storytelling – Divine Council

Communication

“Wikipedia is…broken,” controlled by special interests and bad actors, says co-founder

By Guest Post June 4, 2019

by Sharyl Attkisson

I’ve done quite a bit of reporting about how Wikipedia is definitely not “the encyclopedia anyone can edit.” It’s become a vehicle for special interests to control information. Agenda editors are able to prevent or revert edits and sourcing on selected issues and people in order to control the narrative.

Watch Sharyl Attkisson’s TedX talk on Wikipedia and other Astroturf tools

My own battle with Wikipedia included being unable to correct provably false facts such as incorrect job history, incorrect birth place and incorrect birth date.

What’s worse is that agenda editors related to pharmaceutical interests and the partisan blog Media Matters control my Wikipedia biographical page, making sure that slanted or false information stays on it. For example, they falsely refer to my reporting as “anti-vaccine,” and imply my reporting on the topic has been discredited. In fact, my vaccine and medical reporting has been recognized by top national journalism awards organizations, and has even been cited as a source in a peer-reviewed scientific publication. However, anyone who tries to edit this factual context and footnotes onto my page finds it is quickly removed.

What persists on my page, however, are sources that are supposedly disallowed by Wikipedia’s policies. They include citations by Media Matters, with no disclosure that it’s a partisan blog.

Another entity quoted on my Wikipedia biographical page to disparage my work is the vaccine industry’s Dr. Paul Offit. But there’s no mention of the lawsuits filed against Offit for libel (one prompted him to apologize and correct his book), or the fact that he provided false information about his work and my reporting to the Orange County Register, which later corrected its article. Obviously, these facts would normally make Offit an unreliable source, but for Wikipedia, he’s presented as if an unconflicted expert. In fact, Wikipedia doesn’t even mention that’s Offit is a vaccine industry insider who’s made millions of dollars off of vaccines.

Meantime, turn to Dr. Offit’s own Wikipedia biography and– at last look– it also omitted all mention of his countless controversies. Instead, it’s written like a promotional resume– in violation of Wikipedia’s supposed politics on neutrality.

Watch Sharyl Attkisson’s TedX talk on Fake News

These biographies are just two examples of ones that blatantly violate Wikipedia’s strict rules, yet they are set in stone. The powerful interests that “watch” and control the pages make sure Offit’s background is whitewashed and that mine is subtly tarnished. They will revert or change any edits that attempt to correct the record.

This, in a nutshell, exemplifies Wikipedia’s problems across the platform as described by its co-founder Larry Sanger.

Watch “Wikipedia: The Dark Side,” a Full Measure investigation

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Apologetics

The Big Story of the Bible, Part 10

By Guest Post May 15, 2019

by Dr. Ronn Johnson

I have been away from this blog for some time, though it has been constantly on my mind. Since my last post, I have written and presented a course at our church on the big story of the Bible. It was rewarding, yet undoubtedly the toughest challenge I had ever faced as a Bible teacher. As I told the class several times, sometimes out of desperation, it’s one thing to teach a passage of the Bible, or even a survey of books within the Bible—most of us have tried that—but something entirely different to approach the text with the sole intent of tracking its largest narrative. Sometimes I felt like I knew where I was going, while at other times I felt very unsure of myself, even within an hour of walking into the class. Now that it’s over I look forward to stepping back and reviewing what I said, thinking through where my work needs improvement.

I would like to return to this blog for such a purpose, in fact: to review what I said in the class and hear myself talk. I invite your response if you have the time. In previous blogs my thinking has been largely negative, pointing out perceived problems with evangelicalism’s traditional understanding of the big story of the Bible. It will feel good to turn the ship around at this point and head in a positive direction. As you could guess, my understanding of the story will be categorically different from the Sin Paid For model that I have been talking about—where the punishment required for sin by God was voluntarily paid by a behaviorally perfect individual, with this payment then being applied to those who accept this gracious provision of Christ on their behalf. I realize that many people like this story because it offers God a way to relieve the tension between his justice and love through Jesus while remaining true to his own demands of grace and impartiality. But as I’ve recommended, this does not seem to be the tension played out in the biblical story. And once we change the tension or crisis of a story we are in effect writing a different story altogether.

In my class, I developed the biblical story by working through the chronological flow of the text. This is easier said than done, I came to realize, and I’ll talk more of this below. But in general, I tried to not give away what happened until it actually happened. I did this for those in the class who were unfamiliar with the Bible, as well as to experiment how this would work within my own presentation. For purposes of this blog, I will lay out the whole story right up front, from beginning to end, then return back to go through the details in upcoming posts. I presume that readers of this website are familiar enough with the Bible to not be annoyed at being given the end of the story too soon.

I have used the analogy of a brick wall before so I will continue the analogy here. What follows are the one hundred bricks which make up, in my opinion, the big story wall of the Bible. Ending up with this round number is not accidental, as you could guess, but mostly because I didn’t like the idea of ending on an odd number, like 89 or 105. I constantly reworked my pile to keep it at the century mark, which is unimportant in the long run. The number can certainly change. Here are my bricks listed in the order in which they appear (or occur) in the story, starting with Genesis 1:1:

God creates the universe
God creates elohim above humans
God creates humans below elohim
Humans fail a loyalty test
Humanity dies and awakens
Creation is sentenced to frustration
Adam’s family shows divided loyalties
Elohim interfere in human affairs
God destroys the earth
Elohim receive territorial rule

Elohim abuse their authority
God judges ruling elohim
Abraham switches spiritual loyalties
Abraham is promised blessing
Elohim come to earth as messengers
God designates loyalty as right
God designates disloyalty as wrong
Abraham’s family shows divided loyalties
God’s family is named Israel
Jacob bears twelve tribes

Joseph saves the family in Egypt
Pharaoh enslaves the family
God reveals his name
Passover redeems Israel
Israel accepts Torah
Israel worships Baal
God clarifies his jealousy
Loyalty is demanded
Disloyalty is predicted
Sacred space is institutionalized

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Christianity

8 Faith-based Films Worth Your Time

By Guest Post April 27, 2019

by Jesse Carey

“Christian” movies don’t exactly have the greatest reputation among film watchers. Christian cinema’s apocalyptic thrillers, morally concerned family films and social-issue stumping dramas have often been criticized for being a little too preachy for non-church goers, lacking the subtlety of their Hollywood counterparts.

Of course, there’s nothing that makes a movie (or any other piece of pop culture) “Christian,” but films with overtly Christian messages have in some ways, become a sub-genre of their own.

Here’s our look at eight movies with Christian messages that will restore your faith in redemptive films.

Believe Me

Believe Me follows the exploits of a group of college guys who attempt to pay off their student loans by crafting a fake, charity:water-type nonprofit and keeping the donations for themselves. Along the way, they discover they’ve got a gift for crafting the sort of highly emotional, faux-substantive Christian “worship” experiences that grease the pockets of the faithful, but they also start to come to terms with their own hypocrisy. Watching the dudes learn to perfect their Christianese is a stinging riot, but Believe Me has a lot more on its mind than just laughs.

Amazing Grace

The 2006 film about William Wilberforce’s campaign to abolish the slave trade in Britain works on several levels: It’s a gripping historical drama; it’s a compelling story about social activism and it’s a moving testimony to the power of faith and reliance on a higher calling.

Blue Like Jazz

The film adaptation of Donald Miller’s best-selling memoir may not have captured the same breakaway success as the book, but the movie remains a pretty charming indie. Unlike many traditional “Christian” movies (or films that are targeted to Christian audiences), Blue Like Jazz isn’t afraid to embrace the complexity of faith, coming of age and thinking about God. Like the book, the movie enjoys asking questions and exploring doubts, but ultimately, finding truth.

Into Great Silence

In 1984, filmmaker Philip Gröning asked Carthusian monks in a remote French monastery if he could make a documentary about their lives. Sixteen years later, the monks agreed. The resulting documentary is a wordless, but gripping, look at the lives of the reclusive monks who have devoted themselves to God and the Bible. What’s captured on camera is like a time-capsule from a group of men dedicated to prayer, and it soon becomes clear why their order’s motto is “The Cross is steady while the world is turning.”

The Mission

Based on actual events, the 1986 drama starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons is an emotional story of redemption, forgiveness, persecution and devotion. Set at a Jesuit mission in the South American jungles during the 1700s, the movie is about fighting injustice and how grace can be used to overcome the most powerful forces of might. It’s a hard-hitting movie featuring one of the most iconic scores in history. Don’t miss it.

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Biology

Don’t Pretend Drag Queens at Libraries Aren’t Promoting Anything to Kids

By Guest Post January 29, 2019

By T.R. Clancy

Just when you think the left can’t behave worse, we find the inspiring story of public library officials in a Detroit suburb heroically defending their “children’s story hour hosted by drag queens.”

Since 2017, the Huntington Woods library has been hosting “Drag Queen Story Time,” where little kids are read to by characters like former Miss Motor City Pride, “Miss Raven Divine Cassadine.” Library official Joyce Krom discovered the San Francisco-born program online, after she followed a Google Alert promoting literacy. Huntington Woods, a “progressive, diverse community,” shares borders with three other woke towns – Ferndale, Royal Oak, and Berkley – which taken together constitute the highest concentration of “CoeXist” bumper stickers outside of California. Consequently, nearly all city officials fully support DQSH, because they want to keep their jobs. But one city commissioner, Allison Iversen, a mother of four who resigned her seat last month to move to another city, dared to push back. In an email to librarian Krom, Iverson questioned the wisdom of DQSH “trying to push this idea that this is something … completely natural.” Iverson also worried that “the program could be ‘planting a seed’ about gender fluidity in children who would have otherwise never had to wrestle with the issue in their own lives.”

Part-time library clerk Jon Pickell, “who has proudly watched the program thrive,” rejects Iverson’s concerns as “hogwash.” The clerk, who identifies as gay, says DQSH “is not promoting anything. You’re not going to end up as transsexual … because you saw a drag queen story hour.”

But according to the mission statement on the program’s Facebook page, DQSH is indeed promoting something:

DQS captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.

Role models are exactly that – models of behavior that adults want children to admire and emulate. Ideally, a child learns from the behavior and values of the role model and wants to do likewise. And what’s being promoted by Drag Queen Story Hour is being “unabashedly queer.”

Enlightened parents are bringing their small kids to see a drag queen because they want them to experience “all sorts of people.” But this story time isn’t just listening to a drag queen tell his own story, and it’s for certain not about literacy. The goal is that the children “play” with their own identities, exploring “the gender fluidity of childhood.” There’s a testimonial on the DQSH website from a first-grade teacher who held Drag Queen Story Hour for his class. He triumphantly describes what his pupils told him afterward, “[d]uring our debrief”: “they were preaching the incredible lessons they had learned, like ‘It’s OK to be different’ and ‘There’s no such things as “boy” things and “girl” things.'” So which is creepier: the idea of six-year-olds being “debriefed” after a pro-trans school activity, or that they come out of it “preaching” a first-grader’s version of queer theory. It sounds positively evangelistic.

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Art

How to Read the Prophets

By Guest Post January 20, 2019

A transcript of “How te Read the Prophets” by The Bible Project.

Ezekiel, Obadiah, Habakkuk What do these names have in common? Well, they are three of the 15 prophets that have their own books in the Bible.

And if you have tried to read these books, odds are you got lost in their dense poetry and strange imagery. But these books are super important for understanding the overall biblical story.

So, let’s talk about “How to Read the Prophets“.

When I hear the word “prophet”, I think of a fortune teller, someone who predicts the future.

That is what being a prophet means in many cultures, but not in the Bible.

While the biblical prophets sometimes speak about the future, they are way more than fortune tellers.

How should I think about them?

Well, they were Israelites who had a radical encounter with God’s presence and then were commissioned to go and speak on God’s behalf.

Like a representative.

Right! And the thing that they cared about the most. It is the mutual partnership that existed between God and the Israelites.

Right! the partnership. God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt and invited them to become a nation of justice and generosity, that would represent his character to the nations.

So, this partnership required all Israelites to give their trust and allegiance to their God alone. In the Bible, this partnership is called the “Covenant”.

But the leaders — the priests, the kings — led Israel astray and they broke the covenant.

So, this is where the prophets came in, to remind Israel of their role in the partnership. They did this in 3 ways.

First, they were constantly accusing Israel for violating the terms of the covenant. The charges usually include idolatry, alliances with other nations and their gods and allowing injustice towards the poor.

So, they are like covenant lawyers.

Right. So, second, the prophets called the Israelites to repent, which means simply, “to turn around”. They spoke of God’s mercy to forgive them if they would just confess and change their ways.

But, Israel and its leaders didn’t change. Things went from bad to worse.

And so that brings us to the third way that prophets emphasized the covenant. They announced the consequences for breaking it which they called, “The Day of the Lord”.

Oh, yeah! The apocalypse. Visions of the end of the world.

Well, sort of. The prophets were mostly interested in how God would bring his justice on Israel’s corruption and on the violent nations around them. And while explaining these local events, they often used cosmic imagery.

Cosmic imagery?

Yeah! like Jeremiah. He described the exile of the Israelites to Babylon as the undoing of creation itself. The land dissolves into chaos and disorder, no light, no animals or people. Or Isaiah described the downfall of Babylon as the disintegration of the cosmos. Stars falling from the sky, the sun going dark. For the prophets, when God acts in human history to bring justice, it is a “Day of the Lord”.

So, the prophets aren’t talking about the end of the world?

Well, hold on. They are doing many things at once. The cosmic imagery shows how these important events of their day fit into the bigger story of God’s mission to bring down every corrupt and violent nation once and for all. The prophets cared about the present and the future. And the cosmic imagery allowed them to talk about both at the same time.

Got it. So, no matter when you live, the Day of the Lord is bad news if you are part of Babylon.

But, it is good news if you are waiting for God’s kingdom. The Day of the Lord pointed to the return of the exiles to Jerusalem. And once again, the prophets use cosmic poetry to describe it. They see a New Jerusalem, like a new Garden of Eden, with all humanity living at peace with each other and with the animals. And, there is a new Messianic King who restores God’s kingdom in a renewed creation.

Beautiful! So, those are the three themes in the prophets. These prophets must have been very powerful, persuasive speakers.

Well, some were. But others lived on the margins. They would often perform strange, symbolic stunts in public to communicate their message. Like when Ezekiel lay in the dirt and built a model of Jerusalem being attacked by Babylon. Or when Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a symbol of the humiliation of exile.

So, did people pay attention to them?

Not really. The stories in these books show how the prophets were a minority group mostly shunned by Israel’s leaders. And their writings were a kind of resistance literature. Most people ignored them. That is, until their warnings came true in the Babylonian exile.

And after that, people began to take their word seriously.

Yes! The works of these earlier prophets were inherited later by unnamed prophets who studied these texts intensely. They’re the ones who arranged the Hebrew scriptures as we know them, including the books of the prophets.

Okay. And there are 15 books of the prophets. The big 3 are Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

Then, there is a collection of 12 smaller prophetic works unified on a single scroll. And in each of these books, you will read stories about the prophets and their poems and visions, all arranged to show the cosmic meaning of Israel’s history. How God will turn their tragic story of failure and exile…

…into a story of hope and restoration for all nations.

And it’s that twin message of prophetic warning and of hope that the prophets cared about so much. And, it is a message that we still need to hear today.

Art

A Christian ‘Drudge Report’

By divinecouncil April 10, 2018

Adam Ford, the man behind The Babylon Bee, has started a Christian “Drudge Report” called the “Christian Daily Reporter.” If you enjoy Adam’s comics and humor on “The Bee,” you might be interested in the daily news articles Adam finds important enough to share with other believers.

At the bottom of the Christian Daily Reporter page, Adam links to a manifesto where he explains the motivation and purpose of his new website. His two headers say it all:

Stop letting Facebook and Google dictate which news and opinions you are allowed to see.

The Christian Daily Reporter is a source for the most important news and content from a Christian perspective — and it lives outside the tech-giant information choke hold.

Storytelling

Two Movies: ‘Paul, Apostle of Christ’ & ‘Full of Grace’

By divinecouncil March 19, 2018

These two movies are from the same director, Andrew Hyatt. “Paul, Apostle of Christ” is coming out this Friday the 23rd, see the trailer and behind the scenes videos, below.

Another Christian movie from Andrew Hyatt, “Full of Grace” has been posted online in its full-length since November of 2016.

Paul, Apostle of Christ

“Risking his life, Luke ventures to Rome to visit Paul — the apostle who’s bound in chains and held captive in Nero’s darkest and bleakest prison cell. Haunted by the shadows of his past misdeeds, Paul wonders if he’s been forgotten as he awaits his grisly execution. Before Paul’s death, Luke resolves to write another book that details the birth of what will come to be known as the church.”

Behind the Scenes

EWTN Interview Jim Caviezel, Raymond Arroyo

Full of Grace

Released in October 2015, this movie has been posted online for quite a while so I infer this is the producer’s preference. I have not seen the whole movie, yet, but am encouraged by this review.

“Mary of Nazareth spends her final days helping the church regain its original encounter with the lord.”

Full Movie

Art

When Christian Artists Learn Apologetics

By divinecouncil February 13, 2018

Apologetics gives artists confidence to speak into the darkness.

Article by Alex Aili for “A Clear Lens“.

During the first class of the morning at the small Christian college, our professor stopped the lecture and used his walking stick, curiously similar to a wizard’s staff, to step from behind the podium to the front of the class. He did this when he really wanted us to listen.

He leaned on the staff as if he was Pastor Gandalf and scanned the class before muttering a kernel of weathered wisdom. It was a heartfelt opinion, but it resonated with the force of a command: “Christians ought to be at the forefront of every discipline.”

Are we at the forefront of the Art that’s shaping our culture?

No. We’re lagging, relying on tropes and stereotypes to preach simplistic sermons when people want to experience compelling stories (although The Case for Christ is a recent example of success).

So yes, we must learn how to make better art, but what good is that if we aren’t speaking the same language as the culture around us?

In Apologetics and The Christian Imagination, Holly Ordway insists that the lost meaning of Christian terminology is what prevents many believers from being intelligible to unbelievers. For example, our world doesn’t hear “Jesus,” “faith” or “sin” as defined by Christians. She argues that an effective, and underused, way to reclaim lost meaning is to create art with sound doctrine (her specific focus in the book, however, is apologetical literature).

In a word, Christian artists need to learn apologetics in addition to their craft. If you have the creative drive and you believe Jesus is the Son of God, then learn apologetics. Know what you believe and why. Your art will be better because you’ll be confident enough to tackle tough issues.

Christian artists don’t have to hide in the realm of “self-expression.” If we study apologetics, the more we’ll naturally see how we can demonstrate Christianity’s implications in our work.

For a start, here are 4 habits to ignite artistic apologetics (although my primary focus is narrative art, creators of other forms may still benefit).

Develop the Worldviews Behind the Central Conflict

Art enables us to raise deep worldview questions without coming across as hostile. How? Well, in storytelling, there is a single question called the dramatic question, which involves the protagonist’s (main character) central conflict with the antagonist.

This clash arises from conflicting desires, which arise from conflicting values, which are motivated by their conflicting worldviews (or perhaps variations of the same worldview).

To put it plainly, the main character wants something and the bad guy wants something else. But they both can’t get what they want because they value different things, so a conflict arises.

For example, the dramatic question of The Lord of the Rings is: “Will Frodo destroy the ring?” And the antagonism is that Sauron wants to reclaim it.

If desires drive characters, values drive desires, and worldviews drive values, then destroying the ring drives Frodo, selfless heroism drives his desire to destroy it, and Goodness motivates his selfless heroism.

With Tolkien creating this conflict, we are drawn in. We want to know what happens to Frodo.

When we empathize with characters by vicariously experiencing their journey (not to mention the world they inhabit), we participate in the worldviews involved in the story as well, albeit indirectly.

So whether we agree with it or not, we let the protagonist’s worldview speak as we follow the story because the answer to the dramatic question unearths deeper worldview implications based on which desires were met and which values are maintained.

How do we develop the expertise to naturally develop worldviews into our art? For starters, learn the craft of dialogue, character development, sentence structure, description, scene structure, etc. Study award-winning stories and the conflicts that generate them. Take a poorly-rated movie, TV show, or song and rewrite it. Then use that as an inspiration or primer for your own work (don’t plagiarize, obviously).

All it takes is the desire to learn. Ask experts. Google it. YouTube it. The Internet Age has its benefits!

Embedding worldview into the central conflict is perhaps the most important element in creating art because when it’s done right, deep questions are raised, which demand inward attention on the audience’s part.

Wrestle with the Darkness

Christian art cannot be pigeonholed into what is family-friendly (although the genre is necessary), aesthetically unambitious or, worst of all, thinly-disguised proselytization. It requires provocation with novelty and sound theology with beauty. It must engage with our world and be relevant.

Please read the rest of, “When Christian Artists Learn Apologetics.”

Bible

Story of the Bible (Logos Layout Advanced Version)

By Terence Gillespie December 11, 2017

This is the advanced version of the Story of the Bible Logos Layout demonstrated in a previous video. We’re going to pick up where that video left off adding pictures and enhancing the ability to navigate story elements with automatic sync.

The Bible does not always unfold in chronologically which makes it hard to grasp the story from reading in the sequence of the canon. Unfortunately, the “find box” in the event navigator is limited making it easy to get lost and hard to reorient yourself when you do. The remedy for this is the logos explorer.

Use Logos Explorer for Reorientation

With the Explorer set to the same linkset as your Bible, you’ll have three options to reorient and get back in sync with the story: through the event navigator, the explorer, or from your Bible.

Additional Benefits

There are two added benefits of having the explorer in this layout:

The “Media” tab in the explorer automatically finds all the pictures in your library related to the passage you’re reading (though I recommend keeping the “media” tab closed until you want to find more images, so it doesn’t search continually while the narration moves from verse to verse.)
The notations in the event navigator are hot-linked to open in the Factbook.

This advanced story layout is the centerpiece of my morning routine. I highly recommend this layout for writers or anyone looking to reach a deeper understanding of the narrative structures of the Bible.

Bible

Story of the Bible (Logos Layout Basic Version)

By Terence Gillespie December 5, 2017

One of my favorite ways to read the Bible is to listen to it being read aloud. By listening, instead of reading, I can more easily focus on the story the words are intended to convey. If that seems child-like it’s because it is. It’s also the most demanding and thrilling “reading” I’ve ever done. And, if sophisticated describes “the degree of complexity or that which appeals to those with worldy knowledge or experience” then, yeah, it’s that too.

I would argue that books are the “new kid on the block” for human communication. People have been telling each other stories since there was a second pair of ears to hear them. And the first person to exist probably told stories to themself! How long after storytelling did books come about? Nobody knows. But there’s is no doubt about which came first.

Wired for Story

People are wired for story; we think in pictures and learn from narrative. Want to explain something beyond words? Show a picture or paint one with the words you thought the idea was beyond. Want to impart lasting knowledge? Tell stories about those pictures.

It should come as no surprise, then, that God’s word came to us first by voice, and then in story. For all its many uses in describing the relationships between abstract entities, math is most certainly not the first language of God.

Introducing Basic Story Layout

This is more than enough to introduce a favorite morning ritual: listening to the Bible while focusing on the story. It’s the first part of my morning routine and great for writers or anyone looking to reach a deeper understanding of the narrative structures of the Bible. I use it to keep story, characters, and plot elements (and their relationships to other stories) at the forefront of my reading/listening.

Wisdom, prayer, songs, and stories within stories telling the Big Story. That’s what the Bible is. And yet, there’s more to the Big Story than what’s on the page.

Once absorbed, story becomes the raw material from which we build and live our own. And our story becomes part of HIStory, not in canon, but as Paul filled up what was lacking in Christ’s afflictions.

Like it or Not: Narrative is Your Premise

The most important decisions I’ve ever made were deciding what stories were true enough to build my life on. Disagree? Yeah, sure, tell me a story about it. Wherever you may be on that journey, perhaps this morning ritual and layout may be of assistance.