Santa Trucks are Coming...

Despite the title, this post is not about Santa, or trucks. Movie reviews do not belong in this blog, but I would like to say a few thoughts I've had about the movie The Polar Express.
Yes, this movie is old, and Christmas is far away. But I've been thinking about it lately (mostly in impatience for Christmas) and I've noticed some interesting observations about this movie.
Santa is not real. I was told this since I was a child. However, my family also read The Night Before Christmas every year and enjoyed watching movies like Santa Claus is Coming to Town. As long as kids understand that Santa is a fun story and that Jesus is the true reason for Christmas, I think it is alright to include Santa in Christmas traditions. As a kid, part of the fun of pretending Santa was dropping off our presents was that we knew it wasn't real.
That said, I think Polar Express is a good movie for kids and even adults. First off, it is voiced by Tom Hanks, who does an amazing job of providing individual personalities to all the characters. The graphics are spectacular, and the unique method of basing the actions of computer-generated characters on actual acting gives the characters a personal touch. Tom Hanks especially is able to convey expressions onto his characters, even the ones like the young boy who look nothing like him.
The plot of Polar Express? A young boy who no longer believes in Santa takes a mysterious train to the North Pole. Simple enough, but what is the moral of the story? It is developed into a full-length movie from a children's book, meaning a lot had to be added. Much of this came from long action scenes of the train ride. But a great deal of depth was added, and the story teaches some interesting lessons.
An important fact about this movie is that to all but the casual observer, the heart of the story is not about Santa Claus. This is a movie about faith, which is the main aspect I am going to examine in this post. Much of what the movie says about belief in Santa Claus can be applied to belief in other things that we cannot see.
The mysterious hobo tells the boy, "Seeing is believing". He tries to convince the boy that Santa is not real unless the boy can see him, or so it seems. One gets the idea that the hobo wishes to convince the boy of Santa's existence through his own cynicism. But the irony is--the hobo himself is not substantial--he's a ghost or even a figment of the boy's imagination. The boy sees the hobo, yet the hobo is not real, or in any case, he is "less"real than he seems.
The conductor later says, "The most real things in the world are the things we can't see." The hobo blew away in the snow whenever he was done talking to the boy, but Santa, as the boy discovers, is real even before the boy sees him.
This illustration makes me think of C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. In this story, the souls of the carnal are ghosts--insubstantial and gray. But the souls of the saved are solid and tangible. When the carnal witness heaven, they realize how unreal they are. They cannot affect anything in heaven--because they are not completely real. Rocks in heaven are too heavy to move. The grass is like diamonds--it will not bend under their feet. The grass pricks into their soles like knives. And the light of the saved, who have actual form, is too bright for them to bear.
The point of this illustration? We tend to think of the spiritual as ethereal and misty. We think of heaven and we think of clouds, and floating spirits. But the spiritual is more real than the physical. Compared to spiritual things, the physical is just a vapor.
A predominant theme in this movie is a sleigh bell. The boy refuses to believe in Santa until he sees him. He says he wants to believe, but he "doesn't want to be bamboozled", as the hobo mocks. But the irony here is that, as he tries to avoid being fooled, he blinds himself to the truth. When they finally reach the North Pole, the boy sees everything he needs to convince him that Santa is real--except Santa himself. As Santa comes out for his midnight sleigh ride, the other children marvel at how beautiful the sleigh bells sound. But the boy can't hear them--and he still can't see Santa. A bell drops right next to him, but he still can't hear it. Finally, he drops his barrier and says, "I believe." He shakes the bell, and it rings. He looks up, and Santa is standing in front of him. "Seeing isn't believing," the boy says. "Believing is seeing." The boy wouldn't believe because he was afraid of being fooled into a lie. But Santa was real in this story, the boy just could not see him because he would not believe. And the bell always rung for him--though not for his parents. He did not convince himself to hear ringing that wasn't real. The bell was real, but he could only hear it if he believed.
Okay, it's a nice story, but why is this post labeled "Christian"? As I said before, the idea that "the most real things in the world are the things we can't see" applies to us as it relates to spiritual things. Spiritual things aren't less real than physical things--they're actually more real.
The idea that "believing is seeing" is even more interesting. Faith is not blind belief. Faith is, as Hebrews 11:1 says, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Faith is substantial, and real. It is based on evidence. We do not check our brains at the door in putting our faith in God. In the movie, Santa and the bells were there whether the boy could see and hear them or not. But people often cannot see God because they do not want to. They say, "Let me see Him, and I'll believe," when in reality, if they first believe they will see him! Atheists say God will be dead when people no longer believe in Him. Even so-called Christians think that whatever they believe about God's character is true just because they believe it. But God's existence is not dependant on whether you believe in Him or not. However, unless you believe, you cannot see Him.
The answer to finding God? As the boy's ticket says, "BELIEVE."

Pet Peeve--But a little more serious this time (continued from last post)

--binson". I told you! I would have included this in the previous post, but, while still a pet peeve, this is a little more serious (though not much)

Upon coming to Appalachian Bible College I realized that many fundamental, Bible-believing churches have a major difference to my home church--they do not all use the same type of bread for communion. My church has always used broken matzo bread. Yet many churches use oyster-like crackers or even rolls. This is not an important difference, nor does this affect the doctrinal soundness of a church. Yet there are several reasons why certain types of bread are more correct than others.

Jesus, when He institued the Lord's Table, was not bringing up a completely new idea. The bread and wine had been instituted for thousands of years as Passover. And as many Christians do not realize, every element of Passover pointed to Jesus. Matzo bread is important because--

• It is broken. Jesus said, "This is my Body that was broken for you." Individual crackers do not portray this.
• It is unleavened. Leaven, or Yeast, represented sin almost every time it was used in the Bible. True, it also represents the spreading of the kingdom of heaven (Luke 13:21) but in the context of Passover, it represented sin. Part of the reason was to picture the Israelites' rapid exit from Egypt, but the holiday also included a custom of sweeping all the leaven out of the household before Passover began. This represented ridding the house of sin. Many people picture the Lord's Supper with large loaves of bread, but the fact is, they were celebrating Passover, so all the bread was unleavened.
• It is striped. A little-known fact about the significance of matzo is that it is striped when baked. This represents the fact that we are healed by His stripes.

My main frustration isn't even the fact that people use other kinds of bread. It's the reaction I get when they comment on it. They say...

• "Why does it matter how Passover was celebrated? We're no longer under the law." This misconception is all-too-common--that anything in the Old Testament is archaic, redundant, and no longer applies. But the Old Testament law is a beautiful and accurate picture of what Jesus would do when He came to earth--and every element is significant.
• "Does it matter what imagery we get? We're still obeying the command." Think of baptism--an issue many Christians are very willing to take sides on. Sprinkling does not accurately picture the death of the sinful man inside us and our rebirth at salvation. Immersion does. In the same way rolls and crackers do not represent the broken, sinless, beaten body of Christ like matzo does. Yet people see Immersion as important and matzo as insignificant.
• "We use Grape Juice instead of Wine. Is this as important?" No. Grape Juice and Wine both represent the blood of Christ, because both are red. In the same way baptism does not need to be in a river, as long as it involves immersion. The important thing is what image you get.

Is this a vital doctrinal issue? No. We don't have to use matzo to obey Christ's command. But Christians should not desire only to do what we have to do. We are no longer under the law, so we need not hold Passover seders or use matzo for communion. But we should want to. Old Testament Jews had the rare gift of understanding Jesus before He even came. Jewish law gives a fantastic picture of salvation--an experience that Gentile Christians could share, but we choose not to. Some Christians even condemn Messianic Jews because they believe the Old Testament law is completely dead. But the law is still alive and real--and a wonderful way to understand God. The more we can understand this law in our vastly different culture, the better. The law pointed us to God in the first place, and deeper study of the law will bring us ever closer to Him.

Pet Peeves--On Ice!

The obligatory on-ice version! Well, not really, but still--here's some water-related peeves.

Misconceptions about the meaning of H2O...

• False intellectuals claiming that H2O is one molecule of "H" and two of "O". Learn chemical notation! Water has two atoms (not molecules--the H2O itself is a molecule) of Hydrogen and only one of Oxygen.
• Companies with products (yes, more complaining about consumer products) such as K2O and Fruit2O. 2O does not mean "water". And K2O (Special K's "Protein Water"--does it taste like meat?) in true chemical notation, is Potassium Oxide. I did some research and discovered some interesting things about true K2O. (yeah, I know) I knew both Potassium and Oxygen were highly flamable, but I didn't know... "Potassium oxide is a very basic oxide and reacts with water violently to produce the caustic potassium hydrozide. It is deliquescent in air and will absorb water from the atmosphere, initiating this vigorous reaction. It is therefore both toxic and corrosive to human tissue." (Wikipedia) Basically, it draws water from the air and reacts with it, turning it into a violent, harmful acid. Not my idea of a health drink.
• When people don't drink enough water. I drink water every chance I get and am still often thirsty. I can't imagine drinking less than my eight glasses a day. Yet some people drink nothing but soda, Gatorade, and the like. They even admit it, saying they "don't like the taste of water." How can you not like water? It has no taste! (ideally) And 99% of what they drink is water-based. Not to mention the fact that they are themselves water-based. Water is foundational to life. Drink it.
• Not water-related, but similar to the above--When people don't drink milk. Milk is a crucial nutrient. Infants need it to live. Adults need it to stay healthy. Teenagers, drink your milk. And Richie, eat your crust.

More peeves coming before you can say "Jack Ro--

Why don't they teach Logic in these schools?

So often Christians see themselves as creatures of emotion. They talk about belief in your heart, praising God from the heart, et cetera. And while the heart often refers to other things besides emotion when used in the Bible, it is clearly the intent of these Christians to speak of the emotions. But what does the Bible say about the heart, as referring to emotions? Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?"
Too many people think that if they just follow their heart, everything will be okay. But the heart lies to us frequently. Emotions are unsteady, and while they have many applications (mostly in the areas of empathy and thoughtfulness) they should not be used to make judgments of fact.

The Difference between Science and Logic
When one thinks of Logic, what does he consider? Usually we think of a cold, unfeeling person like Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager (most people would think of Spock, but as I will say later, Spock is a more accurate representation of logic) Tuvok rattled off facts like a computer, and would consider nothing unless it was proven by science. But science and logic are two different things. Science is observable, repeatable fact. If anything cannot be proven by experiment, it is not scientific. Yet it may be logical. Logic takes facts into account and derives a conclusion based on that fact. But not all facts are scientific. Origin theories (Creation or Evolution) cannot be proven by science. We cannot experiment on or repeat these. But Creation can be proven by logic, as seen in Lee Strobel's book, The Case for a Creator.
Emotions themselves play into logic. Many logical people are slightly absent-minded and not very perceptive of emotions. But this does not mean that logic excludes emotion. Emotion is a fact that must be part of any equation. When deciding what to have for dinner, it is important to take into account what you would like to eat.
But there is a difference between the fact of the emotion, and the conclusion of the emotion. For example, if my companion thinks a man cannot be trusted, I must consider in any decision the fact that my companion does not trust the man. It is a fact that my companion does not trust him. However, it is not a fact that he is not to be trusted. Thus logic can work with emotions if applied properly.
Spock was a good example of this. Though Star Trek: The Original Series was in many ways very poorly made, the character of Spock was portrayed better than any other Vulcan on any other series. Other Vulcans were harsh and judgmental, and very critical of emotions. Spock trusted in steady logic over variable emotions, but he accepted that his crewmates had emotions and took these into consideration, always acting cordially and using pleasantries of speech that he would not need around other Vulcans.

The Difference between Emotion and Attitude
If the heart is deceitful above all things, why does the Bible emphasize Love so strongly? Because love is not an emotion. It is an attitude. Attitudes are choices, while emotions are involuntary. Emotions vary constantly, while with discipline, Attitudes can be controlled. Love is an attitude, affection is an emotion. We can't choose whether we like someone, but we can choose whether we love them. Happiness is an emotion, dependant on circumstances. Joy is an attitude, dependent on whether we choose to be joyful.

The Mind and the Heart in 1 Corinthians 14
People often use 1 Corinthians 13 to talk about how important true love is. And this is a proper application. But the context shows new depth to the application. The preceding chapter discusses spiritual gifts, and chapter 13 is used to point out that some gifts we often think are superior (like tongues) are nothing compared to love. Chapter 14 explains why, and the answer might surprise you.
The chapter begins by saying that prophecy (giving God's message to man) is better than speaking in tongues. Prophecy benefits all who hear you, while speaking in tongues only improves your own experience, unless there is an interpreter. Verse 14 says "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful." I could go on for paragraphs about what this chapter says about speaking in tongues, but let me get back to my main point. The chapter says that if you pray with your spirit only, you are the only one who benefits. But if you pray with your mind, those who pray with you benefit, and can "say the Amen," since he understands what you are saying and agrees. If we pray in a completely emotional manner, we are the only ones who gain anything from it. After all, emotions are variable, and two people rarely share the same emotion at the same time. So when you pray filled with some various emotion, the other people praying with you, who do not share this emotion, get nothing from the prayer. But if you pray with your mind, you all will be edified, for you are speaking in logical truths that are universal to everyone praying.

The conclusion? Church and especially prayer, is a time to stimulate your mind, not only to satisfy your emotion. Christian virtues are to be attitudes, not emotions. And logic is a universal concept that even the emotional can grasp if they make an effort. Christianity is a logical religion, and Christians should strive to have logical minds.