Movie Night
Over the past several weeks we have caught up a bit on our movie watching. We have watched most of the critically acclaimed movies from the Academy Awards plus a few the critics may not know about. My favorite is Australia starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. I’m not saying this would have received my vote for best movie of the year (definitely in the top three) but it’s the movie I liked the most. The storyline is as predictable as an old western but you don’t really care. Entertainment Weekly described the movie as a cross between Gone with the Wind and Out of Africa. I think that is a reasonable description based on the feelings I had at the end of the movie. Kidman plays an English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley. Her husband owned a cattle station in northwest Australia which she has now inherited. She decides to visit and determine firsthand what to do with this property. As it turns out, the largest cattle baron in that area has been plotting to take the property, which is the only cattle station he does not own. Lady Ashley is helped by Hugh Jackman’s character, Drover (that’s the only name you get through the entire movie). He is definitely the John Wayne or Glen Ford type character. Their only hope of saving the station is a long cattle drive across the desert to Darwin. The film is set at the beginning of WWII and Darwin is bombed by the Japanese during the last part of the movie.
The movie is filmed in a beautiful but somewhat desolate part of Australia. Faraway Downs (the name of the cattle station) is a place everyone wants to visit, especially after the seasonal rains turn it from a drab brown landscape to a colorful, park-like setting. Like the old westerns, the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and Faraway Downs (just like Tara) is preserved. It’s a “feel-good” movie for sure and one that I will probably buy.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Shocking Report?
I was not shocked but certainly dismayed a few mornings ago when the front page (above the fold) of the Tennessean had an article that reported 62% of those calling themselves Evangelical Christians supported torturing prisons to gain information. The very faith that was the foundational element for the establishment of our government seems to have now abandoned a key element of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The faith that is called to be above politics and serve in a prophetic way in calling our government to righteousness has sold out in order to have a “meaningful role” in the political system. Shame on us!
I am reading/praying my way through this year’s 50 Days of Prayer devotional leading up to the PCA General Assembly in June. This year the focus is on the minor prophets. Yesterday (May 14) the selected verse was Amos 5:24 “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” In that entry, the editor, Rev. Michael Ross, shared about his friendship with John Perkins when he was serving as a pastor in Mississippi. Perkins is a well-known Christian leader, a civil rights advocate, and the founder of Voice of Calvary Ministries. In closing his devotional, Ross had this to say about Perkins: “You know, I never knew if John Perkins was a Democrat or Republican. He never talked about elections. But John was used by God in both Church and State. He understood the prophets.” Shame on us if we don’t!
I was not shocked but certainly dismayed a few mornings ago when the front page (above the fold) of the Tennessean had an article that reported 62% of those calling themselves Evangelical Christians supported torturing prisons to gain information. The very faith that was the foundational element for the establishment of our government seems to have now abandoned a key element of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The faith that is called to be above politics and serve in a prophetic way in calling our government to righteousness has sold out in order to have a “meaningful role” in the political system. Shame on us!
I am reading/praying my way through this year’s 50 Days of Prayer devotional leading up to the PCA General Assembly in June. This year the focus is on the minor prophets. Yesterday (May 14) the selected verse was Amos 5:24 “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” In that entry, the editor, Rev. Michael Ross, shared about his friendship with John Perkins when he was serving as a pastor in Mississippi. Perkins is a well-known Christian leader, a civil rights advocate, and the founder of Voice of Calvary Ministries. In closing his devotional, Ross had this to say about Perkins: “You know, I never knew if John Perkins was a Democrat or Republican. He never talked about elections. But John was used by God in both Church and State. He understood the prophets.” Shame on us if we don’t!
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