Lost Tails and Bruised Reeds: The Grace of Divine Discipline and the Joy of True Repentance

       Three weeks ago, I wrote about how the protagonist of the film Fantastic Mr. Fox is an accurate representation of the unrepentant. [1] However, for all that the essay said about what repentance is not—making excuses, hating the consequences of sin but not sin itself, making confession without changing, and even having some understanding of the seriousness of sin—I failed to explain what repentance actually is. In particular, the essay lacked a biblical explanation of repentance. Without a biblical understanding of repentance, one could get the impression that all that Mr. Fox needed to do was to stop stealing from the farmers and pay restitution, however costly—and deadly—that price may be. While true, biblical repentance would require such actions, such actions in and of themselves would not be true, biblical repentance. True repentance, while it must manifest itself in repentant actions, must begin in the heart—and if it does not begin in the heart, the repentance is not true. 

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The Fantastic Un-Repentance of Mr. Fox

       There is a moment one-third into Wes Anderson’s 2009 animated film, Fantastic Mr. Fox—based on the children’s book by Roald Dahl, adapted for the screen by Noah Baumbach and the director—when the moral and mortal stakes of the story become starkly apparent. Mr. Fox has returned to his old life of crime, stealing from and inciting the wrath of three farmers. Those farmers retaliate with extreme violence, and Mr. Fox and his family are driven into hiding underground when their home is destroyed. Mrs. Fox takes Mr. Fox aside and lets him know just how much damage he has caused, and will cause if this continues.

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Of Love and Lightbulbs: VeggieTales and the Power/Folly of the Gospel

       I’ve come to realize that much of one of my favorite examples of Christian culture-making growing up, Big Idea’s long-running animated series VeggieTales, was not all that distinctly Christian. What I mean, taking the word very literally, is that VeggieTales has little to it that is uniquely Christ-ian. Is VeggieTales theistic? Certainly. Does it teach biblical morality? Yes—but morality without Christ creates moralists, not Christians. Though theistic, biblically moral, and embedded in the fabric of the evangelical, American, cultural Christianity of the past twenty years, not much of VeggieTales is centered around a theology of Christ the cosmos-creating, cosmos-sustaining, incarnate, crucified, resurrected, ascended, someday-soon-returning, and eternity-reigning Lord.

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A Prayer for Inauguration Day

Heavenly Father,

       We acknowledge and honor You as the one who “removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 2:21). [1] We worship and give all allegiance to You who are the Sovereign Lord of all creation. We believe that “[Your] kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and [Your] dominion endures from generation to generation” (Daniel 4:3). All earthly rulers have power only to the extent that You grant it to them. We affirm that “the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men” (Daniel 4:17). The Apostle Paul taught us that “there is no authority except God, and those that exist have been instituted by God”; therefore, it is a serious thing to “[resist] what God has appointed” (Romans 13:1–2). The Apostle Peter, too, taught us to “be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution” and to “honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2:13, 17). 

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The Stuff of Earth: Rich Mullins’ “If I Stand” and a Brief Theology of Creation

       In Rich Mullins’ 1988 song, “If I Stand” (cowritten with Steven Robert Cudworth), there is a line that captures an enduring tension in the heart of any Christian living in a material world: “The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance / I owe only to the Giver of all good things.” [1]    

       There is a paradox here, because “the stuff of earth” and “all good things” are equivalent. “The stuff of earth” that Mullins describes in the song are the rising sun, the shining moon, the warmth of a fire, the shelter of a room, the virtue of loyalty, music, the wind on the prairie, the ocean tide, the love between friends, and the gentleness of a mother toward her newborn. Clearly, the term “stuff of earth” does not represent bad things, because the stuff of earth Mullins has in mind are “all good things,” gracious gifts from God “the Giver.” And yet, these good things from God are in competition with Him for our loyalty. The implication is that “all good things,” while good in and of themselves—for they were made by God who declared them all “very good” (Genesis 1:31)—can nevertheless be bad for us when they entice us to treason. [2] 

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