Howard Dean invokes the Babel fish

Watching Howard Dean try to spin Scott Brown's victory to mean that Democrats need to keep pushing for socialized medicine is quite entertaining, given that Chris Matthews isn't about to buy it. I can only conclude that Matthews doesn't want to get run over on the next zebra crossing.

Science vs. the sense of wonder?

For some people, perhaps:

Great fun from xkcd

Click on the image to see it full-sized.

Found on the Internet

years ago, in someone's sig file:

"Bother," said Pooh. "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump. Piglet, meet me in transporter room three. Christopher Robin, you have the bridge."

Embracing the wildness of faith

Bill over at The Thinklings put up a post yesterday quoting Chesterton at length (something almost always well worth doing) on the value of fairy tales for children, and concluding with some additional thoughts of his own:

This really resonates with me, because from a young age I rode like a squire through the Arthurian legends, crouched quietly in the belly of the horse with Odysseus, galloped alongside Centaurs in Lewis' Narnia, and went into the dreadful dark of Moria with Frodo and Sam. These led me one day to open up a Bible and begin reading what Lewis would call the "true myth" of the ultimate, and fully historical, defeat of the dragon.

As parents we should, of course, protect our kids. But I think Chesterton makes a compelling case here for not limiting them with politically correct, neutered fiction that contains no dragons. How will they ever know that the dragon can be killed?

I think Bill's absolutely right about that. As Chesterton says in the essay he quotes,

Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

This is much the same point Russell Moore makes in the post I quoted Monday, and so it's no surprise that Bill follows up today by quoting Moore as well. He also adds an extended quote from Danielle at Count the Days on the absurdity that passes for "Christian education" in so many places. It's a great post:

The other day, in my Religious Education class, this question was posed to us:

"What do you want to teach a child by the time they are 12?"

During class we were supposed to get in groups and discuss what we thought kids need to know by that stage in their lives, and honestly, I was kind of appalled by the answers I heard. . . .

One girl had the audacity to call me "harsh" because I said that they need to know that they are sinners. How can anyone have an appreciation or understanding of salvation without first knowing what sin is and that they are a sinner? I understand that the average child cannot comprehend the intricacies of theology, but what Jesus-loving Children's Minister can look at the kids in their ministry and knowingly keep the whole Truth from them? Bible stories are great and important in building a foundation for these kids, but knowing who Zaccheus was, or being able to sing the books of the Bible in order isn't going to get anyone any closer to Heaven. Just sayin'.

I guess the reason it frustrated me so much was because I was thinking of my own (future/potential) children. I don't want my ten/eleven/twelve year old thinking that "being a good person" or being "obedient" means anything without having a personal, intimate relationship with Christ. I mean sure, I want obedient children ;), but in the grand scheme of things that would not be on the top of my list.

And then perhaps the most important point she makes is this:

Children can be taught all kinds of things as long as they are taught in love and kindness. Give kids the opportunity to understand, instead of withholding Truth from them. Offer them the whole Gospel, not just cartoons or cut-and-dry facts. I know I probably sound like some hardcore beat-truth-into-them type of lady, but I hate the thought of kids wasting what can be the most influential years of growth on pointless trivia or partial Truth.

Amen. This is something of a soapbox of my own, and has been for a while—I don't post on it a great deal, just on occasion, but it's something I care quite a bit about in my congregation, and with my own kids—that so much of what we call "Christian education" in the church is just awful, trivial, milk-and-water stuff aimed at teaching kids to be nice, dutiful little serfs rather than at raising them up as followers of Jesus Christ.

The problem is, I think, that too many adults—and not just adults in the church, either—have lost touch with the wildness of the world, and the wildness of their own hearts. Part of it, as N. D. Wilson says, is that our rationalistic and rationalized, scientific and scientistic, we-are-civilized-and-we-can-control-everything culture tends to teach us to see all things wild and perilous as evil; we have tamed immense swaths of our world, made it comfortable and predictable, orderly and obedient, and so we see these as good things, and anything that threatens them as bad.

This logically leads us to lose sight of the wildness of evil, both within us and outside us. Hannah Arendt had an important insight when she wrote of "the banality of evil" (an insight which I believe is much less understood than quoted), but it's equally important for us to understand that while evil is indeed dreary and banal, uncreative and far less attractive than it likes to pretend, it is not thereby tame and predictable and contained. We get reminders of this when things like 9/11 happen, but if we can convince ourselves that such things are outside our own experience—that their lesson doesn't apply to us—then we do so as quickly as possible, convincing ourselves that our own lives are still safe and tame and under our control.

The consequence of this domesticated worldview for the church is that too often, we've tamed our faith. We have trimmed it to fit what this world calls reality instead of letting our faith expand our souls to fit God's view of reality, and we have ended up with a domesticated faith in a domesticated God. After all, if we don't see our world as a big, wild, uncontrollable world that threatens us and makes us uncomfortable, we don't need a big, wild, uncontrollable God who makes us uncomfortable and calls us to fear him as well as love him; a god sized to fit the tame little problems we'll admit to having will do nicely.

There are various antidotes to that, but one of them is, to bring this back around to Bill's post, to Chesterton, and also to Tolkien, a keen acquaintance with the world of faerie. We need stories that do not only show us the wildness of evil somewhere else (for many of our movies and books do that much), but that show us the wildness of evil in our own hearts, and also the wildness of good. We need stories that powerfully communicate, not only rationally but also viscerally, the truth that (to borrow a line from Michael Card) there is a wonder and wildness to life, that true goodness is a high and perilous thing, and that the life of goodness is an adventure. We need to learn to hear the call to faith as the call expressed so well by Andrew Peterson in his song "Little Boy Heart Alive":

Feel the beat of a distant thunder—
It’s the sound of an ancient song.
This is the Kingdom calling;
Come now and tread the dawn.

Come to the Father;
Come to the deeper well.
Drink of the water
And come to live a tale to tell . . .

Take a ride on the mighty Lion;
Take a hold of the golden mane.
This is the love of Jesus—
So good but it is not tame.

This is just brilliant

Thanks to Toby Brown, the Classical Presbyterian, for pointing me to this one—it's the funniest thing I've seen in a while, possessed of a certain wonderfully delirious logic.

Sarah Palin and the Kobayashi Maru

This was posted on Big Hollywood over a month ago now, and I have no idea how I missed it; this is just too fun. A tip of the hat to Leigh Scott for coming up with this:

Sarah Palin is Captain Kirk. Why? Because she just passed the Kobayashi Maru.

For those of you who don’t know what the Kobayashi Maru is, let me explain. In the Star Trek universe it is an unwinnable test. It’s creator, Mr. Spock, designed it to test how Starfleet captains deal with failure and death. There is no right way to successfully navigate through it.

But cadet James Tiberius Kirk found a way to beat it. He rigged the computer simulation to allow him to complete the mission without killing his crew. Starfleet accused him of cheating, but Kirk’s response was simple, eloquent, and very revealing. “I don’t believe in the no-win scenario. I don’t like to lose.” Kirk didn’t change the strategy. He changed the rules. . . .

Palin was faced with her own Kobayashi Maru. How could she effectively govern the state of Alaska while facing ridiculous ethics charges and the scrutiny of the national media? How could she increase her exposure in the lower 48 while staying true to the people in Alaska who elected her? Perhaps if the wingnuts in Alaska didn’t stalk her with silly lawsuits she would have simply put her larger ambitions on the back burner and continued to do her job as governor. But it wasn’t meant to be. She was perfectly set up to fail. Her popularity in Alaska would decline. The national media would point to it as an indicator of her overall effectiveness. The Klingons . . . I mean the left, would have won.

But Palin defied them. She changed not her strategy, but the very rules. She resigned her position, turning the state over to her loyal Lieutenant Governor to continue the plans and policies she put into motion. Like any good story, it was an unexpected twist, yet when viewed in retrospect it was the only way it could play out.

That's an interesting analogy. You might not like the comparison between Sarah Palin and James T. Kirk in general, but as an analysis of what exactly Gov. Palin did with her resignation, I think it's a good one.

"That limitless horizon"

Last week, I posted the video of Neil Gaiman reading his wonderful poem "Instructions," noting inter alia that the poem will before long become a picture book (an event I await with happy anticipation). Last night, I linked to Eric Ortlund's blog to cite his excellent post on the necessity of grace, and the fatal thing that is moral exhortation apart from the gospel message. As such, I cannot fail to note the linkage of the two: Dr. Ortlund has also posted Gaiman's video, and along with it some comments on Gaiman which, quite frankly, say it better than I ever have.

Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors because . . . well, aside from his knowledge of ancient religion, reading him feels like I'm dreaming. There is a surfeit of meaning in his books; he's able to evoke that limitless horizon against which we all live, and the deep, deep ocean (miles deep, dark, impenetrable) over which we walk. He makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck, although I can never quite say why. Something opens in the back of my mind, and something big starts to hum back there. Don't know how else to say it.

Beautifully put.

(Follow the link for some of Dr. Ortlund's recommendations; and bear in mind that Gaiman has a very broad range. If you like urban fantasy, read Neverwhere; if you love fairytales, it's hard to beat Stardust; the sequel to American Gods, Anansi Boys, is also excellent; and of course his latest, The Graveyard Book, won a well-deserved Newbery.)

What to do if you find yourself inside a fairytale

That's the question Neil Gaiman answers in his poem "Instructions," which I love; since I found out today that YouTube has a video of him reading it, I had to post it.

Interestingly, the artist Charles Vess is working to turn it into a picture book. Follow the link for a sample illustration, and links to more. That ought to be wonderful.

The moon is a harsh mistress

so said Robert Heinlein; forty years ago today, the human race took the first giant leap toward finding out if he was right.

Then five more landings, 10 more moonwalkers and, in the decades since, nothing. . . .

America's manned space program is in shambles. Fourteen months from today, for the first time since 1962, the United States will be incapable not just of sending a man to the moon but of sending anyone into Earth orbit. We'll be totally grounded. We'll have to beg a ride from the Russians or perhaps even the Chinese.

Maybe I read too much science fiction, but I agree with Charles Krauthammer: that's a crying shame. It marks, I think, a grand failure of vision, imagination, and nerve on the part of this country.

So what, you say? Don't we have problems here on Earth? Oh, please. Poverty and disease and social ills will always be with us. If we'd waited for them to be rectified before venturing out, we'd still be living in caves.

Yes, we have a financial crisis. No one's asking for a crash Manhattan Project. All we need is sufficient funding from the hundreds of billions being showered from Washington—"stimulus" monies that, unlike Eisenhower's interstate highway system or Kennedy's Apollo program, will leave behind not a trace on our country or our consciousness—to build Constellation and get us back to Earth orbit and the moon a half-century after the original landing.

I can't imagine a better stimulus than to crank up the space program once again; not only would it stimulate the economy by creating lots of new high-paying jobs, it would also stimulate the national spirit. I wasn't around for the first missions to the moon; I'd love to have a chance to see the new ones.

Someone who was, Joyce over at tallgrassworship, illustrates the very real significance of those missions, posting on her childhood memories of the Apollo 11 landing. I can understand the awe she reflects; even forty years later, watching the videos, it comes through.

Just for fun, here's a map NASA produced overlaying the Apollo 11 expedition's exploration of the lunar surface on a baseball diamond (HT: Graham):

Getting Trek right from the beginning

Sara and I finally got the chance to go see the new Star Trek last night, thanks to a couple in the church who took our kids for the evening (and a wonderful time was had by all, too; we have some great folks in this congregation), and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.  In reinventing Trek, J. J. Abrams and his writers managed to make it what it should have been; they did an amazing job of keeping the characters true to themselves while justifying the reinvention of the series through the story they told.  In a way, the plot exists to explain and validate the creation of a whole new version of the same crew, and it succeeds fully in that.  Of course, that's an ulterior purpose; The Phantom Menace succeeded in its ulterior purpose, too, but failed dismally as an actual movie.  Star Trek, by contrast, is a smashing success.

I've read some complaints about the plot being full of holes and overly dependent on coincidence, but I don't agree; by and large, I'd say that the necessary coincidences arise logically out of the agency of the plot.  The one ringing exception to that is the coincidence of Montgomery Scott's introduction into the movie, which is implausible to the point of indefensibility; I'm not sure it quite rises (or sinks, if you prefer) to the level of deus ex machina, but it's pretty close.  For the rest, though—sure, there are coincidences, but they're reasonable consequences of past events, and as McAndrew would say, "The laws of probability not only permit coincidences, they insist on them."  

I saw someone complain that what the old Spock tells Kirk doesn't square with what he tells young Spock, but it doesn't seem to me there's cause for criticism there; he explains that himself in admitting that he misled Kirk in order to assure that Kirk did not only what he wanted, but in the way that he wanted it, as a way of trying to repair the breach between the two.  As for Eli's comment that "the villain’s method of attack is very creative, but basically requires that planetary defense systems are non-existent"—point taken, but that's Trek.  As a fan of the military SF of folks like David Weber and John Ringo, the idea of an interstellar power without extensive planetary defenses sounds ludicrous to me, too, but Trek never has had them.

In other ways, though, Abrams and company have made Starfleet, and the crew of the Enterprise, a lot more believable.  Everybody has a job that actually means something, and everybody gets to contribute.  Sulu isn't just turning the wheel, and Uhura doesn't just answer the phone; in fact, the changes in the character of Nyota Uhura are the biggest improvement in the whole movie.  Not only is she introduced as a genuinely impressive human being—a tough, intelligent, independent woman who needs that intelligence and independence to do her job—but her specialty, communications, is finally shown to be a real specialty of real and critical importance, one that needs a good xenolinguist (scholar in alien languages—which she is) if it's to be done well.  They've set up the crew as a true ensemble in a way that the original never was.

Roger Ebert, in his review, complained that "the Gene Roddenberry years, when stories might play with questions of science, ideals or philosophy, have been replaced by stories reduced to loud and colorful action," and I'll grant that there's some justice to his charge; as a practical matter, he provides the defense himself when he notes that "the movie deals with narrative housekeeping," setting up the new cast for sequels, but that doesn't change the fact that this movie has things happen which implicitly raise huge issues that are never addressed on-screen.  A bit more introspection along Roddenberry's lines, I think, would be a good thing, and I do hope we'll see some thoughtfulness as the sequels come along.

On the other hand, the movie is a cracking good adventure yarn, which has always been the core of Trek, and it does this a lot better in some ways than Roddenberry did, too.  For one thing, while the scripts Roddenberry oversaw "might play with questions of science, ideals or philosophy," they never put anything really at risk; there were never any long-term negative consequences for any of the permanent cast.  (The one exception to that I can think of might be "The City on the Edge of Forever.")  The same cannot be said of the new Trek, which inflicts staggering losses on its version of the Federation; I admire Abrams' guts, because I don't think I would have had the nerve to have the Federation suffer that badly.

I'm no movie reviewer, but I enjoyed Abrams' Star Trek immensely; I won't call it great art, but for what it is, it's excellent—I think it's clearly the best version of Trek yet—and I look forward to seeing what the folks behind it have for us next.

Boldly going all over again

I have not yet gotten the chance to see the new Star Trek—this week has just been too crazy—but I'm hoping my wife and I will be able to go sometime next week.  In the meantime, I've been interested to read the various reviews and comments (including, of course, the brilliant spoof The Onion came up with—see below), which have left me looking forward to the movie.  I'd rather see a sequel to Serenity (preferably involving a couple resurrections), but good Trek is a solid second-best.  Of everything I've read, I might be biased, but I've appreciated my friend Eli Evans' analysis the most—especially this, which I think is quite insightful:

Trek presents us a vision of a future that, frankly, I wouldn’t want to live in. It seems like the most ponderous, politically correct, and (quick! think of another word that begins with “p” . . . yes!) and perfect place. Too perfect. . . .

It’s as if the UN were running the world—no, the galaxy—and (get this) they’re doing a bang-up job. Suspension of disbelief, indeed.

James Tiberius Kirk always rubbed against the grain of that society. Why? Because he refused to evolve beyond his petty human ego. He realized that human nature has no history. People are people, no matter where (or when) you go. Kirk is an un-reconstituted man in a world that is entirely reconstituted, right down to the replicated coffee and doughnuts. (Wait, no. Starfleet personnel definitely do not eat doughnuts. Unless they were square and made of a substance resembling balsa wood.)

Much of the dramatic tension in the 60’s TV show came from the conflict between the adventurer Kirk and his bureaucratic surroundings. Starfleet Command is chirping on the subspace frequency? Don’t answer it, Lt. Uhura. We have aliens to fry.

Now, I like “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and I have a lot of respect for Patrick Stewart as an actor. But then and there, the Trek producers pretty much de-fanged the franchise. Picard is a man settled into his society. Yes, he pops out of gear now and then, but for the most part, he’s a cog in the Starfleet machine.

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

The hunt for Gollum

My thanks to Bill Roberts for posting this—it's the trailer for a fan-made movie about Aragorn's search for Gollum, a chapter in the story of The Lord of the Rings which isn't told, only recounted briefly by Aragorn.  It is, obviously, a low-budget production, but from the trailer, it seems to be an impressive piece of work nevertheless.

A nod to the Browncoats

I've been meaning to post this and hadn't gotten around to doing so, but now's probably as good a time as ever; so, apropos of nothing in particular, here's the title sequence to the late, much lamented show Firefly:

I do hope that someday we get the rest of the story; and I particularly hope that that includes Whedon resurrecting the characters he so callously killed off. (Yes, people die, but under the circumstances, I think that really was a callous way to treat the actors in question.)

The Great Books perspective on Harry Potter

There's an interesting article up on Touchstone by a chap named John Granger, the author of several books on Harry Potter who's a graduate of the University of Chicago, analyzing Rowling's books as “the 'shared text' of the twenty-first century.”  This is a more significant statement than it might seem, coming from a former student of Allan Bloom, who argued “that 'shared books' are the foundation of culture, politics, and individual thinking; as such, Granger is arguing—quoting Chuck Klosterman in Esquire—that

Over time, these novels (and whatever ideas lie within them) will come to represent the mainstream ethos of our future popular culture.

Klosterman thinks that's a bad thing, but Granger strongly disagrees:

Before meeting Allan Bloom and, through him, the Western canon, my friends and I were a sarcastic and self-absorbed, if good-hearted lot, nourished on stories that were only diversion and dissipation. I have to think my children are better prepared and more willing to embrace that tradition than I was because of their years of instruction at Hogwarts castle. . . .

I struggle to think of any fictional work of the last two or three centuries that had the potential to shape the cultural and political agendas of its time as this one does. Dickens’s crusading social novels? Uncle Tom’s Cabin? The Jungle? Harry Potter differs from these in that the others ignited a latent Christian conscience. The Potter novels help foster one into existence. . . .

From this text, we can build a conversation about virtue and vice, and about what reading does to the right-side-up soul. From it, too, we can take an invitation to go on to even better books—ones that our grandparents’ great-grandparents had in common, and others that our children may one day write. Hasten the day!

It's an interesting argument, and I think he may be on to something.  It's certainly worth considering seriously.

Wise words on pride

Pride is a blossom of ashes—bitter in the mouth, sharp to the nose, stinging to the eyes, and blown away on the first wind from the mountains. Plant no pride, lest you harvest shame.

—Proverb of Altiplano

This proverb (and the whole society of Altiplano) comes from Elizabeth Moon's novel Once a Hero; Moon's one of the better writers of military science fiction around, and this is one of her best. I note the irony of posting a proverb from a fictional society so soon after posting the title sequence for a non-existent sitcom, but for all that it was created in the service of a Secondary World (to use Tolkien's term), it has the ring of old truth, and is well worth remembering.

A geopolitical reconsideration of the Council of Elrond

Have you ever wondered whether it was wise of Elrond to commit the Elves to the coalition fighting the Global War on Sauron? Given the results for the Elves, might it not have been better to hold themselves back from the GWOS and seek a negotiated peace? After all, unlike those hasty, testosterone-poisoned Men and militaristic Dwarves, the Elves had the historical perspective to understand Sauron's rightful grievances; shouldn't they have accepted their duty to meet with Sauron without preconditions in an effort to hear his concerns and reach a solution with which everyone could be happy? Certainly, the Elves had the historical perspective to see the longstanding racism and other deep-seated sins of their coalition partners, and of their own community as well; how could they commit themselves to such bloodshed for the sake of such a thoroughly flawed set of societies when the path of peace was available to them?

If these considerations have ever bothered you, or if you're sufficiently open-minded to give them their proper weight, know that you are not alone; a distinguished panel of geopolitical experts recently sat down to discuss them. Their conversation merits serious attention from all thoughtful students of international relations and the history of warfare.

The gospel according to Firefly

"Oh, but you did. You turn on any of my crew, you turn on me. But since that's a concept you can't seem to wrap your head around, then you got no place here.
You did it to me, Jayne. And that's a fact."

—Malcolm Reynolds to Jayne Cobb, "Ariel," Episode 9, Firefly

This is from the crowning scene of perhaps the best of the handful of episodes we got of Firefly, one of the best scenes I've ever been fortunate enough to watch on TV. To explain this line to those not familiar with the show: during the episode, during a raid on an Alliance hospital, Jayne tried to sell out Simon and River Tam, the ship's two fugitive passengers (Simon, a doctor, is also the ship's medic, and the one who inspired the raid), to the Alliance. Unfortunately for him, the Alliance officials don't honor the deal and he gets taken as well, at which point he starts fighting to save himself (and the Tams). They make it back to the ship, and Jayne thinks he's gotten away with his attempted betrayal; but Mal's too smart for him, resulting in this (note: there are a few errors in the captioning):

(For a transcript of the episode, go here.)

I've always been struck by two things in this scene. The first is Mal's statement to Jayne which I've quoted above, which is strikingly reminiscent of the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:40 (though Jayne did evil instead of good). The point is of course different, since Mal isn't (and doesn't claim to be) God—but it's related. From Mal's point of view, it isn't enough to show loyalty to him alone: you have to be loyal as well to all those to whom he's committed himself. Any violation of loyalty to any of them—any betrayal of the crew bond—is a betrayal which he takes personally, and which therefore brings inevitable judgment.

The other is what saves Jayne: repentance, as evidenced by the stirring of shame. Jayne's not much of one to be ashamed of anything—if you don't count his reaction at the end of "Jaynestown," the show's seventh episode, this might be the first time in his life he's felt shame—so this is a significant moment; and at that sign that Jayne is truly repentant, Mal spares his life (though he doesn't let him out of the airlock right away—perhaps to encourage further self-examination on Jayne's part). In the face of repentance, mercy triumphs over judgment.

Malcolm Reynolds, patron saint of not-quite-lost causes

—or at least, so he would be if he were ever actually canonized, which of course is a rather remote prospect. First the fight against the Alliance, which he could never quite stop fighting, then the "Can't Stop the Signal" campaign after Firefly's cancellation—the man positively collects them, and keeps on flying.

Which reminds me: there's a rally at the Federal Courthouse in Seattle at 4:30 pm on June 16, part of the campaign to stop that modern-day robber baron and keep the Sonics in Seattle where they belong. . . . Anyone in Seattle have Nathan Fillion's number?

(Update: the rally drew over 3000 people and earned serious attention from ESPN. Way to go, guys—you rock. Can't stop the signal!)

Firefly, Tolkien, and narrative theology

The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.

—J. R. R. Tolkien, from "Mythopoeia"

It has been my custom, while using my rowing machine, to watch episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street, which I consider one of the two greatest television shows I've ever seen. (I don't believe TV as a medium has produced much true art, or many truly great stories, but I do believe both are possible.) Lately, however, I've been watching other things while I row, and this week, I started in on the other greatest series I've ever seen: Firefly. It's the first time I've watched any of the episodes since the movie came out; what Joss Whedon did with the movie hit me too hard. That's also why I haven't posted about being a Browncoat, or linked to fan sites like "Whoa. Good Myth." Rather like being a Mariners fan these days, it's just been easier not to stress about it too much.

Now, this might seem like an odd and pointless thing to get worked up about—so a TV show was canceled after fourteen episodes—so what? It's still a TV show, after all. So Fox handled it badly, gave the show no real chance, and canceled it unfairly soon; is it really that big a deal? Well, it was that big a deal for all the folks who worked on the show, for one thing. Beyond that, we all have our reasons, and I'm sure mine aren't the same as everyone else's; but for me, it's the story, or rather, the stories, which were untimely cut off, and the lives of the characters in those stories. Whedon, Tim Minear, and their crew of writers had a great world and a great set of characters and stories going, both enjoyable and deep; to have that brought to an untimely end is a great loss.

That's why I rejoiced when the movie deal went forward; which meant that what Whedon did with Serenity really hit me hard. I think he put his own ideas of what is artistic ahead of what was best for his creation—not only the story and the characters, but also the communities he had created, most importantly the actors, writers, and crew, and also all of us who call ourselves Browncoats. Tolkien speaks of us as sub-creators, people who create what he calls "Secondary Worlds," creations which are real within their own laws, to the best of our ability to make them real; we create in reflection (or, perhaps better, as refractions) of the great Creator who made us, because we were made like him. The desire to be gods ourselves may have been what led us into sin, but it was not perhaps a wholly wrong one, properly channeled—for when we create, we are in a sense small gods to our creation.

If we take Tolkien's point of view, however (as I believe we should), this has a significant implication for our creative activity: we have the responsibility to be, as best as we can, good gods to our creation. Our work has to be primarily about what is best for this thing we are making, whatever it might be, not merely about what's best for us or what we want to do. On my read, from the things he's said, Joss Whedon violated that with Firefly/Serenity; he was a bad god to his creation.

Still, though, you might say: does this matter? Wasn't it, after all, still just a TV show? Yes, of course it was a TV show, but no, it wasn't just a TV show. Nothing is ever just anything—especially not people; and thus, especially not stories, to the extent that they're true stories about people. By that I don't necessarily mean factual; there are biographies and histories which are factual but aren't really true, because they miss the heart of the matter, while many historical fictions, though they depart from the facts, are far truer because they give us real understanding of people and events. Indeed, many novels about things that never happened and people who never lived are nevertheless true stories in that they broaden our awareness of ourselves and of others, open our eyes and minds to things we have not before seen or realized, and deepen our knowledge of what it means to be human.

Stories are powerful things. It's one thing to express an opinion, or to set forth a proposition about how the world works; it's quite another thing to bring that opinion or proposition to life in a story. People who might reject, or at least argue with, your position if it were plainly stated may find themselves influenced by it, if your story is powerful enough and sufficiently well-crafted; and those who wouldn't understand it intellectually in a propositional form may well get it intuitively and affectively if you bring it to life in a story. That's what stories do with our ideas: they bring them to life, incarnating them in the lives of the characters we create, making them not merely intellectual realities, but human realities.

This is one reason why the greatest of all Christian theologians is not Paul, but Jesus himself. (There are others, of course, such as the fact that Jesus was original, while Paul was derivative of Jesus.) This is something too often missed, as Dr. Kenneth Bailey points out (and as Jared Wilson has also said, though his emphasis is a little different), because we tend to see Jesus as a nice moral teacher telling quaint stories; we don't really believe that those stories can be theologically profound and powerful. In fact, though, they can, and they are; the more overtly "theological" works in the New Testament, profound as they are, are simply developments, explications, and applications in propositional form of the truths already communicated incarnationally through the parables of Jesus, and also through the broader narratives of the Gospels, Acts, and the Old Testament. God doesn't give us a three-point outline, he gives us a story—from which to learn, and in which to live.

Of course, it's possible to take this too far; there are those who would overbalance the other way, exalting the biblical narratives to the extent of diminishing or even discounting the NT epistles (and other non-narrative portions of the Bible—but the epistles, and particularly Paul, usually seem to be the main target). That's not right either. What we need to remember is that the epistles, though not themselves narrative texts, are nevertheless part of a narrative; their context is a story. They were written for particular reasons to particular human beings in particular situations dealing with particular things, even if we don't know all those particularities (in some cases, we have a pretty good idea; in others, we can only speculate); and when we read them, we read them in the middle of our own story as God speaking to us in our particular situations and issues. We need to understand them accordingly—and we need to understand that that fact is the reason why they matter.

Stories matter. They matter because they're the stuff of our life, of our reality and our nature, and the expression of the creative ability we've been given by (and in the image of) the one who made us—and we matter. They matter because they affect us, moving our emotions and shaping our view of the world, both for good and for ill. And as a Christian, I affirm that they matter because everything we do matters, because the best of what we do will endure forever. And if they matter, then we need to take them seriously, both as readers and, for those of us so called, as writers—for our sake, and for everyone's.