The Top 5 Christian Musicians of the Last 15 Years

Posted on August 13, 2018 by The Apologetic Professor

I am immune to social pressure.

As evidence, it’s worth noting that I never endorse the kinds of uber-popular things that other people seem to endorse.  I’m a rebel from the norms of common culture.  Unlike most people, my favorite coffee shop is…Starbucks.   (OK, wait).  My favorite place to eat is…McDonald’s. (No, don’t worry, here it comes, I’m really a rebel about shopping).  My favorite place to shop is…Wal-Mart.  (What’s happening here?)  My favorite sport is…football.

OK, so maybe sometimes I am not quite the rebel I believe myself to be.  Occasionally, once in a while, I am influenced by social pressure.

Anywho, I noticed recently that of the top 7 most-read posts on this blog, 6 of them are “Top 5” ratings and rankings.  It is merely an unrelated coincidence that I’ve spent quite a bit of my most recent blogging efforts doing a bunch of ratings of things.  This has nothing to do with the social pressure comments I opened with.  Really, readers, you are so cynical.

In order to completely buck this trend and show you that I’m not just a reed blowing in the wind of social influence, today I’m going to do a totally different kind of post.

I’m still going to rate things — BUT this rating, unlike many of my other ratings, contains a mathematical counting error.  Take that, cynic!  If that isn’t a bold deviation from norms, I don’t know what is.  [Editor's note: Actually, the vast majority of his rating/ranking posts contain mathematical counting errors.  We would apologize for this complicated multi-layered set of errors within errors, except that it is probably more entertaining than anything else in the post.  Which isn't very entertaining, if we're being honest.]

Today, we shift gears a bit and take the focus away from the ancient musicians from my youth.  Indeed, in the last post in this series, my list of Greatest Christian Musicians of All Time felt a bit as if I was extolling the virtues of color television and parachute pants.   This week, I bring us up to the modern era by forcing myself to look at the last 15 years or so of Christian music – for those of you who may not even remember Rich Mullins (more’s the pity).   Let’s jump right in.

1.  Sara Groves.  After Rich Mullins died, I felt for a while that Christian music was lacking anyone who could write a beautiful lyric that really moved you to your soul.  Then Sara Groves came along and changed all that.  She is one of those rare people who could bring you to tears with a song about the time she ate slightly undercooked mashed potatoes in ’85, or maybe even a whole moving song about the super-irritating packaging that comes on modern toys.  (That last one is the literal truth – she actually did write a wonderful lyric about that very thing, a song appropriately titled Toy Packaging).

Just ponder this lyric:

Dress down your pretty faith

Give me something real

Leave out the “thee” and “thou”

And speak to me now

 

I woke up this morning and realized

That Jesus is not a portrait

Or stained glass windows

Or hymns

Or all the beauty that surrounds us

 

I thought it would be hard to believe in

But it’s not hard at all

To believe I’ve sinned

And fallen short

Of the glory of God

 

He’s not asking me to change in my joy for martyrdom

He’s asking to take my place

To stand in the gap that I have formed

With His real, with His sweet, with His real amazing grace

 

And it’s not just a sign or a sacrament

It’s not just a metaphor for love

His blood is real and it’s not just a symbol of your faith

So leave out the “thee” and “thou”

And speak now

Pretty much every song Sara Groves writes is like that, from simple lyrics like “My Journey is My Own” to powerful and tear-jerking ballads like “You Cannot Lose My Love” to beautiful salvation songs like “Remember Surrender.”  Her music can sometimes feel repetitive and is often piano-based and slow (for those of us who like to rock it out sometimes, she’s a little musically dull), but mixed in there is a lot of creative musical beauty that makes her an easy choice for number 1 on this list.  I’ve put as her signature song one of my all-time favorite lyrics, a slow song with an edgy psychological message (that kind of describes my own life).

Signature Song: Maybe There’s a Loving God
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2.  Chris Rice.  I have no idea why this guy isn’t considered one of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time, or why he doesn’t have more hits in Christian music circles.  Almost everything he writes is worth listening to.  He has a very pleasant voice and, although very mellow overall, can really pick up the pace when he wants to.  He is a lyrical genius and has produced hilarious song titles like “Smell the Color Nine” and the humble-sounding “The Best Song Ever.”  Chris Rice challenges, cajoles, amuses, comforts, and encourages; all at the same time; on just about every line of every song.  I’m picking here a quiet song about faith that has constantly encouraged me over the last few years.

Signature Song: The Final Move

3.  Derek Webb.  Here’s a bit from a Derek Webb song:

There are two great lies that I’ve heard 

One is that if you eat of this fruit, you will not surely die 

The other is that Jesus is a white, middle-class Republican

And that if you want to get to Heaven, you have to be like Him

And then after that the album gets controversial.

Derek Webb, a founding member of the popular Christian band Caedmon’s Call, is the most talented singer/songwriter that you’ve probably never heard of.  He is a firebrand; he is a musical genius; he has a tremendous voice; and he is unafraid to say a lot of things that probably make him unpalatable to the cookie-cutter Christian music industry, but which need to be said.  I often vehemently disagree with him and quite a bit of his music makes me highly annoyed, but there is no denying his genius and fully two of his songs helped change my life.  I’ll put the most meaningful one, a repetitive-but-incredibly-powerful ballad, here.

Signature Song: Lover.

4.  Switchfoot.  Well, look, I like Switchfoot for the same reason everyone else does.  Only in my case it’s a bit odd, because I don’t like this kind of band.  They are a little too Seattle grunge for my tastes.  All the same, they write cool and inspired lyrics, soaring ballads, and their rock songs are generally hard to get out of my head.  They are the kind of band that (and this has happened literally every time I’ve listened to a new Switchfoot album), the first time I listen to an album, I go “that’s pretty nice but not classic,” but it gets better and better at each turn, until I finally admit I’m totally in love with it.

The song I pick below, I kind of hate choosing, since it is one of their big hits and is thus too boringly obvious…but it really is a super-cool song.

Signature Song: Dare You to Move

5. Ceili Rain.   The fifth spot was tough, but I finally just used a heuristic of “which band do I actually listen to the most.”  And by that criterion, Ceili Rain wins hands down – and in fact by that criterion alone, they might be number 1 on this list.

You’ve probably never heard of this band, although they had a minor secular hit with their catchy ballad “Love Travels.”  They have a glorious Celtic (a genre I absolutely love) sound with a talented singer/song-writer as their lead singer – although his less-than-inspired vocals sometimes drag down the band a bit.  However, overall, they provide, if not amazing lyrics, some very solid lyrical depth combined with catchy and well-executed Celtic riffs.  I may be their #1 fan in the whole world!

Signature Song: This is October

Best of the Rest:

6.  Plumb.  Plumb is indescribably awesome.  First, her name is just…Plumb.  Cooler than Pele or Prince or Maradonna or even Ronaldo – no, she unquestionably has the best one-word name of all time.  I’ve often wished I could change my name to some fairly obscure fruit reference.  Wouldn’t it be totally awesome to be called just “Fig”…or “Rutabaga”?

(My wife and daughter both tell me that the fruit is actually spelled “Plum” – and that “Plumb” ending with ‘b’ means something like “go deep.”  It’s so sad that they don’t know how to spell such a basic fruit!)

Hard to believe, the glory of Plumb doesn’t end with her name.  There’s actually more.  Plumb is one of the few truly dynamic rockers that modern Christian music has produced.  It’s like Joan Jett meets early Amy Grant.  It’s like The Cure meets Touched by an Angel.  She is edgy, unapologetically and shockingly honest – and yet, through a lot of dark and brooding and angsty stuff, through all of that shines a message of hope, God’s love and forgiveness, rest, and quiet goodness.  There ain’t nothing like Plumb.

Sure, she produces some soaring ballads and love songs (Here With Me) – but did I mention that she can totally and completely rock in every way?  The song I put here is one of my favorite edgy-angsty rock songs of all time.

Signature Song: Solace.

7.  Andrew Peterson.  This guy is like the Christian James Taylor.  His line “There are days the Church seems like nothing more than the second coming of the Pharisees” – in reference to hate-filled attitudes in the modern Church – is enough to make me want to buy all his albums.  He is absolutely wonderful and has a real knack for combining catchy mellow riffs with thought-provoking lyrics.

Signature Song: In the Night My Hope Lives On.

8.  Casting Crowns.  A little too “boilerplate” for me, Casting Crowns has nonetheless produced so many songs that inspire me and/or make me cry that it would be dishonest not to put them on this list.  They have a tendency to have annoyingly political lyrics at times, but they have produced some wonderfully deep and personal songs – and the lead singer is excellent.  I could pick about ten of their songs, but I choose an off-the-radar one which captures how I often feel (and also has an average linguistic complexity of 5, which is incredibly complex – the highest single person we’ve ever scored was Immanuel Kant, who clocks in at a 3.2 – and, as a complexity researcher, this makes me strangely comforted).

Signature Song: Caught in the Middle

9. For King and Country.  Hands down, these guys produce best sound Christian music has heard in the last 15 years or so.  This is my favorite kind of band: Edgy, acoustic-driven rock with lots of soaring two-part harmonies.  For King and Country is full of energy and panache; they have that certain “it” factor; they are refreshingly awesome.  And while they are not lyrical geniuses, they have some nice lyrics – and one song that is very personally meaningful to me (which probably helped land them on this list, even though otherwise they are not exactly hitting things out of the lyrical park):

Signature Song: People Change.

10.  The Afters.  I loved this band before they were cool.  I heard the “signature song” below once on the radio and immediately told my wife that I wanted to figure out who that was and go buy every album they had ever recorded…and it turns out that pretty much everything they produce, in any style, is super awesome.  Great funny songs (MySpace Girl), great ballads (Oceans Wide), great stomp-your-feet songs (Start Over), and great brooding rock songs (We Are the Sound).  But I keep going back to that first moment of my profound “The Afters” love, when I was scrambling to figure out who sang this signature and stunningly-beautiful ballad:

Signature Song: Keeping Me Alive

10. Matt Maher.  Yes, I am aware that there are two number 10’s.  I realized after I finished my list that I had left off one of my favorite artists, and really, you can’t have a top 10 list without…Plumb.  But I’m too lazy to re-write stuff, and I’m absolutely horrified at the thought of deleting something (please! Give me a break.  It’s like you don’t even know me).

Now, to Matt Maher (sorry, Matt, I really do like your music, and I’m getting to that): I absolutely love this guy.  Simple, straightforward rock music that makes me think of my favorite secular artists of a bygone era – people like John Cougar Mellencamp.  Powerful, edgy, acoustic rock, with a cry-out-to-Heaven lyrical angsty-ness.  Nothing profound, but this is a fun guy to listen to with the windows down, the wind blowing through your face, the mountains shining, and your heart turned Heavenward.

[Editor’s Note:  We at the Apologetic Professor editorial staff would like to discourage all children and dogs from having wind blow through your face.  We’re not sure what that means, but we are fairly confident that anything literally going through your face is…not good.  We’d maybe recommend trying your hair instead.]

Signature Song: Heaven Help Me Now

The Rest of the Best of the Rest:

11.  Matthew West (Signature Song: The Motions).  12. DecemberRadio (Signature Song: Find You Waiting). 13. Mark Schultz (Signature Song: She Was Watching).  14.  BarlowGirl (Signature Song: Never Alone). 15. Jan Krist (Signature Song: Parallel Universe).  16. FM Static (Signature Song: Tonight). 17. Luminate (Signature Song: Healing in Your Arms). 18. The Museum (Signature Song: Buy This). 19. Brandon Heath (Signature Song: London).  20. Chris August (Signature Song: Seventy Times Seven).

Posted in Science and Religion | 2 Comments

The Eternal Revolution

Posted on July 22, 2018 by The Apologetic Professor

Sometimes we forget that Jesus was a rebel.  In our often-placid, often-comfortable everyday religious lives, we too easily fail to remember that what He calls us to is nothing short of a world-upside-down revolution.  A revolution that has been going from the day He walked the earth to this day – this very day that you and I are currently living – and that probably will go on until the heavens and earth are melted and reborn.  A kind of eternal revolution.

Of course, Jesus did not call us to fight in a war; and He Himself turned down human power when it was offered to him.  No; Jesus calls us to rebel against far older and more dangerous powers than mere governments or human armies.  And it is worth briefly remembering what those are, these harbingers of our eternal revolution.

Jesus Against the World

What did Jesus rebel against?  He rebelled against the world.  He rebelled against the evil inside all of us.  He rebelled against corruption.  He rebelled against all dark parts of all worldly cultures everywhere and at all times.  He rebelled against Roman arrogance; He rebelled against Greek lust; He rebelled against European worldliness.  But the revolution is still ongoing.  It doesn’t just apply to Romans or Greeks or French or Germans.  It applies to us. He calls us to rebel today against the dark parts of our own culture, just as He called His sheep in His day to revolt against the dark parts of their culture.  That is why He roamed the streets and cried “Repent!”  He is still roaming; He is still crying; on our American streets.  To join Him is to permanently stake your place in the ground and say, NO MORE! No more will I let the lustful guise of Hollywood drag me down.  No more will I let the greed of Wall Street be my guide.  No more will I allow my own personal pleasure and comfort and pride, the hope of the American dream, lure me away from goodness and innocence and light.  I do not deserve a break today – I am not the greatest thing ever – I will rebel forever against the lies that my culture sells.

In calling us to rebel against our culture, Jesus is of course calling us to rebel against our own inner sin nature, our own demons.  Our culture is simply…us.  And Jesus generally didn’t talk to the culture – He talked to individuals.  One of the most striking things I find in the New Testament is the degree that Jesus doesn’t tell me to focus on other people’s sins – He instead tells me to repent of my own.  If you join His revolution, your own sin will be the primary thing on the chopping block.  You will have to sacrifice your own greed when you enter in the door of the Cross.

Jesus Against Religion

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As a result, if we can say Jesus rebelled against any group in society, we can say quite confidently that He was leading a rebellion against religion.  It is not recorded that Jesus turned over any tables in Pilate’s house.  There are no records to indicate that Jesus angrily marched into Rome and threw out the emperor.  No; when Jesus turned over tables, it was in church; when He threw people out, He was throwing religious people out of the Temple of God.  It is a lesson for all of us.  Being religious is not enough; indeed, being religious can be dangerous if it is a proud religion.

Of course, I am a religious person and I want you to be, too.  I don’t mean that Jesus was against the idea of worship or God or church anything like that.  Jesus said He came to found a church.  But what I mean is this: It is easy to forget that our life in Christ is not about religion.  Quite paradoxically if you will, our own religion – and for a certainty the Founder of our religion – teaches quite the opposite.  It is not the rituals, or the church building, or the ceremonies, that truly matter.  It is the very real door that Christ has opened that any woman or man can walk through at any moment – that is what matters.  The salvation of each individual soul – that is what matters.  Loving God and your neighbor – that is what matters.  It is a relationship with our Creator; it is being a part of a family that God Himself is in.  And these ideas that matter often appear quite anti-religious, because it really isn’t about religion per se.   Sometimes we have to rebel against religion with Jesus in order to find the very truths our religion keeps going on about.

A Revolutionary Vision

I sometimes imagine that everywhere I go, everywhere I look on every horizon, I see a vision blazing eternally against the sky.  It is the vision of a single cross, forever standing, forever offering a door that can never be closed.  This door cannot be closed by hell; it cannot be closed by sin; it cannot be closed by irreligion; it cannot be closed by religion.  Pontius Pilate could not stop it; Bill Clinton could not stop it; George Bush could not stop it; Barack Obama could not stop it; Reverend Phelps could not stop it; Donald Trump cannot stop it; Putin cannot stop it; Richard Dawkins cannot stop it; Bill Maher cannot stop it; Pat Robertson cannot stop it.  The human powers that be in this universe think themselves grand; but it is beyond them. This door comes from somewhere far deeper, somewhere far older; from a power that they cannot understand and can never, ever contain.  It rises above religion – it rises above our secular world – above the din and the rattle of our sad and lonely little blue ball hanging in space, it stands waiting for anyone who will, to enter.

And I sometimes forget that, in my vision, what we are entering into through that door is not only home, not only family, not only salvation, but it is also…an eternal revolution.

Posted in What Christians Actually Believe | 2 Comments

The Next Top 5 Christian Musicians of All Time…Plus a Horrid Segue

Posted on June 9, 2018 by The Apologetic Professor

I’ve said many times on this blog that Christians can’t make good movies and I don’t know why.  Well, it turns out that even though we suck at movies, we are totally and completely awesome at making music.  We seem to excel at all things ancient.

Speaking of ancient [Editor’s note: Yes, this is officially the worst…segue…ever], it’s been well over a year since I began evaluating the Top Christian Musicians of All Time.  But unlike other bloggers, I’m not dissuaded by the sheer lack of interest created by putting years and years between posts.  So: This post we’ll pick up with #6.  On a forthcoming post, I’ll bring it to more recent times and evaluate current artists.  Let’s jump right in this post:

6. Billy Crockett.  After Steve Camp (#5 of all time as evaluated on my last post), it’s just guesswork.  So I’ll go with the heart-meets-talent formula.  Billy Crockett is one of the best guitar players of his generation – a friend of mine once told me that he broke a string in the middle of a concert song, and kept playing while changing the string without missing a beat of the music.  Probably that’s just a legend, but there is no denying that this guy can flat out play the guitar.

I like him because, although he doesn’t really rock, exactly, he has a knack for producing both catchy riffs and incredibly soaring lyric-driven ballads.  He paints a world where fairy tales have come true in rich and vibrant language, but without glossing over the pain and heartache of life.

Signature Song:  A Father’s Love

7.  Sara Groves.

Because Sara clocks in on the forthcoming post “Best Artists of the Last 10 Years” list (she’s the only artist on both lists), I’m not going to comment much here.  If you want to hear abundant praise of this highly-underrated musician, read the forthcoming post on that topic!

Signature Song: Maybe There’s a Loving God

8. Susan Ashton.

Long forgotten now is the comet-like success of Susan Ashton, who for a brief moment was the star of the Christian music world.  But she kept producing beautiful music regardless, and her shimmering voice and wonderful songs clearly make her one of the greatest Christian artists of all time by any measure.  I list here a ballad that, back in my college years, put better than I ever could my own feelings about the sin that ultimately drove me to the Cross:

Signature Song: Innocence Lost
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9. Caedmon’s Call. 

In a forthcoming post, I’m going to discuss Derek Webb (who was one of the original members of Caedmon’s Call) in more depth.  Here, I’ll just say that Caedmon’s Call would probably be higher on this list if Webb hadn’t left.  As it is, with or without him, they’ve produced some consistently wonderful stuff in my favorite genre of music (acoustic-driven rock).  The song I list here is one of my all-time favorites on the album of the same name:

Signature Song: 40 Acres

10.  Allies. 

You’ve probably heard of Bob Carlisle – he’s the guy that produced the uber-smarmy song to his daughter called “Butterfly Kisses” that became a national #1 hit on secular charts.  Well, you may not know that long before that absurd pop song hit the charts, Carlisle was the lead singer for a Heavy Metal band.

Yep.  Introduce Allies, which (besides Guardian) is probably the best hard rock band that Christian music ever produced.  And while I think Carlisle kind of sucks as a pop singer, his voice is surprisingly uniquely suited to edgier sounds.  One of my favorite albums of my youth was Allies album “Virtues” – before I really knew Christian rock music was much of a thing, I bought that album along with a Petra album.  I found Petra totally overrated (and still do), but Allies was the first band that convinced me Christians had a viable music industry beyond Amy Grant.

So: Don’t be completely put off by their absurd cover designs (their original album with the band members dressed in military gear may be the single worst album cover I’ve ever seen) or their 1980’s veneer – these guys can totally rock and have some heart-felt ballads besides (“Let’s Fall in Love All Over Again” is a classic).  I’m torn between listing “Jaque Remembers” and “Harmony,” so I’ll cheat by mentioning them both here in this sentence and putting only one of them as the Signature Song:

Signature song: Harmony

Rest of the Best of the Rest:

11. Chris Rice (Signature Song: The Final Move).  12. Switchfoot (Signature Song: Dare You to Move).  13. Ceili Rain (Signature Song: This is October).  14.  Plumb (Signature Song: Solace). 15. Steven Curtis Chapman (Signature Song: Lord of the Dance). 16. Geoff Moore and the Distance (Signature Song: Mercy for the Memories). 17. Dennis Jernigan (Signature Song: Mercy Me).  18. Bruce Carroll (Signature Song: Shadow and Light). 19. Michael Card (Signature Song: I Will Bring You Home).  20.  Jennifer Knapp (Signature Song: Refine Me).  21.  Stryper (Signature Song: Honestly).  22.  Keith Green (Signature Song: Grace By Which I Stand).  23.  Wayne Watson (Signature Song: Would I Know You Now?).  24. Brave (Signature Song: Running All My Life).

Posted in Top 5 Lists, Ratings, and Rankings | 2 Comments

A Christian Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Posted on December 30, 2017 by The Apologetic Professor

If you are one of the three people on earth who hasn’t yet seen or heard about the plot of The Last Jedi…well, you probably are herding anteaters in a remote part of Siberia and therefore likely do not need this next spoiler alert.  But in spirit of the sudden and touching new sensitivity that has swept the world for avoiding Star Wars spoilers, I will nonetheless say:

This review contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi.  If you care about seeing the movie without knowing anything about it – well, why are you reading movie reviews anyway?  But you definitely should not read this one.  So there.

(Let’s be honest: I’m not sure I got the “sensitive” part of the “touching new sensitivity” quite right).

As you’ve probably heard by now, the new Star Wars movie is controversial.  Critics love it; the people, well, the people are divided.  It is by most accounts the least liked Star Wars movie of all time, and its Rotten Tomatoes fan score gets lower by the second.  I’ve read hundreds and perhaps thousands of reviews, and the most common comment I’ve seen about the movie from Jane or Joe Citizen is this:

“Rian Johnson ruined my childhood!”

Yet clearly, quite a few fans loved the movie, too – and I actually know more people personally who loved it than hated it.

What are we to make of this mess?  As someone who grew up a Star Wars fan (I had an Episode IV landspeeder toy when I was 5 years old), currently owns no less than 11 different lightsaber replicas (lightsaber battles are quite common in our household), still actually plays with my eight Star Wars dolls (I prefer the term “action figures,” for the record), and has a youtube channel with my daughter that specializes in Star Wars parodies (check it out!), I feel I have earned a bit of George Lucas street cred to effectively comment on this new movie.

Further, I also feel like the movie review industry is lacking in a specifically Christian perspective – and as the nation (unlike Hollywood) is still overwhelming Christian (not to mention that I presume if you are reading a blog devoted to Christian themes you have at least some small interest in that perspective), I thought I’d also give my take on the religious aspects of the movie.

For the sake of organizing, I’m going to divide my comments into two separate posts.  In this post, I’m going to rate the movie on its entertainment value.  In my next post, I’m going to rate it on its moral and spiritual value.

Entertainment Value: 3 Stars (out of 5)

Is this an entertaining movie?  I’m actually going to say something that it appears no one will like on either side of the debate – I think this movie is simply average.  Because these days research suggests people basically only want to read stuff that validates what they already believe, I’ll tell you straight out that I’m starting with the bad stuff.  So if you don’t want to hear about that, then skip to the next section.  Or even better, learn to dialectically appreciate perspectives that aren’t your own!

What I didn’t like about the movie

I’ve seen it twice now, and I can’t escape the following evaluation.  The movie was entertaining in parts and had many redeeming virtues, but overall I think it suffered from a let’s surprise them inferiority complex.  Rian Johnson seemed more interested in trying to shock the audience than he was in creating a truly compelling narrative that worked.  It’s harder and harder these days to find something a Star Wars fan hasn’t thought of – and in many ways, this movie seemed to me like a largely-failed attempt to respond to criticisms that The Force Awakens was too predictable and as a result, Rian Johnson tried too hard to find whatever those things-fans-haven’t-thought-of were.

What will Luke finally do when Rey holds out his lightsaber?  Hey, let’s have him toss it over his shoulder and act like a pouty two-year old who refuses to come to dinner. Bet no one thought of that.

Who will Rey’s parents turn out to be?  How about junkers from Jakku who apparently never left the planet, because hey, after we showed Rey watching them leave the planet in Episode VII, bet no one will think of that.

Who will Snoke turn out to be?  Hey, let’s just kill him off without talking about it at all, because no one will have imagined we’d do something like that.

In a sense, it felt to me like Rian Johnson might as well have had Luke use the lightsaber to cut out Chewbacca’s spleen and eat it, or have Rey’s parents turn out to be Ewoks, or for Snoke’s long-awaited backstory to involve him being the ill-begotten offspring of a porcupine and a wombat.  Those sound absurd, but that’s a bit how this movie played out to me.   Because, hey, no one would have thought that Luke would go all Wookie-spleen-hangry or that Snoke would be Darth Porcubatius, so it’s all good.

The Last Jedi may be shocking in places, but it isn’t the right kind of shocking.  And that rarely makes for truly compelling theater.  Let’s compare for a second.  The shocking moment in Episode V – the quintessential movie bomb that defines all movie bombs – was when we learn that Darth Vader is Luke’s father.  That moment was indeed surprising, but it wasn’t randomly surprising; it actually made sense in the larger narrative and served a profound purpose in the movie.  There were a hundred reasons why we should have seen that coming. Vader was clearly in a very tiny minority of people who were powerful with the force, and yet so was Luke; we knew Luke’s father and mother were gone; Obi Wan actually seemed a bit (just a bit) sheepish when he discussed Luke’s father’s “death.”

And yet in The Last Jedi, when we learned that Luke wasn’t on any great mission to do anything but literally just abandoned his friends (and the whole galaxy) to evil to die a selfish death on a remote planet, it doesn’t seem to fit at all.  Quite the opposite.  Consider just two of many possible issues:

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2.  Probably the most troubling part of the movie to me was how inconsistent Luke’s character was from all of the preceding movies – including the way he was depicted in Episode VII.  This isn’t about being a Star Wars purist, people – it’s about good or bad script-writing.  You create a world, you need to stick to its parameters.  And yes, sure, people change, I get that.  Personally I never really even liked Luke in Episodes IV-VI; no one that I know particularly did.  This isn’t about being overly attached to the “Luke I knew.”  But to imagine that he would abandon the galaxy because one of his students started to go bad?  It’s frankly absurd.  I mean, it’s not like Luke didn’t have experience with that sort of thing – that’s what happened to his father.  And you are seriously trying to tell me that the same person who was willing to believe in the good in Darth Vader, the Darth Vader who had murdered millions of people and had tortured and tried to kill Luke’s own best friends – you are telling me that the same person who gave himself up in the hopes of saving that guy, was going to freak out and abandon all sense of duty because he saw some darkness in one teenage student?  I’m sorry, but if you are going to make the most optimistic and good (morally speaking) character in the galaxy into an immoral and pathetic cynic, I’ll listen – but you have to do way, way, way better than that.

Well, a lot of The Last Jedi moments are like that, both small and big.  One of my personal biggest disappointments about this movie’s predecessor (Episode VII) was that Leia was not a Jedi (which was her implied path in Episodes V and VI).  At the least, I would have hoped that she would develop her force powers to some degree.  (Yes, Star Wars geeks, I am aware that her reasons for this are fleshed out a bit in some of the non-canonical writings; but still).  But she didn’t, so if you want to show her using those powers, you need to prep us for that.  And instead, we get a fairly bizarre scene where she is basically dead, and then suddenly she is able to use the force to not only pull herself a great distance while in an almost-dead state, navigate a debris field, and open an air lock; but also to somehow survive a spectacularly long time in the unlivable cold of space.  Thus, while I personally thought it was cool that Leia was shown as a powerful force-wielder and had long been wanting Star Wars to develop that side of her, the random way it was done in The Last Jedi seemed less than satisfying.

The whole movie seemed a bit hodge-podge like that.  In Episode V we have a cave where Luke sees himself and learns a lesson that actually pertains to the movie; in The Last Jedi we have a cave where Rey sees herself but doesn’t learn anything in particular (even by her own admission).  In Episode V we have a side trip from non-Jedi characters that at first seems pointless (ending with the characters being incarcerated), but then it is directly tied to the Jedi/Sith-based plot in a clever way; in The Last Jedi we have a side trip from non-Jedi characters that at first seems pointless (ending with the characters being incarcerated), and then…well, it still seems pointless.  (Hey, guys, maybe instead of trying to find some magical codebreaker in the vain hope of disabling the tracker without the First Order knowing, why didn’t you just…buy some extra fuel while you were out?  They do sell space fuel on Canto Bight, right? Or, since obviously the First Order was curiously oblivious to small ships coming and going, maybe just sneak the people off the main Resistance ship to Crait, say four at a time, as soon as you decide on that course of action?)

And that sums up how I felt about quite a bit of The Last Jedi.  As a movie, it had a hard time really going anywhere or developing anything.

What I liked about the movie

Now, if you’ve read this far, you may wonder why on earth I gave this movie as high a rating as three stars?  Well, here’s the truth: It’s still quite a fun spectacle.  As entertainment, it delivers in many key areas and was definitely worth the seven bucks I paid for it (both times).  While The Last Jedi has more issues than most Star Wars movies, all flicks (including all the other Star Wars movies) have plot problems, and this one is still worth watching in spite of those problems.  It’s fun, it has some heart.  It replaces stupid ewoks with over-the-top awesome porgs.  It has no Jar Jar.  So let me end this post with a larger dip into the things I liked about the movie.

First and foremost, I liked sharing the movie with my daughter Autumn.  She’s a huge Star Wars fan and she loved the movie more than I did – and it was incredible to experience the wonder of the Star Wars universe together in the theater with her by my side.

OK, even I can see that “reason” is more of a caveat – in truth I really enjoyed the experience of seeing this movie in spite of its flaws, and I think maybe my own enjoyment is in part filtered through her eyes.  But that said, this movie really does have quite a few redeeming features that don’t depend on sharing it with your beloved daughter.  So here goes for real:

1.  The best-developed part of the movie was the way the battle between good and evil played out in Rey and Kylo Ren’s relationship.  I don’t think it was done perfectly (and of course, Rey’s turning herself over to the bad guys to try and save Ren is a bit of a cheap knock-off of Episode VI), but especially the second time I watched it, I really began to appreciate the subtlety and heart with which this was handled.  One of the best moments in the movie is when Kylo Ren tries to convince Rey to join her on the dark side and tells her that although she didn’t matter to her parents, she “matters to him.”  And her subsequent response – refusing, even then, to turn her back on what was right and instead trying to save her friends – was terrific.  It was a beautiful parable of all our struggles: Sometimes when we feel we don’t matter, there is a temptation to turn to evil to satisfy it.  Ren struggled with this, too, and tried to find a kind of middle path by killing Snoke and turning Rey to “his” side – a path that Rey ultimately (and rightly) rejected.

2.  Every movie needs a compelling bad guy, and Kylo Ren completely fits the bill here (I have mixed feelings about Snoke, but as he plays comparatively little role in the film, I’ll restrain myself there).  Ren’s character is especially well-developed in this movie and he finally became the intriguing bad guy we hoped for, with moments of genuine moral tension (e.g., refusing to fire on his mom after considering it) and of real audience empathy (e.g., learning he thought his master tried to kill him); and yet, for all that, he was clearly depicted as the dangerous-but-cool bad guy he largely still was at the end of the movie.

3. Ren and Rey are both great; but the very best scene in the movie is when Luke Skywalker appears on Crait as a Force-projection.  I don’t care a whole lot about the apparently-raging Force-projection debate (I have an opinion on that, but it isn’t that strong) – what I like is the drama and tension surrounding the moment.  I love how the scene builds up to my very favorite line in the movie, when Luke says to Ren: “Amazing – every word of what you just said was wrong” and then proceeds to give him an absolutely incredible speech about why it was wrong.  That was top-notch script-writing, right there.  A good friend said something like this about that moment: “I felt then like I was finally in a Star Wars movie.”  That’s how I felt, too – that was totally awesome.

4.  There was some really good acting.  Adam Driver is particularly brilliant, and while Mark Hamill never was an especially accomplished actor on his best day, I think the critics were right who said he turned in his best performance ever here.  Daisy Ridley is terrific – although I will say that the first time I saw the movie, I thought Rian Johnson mostly wasted her talent.  I warmed up to her performance the second time I saw it.

5.  BB-8!  A lot of people thought BB-8 wasn’t particularly good in this movie – but I personally thought he almost stole the show.  He’s officially now my second favorite Star Wars droid ever, behind only K-2SO.  (My favorite droid ever, Data from Star Trek, isn’t even in Star Wars…shhhhhh).

6.  Porgs!  The second time I saw the movie, I was with a group of five respectably ewok-hating manly-men in-laws.  At the end of the movie we all discussed our favorite scenes.  In the midst of this group of guys who went together to watch a movie about gripping battles in space, my father-in-law stated that his favorite scene was not a light saber battle or blaster fight, but…the moment an especially extra-cute porg looked pouty when Chewbacca was about to eat some roast porg for dinner.

And here’s everything you need to know about porgs:  Rather than mocking him, this group of guys (myself included) all honestly said “that’s a solid choice.”  Because it was.  One of my best sensibly ewok-hating friends (like me, also 45 years old) already has a porg doll; instead of making fun of him, I’m jealous.

7.  Crait!  I think Crait is one of the coolest visual worlds ever created for Star Wars, and the whole battle on Crait and everything that happened there was (for me) the best part of the movie.  I loved the red-on-white explosions when the red soil underneath the white salt would rise into vast crimson plumes, I loved the crystal foxes and crystal caves, I pretty much loved everything about the vast Utah-like beauty of the whole place.

8.  You’ll note that up until this point I haven’t said much about the generally whimsical humor in the movie.  That’s mostly because it’s a touchy subject amongst Star Wars fans and I don’t want any of you to hate me.  But I’ll venture this:  I personally did not like the slapstick-like approach Johnson took to the movie and often found it very off-putting (as my daughter said, much of the humor felt like it belonged in a Lego Star Wars parody of the movie, not in the actual movie itself), but overall the movie was entertaining and certainly there were some super-funny parts that I could not help but laugh at.  There – you can’t get more vague and diplomatic than that!  I’d also like to use this moment to announce my campaign to run for Star Wars president, and if you vote for me, I promise to continue to play to both sides of this humor debate in an unconvincing manner.

I could go on – I like talking about Star Wars a lot and I’m just getting warmed up.  Next post, we’ll give the first-ever “moral/spiritual” one-to-five star rating for a movie on this blog.  And we’ll make that rating by asking the question: If Christianity could speak, what would it say about Star Wars: The Last Jedi?  So stay tuned.

Posted in Top 5 Lists, Ratings, and Rankings | 99 Comments

He’s Back!: Luke Wins Lengthy Lawsuit to Save the Apologetic Professor Name

Posted on December 8, 2017 by The Apologetic Professor

It’s been a long journey since my last post.  As incredible as it sounds, George Lucas sued me for using the name Apologetic Professor because he claimed it was too close to his Star Wars character Appo (Clone Commander of the 501st Legion in Revenge of the Sith), for which he owned the copyright.  As a result, I was legally forced to shut down my blog (and my lucrative Apologetic Professor bobble-head doll and/or ugly paperweight business) for well over a year. 

I also ate a bad taco and got mild indigestion.  It’s been one of those years.

But I finally won the lawsuit and I’m happy to report that my indigestion has passed.  As a result, I can now resume blogging.

All my cards on the table here: I didn’t really win a Star Wars-themed lawsuit.  I did, however, construct a Star Wars costume from $10 at a thrift store for a new character I named Darth Janitorius.  [Editor’s Note: We regret to inform you that this story is actually…true.] There has never been a cleaner bathroom for dark lords than the one in Darth Janitorius’ house, let me tell you.

To clarify: Absolutely no lawsuits, but lots of Star Wars suits.  (Please don’t actually sue me, George Lucas.  You’re an awesome guy and I love you, man!)

But figured after a year and half away from the blog, I needed something particularly eye-catching or else no one would read it.  (At least, that’s the lesson I learned from modern politicians and/or bobble-head distributors).  So while there was no lawsuit, one part of the title is true:

I’M BACK!

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I’m sure you are all absolutely dying to know why I’ve actually been away [Editor’s note: We’d mock him, but he’s taking all the challenge out of it].  The real reason is rather drab and boring: I did not have time to do blogging well over this past year, and I made a conscious decision to take some time off from the blog to re-analyze and re-energize and re-estimatize and re-….nuclearize.  Or something.  Anyway, during this last year, I was writing a book (now published, more on that in a later post) and my day job was particularly taxing.  I’ll spare most of the details, but the pertinent point here is:

I’M BACK!

Yes, after finishing the book and seriously weighing the amount of time I have in my life, I’d decided that my heart is too much in this blog to stop writing it.  Now, I actually know that you can’t sustain a blog by taking a year and a half off all the time, or posting on a super intermittent schedule.  But when I say I’m committed to this blog, I mean it: I want this blog to be good, and I want to post regular articles of high quality pertinent to religious topics.

Now, my life is busy and I really do have a day job.  So, to find a balance between the busy-ness of my own life and a need to be a more consistent blogger, I’m going to post at least once a month.  I might post more, but my goal is this:  I want to put something of decent quality at no less than one per month.  While I realize that isn’t as consistent as many blogs that post once a day, this will at least keep me on a regular schedule.

I’m also going to try to expand the scope of the blog by more regularly asking guest bloggers to post.  Thus, while we will keep up the normal cheeky, quasi-intellectual rants of times past, we will mix that in with discussions from other (and more intellectually competent) writers.  I’m also thinking of doing even crazier things like getting a twitter account.  Egad!

So: Buckle up!  It’s going to be a wild ride.

Posted in Rather Bizarre Social Commentary | 3 Comments

The Top 5 Christian Musicians of All Time

Posted on March 5, 2016 by The Apologetic Professor

Artsy people seem to like arguing over dumb stuff.  Take Hamlet.  The truth is, Hamlet isn’t some great work of genius – it’s just a really badly-written play with poor plot development.  That’s why no one can understand it – because it’s stupid.  But artsy people like it because they seem to enjoy arguing about things they can’t understand.  It makes them feel superior.

(To be fair, one of my best friends – one of the nicest and least arrogant people I know – loves Hamlet.  He tells me that it really has a wonderful plot.  But because he’s clearly biased by having read the play recently, whereas my mind views it through that unclouded clear sky of vaguely remember reading it in junior high – because, I say, I’m humbly inclined to trust my own vague memory from 30 years ago rather than the opinion of an incredibly intelligent person from a year ago – and because admitting that Hamlet has a great plot sort of ruins my introduction, I’m just going to ignore his opinion and plod ahead).

I feel sorry for the artsy people.  How can you not have empathy for people who feel that literally throwing dog crap on a canvas conveys some artistic genius?  You just want to say “Good heavens, try some Thomas Kinkade or something!  He at least paints real things that actually do convey real meaning.”

Well, I feel that way about a lot of music.  In the next two posts, I’m going to offer my own rankings of the greatest Christian artists of all time.  And, after 3 full minutes of intense market research, I notice with some dismay that my rankings don’t always correspond to other people’s rankings.

And one of the reasons they don’t correspond is this “artsy” dimension.  Take Jars of Clay, one of the bands that consistently rank highly on other people’s lists. Well, I like Jars of Clay and I considered them for this list, but ultimately they failed because, although they did have one truly great album, the vast majority of the time they literally make no sense.  They are the Hamlet of the Christian music world.  Lyrically, I think they are like some kind of random-word generator or abstract art technique – they produce enough volume that eventually one or two songs sounds like it makes an ounce of sense, and so everyone assumes that the rest of the time they actually do mean something.  So while I like Jars of Clay a lot and own a bunch of their albums, they are not the lyrical geniuses that everyone says they are.  Genius means being able to communicate; and mostly, they can’t.  (See also Sixpence None the Richer: Seriously, I like some of their music, but I’ve no idea what all the fuss is about.)

There’s also a different problem with a lot of modern Christian music in quite another direction:  A lot of it is well-done but boringly repetitive.  I don’t like abstract art – but I also don’t like seeing the same boring and flat picture of a mountain over and over and over again.  No matter how recognizable it is, I get tired of it.  And a lot of Christian music these days is like that, and unfortunately, that seems to get rewarded.  So, for example, take the top 3 artists from this “Top 101 Christian Artists of All Time” list:

http://www.hearitfirst.com/blog/101-best-christian-artists-of-all-time/

Those artists are Mercy Me, Chris Tomlin, and Third Day.  All of them are nice, but they only have one song.  I don’t mean that they each only have one hit – I mean, I have several albums by all of them, and they all sing the exact same tune over and over and over again.  I keep buying the albums because it’s a nice song.  But did I mention that it’s the same song?  That mountain gets old – at some point, I want some new color or something more creative.

So what I’m saying is that I don’t like other people’s rankings, and you should listen to mine!  Over the next two posts, I’m going to tell you who I think are the very best Christian artists of all time.  Enjoy and let the debates begin!

1. Rich Mullins.  It’s tough to put someone as the greatest artist of all time of any genre who sings like an out-of-tune elephant and who performs a style of music that I frankly don’t like.  But anything else would be dishonest.  This guy’s music showed me the light during so many dark and lonely days; carried me through so many sinful years to keep searching; pointed me towards God when I had lost hope.  Plus, the guy plays a mean dulcimer, and you can’t say that of too many top-selling artists.  He has written everything from very-famous praise music (Awesome God) to incredibly poignant critical commentaries of the Bible (The World as Best I Remember It) – and just when you think you get your head around his musical style, he has a way of surprising you.  I could pick any song at random.

Signature Song:  Growing Young

2. Guardian.  Back in the days when Christian music was struggling to get off the ground, a friend of mine who heard this band said something like “they are the only Christian band that doesn’t sound derivative – they sound like they would really be talented on any stage, a creative force no matter what world they happened to be playing in.”  And that about sums it up.  This is one of the greatest arena-rock bands of all time that you’ve probably never heard of.  Best lead singer ever (though my daughter’s comment when she heard him was “that guy is terrible, he sounds like he’s yelling and not singing.” It’s safe to say that my violin-playing daughter doesn’t really know how to rock.  It’s so sad, kids these days, what with their love of classical music and lack of knowledge of You Give Love a Bad Name… this interruption was brought to you by the Apologetic Professor; we better get back to the actual sentence now, if I can remember what that was), great lyrics, catchy hard rock tunes, and some of the greatest hair-band ballads of all time.

I must say that I am completely beyond veclempt (that is, I am incredibly annoyed) that Guardian did not make any list of top Christian bands that I saw, including the top 101 list I referenced earlier (I mean, are you telling me that there are 101 bands better than this one!  One of the bands is “August Burns Red” – I have one of their albums and it sounds like a tuba player formed a hard rock band; are you kidding me?).

I could pick any number of rock-it-out songs or cool ballads, but because most of the songs on this list are actually meaningful ballads, I’ll opt with the former to shift it up a bit (I challenge you to listen to this song and not feel totally awesome):

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3. Charlie Peacock.  Another guy who didn’t even make a single “Top Christian Artist” list.  Shocking.  I could write the same thing here as I did about Rich Mullins:  Charlie Peacock cannot sing.  There’s that.  (Although unlike Rich Mullins, he has that “Peter Cetera” or “Phil Collins” this-guy-cannot-sing-but-I-like-his-voice-anyway listenability.)  He generally likes jazz (which I hate – worst art form ever) and is way, way too funky for my tastes.  But the songwriting talent is beyond compare and the number of deep, thoughtful, life-changing lyrics he has produced is hard to briefly discuss.  I’d probably have him a bit lower, but he’s my wife’s favorite artist of all time (by far), and she reads this blog once a year, and who knows?  It could be this week.  So I don’t want to risk it.

I could have picked almost any song off of his “Everything That’s On My Mind” album, which is one of the greatest albums of all time of any genre. This one is sort of picked at random.

Signature Song: Monkeys at the Zoo

4. Amy Grant.  A friend of mine once dared me to listen to a One Direction song and not like it.  Hating boy-band pop music with every fiber of my being, I took her up on the challenge smugly, because I was sure I would not like it. Seriously, right?  It’s One Direction.  How hard is it going to be to not like…good Heavens, the truth was…it was a catchy song that was impossible not to like.  There – I said it out loud – I like a One Direction song, ok?

Now, speaking of humiliating admissions: I am embarrassed by this selection.  Putting Amy Grant here is worse than admitting I like a One Direction song (although, contrary to what you may hear from some people, the rumor going around that “One Direction completely changed my life” is a reckless exaggeration).

But not putting Amy Grant here is horribly dishonest.  The truth is: Her early music was transforming.  I still go back to that music when I’m down to find comfort and inspiration.  There are so many songs she’s sung that have helped me find God that I cannot begin to count them.  So, while her later pop-act music was hardly the stuff of U2 legend (though some of it was ok – see her very nice cover of “Big Yellow Taxi”), her first few albums alone would be enough to land her here.

If I were going to list my favorite songs of all time, she’d probably have two of the top 10 – including “So Glad” and this one, which would almost certainly be number one:

Signature Song: Arms of Love

5. Steve Camp.  This last spot was incredibly hard to pick.  Probably the best overall musical artist left, the one that has produced the best albums and the best music, would be Geoff Moore and the Distance.  But while Geoff Moore can totally rock (“Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music” is a classic) and has produced one of the most powerful forgiveness ballads in history (a song that helped change my life called “Mercy for the Memories”), overall, they just don’t have a lot of…heart.  So as you’ll see next week, they slide way down the list.

As I am prone to do, I used the heart factor here to pick the last artist in the Top 5.  This is a bad choice for two reasons: (1) This guy can be super annoying.  Half his songs drive me crazy because they are manipulative, shallow-ish songs that have quasi-political overtones.  I don’t mind preachy, but this guy is preachy, if you follow me.  (2) He can’t really do a fast song to save his life.  All his fast songs sound like 1970’s television show tracks.  Look up the soundtrack for The Facts of Life…and if you think that’s good music, I…feel sorry for you.  Maybe try using an iPhone.

With all of that bad stuff said, why on earth is this guy on the list?  It’s simple – he has a collection of incredibly powerful, incredibly honest, heart-rending cries to God that are basically unparalleled in Christian music, now or then.  Songs where he cries to God and means it – songs where God speaks back and you can almost feel His love.  And his voice has got that scratchy Bryan Adams quality that is so good for soaring ballads.  His “Doing My Best” album is still one of the music sets I gravitate to the most, and Steve Camp holds the honor of producing the only song in history using the word “holiness” (which is a concept I mostly don’t get – I mean, what the heck is that, anyway?  It seems like a word too vague to be meaningful to me) that I actually like (“Stranger to Holiness”).  I could pick many songs here, but I’ll pick the one that probably meant the most to me in my youth.

Signature song: He is All You Need.

Next post, we’ll pick up with #6!

Posted in Top 5 Lists, Ratings, and Rankings | 2 Comments

Luke Giving a Talk in Kalispell Tonight

Posted on March 2, 2016 by The Apologetic Professor

Luke has been invited to give a talk at FVCC tonight in Kalispell from 7:00-8:30.  So, for the massive Apologetic Professor contingent in Kalispell who might be interested (haha), the information about the talk is below!  The theme of the six-speaker series is “why are we all so divided these days?”

March 2, 2016, Wednesday, 7:00-8:30pm, FVCC – AT 139      

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Dr. Luke Conway, Associate Professor of Psychology, The University of Montana

Posted in Reader Mailbag | 1 Comment

The Best Argument for Both Atheism and Theism

Posted on November 21, 2015 by The Apologetic Professor

I find it interesting that arguments for both Christianity and Atheism often take some kind of a parallel structure, where each side basically uses the same kind of argument, sometimes almost the exact same argument – but they start from different assumptions and therefore end up in opposite corners.

For example, there are times that it seems to me the best argument on either side, the one that most people on both sides actually feel deeply even if they don’t articulate it – that best argument is something like no argument should be necessary at all.  If I were an atheist, and many days of my life I have very nearly been an atheist, I would say something like this:

If God is real, why on earth would we need to debate about Him/Her/It/What-Have-You?  I mean, if there were an omnipotent Creator of the universe that wanted us to know Him, it’s hard to imagine that He (etc.) would rely so much on intuition and creative argument for evidence of His very existence.  So without such clear evidence, why are we debating this thing at all? You are asking me to believe that there is an omnipotent being who wants everyone to believe in Him yet, for unknown reasons, allows the possibility of honest doubt.  You are asking me to believe in a being so powerful that He can create a universe, but who yet seems absent from that universe essentially all of the time except for the occasional mild hint.  Give me a break!  Better to just admit that God isn’t there, that we’ve misread the occasional mild hint, that we’re over-interpreting the rainbow and windstorm and earthquake and fall colors, and get on with figuring out how we can muddle along as best we can.

If I were a Christian, and many days of my life I hope that I am worthy of that name, I would say something like this:

If God is not real, why on earth would we need an argument to show it?  I do not think we would ever have thought of Him on our own.  I didn’t create this vivid feeling that something beyond this world exists – a feeling I find inside of me and I can’t seem to totally shake. Why did I awake at all in the world with the sense of the Divine?  Where did it come from?   Why do the mountains cry out to me of something beyond themselves, why do I hear an echo of Heaven in my daughter’s laughter? Why do I like Middle-Earth and magic rings and stories from long-forgotten other worlds so much? Why does it seem that everyone looks up in hopes of finding lost loved ones?  Why do we seem to gravitate to eternity and cry out for Heaven in the dire crises of our lives – in those moments where everything seems on the line – where does that desire come from? So given all that, given this pervasive sense that humanity has always seemed to have, and that I certainly seem to have, of the existence of something beyond this world, why are we still debating about it?  Best to just admit that something beyond this world likely exists and get on with figuring out what in the world it is!

But both of those arguments say the same thing – they both basically assert a psychological fact about how things are and then suggest everyone should just get on board with that psychological fact.  Atheists feel we should not need to argue because they don’t see or feel God as much as they think they should; Christians feel they should not need to argue because they already feel God sometimes and assume everyone else should feel Him in the same way, too.
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The ironic truth is, of course, that both of those arguments as to why we should not need to argue illustrate exactly why we do need to argue; or at least why we need to argue with ourselves.  I’m not sure you and I need to argue [Apologetic Editorial Staff Note: Seriously, this guy’s idiotic behavior suggests that he is in fact pretty darn sure he wants to argue with you…he has been known to argue with a piece of broccoli about the role of the quantum physics in digestion…for three hours…we’re just sayin’] – but I’m fairly certain that you need to argue with you, and that I need to argue with me.  At some fundamental level, there are reasons why it seems eternity exists; and reasons why it seems it doesn’t.  It would be unwise to ignore either calling, unwise to close one’s eyes to the facts on either side.

If, like me, you believe in God (and just so there is no ambiguity – make no mistake, I do unequivocally believe in God), it is foolish to pretend like it isn’t upsetting that He seems absent sometimes.  It is bad for you; it is dishonest; and it is insulting to other people who feel it, too.  (For Christians, it is also shockingly unnecessary: The Bible is replete with anguished cries wondering where God is, and many of the most venerated heroes of the Bible – David, Job, and even Jesus Himself – uttered bracingly blunt accusations against God for seeming absent).  But if, unlike me, you don’t believe in God, it is also foolish to completely shut your mind and eyes to the desire for eternity, if and when it makes an appearance in your lives.  The Bible doesn’t call thoughtful atheists or skeptics fools – but it does call the person who “says in their heart there is no God” a fool.  Honest doubt is not vilified in the Bible; but a complete closing of one’s eyes and heart to the yearnings of eternity is. That’s because it is foolish to turn away from the calling of eternity without seeking – to merely declare by fiat that there is no God.

So each of us should not be afraid of the clashing sides; but what about that internal argument?  How should we stack the absence of God against the yearnings of eternity? Here’s a brief sample of one (that “one” being inside of this guy) of how those arguments might clash:  Although they occasionally sound good when you read them out loud, neither of those arguments is super-compelling when stacked against the other; it’s almost a wash.  Almost a wash – but if that were all there was, if that’s all there was to consider in the universe, I’d probably be an agnostic with some hope of faith.  It is slightly more strange to me that God, being God and desiring belief, would go long stretches appearing absent, than it is that I would experience a sense of the Divine intermittently, if no God were present.

Of course, I’m not an agnostic, at least not most of the time, and so it’s probably not right to say that’s the best argument for theism (or atheism).  I put this whole dialogue here mostly to encourage you to seek the truth in all its aspects, to have courage for what really is, to honestly observe what you actually experience and keep your eyes open.  It isn’t my internal argument that matters – but yours.  Don’t be afraid of it!

But I also admit that I have another motive: I want to remind my readers that, at some fundamental level, I do get it.  I actually do get why people might be an atheist, and I don’t hold that against them.  I believe God is alive mostly because I believe that I’ve actually met Him, and I believe that if you seek Him long enough, you will, too.  I feel more like a prophet some days than a professor.  Intellectually, experientially, I think there are reasons to believe in Him, reasons to hope in Him, reasons to have faith in Him; but there are also reasons to doubt, reasons to give up, reasons to stop the search.  I’m not naïve to those reasons on either side.  All I ask is that my beloved atheist and agnostic readers keep their minds open to evidence and experiences that might lead to belief in God – that they give faith a legitimate fighting chance.  Really!

Posted in Christian Approach to Knowledge, Does God Exist?, What Christians Actually Believe | 1 Comment

The Top 5 Worst Movies of 2012-2013 That I Did Not Watch

Posted on October 25, 2015 by The Apologetic Professor

Once, I felt an ounce of social pressure to watch a movie.

I know, right?  But my wife and I had resisted the temptation to watch Titanic for years on the grounds that it sounded like an idiotic, thoughtless movie that confused lust with love – and we felt somewhat sure we already knew that the boat sank.

But so many of the people in our social orbit had watched the movie that we began to feel sadly…disconnected…from our culture.  We thought, if everyone in our culture loves this movie, how bad could it be, really?  So we gave in and watched it on our VCR.  (Kids, a VCR is an ancient device that involves hired monkeys throwing stones at a wall to create moving pictures.  No one has them anymore except people who collect parachute pants and Bee Gees albums. Please, please don’t ask about those).

And guess what?  Titanic turned out to be an idiotic, thoughtless movie that confused lust with love…aaaaaand the boat sank.  (Titanic is like the NASCAR of the movie world.  If your sport is only interesting when people wreck their cars, that can’t be a good sign.  Well, literally the only part of this movie that I liked was the cool cinematography of a boat sinking.  Thumbs down, waaaaaaayyy down.).

So that was the last time Kathrene and I ever watched anything to feel more “connected” with our culture.  We felt then and feel now that if our culture was really that dumb, we’ll just be happy on our own, thank you very much.

So that brings us to today’s offering, where, with shocking hubris, I continue to tell you about movies that I actually haven’t seen.  Go find a blog that does that!

Here, we go back to the 2012-2013 era:

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2.  Twighlight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2.  Romantic vampires?  This movie franchise accomplished a nearly-impossible feat:  It combined two different genres of movies that are each horrid on their own (romance and vampires).  Please.  You don’t make either brussel sprouts or light beer any better by making “Brussel sprouts light beer.”

3. Dr. Suess’ the Lorax.  I like Dr. Suess, and I like kids’ animated movies, but when I read about this movie, it seemed both incredibly boring and uninspiring, so I gave it a pass.  And I’m sleeping fine at night, thank you.

4. The Amazing Spider Man.  I’m sorry, but you don’t get to make one of the most beloved good superheroes of all time into a teenage punk and expect me to watch it.  It’s like they made Captain America side with the Nazis after a night of drunken revelry.  So, guys, make Peter Parker back into Peter Parker and then get back to me (which, by the way, they did for the second instantiation of this franchise).

5. Les Miserables.  This is – by far – my favorite musical/play of all time for live theater, and yet I didn’t watch this because I simply could not imagine Hugh Jackman…singing.  Gross.

Worst of the Rest:

6.  The Lone Ranger.  7. Fast and Furious 6.

Posted in Top 5 Lists, Ratings, and Rankings | 1 Comment

A Low-Budget Christian Movie Is Number 1 in the Nation: Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You

Posted on September 12, 2015 by The Apologetic Professor

I told you so.

For years, I’ve been saying on this blog things like “there is a hunger in the nation for really good Christian movies…it’s just that we aren’t making very many” (from The Top 5 Christian-y Christian Movies of All Time), and “the country is starving for some genuinely good Christian movies and TV shows.  If someone ever actually makes one, look out!” (from The Top 5 Worst Movies of 2014-2015 That I Did Not Watch).

Well, low and behold, look what just happened: A low-budget Christian movie about the hot Hollywood topic of…prayer…was the number one grossing movie at the box office last week.

So I’m writing an entire blog piece to say “I told you so.”  I told you that the country wants good Christian movies.  I told you that Hollywood dislikes Christianity so much they are often willing to hurt themselves to show it.  I told you that if they’d wake up and make good, clean, Christian movies that they could make a bunch of money.  But instead of doing that, they let a group of amateurs from a church in Georgia make the number one movie in the country with very little budget.  Imagine what could happen if Hollywood actually put their own vast resources into it?
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Other people are picking up on this theme, too – consider the following statements from Gary Susman on the secular movie news cite Movie Fone:

“By now, we should probably stop being surprised when Christian-themed movies become mainstream hits, but the feat is still striking…if the Hollywood studios don’t want to leave money on the table, they just have to figure out how to make such movies and how to sell them in campaigns that don’t require blanketing the continent with superhero toys and fast-food tie-ins.”

Welcome to the party, Gary.  I told you so.

Posted in Science and Religion | 1 Comment