if not his precise theological address, certainly the block he lived on. When you know what you're doing, you can do that.

On the other hand, if someone still affirmed that the book of Daniel was essentially contemporary to the narrated events, that Paul wrote the Pastorals, and Peter wrote Second Peter, the odds were overwhelming that he affirmed the view of Scripture that that little church held, and that I hold. I knew it was such an issue; my friend didn't. He ignored the point, and voted to hire a liberal.

Hugh equally may be right in identifying Second Amendment as such an issue. When you know what you're doing, you can find out a lot with just a well-worded question or two. This is Hugh's area of expertise. If he's right, it's a very encouraging sign.

UPDATE I: thanks to Generalissimo Duane for putting this up for Blog of the Week over at his excellent Radioblogger blog. [Sub-update: another site won. Thanks to all of you who voted for mine. It was fun!]

UPDATE II: one particular point made in a post by Dolphy at FreeRepublic has stuck in my mind. I found it a sharp observation, and haven't seen it anywhere else. An excerpt:

...I wonder about all of the constitutional experts here who are so insulted by the President's "trust me." Do they really expect any of us to believe that they carefully studied Luttig, Brown, Owens, etc. body of writings and opinions and independently judged their fitness? Or did they rely on the Coulter's, Kristol's and the rest "trust me?"

Excellent question.

President Bush "misunderestimates" the impact of Miers

There have been so many good subsequent postings on the Miers matter that I stopped updating my earlier post. But here is a summary of my current thoughts.

1. Harriet Miers may be a wonderful appointment. Equally, she may be the worst mistake of Bush's presidency. We simply do not know, and cannot know -- and that is the problem.
2. President Bush is shocked at the overwhelmingly negative response of his base, I think, as a result of a huge miscalculation on his part. Briefly stated: he is demanding that all of his supporters simply trust him, he expected they would gladly and instantly do that, and he was wrong. He has earned our trust; but he has not earned our unqualified, instant, unquestioning trust. He has "misunderestimated" the damage that he has done to his own credibility by his mishandling of border issues, by his signing that miserable anti-campaign-financing abomination of McCain's, by his huge-government excesses, and by his constant love-fests with his/our domestic enemies (i.e. Kennedy) and simultaneous too-frequent stiffings of our domestic allies (i.e. Toomey). Also, I think he has misunderestimated the shadow of his father's appointment of Souter, as well as the elder Bush's close friendship with unrepentant Bill Clinton (i.e. do the Bush men ever learn anything?).
3. When I read or hear the spirited defenses and perspectivizings of Hugh Hewitt, Beldar and others, and when I read the endorsements of Jay Sekulow, James Dobson, and others, I am reassured.
4. But when I read the equally spirited criticisms of the gang at The Corner, the hesitations of Mark Steyn, the acerbic slams of Ann Coulter, and hear the concerns of Laura Ingraham and others, I can't say they aren't voicing valid concerns.
5. It's passing ironic to have Robert Bork "bork" Harriet Miers. He was rejected, to the abiding disgrace of culpable senators, after having every opportunity to explain his perspective. But now he has painted Miers' nomination as a "disaster" -- and that before she's had the same opportunity that he had.
6. Having said that, it's hard to argue that Bork's remarks that "it’s a little late to develop a constitutional philosophy or begin to work it out when you’re on the court already," that "it’s kind of a slap in the face to the conservatives who’ve been building up a conservative legal movement for the last 20 years," and that "one of the messages here is, don’t write, don’t say anything controversial before you’re nominated," are unfounded. Unfounded, no; premature, yes.
7. Then, just as an odd note, there's the guy who claims inside knowledge that the folks we wanted to see named did not want to be named, perhaps due to closetal skeletonnage, and that Judiciary Committee itself would have rejected others we'd have preferred, so Harriet Miers is the very best the President could have gotten confirmed. Who knows?
8. It also is bitterly true that the President has succeeded where Dean, Kennedy, the Clintons, and the whole MSM have failed. He has fractured his own base. He did it because of #2, above: he just thought we'd all have no problem implicitly trusting him. He was mistaken.

Put me with those who think that Miers withdrawing would be damaging, and Bush withdrawing her name is unthinkable. Never has pressure been greater on a nominee to perform during the confirmation process. That is where she will either re-win the President's base, or heighten its sense of alarm.

So little in her past unambiguously shows why she is, in the President's mind, the very best person for this lifetime, epochal appointment. That is her problem, as well as her strength -- given the miserable state of the Senate. President Bush has appointed some excellent folks to judgeships, and deserves some benefit of some doubt. We must allow Miss Miers the opportunity to tell us about herself in her own words.

"If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame" (Proverbs 18:13).

UPDATE I: Well, this is unnerving. Having written and published all of the above, I now find Ron Brownstein in the LA Times taking much the same approach. On my list of life-goals "Agreeing with the LA Times about anything" is not to be found. I forget -- is Brownstein their token sane writer?

Serenity: a Christian movie review (spoiler-free)

I don't usually do movie reviews, for various reasons. I don't take a notepad, I admire detailed and specific reviews, and I'm afraid my memory alone won't do the trick, absent multiple viewings. [Update: this has since changed.]

I'll make my first exception for Serenity.

Summary. I loved Serenity. If you like science-fiction at all, and can take it a bit dark, you will find Serenity to be a terrific movie. Go see it. Be warned that it sports a hard-edged and deserved PG-13, and do not take younger children. (More later in this section.) But you go!

Backstory. Serenity is a movie born from the sparklingly creative (and re-creative) mind of Joss Whedon. It began life as a TV series ("Firefly") that, though it found its voice early and was building a fanbase, was badly mishandled and prematurely cancelled by Fox. However, DVD sales in part fueled enough confidence for Universal to greenlight this movie. Serenity's relatively modest $40 million budget is put to the best use by Whedon, who notes that his TV series always came in under-budget.

Whedon's ways. The strength of the movie is surely its full-orbed characters, and what Whedon does with them. The actors are all virtually note-perfect, talking and interacting like real people, and one cares for them.

This "caring" also is a hazard. Anyone familiar with Whedon's other work knows well that no character is "safe" in a Whedon creation. None. So with Whedon one doesn't ever have that nice cushion that only TV series provide, of knowing that, no matter how dire the situation, this or that major character simply cannot die. Oh, yes, they can. If Joss Whedon is driving, any character can die. Very suddenly. And with no miracle recovery after the commercial break.

In fact, that is one of the things I very much appreciate about Whedon. He likes settling you down into a familiar cliché, one that you have seen a thousand times, one that always ends exactly the same way. Then, when you're all comfy and cozy, in your blanket and your Bearfoot slippers — Whedon doesn't simply pull the rug from under your feet, he takes the entire floor and part of the foundation with it. With Whedon, one should always expect the unexpected.

Accessible. Though I saw and enjoyed the Firefly DVD set, I tried to keep part of my brain positioned as if I were a newcomer to that universe. Would I be able to get involved and enjoy the movie? I think so. (You can also read Dom's bona-fide, glowing "outsider" review. Or, though there's a spoiler risk, you could see Bryan Preston's review — written by someone who hasn't seen any Whedon series, and loved Serenity.) There is, I think, enough deftly-handled exposition sprinkled here and there to bring anyone up to speed enough fully to enjoy the movie. Then rent the series, and enjoy more!

Amazing. Serenity delivers full-blooded characters, colorful and memorable dialogue, a dense but not bewildering plot, and some hold-on-tight action sequences. I saw it with my 19 year old son Matthew, also a Firefly fan. Afterwards, I asked him, "How many times did your jaw drop?"

"I lost count," was his answer.

Let me make it even more vivid. I think I can speak for Matthew in saying that, at least at one point, I'm pretty sure he and I both came close to jumping out of our seats and yelping, "What?!!"

The movie has laugh out loud humor, tension, pathos, horror, thrills -- often in rat-a-tat sequence, or commingled. It's a marvelously crafted piece of movie art.

Whedon's Weltanschauung. All movies have a worldview, and Serenity is no exception.

Joss Whedon is a self-described "angry atheist," and that fact pokes its head out here and there in all of his work. Like another great sci-fi writer who is an atheist, J. Michael Straczynski (creator of the wonderful Babylon 5) — and unlike Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry — Whedon seems to accept that recognizable human religion will always be around. I'm sure Whedon, sharp guy that he is, thinks he gets it. But he doesn't.

Whedon is not nearly as successful as Straczynski was in peopling his universe with believable, full-orbed, practicing religious people. In Firefly/Serenity, Whedon has a wonderful character named Book, but Whedon never seems to know exactly what to do with him. In the series Book is your typical liberal-created clergyman, non-judgmental and gripped with his own unresolved issues. Here he says "Believe! I don't care what you believe — just believe." Uh huh.

Also, Whedon's characters refer to the cosmos as "the 'verse," dropping the "uni-." Now, that may be simply a speech affectation, like his "Shiny!" (= "Cool!"). Or it may reflect a worldview that rejects the unity of creation as coming from one Creator, in whom all things cohere (Colossians 1:17), in favor of the naturalistic, nihilistic, chaotic view towards which atheism naturally bears one.

Whatever the case, I would observe of this movie as I have of Whedon's other TV series, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel, that Whedon has evidently never known, liked and understood a real-live, practicing, Bible-believing Christian. He shares that with most Hollywood writers, sadly. Whedon can create believable murderers, maniacs, flawed heroes, monsters, in-betweeners, and a hundred other types. But he seems unable or unwilling to create a credible, likable, genuine, openly Christian character — let alone create one and go anywhere with that character.

But as with all men, Whedon cannot live nor create in a manner consistent with his own atheistic premises. Atheism, formal or practical, always and necessarily falls apart. It is crushed under its own weight (Psalm 14; Proverbs 1:7; 9:10).

His characters (like Whedon himself, like all men) have to deal with morally complex issues, have to make choices. Whedon paints bad guys and good guys. But what makes these guys bad? What makes those guys good? "If you can't do something smart, do something right," Book is quoted as saying. But how do you tell what is right? No objective answer is given, nor can be, on atheistic premises.

In Whedon, the line always shifts, because his premises don't allow him to draw a fixed and consistent line. Yet the categories must persist, as they do in life. That is not negotiable. The problem is that Whedon's characters have no fixed, transcendent point of reference. All they are left with are glands, guts, and guesses.

Because there is no objective, transcendent right, there can be no objective, transcendent evil. There can be no real sin, hence no real redemption from sin, hence no real Redeemer — and no real, everlasting hope.

As to specific values showcased, I can picture different groups finding affirmation or offense in Serenity. Captain Mal Reynolds (wonderfully played by Nathan Filion) comes off as a libertarian, but an uneasy and cranky one. On reflection, libertarians often are cranky... but I digress.

The enemy seems to be an oppressive and totalitarian state, and its true-believer advocates. One's mind leaps to real-world socialism, communism, or Islamo-fascism. But at one point the goal is stated as being the elimination of "sin." So is that a shot at the Hollywood caricature of active Christians? Or is it just a turn of dialogue without specific modern significance? If there is an intended slam here, it is not heavy-handed.

With these ideological objections, how can I so heartily recommend the movie? Because I view it as art, as entertainment. I do not embrace it as a sermon. I can think that Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King, Homer, Tad Williams, and Aristophanes are gifted writers in their ways, while still critiquing their worldviews. Christians need not be as one-dimensional as Hollywood's caricatures would have it.

Will you be offended? If bad words is a major issue for you, ScreenIt! counts about two dozen in the entire movie. That's about an hour's walk through any given mall, only milder.

There is no nudity, there are passing sexual allusions. There is a good deal of violence, though the worst is suggested, and not lingering. It wasn't Sesame Street; it wasn't Kill Bill.

Worth the money? My basic criterion for choosing between seeing a movie in a theater or waiting for the DVD is the reduction factor. That is, will it lose much in translation to smaller screen and smaller sound? With Serenity, the answer is a definite "Yes." Additionally, I consider whether I want to support what a movie represents. Again, with Serenity, I answer yes. I want Whedon to make more, tell more of the story.

With those final caveats, let me get back to where I started: this is an excellent movie. Serenity is intense, gripping, involving, and it sticks with you. See it this week.

President Bush's new pick for SC: Harriet "Who?!!" Miers

Once again messing with the heads of the nation, President Bush bypassed every hope (Owen, Brown, Luttig) and fear (Gonzalez) of his constituency, and named unknown lawyer/friend Harriet Miers. This unknown woman is about to become well-known.

WorldMag's blog has a series of interesting posts, the upshot of which is encouraging at least to this conservative Christian.

To me, the single most interesting factoid about Harriet Miers is the President's remark that Miers "has given generously of her time and talent by serving as a leader with ...Exodus Ministries." If by "Exodus Ministries" he means Exodus International, the organization dedicated to helping people find freedom from homosexuality, this is going to be really, really fun. Will she and/or the White House cave, get all apologetic, distance, resign, disown? Or will they just hang tough, and we all get to watch the Dems' heads spin around as they spew pea soup?

But if it is true that she has embraced and led in that organization, then she's got a position that is conservative among conservatives, and that is very heartening. [However, see Update II, below.]

As I find other informative articles, I plan to provide updates.

UPDATE I: it's interesting to me that my little unknown self is the only one so far to say much about the Exodus mention. I predict that this will become a HUGE issue in the upcoming discussion. Mark it down. [However, once again, see Update II, below.]

Hugh Hewitt, who consistently ignores this site for some reason, later linked as I did to WORLD's posts, and is himself characteristically supportive of the president. Also characteristically, Michelle Malkin is less so, and gives a blogroll of those similarly unimpressed. But Leonard Leo is positively giddy at the prospect. And, of more import to me, the formidably effective Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ is very supportive of her nomination.

UPDATE II: evidently Exodus Ministry is not Exodus International (note: that link goes "New England's Largest Gay [sic] and Lesbian Newspaper"). Exodus Ministries describes itself as "is a place where ex-offenders learn how faith in Christ is the first step from captivity to freedom." It's based in Dallas, Texas, and helps ex-convicts by discipling them in faith in Christ, with Bible studies and re-entry-type programs. Looks to be all-good; just not the specifically in-your-face ministry it seemed to be at first.

UPDATE III: John Podhoretz offers some well-considered, hard-to-refute reservations about elevating a relatively undistinguished, unaccomplished, non-scholar non-writer non-debater to this historic position. Read this and say "Ouch":

Harriet Miers might be a very fine person. She might be a good lawyer. Her boss, President Bush, certainly thinks a lot of her work as staff secretary and policy aide.

But it is highly unlikely that she will be a good Supreme Court justice, because there is no indication in her 35 years in professional life that she has intellectual interests, that she has committed herself to the study of Constitutional theory and practice or even that she can write a decent English sentence. And it beggars reason to think that a person at the age of 60 can suddenly emerge as an intellectual powerhouse.

Ouch.

On the other hand, James Dobson likes her, and I like James Dobson. What does he know that we don't?

Richard S. Dunham of Business Week offers a very even-handed, basically positive assessment in The Real Harriet Miers.

John Tabin of The American Spectator offers some positive perspective, advises us to take a deep breath -- and then to hold it.

Here's how I see it right now. I only have three main reasons to feel positive about this nomination: 1. She seems to be an active, genuine Christian; 2. President Bush knows her, trusts her, knows the stakes, and he's a mean poker player; 3. I like the people who like her (though I also like some of the people who dislike her... and don't think much of some others who do). So I'll keep an open and positive mind... but....

I am forced to agree at present with those who feel that our country needs a gully-washer of an open, public debate about the role of the Executive Branch, the Senate, the Court, and the Constitution; and I'd much rather the President have selected a sterling, competent, known-quantity candidate, and fought to the last man for him/her. Conservatives would have rallied, and it could have been great for America.

Maybe the President felt that at this point in the Global War on Terror, this fight would not be for the best. Maybe he felt that a lawyer with GWOT experience, who is sympathetic to Executive Branch powers, would be best for the war. Maybe he has good, political reasons I don't know.

But he's asking a lot of his base, and not at the best of times. I just pray he's done the right thing.

UPDATE IV: drawing upon his formidable reserves of prissiness, George Will blasts the President's choice. Much as one sometimes wishes that he could purchase Mr. Will for what he is worth and then sell him for what he thinks he is worth, he does make some damaging points. The tenor of his argument is that the President has forfeited the right to the benefit of a doubt, that the nominee must be proven (not assumed) to be worthy, and that such proof is lacking in Miers' case.

Marvin and Peter Olasky make the case that Miers will likely be immune to enticements to drift leftward on the Court.

The New York Times describes Miers' conversion to Christ as if narrating the practices of an obscure tribe in Borneo. Nonetheless, it gives a fair try, and what seems like an even-handed article. The Washington Post also makes a surprisingly good attempt to do the same thing. Both, however, are surely intended to alarm liberals, as both speak of her faith in Christ as deep and life-forming, and both give reason to believe she has strong pro-life creds.

The Washington Times also weighs in, adding the detail that Miss Miers called her pastor and a longtime Christian friend Sunday night, asking them to pray for her, but saying she wasn't able to tell them why. That says good things about her character and her convictions. But does it say everything?

As I explained earlier, I do find her Christian testimony encouraging. But I have to add this. First, generally: some of the most miserable fools I've known have had a credible Christian testimony. I say that as a Christian. Specifically: Judge Greer, the man who inexcusably condemned Teri Schiavo to starve to death, was a member in good standing of a Baptist church whose convictions (it turned out) were very different than his own. Hm, having said that, the name "Clinton" also comes to mind....

Sang in the choir, didn't he?