I like "Rizzoli & Isles". Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander are fun to watch playing off one another. The storylines usually have an interesting twist. However, the show exemplifies how the Christian faith is too often portrayed on television.
This critique focuses on the episode "Bloodlines", broadcast on August 23, 2011.
The show drew upon the history of Salem and the witch trials. I don't want to give away too many details of the show, so let me focus. There are witches in the show, descended from the people who are accused of being witches and executed during the Salem witch trials. This in turn, according to the storyline, makes them witches. One of these witches is the daughter of a minister. Both are descended from Salem witch. It makes for conflict in the show.
Neither is portrayed well in the faith.
When the police interview the father, the reaction of the police is that the father, the minister, is creepy. They believe this because of the passionate way the minister has reacted to his daughter turning away from the Christian faith to embracing witchcraft, because of her ancestry. He went so far as to attempt to have her abducted to deprogram her. It is not the most flattering portrayal of the dad or a minister. The police decide to have him watched as a prime suspect.
The daughter comes off even worse. She is written with a mental illness that plays into the climax of the episode in what I consider to be a very exploitation way. My faith does not come off well. It was rather stereotypical unfortunately.
The witches were portrayed in a rather stereotypical manner as well, full of face piercings, dark clothing, and generally fringe behavior, poor example, they did not have "real jobs", but all worked in an occult shop. But that critique is for another blog.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
An open letter to Stephen Hawking
Dear Professor Hawking,
I am a great fan of yours. "A Brief History of Time" pushed my thinking. I am not a cosmologist by training, but a pastor. I think you have done some of the most amazing work to make cosmological thinking and consideration of the origin of the universe accessible to this generation.
When I saw your episode of "Curiosity" on the Discovery channel, I was prepared to be offended. I was prepared to be hurt because I see you as one of the great thinkers of this generation. But when the program came to an end, I was pleased.
I believe that the universe is elegant, awesome, aesthetically pleasing, that it is, in the description given in Genesis at the end of the seven days of creation, good. I have been moved in my thinking by some of the things I have read about intelligent design. But I reject it as an attempt to write God into science. I believe that the universe shows the handiwork of God, but I do not think He signed his work, at least not in a way that could rewrite scientific inquiry.
Time began at the Big Bang, so there is not a place within scientific inquiry to locate a Creator before then. I hope I have summed up your words satisfactorily. Religious inquiry is not based within or upon science, it is based upon faith. I would not expect to find God bound into the finite universe, not when, by faith, I believe God to be infinite.
I hold the Bible to be how God has chosen to reveal Godself. I hold that book in the highest esteem. I also apologize most profoundly for those of my training and office in this and past generations who have chosen to use the Bible as an implement of censorship and terror against scientific inquiry. What I draw from the poetry of the beginning of the book of Genesis is that there was a beginning to everything. By faith, I believe God created the heavens and the earth. What I draw from scientific observation and inquiry is that there was a beginning to everything. That event was the Big Bang. There, Science and Christian faith agree. Then each carries on its own purpose in the world.
I believe that the miracle of God is God's entry into history, into our reality bound by time and space, matter and energy, as a human in the form of Jesus. I believe that the miracle of our belief in Jesus, in our acceptance of the Truth of God's revelation in Scripture, comes from the indwelling of God's Spirit in the minds and hearts of believers. I believe that God, one all powerful being, is expressed to us in this Trinitarian Way, giving humanity a way to wrap our minds around the Divine.
Simply put, by faith, I believe God exists outside of Time. How then could God be proved to have created the universe? The question is a fallacy, scientifically speaking. Religiously speaking, it carrys a much different dynamic, which is how I earn my living.
"We have just one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe." I cannot state it scientifically, but I can state by faith that I believe there is a heaven and an afterlife. And I have a feeling, I have faith, that you will experience that because of the profound insight, prophetic vision, and gracious joy that your work has brought to me. And I believe you speak a more convincing Truth than many of those who claim to speak for the Almighty.
I close this with a pleasant memory. I remember you, an actor portraying Einstein, and Data playing poker on the holodeck on Star Trek. I remembered that moment when you expressed regret that you never met Albert Einstein. Lord willing, perhaps I will have the very great honor of meeting you some day.
All blessings on you and what you have given to me, and to the world. I look forward to reading your latest book.
Rev. Peter Hofstra
First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy, NJ
I am a great fan of yours. "A Brief History of Time" pushed my thinking. I am not a cosmologist by training, but a pastor. I think you have done some of the most amazing work to make cosmological thinking and consideration of the origin of the universe accessible to this generation.
When I saw your episode of "Curiosity" on the Discovery channel, I was prepared to be offended. I was prepared to be hurt because I see you as one of the great thinkers of this generation. But when the program came to an end, I was pleased.
I believe that the universe is elegant, awesome, aesthetically pleasing, that it is, in the description given in Genesis at the end of the seven days of creation, good. I have been moved in my thinking by some of the things I have read about intelligent design. But I reject it as an attempt to write God into science. I believe that the universe shows the handiwork of God, but I do not think He signed his work, at least not in a way that could rewrite scientific inquiry.
Time began at the Big Bang, so there is not a place within scientific inquiry to locate a Creator before then. I hope I have summed up your words satisfactorily. Religious inquiry is not based within or upon science, it is based upon faith. I would not expect to find God bound into the finite universe, not when, by faith, I believe God to be infinite.
I hold the Bible to be how God has chosen to reveal Godself. I hold that book in the highest esteem. I also apologize most profoundly for those of my training and office in this and past generations who have chosen to use the Bible as an implement of censorship and terror against scientific inquiry. What I draw from the poetry of the beginning of the book of Genesis is that there was a beginning to everything. By faith, I believe God created the heavens and the earth. What I draw from scientific observation and inquiry is that there was a beginning to everything. That event was the Big Bang. There, Science and Christian faith agree. Then each carries on its own purpose in the world.
I believe that the miracle of God is God's entry into history, into our reality bound by time and space, matter and energy, as a human in the form of Jesus. I believe that the miracle of our belief in Jesus, in our acceptance of the Truth of God's revelation in Scripture, comes from the indwelling of God's Spirit in the minds and hearts of believers. I believe that God, one all powerful being, is expressed to us in this Trinitarian Way, giving humanity a way to wrap our minds around the Divine.
Simply put, by faith, I believe God exists outside of Time. How then could God be proved to have created the universe? The question is a fallacy, scientifically speaking. Religiously speaking, it carrys a much different dynamic, which is how I earn my living.
"We have just one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe." I cannot state it scientifically, but I can state by faith that I believe there is a heaven and an afterlife. And I have a feeling, I have faith, that you will experience that because of the profound insight, prophetic vision, and gracious joy that your work has brought to me. And I believe you speak a more convincing Truth than many of those who claim to speak for the Almighty.
I close this with a pleasant memory. I remember you, an actor portraying Einstein, and Data playing poker on the holodeck on Star Trek. I remembered that moment when you expressed regret that you never met Albert Einstein. Lord willing, perhaps I will have the very great honor of meeting you some day.
All blessings on you and what you have given to me, and to the world. I look forward to reading your latest book.
Rev. Peter Hofstra
First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy, NJ
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