Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse

September 20, 2012 — Leave a comment

I happened upon AMC’s Zombie series, the Walking Dead while surfing Netflix a few months ago. Interested, I tuned into the first episode.

A patrol car arrives at an accident. A cop draws his gun and steps from the car. Someone or something is out there.

As he walks towards the wreck, the camera pans revealing a more apocalyptic scene – a street and gas station choked with abandoned cars. He windes his way passed the accident and cautiously enters the jumbled maze.

The cop spins.

An eight year girl holding a teddy bear stands before him. Her face is bruised and her mouth bloody. He hesitates with gun raised. Might she be an accident survivor?

She moves towards him stiffly and hisses.

He fires.

The zomebie-girl, struck in the head, falls back in slow motion.

I decided to watch something else.

Zombie’s in Pop Culture

You’d have to be – well a zombie – not to realize zombie’s are everywhere today. No there aren’t actual zombies walking among us – OK that might be a matter of opinion – but the number of zombie references in pop culture is certainly on the rise. Just compare the quantity of zombie video games, films and novels produced over the last 12 years with the number prior to 2000.

Zombie’s have infiltrated almost every area of culture. With the ZombieBooth App for instance you can turn your mug into a decomposing corpse. Or if sitting around on your phone isn’t for you, You can now motivate yourself to get in shape with a 5K zombie survival run.

Even FEMA and the CDC are using zombie’s to hype disaster preparedness.

A recent string of crazed drug-induced actions, some involving canabalism, have been dubbed “zombie attacks” by the media. Some people are not messing around. The manufacturing and purchasing of Zombie bullets is now on the rise.

Why Zombies? Why Now?

I recently asked my friends on Facebook why they thought there were so many cultural references to zombie’s today. One replied back “We’re tired of Twilight.” It’s funny because it’s true.

I think we might find the more immediate cause in the success of the Resident Evil franchise in the late 1990’s and the reinvention of the pathetically slow zombie with more immediate cause is the success in the late nineties of Resident Evil franchise and . popularity of Zombie’s stems from three places. Resident Evil, 28 days later and twilight.

Frankly I think there is a bit of truth in that. The undead have certainly made a come pack since Stephanie Meyer wrote here book.

Monsters are more than monsters. Monsters represent things. Stephanie Meyer understood this when she wrote the Twilight series (no I have not read the books but I have seen a few of the movies). There’s a certain sexuality to Vampires that while not explicit is definitely there. Vampires are completely in control of themselves. They typically are well dressed men who are invited in by woman. Vampires never force themselves upon woman but woman eventually give into the neck bite (which is by the way is a bite on the upper leg in some cultures) and exchange fluid. Stephenie Meyer took the stereotype of a vampire and reversed it, making a “teenage” vampire a vegetarian and a person who chooses resist human blood. The apple of the cover is not without a deep symbolic significance. It is the forbidden fruit. True Blood on the other hand has taken the implicit symbolism in the vampire to the other extreme. What would you expect from HBO? The blood of a vampire is the strongest of aphrodisiacs. I’ll so no more.

What do Zombie’s Represent

Zombie’s come from Hati – they are mindless puppets of a hodoo witch. They were first popularized in film in the universal monster craze of the 1930’s along with Vampires, Frankenstein and the warewolves. They were characterized by being the unconscious – mindless – puppet of a master.

The image of Zombie’s however changed with the advent of George Romero’s film The Night of the Living Dead in 1969. While still the mindless creatures Hatian lore and earlier films, Romero mixed his Zombie’s with elements of vampires and warewolfes. Like Zombies before they existed in-between life and death. But they feed like werewolves and like Vampires they spread Zombisim through a bite.

The Zombie’s of NIGHT, however, remained fully human. Apart from being reanimated dead, they had none of the supernatural strength of a Warewolf or a Vampire. They were frail. They’re only strength was in numbers. The film made plane that Zombie’s were a representation of us. Our enemy was not some other wordily menace but the tide of inhumanity that surround us.

The Zombie’s of Romero’s films is what we typically find in pop culture today. Films depicting Zombies typically exhibit a small contingent of conscious humans fending off the overwhelming tide of inhumanity around them. While the Zombie’s attempt to feed on the conscious humans, the conscious humans both fight against being eaten and or having there consciousness stolen by the blood or bite of the Zombie.

Zombie’s represent (Here is a reference to earlier article

  • The Fear of Death – Vampires may be dead but they never look like the rotting corpses that Zombies do. In that Zombie’s terrify because they remind us of the decomposition that awaits our own bodies in the grave. To see a departed love one appear at your doorstep in all the gory detail of the present state would be a shock beyond all shocks.
  • The Fear of Widespread Apocalyptic Destruction – Zombie films almost always have an overwhelming number that have either been effected by nuclear radiation or a plague. Night of the Living Dead represented the terrors of the cold war and Black ops which is Medal of Honor’s answer to the Cold War has Nazi Zombies. – plays into that cold war fear. Today, we seem to be more afraid of universal plague than nuclear radiation. David Mccormiks book, though it doesn’t have any Zombies reveals the ways that even rational human beings can act like Zombies when it comes down to simple survival.

To these I want to add the fear we have of each other. The fear we have that humanity is slowly losing its humanity. That the barbarian is at the gate. He’s in my next door neighbors house. He is my neighbor. The more we attach ourselves to computers and video games. The more we cease to talk to the person next door. The more we sit on our phone in the line at the grocery store instead of engaging with the people around us. The more we begin to suspect that other people are inhuman. That they are less than us. We dehumanize the next. Their not human their Zombies and thinking of people as Zombies makes us a little less likely to kill them.

The scene at the beginning of Walking Dead disturbed me because it makes us a Zombie to watch such things. We’ve become calloused to the needs of humans around us. We live as if we’re the only conscious people left.

In the Last Days the love of most will grow cold.

I know it may sound strange but we don’t fight against the Zombie by killing Zombie we destroy the Zombie is us by caring for the Zombie.

In Uncategorized
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Why We Need Sunday Night Service

July 28, 2012 — Leave a comment

What’s the point?

All across the United States churches are closing there doors on Sunday night services.  And I, for one, have cheered the decline.  Isn’t there better things we can do with our time.  What’s the point in another sermon – another time of worship?

But I’ve changed my mind about Sunday nights.  Here’s why.

It’s been years since I’ve attended a Sunday night service.  All across the United States churches are closing there doors on Sunday nights.  And I, for one, have cheered the move.  What’s the point of a Sunday night service?  Isn’t there better things we can do with our time.  Why do we need a repeat of Sunday morning service – another sermon, another time of worship?  But I’ve changed my mind about Sunday nights.  Here’s why we need Sunday night services.

What’s the point of Sunday night service?  I think that’s the general reason people have closed the doors.  If it’s just another reason to have another service, just another time to pass the offering plate then of course close the doors!  There’s no point in doing that!  Especially when there’s better things on TV at home.  We can entertain ourselves in a plethora of different ways today.  Why expend the effort in putting on a Sunday night service?  Why take people away from there families and other ministry opportunities that they could be doing?

Why have we abandoned Sunday night service

  1. Better things to do
  2. Low attendance
  3. Not worth the effort
  4. Just a repeat of Sunday morning – lacks purpose

Why we need Sunday night service

  1. A time for believers!
  2. A time for communion!
  3. A time for worship!
  4. A time for prayer!

Did you know the early church had two seperate services?  One for seekers and believers and the other just for believers.

  • It’s a repeat of Sunday morning
  • it’s got low attendance

This article…

The people who are exploring Christianity are not typically accustomed even to weekly worship a single time.  So to put forward some kind of a community-based expectation that you do this twice a Sunday would be extraordinary.

What’s the point?

 

The most memorable sermon I ever heard was delivered on a Sunday night.  After a time of worship, Jim Davenport rose to the podium and help up a cream colored file folder and said

this is probably the best sermon you will ever hear.  But God told me not to speak it.  Love one another.  You are dismissed.

It certainly the shortest message I’ve ever heard.  And that’s probably why it stands out to me twenty years later.


That was Sunday nights!

 

Today, however, churches have largely abandoned Sunday night services.  I know I for one have cheered the decline.  Why do we need a repeat of Sunday morning?  Isn’t there a better way to spend our time?  And besides Sunday nights never matched the attendance of Sunday mornings.  I more or less thought in terms of this person in this article when he said

But I see it differently today.

It might look like Sunday mornings.  There was always worship and a sermon.  But the difference wasn’t in form.  It was atmosphere.  Sunday nights felt natural.  Cultural dress codes were dressed down and all appeals to the clock were abandoned.  The agenda was simply to experience the power and presence of the Holy Spirit and fellowship with other believers.

I’ve changed my mind since then.  Here’s why.

It just isn’t successful in the way it used to be.  And we’ve begun to ask ourselves what’s the point of a repeat of Sunday morning?  It really is a mission focus that has changed.  We don’t go to Sunday night because we think it is a repeat of Sunday morning.  And that is true.  At it’s worst Sunday morning was just a repeat of Sunday morning – a time to hear another sermon, sing some songs etc.  But at its best Sunday nights were freeing time to enjoy the Spirit’s presence and fellowship with one another.

A service for seekers on Sunday Mornings.  That’s what were left with.  A shallow time of preaching to the unsaved or uncommitted.  Christmas and Easter services are given over to such people.  Like a politicians we play to the independents.  Forget those who are committed and want to truly go deeper.

There have been times that I’ve been grateful for Sunday night services and times where I felt it was it would be better for it to go the way of the Dinosaur.

We need it precisely because it isn’t Sunday morning!  Sunday morning is a time believers, unbelievers and seekers to come together.  Services are more formal.  Time is of the essence.  Many people come to Sunday morning for a shot in the arm for there daily routine.  People come to check out a church.  They come to try it out.  Sunday nights, however, are a time for the church to be laid back and let the Spirit move.  To allow for extended times of prayer and fellowship.

I use to think it was a trend here in the Northwest where historically the Church has not been as socially influential.  But with this article I’m beginning to think its more of a national trend which I believe is due to the proliferation of alternative entertainment options.  It’s a bottom line thing.

But I think this comes from a misunderstanding of what Sunday Night is all about. I for one used to not want a Sunday Night Service.  When I thought that Sunday Night was just a repeat of Sunday Morning.  But it’s not.  If that was the cause then of course there might be good reason to abandon Sunday nights.

Here’s an article on the trend published September 18, 2010.

Is Sunday morning a time for evangelism or discipleship?  Is it a time for believers or unbelievers?

Mudding the waters.  We assume that believers are being discipled by what we do.  What’s the purpose and point of Sunday morning service?  Why do we do what we do?

Do you remember Sunday night services?  When I was growing up it was a vital time of Christian community.  We don’t have Sunday Night services any more.  At least in the churches I’ve attended in the last ten years.  Even the churches I grew up don’t have Sunday night services any more.

Balancing the needs of the local church

  • Evangelism
  • Discipleship

Can these be done at the same time and in the same place – namely Sunday morning.  How do we take pagans from the surrounding society and disciple them into the Christ honoring followers today.

What was a service like in the second century.  They had two different services – the first for believers and seekers and the second for believers only. It striking to me how much the service hasn’t changed that much in 2,000 years.  Worship and then sermon.  But what did strike me is the fact that they had a second service – a service to which only believers were invited.  And it was during this time that they had extended time of prayer and communion.  The second service was washed out when the empire became Christian.  When there simply were more Christians then unbelievers.  But now we’re moving back into a time of unbelief and all we offer Christians is a muddied seeker sensitive service.

Part 1: Service of the Word

1. Opening greeting by bishop and response by the congregation. Often, the bishop would say “The Lord be with you” and the congregation would respond, “And with your spirit.”

2. Old Testament Scripture reading. Usually read or chanted by a deacon.

3. Psalm or hymn (I). Chanted or sung.

4. New Testament Scripture reading (I). This first NT reading was from any NT book outside the gospels.

5. Psalm or hymn (II).

6. New Testament Scripture reading (II). From one of the four gospels.

7. Sermon. Delivered by the bishop, while seated.

8. Dismissal of all but baptized believers.

Part 2: The Eucharist

1. Congregational prayers. The prayer leader—the bishop in the West; senior deacon in the East—would announce the first topic. The congregation prayed silently for a while. Then the leader summed up the petitions with his own spoken prayer. Then he would do the same pattern again with a new topic. This was a lengthy part of the service. Early Christian art suggests that a typical posture from praying was standing, looking heavenward, with arms outstretched and palms up.

2. The Lord’s Supper. Here’s the order: (1) the bishop offered a greeting; (2) the congregation responded; (3) there was a “kiss of peace” (men to men, women to women); (4) church members brought their own small loaf of bread and flask of wine from home; the deacons took these and spread them out on the Lord’s table, emptying the flasks of wine into one large silver cup. (5) The bishop and the congregation engaged in a liturgical “dialogue” with the congregation; (6) the bishop led the congregation in prayer; (7) the bishop and the deacons broke the bread and distributed the cup to the congregation. (8) Something would be said to each member as he or she received the elements (e.g., “The bread of heaven in Christ Jesus,” with the response of “Amen.”) Unconsumed bread and wine would be taken home by church members to use for celebrating communion at home during the weekdays.

3. Benediction. E.g., “Depart in peace,” spoken by the deacon.

In Life
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Why God Shut Zachariah’s Mouth

July 26, 2012 — Leave a comment

As we saw in yesterday’s post, Luke and it’s sequel Acts clearly lay out the pattern that all who are filled with the Spirit have their mouths opened in witness and praise.  Jesus says in Acts 1:8

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses…

It makes it all the more remarkable than to find Luke, the gospel of the open mouth, beginning not with an open mouth but with an old man having his voice taken from him.

You’ve heard the story.  We hear it almost every Christmas time.

The angel Gabriel tells Zachariah the priest he’s going to have a son. But the priest needs proof.  

“How can I be certain?  My wife and I are well passed childbearing years.”  

The angel snaps back.  “Your mouth will be shut because you did not believe the good news.” (Luke 1:5-23)

Wow!  Did you get that?  This isn’t just a story.  It’s a warning.  

Zachariah’s inability to speak is made all the more striking when compared to another who receives the same Good News. Get this!  Luke parallels Zachariah’s story with the announcement made to Mary.

  • Situation: Like Zachariah and Elizabeth, Mary is unable to have children.  They are old.  She is a virgin (compare 1:5-10, 26-27)
  • Message: Like Zachariah, the angel comes to Mary with the miraculous good news. (compare 1:11-17, 28-33) (Don’t be afraid (1:13, 30), You will have a son (1:13, 31), You will name him… (1:13, 31) He will be great… (1:14-17, 32-33))
  • Question: Like Zachariah, she asks “How” – though it’s a very different sort of question then the one Zachariah asks. (compare 1:18, 34)
  • Response: Like Zachariah, she gets an answer. (compare 1:19-20, 35-38
  • Elizabeth Reaction: And Like Zachariah, she journey’s to Zachariah’s home where Elizabeth proclaims the glory of what God has done. (compare 1:21-25, 39-45)

Point after point, Luke takes pains to reveal the comparisons in these two accounts.

And then suddenly the pattern is broken – and its broken in MARY’S SONG (1:46-55)!  Mary’s mouth is opened and she sings a song almost ten verses long.

See the parallels and the break!

  • Zachariah:  Situation – Message – Question – Response – Reaction – (        )
  • Mary:          Situation – Message – Question – Response – Reaction – SONG!

Zachariah is silenced.  His song is clearly missing.  He should have sang a song after Elizabeth speaks.  But he doesn’t.  He can’t.  Instead he sits silently watching and listening to this young girl sing a song that he himself is unable sing.

Why is Mary’s mouth opened when Zachariah’s is shut?  

It’s comes down to the very different responses they have to the good news.

  • Zachariah doubts the message.  “How shall I know this?”
  • Mary believes. “How will this be?”

For Luke, these two stories aren’t just about the birth of John and Jesus.  It’s the very message of Luke’s Gospel and Acts.  Be careful how you receive the Good News – the Gospel, Luke warns.  To those who believe their mouths will be opened, but the mouths of the those who disbelieve will be shut.

The good news is that there’s hope even for Zachariah.  Though it comes late, his mouth is opened when he humbles himself and submits to the good news.  When he names his son John, as the Angel instructed, Zachariah, like Mary before, is “filled with the Holy Spirit” and at last sings His song (1:67-79).

Question: When have you experienced your mouth opened in witness and praise?  Have you ever had it closed because of a refusal to believe?

In Christmas, Devotions, Gospels
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What Happens When You’re Filled with the Spirit

July 25, 2012 — 3 Comments

My kids and I get a kick out of the opening scene of Kung Pow.  After watching a baby in diapers fighting off a horde of bad guys, we laugh and quote the villain in his strange nasally voice.  

Oopen da mowth.

I can’t help think of those words as I write this blog.  According to the bible, the sign of the Spirit is an open mouth.

Well not just an open mouth but more specifically, a mouth opened in witness and praise.  Jesus says in Acts 1:8,

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses…

And this is what we find in Luke’s Gospel and Acts (Luke’s sequel).  Those who are filled or receive or have the Holy Spirit come upon them OPEN THEIR MOUTHS.

  • Elizabeth exclaims in a loud voice. (Luke 1:42-43)
  • Zachariah prophecies. (Luke 1:67-79)
  • The 120 “speak in other tongues.” (Acts 2:4)
  • Peter testifies (Acts 4:8)
  • The believers “speak the word of God boldly.” (Acts 4:31)
  • Cornelius and his household speak in tongues (Acts 10:44-46)
  • Paul curses Elymas (Acts 13:9)
  • The Ephesian disciples speak in tongues and prophesy (Acts 19:6)

And its the same in the Old Testament.

  • In Numbers, the 70 elders prophecy. (11:25)
  • And in 1 Samuel 19:23-24, Saul too prophesies.

It’s interesting that the Spirit’s filling is often compared to having too much to drink.  For instance,

  • When the crowds heard the disciples speaking in tongues on the day of Pentecost they thought they were drunk. (Acts 2:13-15).
  • And Instead of getting drunk, Paul instructs the Ephesians to be “filled with the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18)

How does inebriation compare with the Spirit?  

Once again its the open mouth.  A person who is drunk loses all inhebition to speak or even sing.  Think Karaoke bar.  But even before Karaoke, bars have always been a place of speaking and singing.

Note how Paul follows this call to be “filled with the Spirit.”

Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:19-20).

To speak and to sing praise to the Lord is to allow the Spirit to move in and through you.

Ok.  So if the filling of the Spirit is evidenced in the open mouth here’s what it’s not.

It not JUST tongues.  I for one speak in tongues.  And I believe those who speak in tongues have been filled with the Spirit.  But I also believe it’s simply wrong to reduce the Spirit’s filling to an “initial physical evidence.”  Can we as Pentecostals truly say that Billy Graham was not filled with the Spirit when we know the Spirit’s filling is empowerment for witness (Acts 1:8)?

It’s not JUST the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).  The fruits of the Spirit are most definetly connected with the Spirit’s filling.  But the fruit of the Spirit is an inward condition of the heart.  It’s not the outward manifestation – specifically the open mouth.

Has you’re mouth be opened in inexhaustible witness and praise?  If not, then wait, pray and seek.  If it has, is your mouth still open today?

What do you think?

In Devotions, Gospels, Theology
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Two Things to Admire about the New Voice Translation

July 18, 2012 — Leave a comment

In preparation for our bible study tonight, I’ve been using Thomas Nelson’s new Bible translation – the Voice. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, you need to. I’ve added a link to a free .pdf copy below.

A Cool Format

Here’s what I instantly loved about the Voice. It’s written in a screenplay format. Character dialogue stands out from the page like a script.

It’s perfect for reading in groups. Instead of having people read a few verses one after the other you can now read the part of Jesus or John or the narrator. It’s made to be voiced.

But it’s useful for personal study as well.

When I taught at Canby Bible College I provided my students with a copy of each gospel without chapter and verse divisions. I then I’d ask them to highlight the dialogue in colors according to character.

The reason is that the identity of the person speaking and what they are saying is more indicative of narrative divisions than our chapter and verses – which sometimes get it wrong.

Dialogue also clues us in on important narrative themes. In the Gospel of Matthew, for instance, the Scribes and Pharisees always call Jesus teacher and never lord while the disciples always call him lord and never teacher. That is one important exception.  Judas, right before he betrays Jesus with a kiss!  But of course we can’t know this unless we pay attention to the dialogue.

The Voice encourages its readers to do just that.

An Important Focus

The format points to the Voice’s even more important focus – helping readers connect with the story of scripture.

The Bible isn’t like a modern novel or movie. It’s a collection of books written by more than 40 different authors on three different continents over the course of 1400 years. And if that wasn’t enough to confuse a generation immersed in modern ways of story telling, the last book is separated from our own time by 2,000 years.

Ancient customs and idioms don’t easily translate into our language and culture. For instance, how might a translation of “it’s raining cats and dogs” sound in spanish? To cope with the apparent disconnect many modern translations become a clutter of charts and footnotes to explain these details to readers.

The voice cleans the page up by bringing out such information within the translation itself. It does this through a Thought-For-Thought method of translation.

Instead of searching for near equivalent words and ordering those words in ways similar to the original text, the Voice translators tried to capture the thought of the biblical writer through phrases that more adequately reflect the authors meaning.

A word like repent for instance becomes “seek forgiveness and change your actions” in Mark 1:15. And “Christ” once again becomes “anointed one” rather than Jesus’ last name.

Tying the whole translation together is the theme of God’s Voice. Genesis 1:1-2 reads

In the beginning, God created everything: the heavens above and the earth below. Here’s what happened. At first the earth lacked shape and was totally empty, and a dark fog draped over the deep while God’s spirit-wind hovered over the surface of the empty waters. Then there was the voice of God.

I love that! The theme is sounded again in the Gospel of John’s opening verse.

Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking. The Voice was and is God. This celestial Word remained ever present with the Creator; His speech shaped the entire cosmos. Immersed in the practice of creation, all things that exist were birthed in Him. His breath filled all things with a living, breathing light – a light that thrives in the depths of the darkness blazes through murky bottoms. It cannot and will not be quenched… The Voice took on flesh and became human and chose to live alongside us. (John 1:1-14)

A Great Failure

Translations are never perfect. As I said in a previous post, translation is a balancing act between accuracy and clarity. It’s an impossible task that is never quite right. But I really do like the way that this translation fails. I’m looking forward to using tonight.

If you’d like to experience the Voice yourself you can receive a free .pdf download of the New Testament here.

In Bible, Devotions
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