I've always liked this quote from slain missionary Jim Elliott:
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
First read that in the Spire Comics version of Through Gates of Splendor. (And I really thought I remembered a Billy Graham film of this story, but apparently not.) That story was retold in the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor and is being retold again in the new feature film End of the Spear.
You may have heard about this movie because, yes, some evangelical Christians are boycotting it.
That's right: a movie that respectfully portrays the story of heroic evangelical Christian missionary martyrs and of their families' astonishingly brave and loving response to their deaths is being boycotted by evangelical Christians.
Why the boycott? Because the actor playing the dual role of missionaries Nate and Steve Saint, is gay. And this matters because … well, despite all their agitating, I'm not really sure why these people think this matters. On the one hand, they seem to claim that the actor, Chad Allen deceived them by not announcing, at the start of his audition, that he was gay (apparently since he was once on Dr. Quinn — which airs in reruns on PAX, they figured he was "safe"). On the other hand, they claim that their problem isn't simply that he's gay, but that he's openly and outspokenly an advocate for "gay causes." These don't seem to be two things you can be upset about at the same time.
The irony here, if reviews of the movie are to be trusted, is that Allen is apparently pretty good as Nate/Steve Saint. The rest of the film, however, and particularly it's over-the-top orchestral score, has been widely criticized as melodramatic and, yes, campy. Chad Allen is fine, the critics say, and the story itself is inspiring, but director Jim Hanon is way too much of a drama queen.
Update: Some interesting comments on the movie from Steve Saint at Belief.net. See here and here.
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This. Trick. Doesn't. Work. With. Prepositions.
I kind of like the whole periods-after-every-word-for-emphasis thing that's all the rage among those crazy kids on the Internets these days. Like any device, it can get weary from overuse, but when applied sparingly this can be effective.
The reason it works, I think, is because it imitates the cadence of emphatic speech. Tone of voice is notoriously difficult to convey in e-mail — not because it's impossible to convey in writing, but because it's difficult to convey in hasty writing. Shorthand devices like this — or like my own abuse/overuse of italics — can therefore be useful.
But there are still rules for how this trick works and doesn't work. Since it's imitative of speech, a good rule of thumb is to say it out loud. If it sounds wrong, it probably is. Consider, for example, this recent post in comments:
"Most. Simplistic. Ill-informed. Comments. On. Christian. Theology. Ever."
This usage gets a couple of things right, such as the "Most. … Ever." construction. (This trick lends itself particularly well to an exasperated or celebratory superlative.) But it ultimately doesn't work.
The sentence is too long to sound natural in this kind of rat-a-tat spondaic structure. The preposition, in particular, can't really bear the strain of standing on its own as an emphatic, one-word sentence. The insertion of such a qualifying prepositional phrase ("on Christian theology") mutes the intended superlative force of the most … ever structure. But more important, it trips up the rhythm of the meta-sentence.
Again, when in doubt, read it out loud. Rat-a-tat works. So does rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-a-tat doesn't.
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"I have to say my all-time favorite book is Johnny Cash's autobiography 'Cash' by Johnny Cash."
And I have to say my all-time favorite Spire Comic is this one.
Coolest. Christian. Comic. Ever.
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"Do you work for the clown, or does the clown work for you?"
Quick Change comes out on DVD on Feb. 14.
What could be more romantic than the perfect bank robbery?
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Hautboys. Enter.
Semi-related to the comments above. In "Writing in Restaurants," David Mamet writes:
A lesson from radio: don't write stage directions. If it is not apparent what the character is trying to accomplish by saying the line, telling us how the character said it, or whether or not she moved to the couch isn't going to aid the case. We might understand better what the character means but we aren't particularly going to care.
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Don't you like American music baby?
So I got my copy of "Some Other Place," the new CD from Whisperado — a.k.a. in blogging circles as Patrick Nielsen Hayden's band.
I could mention here, again, that it rocks. Or that the song "Black and Blue" works equally well whether or not you take the ass-kicking metaphorically. Or that if I were writing a story and wanted a great name and location for an indie-rock record label, I only wish I could come up with something as good as "Bagel & Rat Records" on Flatbush Avenue.
But I'll skip all that and just tell you to get yourself a copy and hear for yourself.
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Why I am frightened by the moon.
Speaking of music I like from people I admire (and music I admire from people I like), allow me to introduce you to Charlie or, to use the name he's podcasting with these days, King Bonk.
Chuck's a great songwriter, and now he's trying something else with these podcasts — something from the Joe Frank/Jean Shepherd part of the storytelling universe.
So this brings me to the subject of why I'm frightened by the moon. When I was young we used to fear the impending event known in some Christian circles as "the Rapture" …
Good stuff.
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The servants of evil win. Again.
This isn't terribly accurate, of course, as Ezra Klein points out. And in any case Pittsburgh is a blue city in a blue state.
But the point here, as any American evangelical who remembers the 1970s could tell you, is that the Pittsburgh Steelers are Satan's team. These black-clad evildoers were the antithesis of God's team — the pious Dallas Cowboys of Tom Landry and Roger Staubach.
Staubach praised God and gave his Christian testimony after games. He spoke at Fellowship of Christian Athletes events and was held up as a role model. The Steelers, on the other hand, had Terry Bradshaw. It was very clear whose side God was on. It couldn't have been clearer if the coach's wife and daughter had missed the big game for a mission trip to the Congo.
But then, in Superbowl X and, unbelievably, again in Superbowl XIII, God's team lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers. This prompted a crisis in faith for some evangelicals, and convinced others that the End Times were at hand.
I wouldn't be surprised if the lingering after-effects of this shocking triumph of the forces of darkness wound up figuring in Pennsylvania's upcoming governor's race. It won't matter in Pittsburgh, where Lynn Swann is a hero. And it won't matter in Philly, where beating Dallas is always a good thing. But in central Pennsyltucky — the red part of the state that's crucial to Swann's electoral hopes — evangelicals may remember the cruel downfall of God's team, and that Swann was once a servant of evil.
(The Spire Comics images posted here are all borrowed from Mile High Comics — America's Largest Comics Dealer.)
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