Last-Minute Redemption

It’s a good thing RTB theologian Kenneth Samples has an end times booklet in the works because the apocalypse is making a big cultural splash at movie theatres. Doomsday is a perennial topic of interest, but it seems to be getting extra attention from Hollywood this year. There are post-human Earth stories (Oblivion and After Earth); Brad Pitt fighting zombies (World War Z), and this week presents a crass comedic take on the rapture.

The raunchy This Is the End isn’t my cup of cinematic tea, but an online description of its plot caught my attention (spoilers ahead).

 

Man of Steel and the Original Superhero

In case it’s not already on your radar, the highly anticipated reboot Man of Steel releases next week. Most are familiar with who Superman is—understandable considering this cultural icon (and first comic book superhero) has been around for 75 years.

For nonnatives to the comic book world, here’s a quick recap: Young Kal-El is placed in a rocket ship and transported to Earth just before his home planet of Krypton explodes. Taking the name Clark Kent, the child grows to become Superman. With his superpowers, Superman protects the earth and its people.

What might be less familiar to some are the religious analogies drawn from Superman.

 

Bright Hope for Tomorrow

“Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.”
― Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life

Cemeteries filled with faded tombstones and crumbling mausoleums pepper the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. While exploring some of these burial sites (by daylight), I tried to examine the dates on the stones—but time and weather had rubbed away many of the inscriptions. Even these grave markers, perhaps the only memorials dedicated to the people buried beneath them, could not last forever. This experience led me to ponder the futility of life on Earth.

 

Pastors’ Views on Creation and Evolution: The Results Are In

Last week Christianity Today posted an article discussing clergy and their views on origins. As the article reports, new Barna Group research (commissioned by BioLogos) “shows that a slight majority (54 percent) of Protestant pastors across all regions most likely identify with young-earth creation.”

 

Star Trek’s Prime Directive and Moral Relativism

Star Trek Into Darkness, the second installment in director J. J. Abrams’ reboot of the classic sci-fi franchise, warped into theatres this week—and in case you don’t care for spoilers, skip down to the next paragraph. The film begins with Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) violating the United Federation of Planets’ “Prime Directive” (surprise, surprise) by revealing the technologically advanced USS Enterprise to a primitive civilization during an effort to save First Officer Spock’s (Zachary Quinto) life.

Wikipedia explains, “The Prime Directive dictates that there can be no interference with the internal development of alien civilizations.”

 

The Great (and Lonely) Gatsby

“I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others—young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.”

—The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless classic, The Great Gatsby, reveals a mystical tale of a man (Jay Gatsby) infatuated with opulence, obsessed with reliving the past, and secretly engrossed in loneliness.

 

The Inconceivable Misuse of Science Words

In the oh-so-quotable The Princess Bride, swashbuckling Spaniard Inigo Montoya calls out bossy Sicilian Vizzini on his overuse of the word “inconceivable.”

“You keep using that word,” Inigo says, “I do not think it means what you think it means.”

The same could be said about science terminology. A recent article on LiveScience.com laments the general populous’ frequent misuse of seven science words and phrases. The list includes, “hypothesis,” “theory,” “model,” and “skeptic,” among others. Blame for this lack of understanding, as we at RTB would agree, lies with poor science education.