by | Jul 13, 2023 | Uncategorized
Like the TV show’s characters, Pelagius and Augustine wrestled with this core human question.
In a time when societal consensus, let alone advancement, seems painfully unattainable, the quirky television comedy Ted Lasso has struck a chord—as evidenced by its previous four Emmy awards and third nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series.
This soccer-themed runaway hit, featuring an unwitting Kansas football coach turned British soccer manager, premiered on Apple TV+ in August 2020 in the eerily uncertain early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over three seasons, and even with a major drop-off in quality in the third, the show has offered some welcome comic relief and a strong tonic for pessimism.
The series acknowledges how helpless it can feel to be human: “Yeah, it might be all that you get. Yeah, I guess this might well be it. Well, heaven knows I’ve tried,” its theme song laments. But at the same time, Ted Lasso illustrates the transformation that can result when people resist acquiescence and challenge one another to grow. It resonates with viewers because it probes and, to some extent, gratifies a longing we all have: We want to see things get better.
At the heart of the show is a question one of the characters raises in the series finale. Roy Kent has just experienced a spectacularly abject failure in his efforts to improve himself. Overwhelmed with dejection and remorse, he is tempted to give up. Will he never learn? In despair, he confides his doubts to his friends and poses the question: “Can people change?”
Roy’s confidants do not leave his question hanging, proposing three different answers.
The first comes from the savvy and sardonic reporter Trent Crimm, a man whose profession is dealing in cold facts: “I don’t think we change per se as much as we just learn …
Continue reading…
by | Jul 12, 2023 | Uncategorized
The biblical story of Naboth’s vineyard teaches non-indigenous Christians like me how God views the injustice that made Melbourne.
As an increasing number of Australians realize, our nation was founded on the legal lie that the continent was terra nullius, “nobody’s land.” The truth is that Aboriginal people had been living on the lands now called Australia for at least 65,000 years by the time the first Europeans arrived. However, since British law said no one was here, most settlers didn’t bother making treaties.
One exception was John Batman, who was born in Australia to a convict father and a free mother who had paid passage to keep the family together. After encountering challenges trying to access a land grant in other regions, Batman staked out land near Merri Creek, otherwise known as the home of the Wurundjeri nation, and signed a treaty with them that exchanged handkerchiefs, flour, and other supplies for most of what is now Melbourne.
Even if their signatures weren’t faked, the most the Wurundjeri people possibly agreed to was temporary hospitality. They considered the land as something they belonged to, not as a possession that could be sold as under English law.
In the end, it didn’t matter. In 1835 the governor responded to Batman’s treaty with a letter in the king’s name: The treaty was invalid because the land already belonged to the crown. Within a few years, most of the indigenous inhabitants in that region were either killed or forcibly displaced far from their ancestral home.
While the themes in this story show up across Australia’s history, this is the particular story of the land on which I live and work. I first learned about it while preparing to preach on 1 Kings 21 at a church near Merri Creek where the treaty was signed. I don’t often like to compare myself with biblical …
Continue reading…
by | Jul 12, 2023 | Uncategorized
Ministries and former law enforcement have some caveats to add to the film about Operation Underground Railroad’s Tim Ballard.
In a field crowded with franchises like Indiana Jones, the unexpected box office success of the summer is a movie about child sex trafficking, Sound of Freedom. Based on the story of Operation Underground Railroad’s Tim Ballard, the small-budget film has earned $45 million since its July 4 release.
The movie tells the story of Ballard (Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in 2004’s The Passion of the Christ) becoming frustrated with his work as a Department of Homeland Security agent arresting pedophiles. He wants to rescue the children being sex trafficked, but he says at one point, “Most of those kids are outside of the US.”
He quits his job and goes rogue to track down a brother and sister who have been trafficked, traveling to Mexico and Colombia. He and his assembled team try to set up an Epstein-style island sex club to entrap traffickers and rescue the children.
This isn’t an explicitly faith-filled film, aside from Ballard quoting Mark 9:42 (“It would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck …”) as he’s arresting a pedophile. The real Ballard is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
But the film has drawn a Christian audience concerned about trafficking. It is distributed by Angel Studios, the same company that distributed The Chosen (as of May, Lionsgate is now The Chosen’s distributor). Sound of Freedom had been dead in the water after its distributor Fox Latin America dropped it in 2019. But Ballard said in an interview with Fox News that he was visiting the set of The Chosen when he met Angel executives: “They made a deal in five days.”
In real life, Ballard’s anti-trafficking organization, Operation …
Continue reading…
by | Jul 12, 2023 | Uncategorized
Study: Worship leaders say they don’t care what music tops the charts, but trust peer recommendations and what they have heard at conferences.
For the past decade, a handful of megachurches have dominated worship music, churning out hits such as “Goodness of God,” “What a Beautiful Name,” “King of Kings” and “Graves Into Gardens.”
And though churches like Australia-based Hillsong and Bethel Church in California have met with scandal and controversy, worship leaders still keep singing their songs.
A new study released Tuesday found that few worship leaders avoid songs from Hillsong and Bethel, two of the so-called Big Four megachurches that dominate modern worship music.
The study found that most worship leaders connect with songs because they’ve experienced them firsthand at a conference or by listening to them online, or because a friend or church member recommended them—rather than seeing the song at the top of the charts or on a list of new songs.
Elias Dummer, a Christian musician turned marketer who is part of the research team behind the study, said most worship leaders think they have good reasons for picking the songs they use in worship. But they may not be aware of how social forces—like the popularity of certain churches—affect their choices.
“While people say that that they care about the songs—they pick the same four churches over and over again,” said Dummer.
The new study is based on a survey of more than 400 church worship leaders in the U.S. and Canada that was conducted in the fall of 2022—drawn from both social media groups of worship leaders and an email list from a major music publisher.
Worship leaders were asked what they thought about the pace of new music being produced, how they picked new songs, what they thought the motivations were behind new songs …
Continue reading…
by | Jul 11, 2023 | Uncategorized
Rejecting the act of an atheist “Christian” refugee, church leaders escape the ire of protests in Iraq and Pakistan.
Following the burning of the Quran in Sweden last month, Christians in the Muslim world have been vocal in their condemnation.
But some expressions of disapproval may have been forced upon them.
“Christian religious figures … [must] state their positions regarding this explicit crime,” stated the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq. “Their silence puts them in a position of refraining from criminalizing and condemning it.”
The Sunni-based group had plenty of reasons to be offended. The stunt occurred in front of the Grand Mosque of Stockholm on the first day of Eid al-Adha, one of two primary Muslim holidays. And prior to being lit on fire, the Quran was kicked about and stuffed with bacon—provocation against Islam’s prohibition of pork.
But the greatest Iraqi ire may have been that the culprit was one of their own—and a Christian. Salwan Momika, a 37-year-old father of two, sought refuge in Sweden sometime after 2017. But his checkered history had many Middle East Christians criticizing him as well.
In fact, he is an atheist.
His Instagram post announcing his act declared his lack of faith in anything save secular liberalism. Citing the protest as an act of democracy in defense of freedom of speech, he also asked for financial support. And it is reported that upon arrival in Sweden, he volunteered for a far-right party known for its opposition to Muslim migrants.
But earlier, he worked for Shiites.
Momika professed admiration for Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), who was killed with Iran’s Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in 2020. Under the PMF’s command he enrolled with Christian compatriots in “The …
Continue reading…
