What Matters?

The 95^th Academy Awards ceremony was held this past Sunday night, and perhaps many of you watched at least some of it. I saw hardly any of it, but early Monday morning I was eager to see what/who received the Oscars. 

Of the ten movies nominated for an Oscar, I have seen only The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Tár, and Women Talking. It is interesting to consider what matters, or matters most, to the characters in each of these movies.

On the (fictional) Irish island of Inisherin, Pádraic thought that friendship matters. But his (former) friend Colm thought that legacy matters more than friendship with his “dull” friend Pádraic. This is an interesting question: is leaving a legacy rather than maintaining a friendship what matters most?

Lydia Tár thought primarily that power matters. Brilliantly played by Australian actress Cate Blanchett, the talented but rather unlikeable Tár is a brilliant classical music conductor. Her focus, though, is on gaining, maintaining, and exerting power. Is having power what matters most?

The Mennonite women in Women Talking conclude that the combination of safety, faith, and thinking is what matters most. This is a powerful movie about strong women who had been betrayed by the deplorably deviant men of their community who apparently thought that sex matters most.

What matters is a major part of the quirky film Everything Everywhere All at Once (EEAAO), which won the best picture Oscar as well as six others, including the best actress award for Michelle Yeoh, the impressive Malaysian Chinese actress.

EEAAO pits the idea that everything matters against the claim that nothing matters. Evelyn, the mother played by Yeoh, realizes everything matters, especially reconciliation with her daughter. The daughter Joy, though, mutters near the end of the lengthy movie, Nothing matters.

Even though chosen as the best picture of the year, I found EEAAO hard to watch. Based on the view that there are multiple universes which exist simultaneously, it moved too fast from one universe to another. It was also filled with silliness, much of which I found unenjoyable.

Nevertheless, EEAAO was filled with thought-provoking content as well, including consideration of what matters. In the second article linked to below is this assertion:

In a split-second decision at the end of the movie, Evelyn beckons Joy to stay with her instead of pushing the world toward destruction. Evelyn tells us … that even if this world will eventually end with failure and nothingness, it is worthwhile to spend every fleeting moment doing laundry, filing taxes and working toward small steps of reconciliation.

In the third link below, posted in March 2022, the author explains that EEAAO "doesn't reject nihilism as a philosophy. Rather, it promotes a more optimistic, humanist nihilism. Instead of ‘nothing matters, so why bother?’ it says ‘Nothing matters, unless you decide that it does.’"

We can, in fact, decide that the life we have now is precious and it is something that truly matters.

In The Shack (remember that bestselling 2007 book?) Wm. Paul Young wrote, “If anything matters then everything matters.” In commenting later on that statement, he wrote, 

Either nothing matters and we’re all caught in this bind of despair, or everything matters and life has value and meaning, and what we do with our lives is important.

But, if all (or most) life will possibly be annihilated, maybe even in this century, does anything really matter? Perhaps that “nihilistic” idea was lurking in Joy’s mind in EEAAO, and it seems to be common among many present-day twentysomethings and older teens.

Regardless of how long we or the world as we know it may last, however, if we live now in a relationship of harmony with God, with other people, and with the world of nature, that is something splendid and it does indeed matter, and matters immensely.

_____

Here are links to some thoughtful articles about EEAAO:

** In 'Everything Everywhere All at Once,' a multiverse of absurdity meets intergenerational healing (3/11)

** ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ and the Paradox of Achieving ‘Nothing’ (3/12)

** The Ending Of Everything Everywhere All At Once Explained (3/2022)

Lies We Believe about God

Lies My Teacher Told Me (1995) by James W. Loewen is an interesting and important book. Following that lead, a few years ago I did some preliminary work on a book titled Lies My Preacher Told Me. It could have been a good book—but, alas, I didn’t get it written. Earlier this year, however, Wm. Paul Young has published a somewhat related book, Lies We Believe about God.

Young’s Theology

As most of you remember, Young is the author of the bestselling novel The Shack (2007), which I wrote about in a blog article posted on March 5. (There were more pageviews than usual on that post.)

Young also wrote the fantasy novel Eve (2015). (My May 5 article on that book got fewer pageviews than usual.)

This piece is about Young’s new book, which is not a novel but a theological reflection about God. In it, Young deals with 28 different “lies” that he thinks many people believe about God.

Young also wrote the Foreword for Richard Rohr’s new book The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (2016). Among other things, Young graphically averred, 

Bad theology is like pornography—the imagination of a real relationship without the risk of one. It tends to be transactional and propositional rather than relational and mysterious. You don’t have to trust Person, or care for Person. It becomes an exercise in self-gratification that ultimately dehumanizes the self and the community of humanity in order to avoid the painful processes of humbling and trusting. Bad theology is not a victimless crime. It dehumanizes God and turns the wonder and the messy mystery of intimate relationship into a centerfold to be used and discarded.

Young thinks that many popular ideas about God are pornographic, in the way he just expressed. Those ideas express bad theology, for they are lies believed about God. So he sets out to state good/correct theological statements about God.

For the most part, I think Young did a commendable job. Naturally, there are some who disagree—and the more conservative/traditional a person is, the more they will likely disagree with Young’s theology.

Young’s Perceived Lies about God

In general, Young says that all ideas about God that depict God as in any way vengeful or vindictive are not true. All views about God that fail to embrace God’s grace, God’s unconditional love and acceptance of all people, are “lies” about God.

Further, all statements that exclude people from God’s embrace or locate them outside the reach of God’s forgiveness are also seen as lies.

“Every human being you meet, interact with, react and respond to, treat rudely or with kindness and mercy: every one is a child of God,” says Young (on p. 206).

Conservative Christians do not like Young’s emphases for two main reasons: they appear to be universalistic (everyone is forgiven/”saved”) and they deny the idea of the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ.

According to Young, God does not need to be appeased. God’s wrath does not need to be assuaged. God’s righteousness does not need to be “satisfied.”

Is “Penal Substitutionary Atonement” a Lie about God?

The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention was held earlier this month. As always, there were several resolutions deliberated and passed at that meeting. One was titled “On the Necessity of Penal Substitutionary Atonement.”

In a news article about that resolution, Bob Allen of Baptist News Global mentioned Young’s criticism of that penal substitutionary theory of atonement. As noted above, Young thinks it is one of the lies believed about God.

Is he right?

Let’s think more about that important issue soon.

The Gospel According to "Eve"

Wm. Paul Young, as perhaps most of you know, is the author of The Shack (2008), which was made into a movie by the same name and released earlier this year. Some of you may also remember the blog article I posted on the book/movie back in March (see here). Then in April, I read Young’s 2015 novel, Eve.

A FANTASY NOVEL

Eve is classified as a Christian fantasy novel. For some reason, though, I have never cared much for fantasy books, Christian or otherwise. I have not read the highly acclaimed fantasy fiction of C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien, although some of my children and grandchildren have greatly enjoyed their books of fantasy.  

An online dictionary defines fantasy as “the faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable.” Maybe that is my problem: I just don’t have enough imagination to enjoy fantasy. At least that was my main problem in reading Eve.

Looking at the reviews of Eve on Goodreads.com was interesting (see here). Some readers gave it five stars and praised the book. Others gave it one star. One such person is Megz, a young white woman in South Africa. She is a fan of The Shack, she said, but then stated bluntly, “I don’t have a nice way of starting this review: I hated this book.”

I certainly didn’t hate it—but I had trouble appreciating the fantasy.

SOME FANTASTIC STATEMENTS

While I had trouble with much of the fantastic (= “imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality”) parts of the book, which was most of it, I was, nevertheless, impressed with some fantastic (= “extraordinarily good or attractive”) statements in it. Here are some examples.

Near the end of the book Eve says, “Perhaps this desire to reach out to the other [to Adam in her case], to make amends and repair loss, to build a bridge and heal, is a part of God’s maternal being that is in all of us” (p. 282).

One theme of the book is human freedom, which includes being able to make bad choices. In that regard, Eve says, “I have learned that God has more respect for me than I do for myself, that God submits to the choices I make, that my ability to say no and turn my face away is essential for Love to be Love.”

Eve then goes on to state,

Adonai has never hidden His face from me, nor has He kept from me the consequences of my choosing. That is why many of my sons and my daughters curse the face and name of God. But God refuses to be like what we have become and take power and dominion. He has the audacity to consent and even submit to all our choosing. Then He joins us in the darkness we create because of all our turning (p. 283). 

A THEOLOGICAL NOVEL

There are some appealing theological aspects to Eve. As in The Shack, the feminine aspects of God, whom (because of his strong Trinitarian ideas) Young regularly refers to with plural pronouns, are highlighted. That maternal side of God is also portrayed as a part of all humans, made in the image of God.

God allows human freedom, as mentioned above, even when that leads to turning away from God. But they (God as the plural Trinity) still love unconditionally those who turn (sinners), and they are very eager to embrace all those who re-turn.

Another Goodreads reviewer, Rhonda in Virginia, wrote, “This book caused me to think deeply about my own brokenness.” Perhaps it also helped her, and others, to see the gospel (good news) according to Eve: God’s love is always available for the healing of every broken person.

What about “The Shack”?

“An African-American, a Jew, and an Asian walk into a bar” might be the beginning of somebody’s joke. But Wm. Paul Young is dead serious when he centers his 2007 novel The Shack on three such persons—and this weekend the movie by the same name opened in theaters across the country. 

DESCRIBING “THE SHACK”

Young (b. 1955) is a Canadian novelist who self-published The Shack after his manuscript was turned down by 26 publishers. Remarkably, by June 2008 it had sold a million copies—and now sales are said to be over 25 million!

While definitely fiction, the book is also a theodicy, an argument for God’s goodness in the face of evil. Much of the book is response to Missy’s question about “how come [God’s] so mean?” (p. 33).

The book/movie is also a reflection on the nature of the Trinity. While clearly a temporary manifestation to Mack, the central human being in the book, God appears as Elousia, an African-American woman usually called “Papa”; Jesus, a Jewish carpenter; and Sarayu, a willowy Asian woman. 

When first meeting these three “persons,” Mack asks which one of them is God. “’I am,’ said all three in unison” (p. 89).

What a marvelous time, and what a healing time, Mack spends with this amazing Trinity!  

TRASHING “THE SHACK”

There have been some very negative reviews of the book—mostly by conservative Christians. In 2010 Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called it (here) “deeply troubling” and declared that it “includes undiluted heresy.”

Earlier, in May 2008, Charles Colson advised his readers (here), “Stay Out of The Shack.”

These are just two of many written criticisms of the theological content of The Shack. In addition, though, just about a year ago a 79-minute documentary film was produced with the title “The Shack: Its Dangerous Theology and Error.”

There are perhaps some legitimate concerns about the theology of the book—but the more conservative or traditional one is, the greater those concerns will likely be.

In addition to the conservative Christians who criticize the theology of The Shack, there are now many secular movie critics who trash the film.

Returning home after watching the movie, with delight, late Friday afternoon, I looked up some movie reviews of the film—and was disappointed in what I found. They were mostly negative—especially the one by Peter Sobczynski on RogerEbert.com. 

Perhaps “The Shack” is most appreciated/enjoyed by people with a moderate/liberal Christian worldview.

PRAISING “THE SHACK”

“When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize, the result is a novel on the order of The Shack. This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!” 

These words, by Eugene Peterson (of The Message fame) are perhaps the most effusive in praising The Shack, but there have been numerous clerics and moderate to liberal Christian writers who have had positive words about it.

Many of you know and appreciate Richard Rohr. (I wrote about him, here, in Nov. 2015.) Last year Fr. Rohr published The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. I found it interesting that in this major book about the Trinity, Rohr had Young write the Foreword, mentions Young in the Introduction, and calls him a “dear brother” in the Acknowledgments. 

Except to my most (theologically) conservative and most secular friends, I highly recommend this delightful book/movie. It offers much to think about regarding the Triune God, dealing with grief, relationships (with God and other humans), as well as freedom of choice and the problem of evil.