Fans of the (rather sick) TV series Twin Peaks have a lot of fun trying to figure out the meaning of the many symbols and clues left by series creator David Lynch. But his apparent originality isn’t that original. His inspiration is the occult. The funny thing is that the occult itself isn’t all that original. It is simply an inversion of many things in the Bible, which is also filled with strange symbols and clues. It is no coincidence that Twin Peaks was the product of a culture that was once soaked in the Bible.
Shedding Blood in the Dark: The Liturgical Shape of Skyfall
[This post contains detailed spoilers.]
James Bond: Everybody needs a hobby. Silva: So, what’s yours? James Bond: Resurrection.
In the late 60s and early 70s, the structures of traditional Western storytelling were deliberately omitted from “thinking” films. Bleak narratives reflected the randomness of life without faith. Movies were becoming formless and void.
They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham… You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.” (John 8:39, 44)
The theme of seed and fruit, or genealogy and mission, runs throughout the Bible. Genealogy is entirely objective. Our heredity is a factor in which we have no choice. It is the tree of life. But the fruit of our lives, what we choose to do with that life, involves our volition. Volition is mission. “It’s not about the hand you are dealt; it’s about how you play it.”
It’s now official. Kirk Cameron’s been hanging around with Darren Doane and Gary DeMar. He’s left the erroneous theology of Tim LaHaye’s silly books behind and embraced the optimism of postmillennialism — the Biblical teaching that the gospel will be victorious in history, through self-sacrifice.
Cheer up, you dispies. It’s not the end of the world.
“This objection misses the point that Peter is making. The issue with Cornelius and his household was not whether they were old enough to receive water baptism, but whether they were Jewish enough. If this household had contained an infant, the members of the ‘circumcision’ who were there would not have objected to baptism on the grounds of infancy, but rather because the infant was Gentile and uncircumcised” (To a Thousand Generations, p. 55).
Certainly, the issue was whether Gentiles should be baptized, but it was never a pitting of circumcision against baptism. They understood that circumcision was a beginning and baptism was a new beginning. Circumcision was replaced not by baptism but by the death of Christ, which united Jew and Gentile. Jesus tore down that wall, and paedobaptism unwittingly puts it up again. Circumcision marked out flesh as a plot of Land. That is entirely done with. Spirit water overflows all human barriers, it wipes out every distinction with a new one – Repentance and Faith.
“In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices like a strong man to run its race.” Psalm 19:4-5
The Bible Matrix is found throughout Scripture and Creation at every level. It is the foundation for the best novels and movies because they resonate with us at every level. Like the Bible, the best literature, art, music and movies show us something new every time we review them.
A prime example is a movie I discovered last week, Sunshine, directed by Danny Boyle. It follows the basic pattern, but after some thought, there are many more elements within it that illustrate the history of Adam than immediately meet the eye.
“Our sun is dying. Mankind faces extinction. Seven years ago the Icarus project sent a mission to restart the sun but that mission was lost before it reached the star. Sixteen months ago, I, Robert Capa, and a crew of seven left earth frozen in a solar winter. Our payload: a stellar bomb with a mass equivalent to Manhattan Island. Our purpose: to create a star within a star. Eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb. My bomb. Welcome to the Icarus Two.”
If you don’t want the movie spoiled for you, watch it before reading this post. You won’t really get the post anyhow if you haven’t seen it.
God took on a body, from the dust, in Adam. A trillion particles of inanimate, dead stuff pulled together and organised into the most complex system in the cosmos, an organic machine capable of feats we are yet to discover.
Adam, as Covenant head, also took on a “body.” A Divine Handful of flesh and bone, dead or dying by any human measure, organised into a being more palatial and lavish than any male eye is worthy to behold.
“When I began to edit the film, something happened. I found I was being educated. And not just with arguments. I was watching a Christian life. I was seeing a Christian man.” —Darren Doane
Just watched The History Boys, a film based on an entertaining but self-indulgent West End play by Alan Bennett. Despite the fact that under Course Language and Sexual References it should also have a “gay theme” warning (but I guess that’s not politically correct), the film is hysterical is places and unwittingly highlights a fatal flaw in our culture.
