Remember the Tom Cruise flick, Minority Report?  It was based on the classic story by Philip K. Dick.   Set in the near future, the police were able to detect future crimes and stop them from happening.  The BBC will soon air a new series with a similar premise called Paradox. It actually sounds quite promising.

The lead director of the series, Simon Cellan Jones, said the series “will leave the audience asking themselves dark, complicated questions about fate, the future and who controls it.”

Read the BBC story here.

Who controls the future?  That is a very penetrating question.  All people are anxious about what tomorrow brings.  There is only One who is worthy to open the seal to the future.  And that is the Lamb who was slain (Rev. 5).  We can rest knowing our future days are in God’s hand.

Originally published at Burr in the Burgh.

Her latest publication is: Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession. It’s evidently a spiritual autobiography.  Here is a CNN piece on it.

It is clear that Rice has become a very keen student of the New Testament.  Her latest books on the life of Jesus display a broad grasp of scholarly literatute.  I, for one, am curious about her memoir and anxious to read it.

More recently, however, to the chagrin of many of her fans, Rice announced her conversion (or re-conversion) to the Roman Catholic faith of her childhood.  No longer a writer of baroque horror stories populated with blood-sucking fiends, she has dedicated the rest of her life to writing about her Lord, Jesus Christ.

Many Christians were skeptical when they learned that Rice plans to produce a series of novels on the life of Jesus.  The first two installments have already become best-sellers (Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana) and she’s only getting started.

You might be surprised, as I was, that she’s remarkably reverent and orthodox as she weaves plausible and deeply researched narratives about Jesus.  Rice has explained her path back to Christianity from atheism in numerous interviews.  She offers a taste of her upcoming memoir on her website.  It’s entitled “Called Out of Darkness” and I have high expectations.

Few, if any popular authors are as well informed about biblical studies as Anne Rice.  Certainly, she has read much more in the field than most LCMS pastors.  In First Things magazine online, Father Dwight Longenecker interviews Rice about her vampires, her Christian faith, and her books on Jesus.  I commend it to you.

Over the last couple of years I’ve read a number of books on or about depression in different ways. When I could concentrate enough to read. Two books I read early on I’ve mean to write about for some time:Speaking of Sadness
By David A. Karp

Karp is a sociology professor at Boston College. He is not a Christian. However, Dr. Karp’s book is profound. He has suffered from depression himself, and so the book is part auto-biographical, part sociology, and part explanation of what is happening to you and how others around you are reacting to it.

Some of the topics he discusses are disconnection, illness as identity, medication, coping, family, and depression’s impact on our society. It was probably the sections on disconnection and illness as identity that were the most useful to me. Depression forces one to withdraw into yourself. You shrink, so that you feel like you are in a deep dark hole and can only barely see out at all. Friends fall by the wayside, family even. Many a divorce has had depression as one of the chief causes. So to understand how and why this disconnection is happening is quite important.

Perhaps equally important is the concept of illness as identity. I remember having a conversation with my wife’s brother once. He said that he hated being called a diabetic. He had diabetes. In his mind, the illness did not define him, and so he wanted to create separation between himself and the illness. That can be done with physical diseases and illnesses to some degree. No one says “I am a flu-er”, you say you have the flu. Even this has it’s limits. Paraplegic. Diabetic. These are but a couple examples of where the illness is incorporated socially into the identity of a person.

But with mental illness it is different. Because depression and mental illness are so invasive, because we can’t seem to separate our minds from ourselves, depression quickly gloms itself on to the identity. You are marked as unclean or not quite right in the head. There is a social stigma that goes along with depression. Are you trustworthy, or will you just crash? Jobs, family, church, all of these areas an more can make depression become a part of you. I am surprised that no one has coined a term like “I am a depressionic” or something to that effect. Karp addresses this phenomenon with a great deal of insight.

Now where is the Gospel in a secular book like this? There isn’t any, directly. He goes through the journey down into the valley and back up again. It is descriptive, with many helpful insights along the way. I would highly recommend this book, for example, to anyone suffering from depression and especially to their family. It is very good for understanding this. What he doesn’t do (and I have yet to find) is a real treatment of the relationship between mental illness and faith. How is it that I can cry, “I trust when dark my road” and yet mentally not believe there is a future for me? Is the mind the sole place for faith, so that if my mind isn’t right, it must mean my faith isn’t right?

God forbid. Faith is a gift, not an achievement. It is a gift that God continues to give, no matter how difficult the circumstances. In fact, the harder it is, the sweeter God’s gift will become. Even if you don’t feel it. Even if you can’t see past the next fifteen minutes. That doesn’t mean God abandons you. It means that he is hidden for a time so that He may reveal Himself more fully to us at the proper time. There is hope. There is a future. There is a Messiah who comes.

-DMR

PS come see my blog at I Trust When Dark My Road

How do atheists celebrate Christmas? The ever articulate, never boring, Dinesh D’Souza asks this question here.

My other question is WHY do atheists celebrate Christmas?

The new atheists like Sam Harris, Philip Pullman and Christopher Hitchens like to claim that religion, and Christianity in particular, is responsible for the bulk of the world’s woes. If I believed that to be the case, I would find it disingenuous to participate in any fashion in the global commemoration of the birth of Jesus.

But then again, people who try to seriously argue that religion, and Christianity in particular, are a blight on human history are not especially clear thinkers. Have Christians or others done horrid things supposedly in the name of Christ or His Church? Yes, sadly. But the burning of witches and heretics is not all there is to say about Church history, surprising as that may be for some.

If you affirm the value of clear balanced argument, then I commend a book to you by Dr. Alvin Schmidt called How Christianity Changed the World. You will find that everywhere the Church has exerted cultural and social influence, that society became more humane, more compassionate, more peaceful, and generally more prosperous. I liked the original title of his book, Under the Influence, but I guess the connotations were distracting.

The Golden Compass is indeed a reason for concern, primarily because of the subsequent two volumes of the trilogy it is associated with. The current movie version of Compass is only mediocre as a movie and for the most part, avoids the most sticky wicky points.

How should Christians respond? First, I agree with the Vatican’s concerns, but I believe it is important to remain cool-headed. Is it truly the most anti-Christmas film possible? Such exaggerated assertions suggest that the reviewer either didn’t really see the film or is prone to overreaction. In both cases, our cause is harmed.

One of the biggest flaws in Pullman’s technique is his extremism. Even some people who agree with his views feel he is an impediment because he overstates his case. I hope the church does not fall into the same approach. Not every attack on the Faith requires the same degree of response. Otherwise, every attack will be the most anti-Christmas film possible. And if every attack is the most anti-Christmas film possible (to use the phrase from the Vatican), then none of them are. Not everything can be the “most possible.” Do you see?

So if next year, another film is produced that undermines Christianity but does so in a more direct and sophisticated way, how will we respond if we’ve already labeled Compass as the worst possible? If it’s the worst, then all others must not be as bad.

I am in no way defending the militant atheism of Philip Pullman. I am only saying that our responses to our critics ought to be in proportion to the quality of the threat.

Originally posted at The Burr in the Burgh.