Welcome to the first edition of The Eclectic Web Journal for 2025!
We usually start by telling you about all of the great articles in the current edition, but you probably read the list of articles above, so let’s just get right to it!
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POLITICS: Why Smaller, Efficient Government Is Both Biblical and Helpful
Back in October before the election, we did a two-week panel discussion at our church about politics. We didn’t want to promote a candidate or a cause or an issue; we just wanted to talk about what the Bible says about politics, governance, and leadership, and how a Biblical worldview can inform our voting and political engagement.
For the first session, I presented some information about what the Bible says about governance. To clarify, one of the other panelists discussed government, using passages like Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-1; I was more interested in discussing governance, referring less to the mechanisms and institutions of ruling, but more to the ideas and philosophy about governance and management. I hope that these comments about government efficiency are bi-partisan; I don’t think that anyone wants a wasteful, inefficient, bloated government at the state, local, or federal level. So, the following is some of my thoughts from that address.
As our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ commanded in Matthew 6:33, Christians need to seek first the kingdom of God, the heavenly city. But our Biblical theology informs us that we do not have to do so at the expense of our earthly responsibilities (see, for instance, Ezra 6:10, Jer 29:7, Matt 22:21, Rom 13:7 and 1 Tim 2:1-2).
Few people who existed before this last century or so had the privilege we do today in the USA, and that many in other countries have, of voting for some of our leaders. Our votes will either support good management of the resources God has given us at local, state, and national level, or we will vote for the mismanagement of them.
The issues of management and governance don’t seem overtly moral like abortion, homosexuality, or gender issues, for which the Bible has clear answers. This lulls us into a false sense that the Bible doesn’t address issues of efficiency and governance.
To put it another way, a bloated, overreaching, inefficient central government that manages its resources poorly is the death of any empire or country. We need to reduce regulations, minimize bureaucratic redundancies, and incentivize efficiency. There is evidence for this from history and there is a basis for this in common-sense. But is there a Biblical basis for organizational efficiency?
The Bible promotes management that is orderly and efficient; it encourages effective stewardship and good governance; I won’t go through all the verses, but you can start with the following list: Prov 8:12-16; 13:23; 27:23; Ezek 34:12; Matt 25:14-30; Luke 16:1-8, 10; 19:12-13; 1 Cor 14:33, 40; 1 Tim 3:4, 5, 12, 15; James 5:1-5, 7.
One of these is a great verse about management, specifically, Prov 27:23: “Know well the condition of your flocks, and pay attention to your herds.” This is a call to be highly aware of the resources that you oversee and the wealth that God has blessed you with. A theology of order and good management stems from the orderliness of God; for instance, 1 Cor 14:33 says, “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.” Samuel shows how government and leaders should benefit the people, and not encroach on their property, rights, and life in general (1 Sam 12:3-4). Samuel warns of leaders and governments that amass and abuse power (1 Sam 8:11-17; also Micah 3:1-12).
The Bible is also clear that evil, unjust, and foolish governments are more susceptible to bribes, injustice, partiality, and nepotism (Deut 16:19; Psa 26:10; Prov 15:27; 17:23; Isa 3:15; Ezek 22:12; Amos 5:12; Hab 1:4). I especially like Prov 13:23’s description of the result of bad management: “Abundant food is in the fallow ground of the poor, but it is swept away by injustice.” The word for “injustice” is the Hebrew word mishpat, a word that indicates a lack of wisdom and the presence of bad decision-making. There is food in the ground, even when there are floods and droughts, the land usually produces enough food for everyone. So why are there people who are starving and poor? The blame falls on those who mismanage what the earth can and does produce, or who hoard it, or who don’t allocate it properly.
These are just a few of the irrefutable principles of management from God’s Word; they apply in many different contexts, including the home, the church, and even our nation.
A streamlined and more efficient government will lower taxes, and those funds can lower the national debt. Our debt is itself emblematic of poor leadership and mismanagement. Our country is experiencing an epidemic of bad management. In 2023, the US spent $68 billion on foreign aid, and much of that went to ten countries, several of which are under Islamic governance (see here, for instance); we are basically funding the solidification of the influence of Islam in the middle-east. Also, U.S. is not a global welfare agency to fund the world’s problems and wars. We should not tolerate such irresponsible mismanagement.
Here in our own borders, we have homeless veterans suffering mental trauma. Many in GA, FL and the Carolinas have lost homes to hurricanes recently. In Gwinnett county where our church is, 14% of the population live below the poverty line, and about 17% of children experience food insecurity. This just reaffirms the wisdom of that verse in Proverbs: “Abundant food is in the fallow ground of the poor, but it is swept away by injustice.” This is not a political problem, not an economic problem, but a spiritual problem. Do we think that it is godly or Biblical or wise for us to vote for anyone who agrees to send billions of dollars to Middle Eastern countries that hate us? Can we in good conscience support politicians who freely fund corrupt regimes in Ukraine, Iran, Egypt, while we have children starving in our country? It is important to point out here that the government doesn’t make money. It only ever takes money. Our money!
Our civic goal as Christians should be to promote and vote for good governance; the benefit of that will be lower taxes, and those additional funds may be used for the needs of those in our own country. Christians need to vote for the best governance that we can; and we need to do so for the sake of our country, and even for the sake of those who oppose us.
Is there any good political management? I will use my own state of Georgia as an example: Last year the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute reported that there would be a $6 billion surplus for fiscal year 2023, demonstrating a three-year trend of multi-billion-dollar surpluses, resulting in over $18 billion in Georgia’s reserve accounts (see Lauren Frazier, “Press Release: GBPI Releases Statement in Response to Georgia’s 2023 Report of Revenues and Reserves, Record $10.7 Billion in ‘Undesignated Surplus’”). In May of 2024, “Lawmakers approved [Governor] Kemp’s plan to spend more than $2 billion of the surplus in changes to the current budget.” Some of those changes included, “spending more on education, health care and mental health” (Associated Press, May 7, 2024, “Georgia Governor Signs Budget Boosting Spending, Looking to Surplus Billions to Cut Taxes in Future”). Good management is not impossible.
When I first gave this talk back in October 2024, I mentioned something that I had just heard inklings about: On September 5, then presidential candidate Donald Trump proposed creating a “Government Efficiency Commission,” and perhaps having Elon Musk involved with this. It sounds like a contradiction to create a federal agency to minimize federal agencies. However, it is critical now to have a group that only works on making the government smaller and more efficient, and I was thrilled to see a candidate talking about this. Now, of course, this has been realized in the Department of Government Efficiency. And I think that they are doing a remarkable job (more about this in a future edition of The Eclectic Web Journal!) An organization like this is vital to helping streamline our government, and I hope that it doesn’t just become another bloated, bureaucratic waste of time and resources.
What are some implications of this discussion. First, orderly management of situations is clearly Biblical. As Christians and Americans, as members of a heavenly kingdom and citizens of this country, we should strongly press our leaders to embrace good governance and responsible management.
Second, we need to recognize that at some point, bad, unwise, and unbiblical management goes from mistake, to folly, to sin, to ruin. We appear to be toward the end of that continuum.
Finally, this country is one of God’s blessings to the modern world; as citizens of earth and citizens of heaven, we need to make sure with our voting and political involvement that we are not squandering this nation’s wealth, resources, and opportunities, and we have to keep our leaders accountable so that they are not squandering them, either.
ROMANS: The Newness of the Spirit, Romans 7:4-6
There is a staleness and a sterility that has entered into Christianity. Vitality and dynamism are draining out of Evangelicalism. The more exciting and spectacular elements of evangelicalism seem to be more theater than theology. Sunday services have become a concert and many messages are just therapy sessions. It is no wonder that many are not finding truth, compassion, and vitality in evangelical churches today.
In some cases, God’s people are too contaminated by sin, too engulfed in their flesh, and too intertwined with the world for the perpetual freshness of the Gospel to work effectively. Paul contrasts this with the “newness of the spirit” that all believers should be pursuing. It is this newness of the spirit that churches today desperately need.
Paul used an analogy in Romans 7:1-3 asserting that a husband and wife are bound together until there is a death; that death then frees the remaining one to pursue relationship with another. Paul doesn’t follow the analogy perfectly, but the point is clear.
Paul then says in v. 4 that believers were “put to death” or “made to die” to the Law. This death to Christ, therefore, broke our relationship with the Law and the need to follow and obey it. We were then joined to “another,” which is the word heteros, used twice in the previous verse. In this case, the “other” that we are joined to is the risen Christ. Verses 3 and 4 link together in that just as death severs any relational and legal tie between two people, so also the death of Christ and the death of the believer in Christ severs our relationship with the Law, allowing us to be connected to Christ.
The “in order that” phrase, then, suggests that the believer may now bear fruit because of the death and resurrection of Christ. However, it may also go with the entire idea that our death and spiritual rebirth, which joins us with Christ who died and rose from the dead, all of this positions us in a place where we can bear fruit faithfully to God.
The value of this imagery of “bearing fruit” (the Greek verb karpophoreo), is to remind believers that there is a product of our Christian character; that product says a great deal about how mature of a believer we are, since a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bears bad fruit (Matt 7:17-18). The verb here in Romans 7:4 is also subjunctive, which does not dictate what does happen, but what should happen. That is, now that the believer is dead to sin and to the Law and is joined to Christ, believers should be bearing fruit for God. Perhaps Paul’s use of the subjunctive here is his sad admission that many believers don’t bear fruit the way we should.
Verse 5, then, answers why we were not bearing fruit before, and in fact, notes that we were actually enslaved to our “sinful passions.” This is one of the drawbacks of the law, specifically, that for the fallen individual, the law arouses sin. The phrase “the desires of sin” or “the lusts of sin” points to the fact that fallen human nature has a unique set of desires that are not like the desires that the regenerated person should have. These desires exist and control individuals whether we recognize or acknowledge them or not. But Paul admits that these are especially prompted or aroused “through” or “by means of the law.” That is, while the desires of sin already existed, they were uniquely aroused by the law or by laws in general that intended to discourage and curb those fleshly desires.
This makes sense to us in a practical level, as well. When we see a “Do Not Enter” sign on a door, we often jiggle the handle of the door to see if it is really locked. Somehow a “Wet Paint” sign compels us to want to touch the bench or wall to see if the sign is really true. Often a “do not” becomes a taunt and a challenge to “do.” This anti-authority streak is deeply embedded in our human, fleshly nature, and is brought to the surface by a command or a prohibition, whether from the Law of Moses or from our own everyday experience.
When they encounter the law, these fleshly desires begin “working”; the verb here is an imperfect middle form of the Greek verb energeo. They begin operating or working in our “members,” specified back in 6:13 as the parts of our bodies. When these desires are prompted to operate in our bodies, that activity is directed toward a purpose, which, in this case, is bearing fruit for death. When an individual, even a believer, allows the promptings of the law to arouse evil desires, those evil desires work throughout our bodies to tempt us to behavior that results in either immediate death or that results in compromising the life and joy that we have in Christ.
Paul moves on to the good news in v. 6, specifically, that because of the death, we were “released from” the law. This word was also used in v. 2 and hearkens back to the illustration, that the relationship between the spouses was severed by death and the wife was free to join to another. So also is the believer free to be joined to Christ, now that their relationship with the law and the obligations of the law are severed by Christ’s death, and one’s death in Christ.
As free individuals, the believer can serve in “newness of spirit”; the word indicates not just something that is new, but it is perpetually new and it has a freshness and effervescence that does not fade with time. This adjective was also used in 6:4, reminding the believer that Christ’s death has defeated death so that Christians can now serve in “newness of life.” This new life is characterized as a newness of “Spirit.” This probably refers to a life that is governed and aided by the Holy Spirit, who will be a primary character in Romans 8. Paul’s theology of living by the Spirit is also prominent in his exhortations to be filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:18), or to be yielded to the influence of the Spirit, and also his exhortation that we exhibit the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), which refers to visible and external manifestations of the Spirit’s influence in the extraordinary virtue of the believer.
Here in Romans 7:6, Paul contrasts the newness of the Spirit with the “oldness of the writing,” a reference to the Law or the written legal code. While the word, palaios, simply means something that is old, the longer word, paliaotes, refers to something that is “stuck in oldness” or something that is antique and even obsolete. The word occurs in line 1054 of Euripides’ play Helen, of a plan that is “out of date” and therefore, no longer effective. Plato’s Republic uses the word of food that is “stale” (section 609e), and he also uses it of something that is impossible to discern on account of the lack of time (Plato, Cratylus, section 421d).
The point is not merely that the Law is old, because old does not necessarily mean bad. This word consistently has more of a negative connotation than that. The law is obsolete and no longer effective for the believer now that it has been fulfilled in Christ. It remains a tremendous way to understand divine expectations for His people, and the moral precepts are still binding on us because divine morality doesn’t change from age to age. Nonetheless, as a legal and guiding document, the Law is not necessary for those in the age of grace living under the law of Christ. Rather we should be radiating the life, joy, truth, and compassion that are characterized by the newness of life in Christ and of life in the Spirit (again, Rom 6:4 and 7:6).
I started this article with a rather dour outlook about American Christianity, but there is hope in general, and for the church, as well. The recent presidential election demonstrates that they may be bit of a swing back to religious themes and traditional values. People are tired of the politically-correct thought police and their vacuous threats. The younger generations are rejecting DEI, CRT, gender confusion, and Wokism. More importantly, there is a newness and vitality among younger Christians; a desire for the Word of God and a hunger for more authentic Christian spirituality. They are less shackled by the structures and legalism of previous generations, and they seem to have a greater sense of the newness of life in Christ and in the Spirit. This is something that we should nurture and encourage, as this can bring a freshness and newness for all believers today as we serve, witness, and pursue greater levels of devotion to Christ.
ZECHARIAH’S VISIONS: A Lampstand For Dark Days, Zechariah 4:1-14
When we are discouraged, our first instinct is to minimize God, His strength, His power, His enablement. We focus on how weak we are, rather than how great He is. However, when things get dark, that is more of an opportunity for God’s truth, grace, and provision to shine out. The prophet Zechariah experienced a glimpse of this, as well.
We have been traveling through Zechariah’s apocalyptic visions in Zechariah 1-6, and this is the fifth of eight visions. One commentator remarks that this vision “symbolizes [the Jews’] divine enablement for service, answering the question of where Israel will get the empowerment for the ministry of the Lord” (Paul N. Benware, Survey of the Old Testament, 244).
The lampstand imagery in this vision is used in other apocalyptic contexts, too. It is the familiar word menorah, used 42 times in the OT, including 20 times in Exodus, referring to the lampstands in the tabernacle (Heb 9:2), and also used here in Zechariah 4:2 and 11. The equivalent NT Greek word for “lamp” or “lampstand” is luxnia, used 12 times in the NT, but seven times in the apocalyptic book of Revelation (Rev 1:12, 13, 20 [twice]; 2:1, 5; 11:4). The imagery in Zech 4 of the olive trees and the two lampstands are specifically referred to in Rev 11:4. There is clearly an apocalyptic aspect to the illumination, sustainment, and empowerment described in this vision.
In Zech 4:1, the angel has to “rouse” Zechariah; we see elsewhere that sometimes receiving these visions take a physical and emotional toll on someone (Dan 7:28; 8:27; 10:8). The angel urges Zechariah to look at a lampstand of gold (v. 2), the fact that it was covered with or made of gold would give it royal or religious significance. The bowl on top is where one would pour the oil, and the seven spouts would draw the oil up into a wick. The lamp would continue to burn as long as someone continued putting oil in the bowl. Thus, providing oil so that the lamp would stay lit seems to be the tension of this vision. The seven lamps and seven spouts is a design that harkens back to Exod 25:37; given the attention in Zechariah to the temple and the building of the temple, mention of the temple menorah here makes sense.
The number seven is a special word both in ancient culture and in the Bible, not magical nor mystical, but it often points to the completeness of something. Many of the occurrences of seven are evocative of God creating the world, and therefore His unique right to maintain and judge the world. This number, therefore, occurs frequently in the Torah, or the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy); God’s creation in seven days was hardwired into the rituals, sacrifices, and even the hardware, like the menorah, of the Jewish cultus. Seven occurs frequently in apocalyptic literature, as well; thus is evocative of creation and consummation, or re-creation. It occurs 31 times in Revelation and 14 times in Ezekiel. Oddly enough, though, it only occurs four times in Zechariah, three of which are in Zechariah 4. Zechariah refers to the seven “eyes” of the Lord (3:9; 4:10), and seven “lamps” and “spouts” in 4:2 seem to be pointing to God’s awareness of and enlightening all things. While seven often points to creation and judgment, here it points to maintenance, sustainment, and enablement.
We are also told that there are two olive trees on each side of the lampstand (v. 3), signaling an ongoing supply of olive oil to the lampstand and the seven spouts. Then we see in vv. 4-5 what we have seen before in Zechariah where the angel estimates the perception of the prophet; that perception is low, as the prophet doesn’t know what he’s looking at (see also 1:9, 19; 4:13; 6:4). This is both comical and comforting that even the professional prophet doesn’t know what to make of this vision. We often don’t know how ignorant we are until we have to articulate something.
Some measure of the explanation for this vision follows, though even the explanation is not quite as clear-cut as we would like. Part of the explanation is a message to Zerubbabel, the governor over the Jews at this time. “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit” (v. 6). That is, while we feel small, we have tremendous resources of wisdom and power available to us through the Lord, the Gospel, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. The olive trees that were constantly supplying oil to the lampstand in the vision signified that. God gives us power to worship Him, to serve, to pray, and to endure temptation. The power that God would provide to a flagging Zerubbabel and his fellow leaders is signified in v. 7: The mountains will become a plain before Zerubbabel. Mountain imagery is used by Jesus to make a similar point: Matthew 17:20: “For truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”
This imagery about mountains also has apocalyptic gravity to it. For instance, Micah 1:4 says, “The mountains will melt under Him and the valleys will be split, like wax before the fire, like water poured down a steep place.” Nahum 1:5-6a also describes the approach of the Lord in the end times: “Mountains quake because of Him And the hills dissolve; Indeed the earth is upheaved by His presence. . . . Who can stand before His indignation?” Here in the vision in Zechariah 4, another feature appears in v. 7; the “capstone” or “top stone” is brought forth when the mountains dissolve. “Grace, grace to it” in v. 7 seems to signal a time when the uninhabited tops of mountains will be brought down and no longer uninhabited. Another thought is that it may be from this mountain that the capstone for the new temple is taken. Of course, believers are the temple of the NT church age, and we should be built up for service, proclamation, and the spread of God’s truth in this age (Eph 2:19-22).
The word comes again during this vision (v. 8). The saying of v. 9 means that the temple will be built in an obtainable and realistic time-frame, within Zerubbabel’s life. There was about a twenty-year span between laying of the temple foundation (536 BCE) and the completion of the Temple (516 BCE). Ezra records that some of the exiles wept when they saw the new temple foundation (Ezra 3:10-13; see also Haggai 2:3-4). So God encourages them to not be the kind of people who “despised the day of small things” (v. 10). Small things are use exponentially in God’s hands. This verse also mentions a “plumb line” technically, “a stone of tin” (similar tools or implements appear in Isa 34:11, Amos 7:7-8, and Zech 2:2). Taken with the references to the “seven eyes” here in v. 10 (see also 3:9), the prophet implies that there will be a judgment of the worthiness of those who use the temple; we see a similar idea of a measuring rod being used to evaluate eschatological worshipers in Rev 11:1.
In both verse 11 and again in v. 12, Zechariah asks for an explanation. So why does he have to repeat this question? First, there is a lot going on, and like a child trying to get a distracted parent’s attention, you sometimes have to ask a few times. Also, we usually don’t get answers from God the first time we ask. That delay even happened to the prophet when he asked a direct question. The angel provides a light chastisement for Zechariah’s ignorance (v. 13), and, presumably, for ours! But then the answer in v. 14 is an answer that seems to raise even more questions.
There are several possibilities for who the “two anointed ones” are in v. 14. We may be quick to point to the Son and Spirit, but this is not really a Trinitarian passage or context. These two “anointed ones” or “sons of oil” could be those who are anointed with oil, both religious and political leaders, priests, and kings. These could have been the high priest Joshua and the governor Zerubbabel, who would help bring some security and prosperity back to the land. Of course, we will see these two offices merged into one eternally in the person of Jesus Christ. “Joshua and Zerubbabel wait on the unseen Lord, who is the source of their authority and power” (Joyce Baldwin, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, 124). This could also be a reference to the Two Witnesses in Rev 11:4, who are Moses-like and Elijah-like, and who are always ready for their eschatological moment to come and stand up against the wiles of the Antichrist. I suspect, too, that the answer may include a combination of some of the above options.
So, we’ve covered a lot of ground in this vision in Zechariah 4, but what are some practical implications that we can take from this passage? In Revelation, the lampstands are the churches (1:20). Should we be taking Matt 5:16 more seriously: “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Believers either in the OT or the NT are to be lamps that light the way so that people can find salvation in Christ.
Also, we, too, shouldn’t despite the day of small things. Even small ideas, small ministries, and small churches can do great things for the Lord.
Verse 6 of Zechariah 4 seems to be the key for several applications; it is only by the power and enablement of the Spirit that we can do the work set before us. Isaiah 54:17 says, “‘No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; and every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication is from Me,’ declares the Lord.” Whether it is the Two Witnesses alluded to in this vision or us, there will always be scary but necessary opportunities to stand up against evil and falsehood.
Will you shirk away even when you have a small chance to speak up for the Lord? Will you stand up for the Gospel and the truth of God’s Word when the time is right? Will you let the light of Christ shine through you and be a lampstand enlightening dark times?
MOVIES: Film Tropes that We’re Tired Of
This is an “Eclectic Flashback” to an article from the March 2016 edition of The Eclectic Kasper, presented here with minor modifications.
***Spoiler Alert: This article contains some spoilers for the movies discussed.***
Nowadays, we are treated to some incredible – and also some rather unexceptional – action/ adventure movies every year. It is worth thinking about the great traits of these superhero, fantasy, and adventure movies, but also to consider the many film tropes and literary devices that we’re simply tired of. Some of these shticks may have impressed us once or twice, but now they are simply overused; some don’t even really make sense. There are many tired tropes to choose from, but we’ll mention three below. Feel free to send other examples of these film tropes, or other plot devices that you’re tired of.
Deus Ex Machina. The phrase deus ex machina combines some Greek and Latin and could translate into “god in the machine” or “god from the machine.” It is a literary device that shows how “a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object” (from Wikipedia). In the climax of any good movie, the good guys teeter on the edge of defeat in order to make their victory that much more dramatic and satisfying. Maybe they call in for reinforcements, or some added element arrives toward the end of a big battle (such as in LOTR: The Two Towers or Avengers 2).
But some movies bring in a completely unexpected and unrelated element to resolve the gigantic crisis. While I love the movie Independence Day, many believe that the uploaded virus in the climax of the movie was implausible (surely the aliens have some advanced version of Norton or McAfee to prevent this!) and resolved the story too easily. The giant eagles serve in a deus ex machina capacity in the otherwise brilliant LOTR and Hobbit movies; they are used so often in this capacity that their involvement becomes tired and almost comical. And of all the reasons for which we could justifiably criticize Matrix: Revolutions, one would have to be Neo’s final fight with Agent Smith, which somehow stopped the machines from attacking Zion and reset the Matrix (I guess?). These kinds of endings leave the viewer feeling robbed when a movie or series concludes so quickly or lazily.
The Chitauri Effect. This plot device occurs when the mothership or some other control mechanism is destroyed and therefore all the sub-units suddenly cease to operate. This trope is used most notoriously at the end of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. I know that it’s easy to take cheap shots at this perhaps underappreciated flick, but the conclusion of the Gungan vs. droid fight is both comical as well as frustrating, lazy, and implausible. Anakin blows up the ship that controls the droids and then the droids suddenly stop fighting; who builds a droid army like that? Someone should have the sense to program the otherwise autonomous droids to continue fighting even if they stop receiving command signals from the control source. Apparently, nobody thought of that and the droid army simply stopped working as soon as they cease receiving commands.
This same ploy concludes the otherwise awesome first Avengers movie; as soon as the control ship is destroyed, the Chitauri . . . well, they . . . actually, I don’t know what happens to them! If they are robots, they are immediately disabled, but I thought that they were biological beings, so why would they just suddenly stop operating? In this instance, the plot device is both cheap as well as confusing. The Chitauri Effect contaminates the final episode of TNT’s otherwise interesting Falling Skies and this trope also seems to be in play in the previously mentioned ID4. I hate to provide aid to aliens that may want to invade earth anytime soon, but an intelligent species, fictional or otherwise, should create ships or droids with enough independence that they can carry on basic fighting during missions even when the command mechanism gets kaboomed. Why in the world would any empire or alien race make “automatons” that cease to function when the mothership blows up!
Retiring the Hero Persona. One last trope (for now!) that we are tired of is when an alter ego decides to abandon or retire their superhero persona. They do this because they are conflicted about their vigilante ego or because they are worried about jeopardizing the lives of those close to them, or for some other deeply personal but otherwise uninteresting reason. This is an especially overdone trope used in many major superhero franchises, for example, in Superman 2, Spiderman 2, Batman Forever, and even at the end of the dreary Ironman 3. We even see it in an episode of the 2019 Arrowverse crossover series “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” which briefly features Tom Welling, who played Clark Kent in Smallville, as a version of Clark who had decided to give up his Superman powers.
There are several problems with this trope. First, nobody believes it. In fact, it’s insulting because the audience knows that he’s not really going to walk away from that superhero role. Second, it is implausible. Like the meme says: “Always be yourself, unless you can be Batman; then, always be Batman.” It is improbable that someone would invest so much time, energy, and perhaps money and effort to be a superhero only to walk away from it. If we had the powers of Spiderman or Superman, or if we could be Batman or Ironman, why would we want to be anything else?
Another problem with this abandoning-the-hero-persona trope is that when we watch these movies, we don’t tune in to see more of Peter Parker, Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne. We want to see more of the hero and less of the alter ego. It is worth noting here—as I always annoyingly do when I watch The Dark Knight Rises with my kids—that Batman doesn’t appear in DKR until 37 minutes into the movie! Sorry, I just really don’t care that Bruce Wayne has knee problems and had abandoned his cape and cowl for eight years; I just want to see Batman kick some bad guy buns.
I understand that film makers are trying to make alter egos that are pensive, introspective, and multi-layered; but we’re not paying to see a movie called The Psychological Conflicts of Peter Parker or Inside the Mind of Bruce Wayne. We’re tired of the altar egos retiring their hero personas because we know that it’s a cheap ploy that won’t last the rest of the movie.
That’s enough ranting for now, but I promise that we will feature more tired movie tropes in a follow-article that takes into account more recent movies that keep relying on these tired tactics.
APOCALYPTIC AUTHORS: Thomas’ Apocalyptic Aspirations
If you had a chance to preach a sermon to important leaders of your state or country, what passage would you pick? There are, of course, many appropriate passages one could use to encourage or instruct civic leaders; but I bet that Daniel 2 would not be on your list of top-twenty sermon texts. Daniel 2 discusses the fleeting power of kings and princes and ultimately, the conclusive destruction of those powers by God. So, yes, you would probably not use this text when addressing local or national leaders.
Well, Thomas Müntzer did. It was precisely this passage that he used when addressing German leaders and rulers in the early phase of the German Protestant Reformation. Müntzer’s apocalyptic zeal electrified academics and peasants alike. However, some of his apocalyptic threats and misguided expectations did not serve him well.
In the dissertation that I finished last year, I spent some time reading Thomas Müntzer, one of the lesser-known luminaries of the German Protestant Reformation. In fact, Müntzer’s star burned bright, but dimmed quickly, as he was deceived by his own apocalyptic aspirations, which was a fatal mistake for him and for many others, as well.
And just as a reminder, it is worth defining “apocalyptic.” Most people understand that eschatology deals with end-times issues. “Apocalyptic” tends to refer to the more dramatic moments of eschatology, and also the idea of God overturning the normal order where “good people” people struggle and the wicked prosper. The end result of the apocalypse is that the righteous are vindicated by God and the wicked are punished.
Little is known of Thomas Müntzer before he entered ministry in the late 1510s. He held pastoral positions at Zwickau and Allstedt, however, he did not seem to fit into any of these positions well, possibly on account of his mysticism and apocalypticism. The few works and the numerous letters to and from Müntzer give us great insight into his theology. A collection of Müntzer’s correspondence, sermons, treatises, lists, and even notes in books has been compiled by Peter Matheson; this is a helpful resource for analyzing Müntzer’s eschatology.
Müntzer’s writings and letter are laced with statements that demonstrate his apocalyptic thinking and expectations. There are too many to reproduce here, so we will simply start with his overt apocalyptic sentiments and then move toward more specific themes. To Nicholas Hausmann in 1521 Müntzer wrote, “The time of the Antichrist is upon us, as Matthew 24 makes so clear. . . . All of those who say that the late pope was the Antichrist are in error. For he is a true proclaimer of the same, but the fourth beast will have dominion over the whole earth and his kingdom will be greater than all others” (Matheson, 35). He sees the papacy as both a contemporary and an eschatological threat; in 1523, Müntzer wrote to fellow-reformer Andreas Karlstadt: “It may be that the Lord wants you as his procurator, so that you may expiate what you have perpetrated under the pompous regime of Antichrist” (Matheson, 65-66).
Müntzer leverages a full range of apocalyptic imagery; to Martin Luther’s colleague Philip Melanchthon, Müntzer wrote in 1522, “The phial of the third angel [i.e., the third vial of Revelation 16:4] has already been sprinkled on the fountains of the waters . . . and the outpouring of blood has been accomplished” (Matheson, 45) As rebellious sentiments began to churn in southern Germany, Müntzer wrote to a group of persecuted believers in Sangerhausen in July 1524, “For I tell you in truth that the time has come when a bloodbath will befall this obstinate world because of its unbelief” (Matheson, 90). He commented frequently in his letters and treatises about the retribution of God against what Müntzer perceives as the pervasive idolatry and blasphemy of his day (Matheson, 34, 80, 81, 119, 230, 237, 341, 345, 376).
In July 1524, Müntzer had an opportunity to present his Sermon to the Princes before Duke John of Saxony and the Duke’s son John Frederick. It is telling that on this unique occasion he would utilize an apocalyptic text like Daniel 2, and also that he would leverage apocalyptic language and adopt such a confrontational tone. Early in this address, he says of the spirituality existing in Germany, “For our situation today is the same as that of the good prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the others, when the whole congregation of God’s elect had become completely caught up in idolatrous ways” (Matheson, 230). He appeals to apocalyptic statements in Joel 2 and Daniel 2 to promote the idea of the “transformation of the world,” which is typically not a notion that civic leaders want to hear. He says, “In the last days he [God] will bring this about so that his name is properly adored” (Matheson, 244).
This transformation was never intended to be a socio-political revolution, but a theological and apocalyptic transformation, ending with the defeat of exploitative rulers and the inauguration of justice for the peasants and the common man. He adds, “The spirit of God is revealing to many elect and pious men at this time the great need for a full and final reformation in the near future” (Matheson, 244). Müntzer unabashedly proclaims that the fifth and final empire prophesied in Daniel 2 had already been inaugurated: “This text of Daniel, then, is as clear as the bright sun, and the work of ending the fifth Empire of the world is now in full swing” (Matheson, 244). Müntzer was clear, confident, and provocative about his sense that they were on the threshold of the apocalypse.
Müntzer’s apocalypticism compelled him and his followers to participate in the German Peasants’ War of 1525. Though seen by some historians as a social revolution, one cannot ignore Müntzer’s eschatological expectations that Christ would return and assist the rebelling citizens against the indomitable Habsburg forces. His last stand was at the Battle of Frankenhausen on May 14, 1525. He encouraged the thousands of peasants and citizens present and assured them that Christ would intervene and that no weapons would harm them, since this was part of a series of end-times battles. Müntzer was motivated by apocalypticism and leveraged apocalyptic rhetoric to the literal end, even claiming that he would be able to catch cannon balls in the sleeves of his cloak and hurl them back at the Habsburg soldiers. The peasants interpreted the appearance of a rainbow as assurance of divinely-granted victory. When the first rifle shots that were aimed at the rebels fell short, Müntzer called out, “‘I told you, no shots will harm you” (Tom Scott and Bob Scribner, eds., The German Peasants’ War: A History in Documents, 292).
However, Jesus did not return to defend the peasants. And when the cannon fire intensified, the ill-trained peasants scattered to hide throughout the town and in the surrounding forest. Estimates suggest that seven thousand peasants and burghers were killed, and that several hundred more were captured, including Müntzer, who was tortured, forced to recant, and beheaded. Of the 300,000 individuals who participated in the German Peasants’ War, about 100,000 lost their lives, as did several other Reformation leaders.
There are many interesting lessons here, but for now I will just mention one, specifically, that modern evangelicals need to be careful about “reading the signs.” The peasants at the battle of Frankenhausen interpreted a mysterious rainbow as God’s assurance of victory; they were quite wrong. Our hope is not in headlines, but in Christ. We should not be shy to proclaim that the rapture could happen at any moment, like “a thief in the night” (Matt 24:43; 1 Thess 5:2; see also Rev 3:3; 16:15). But history gives us some perspective here; every generation thinks that they will be the last, but every previous generation has been wrong. Of course, that generation may be ours, and if so, then we should be prepared for that apocalyptic moment to begin.
ON MY BOOKSHELF: “Inventing” Perceptions of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe has received a great deal of attention over the last few decades between the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. in the late 1980s and early 1990s, to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine in February 2022. However, a persistent sense of the backwardness and primitive nature of Eastern Europe persists among Western Europeans and Americans today. But are those perceptions legitimate, valid, and are they even new?
In Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Larry Wolff argues that eighteenth century Enlightenment authors in Western Europe promoted constructions of a backward and uncivilized Eastern Europe so vividly that many of these perceptions persist down to the present.
Before the Enlightenment, there was a cultural polarity between northern and southern Europe. The wealth, power, and culture favored the south, such as areas like Italy and southern France, which were controlled by the popes. Greek and Roman culture were revered during the Renaissance, and Germany and England were seen as backward, poor, and lacking in culture and intellectual vigor.
This polarity between north and south Europe, however, slowly changed between the time of the Reformations in the sixteenth century and the European Enlightenments beginning in the mid-eighteenth century. Enlightenment authors recognized and contributed to redrawing the lines of culture between eastern and western Europe. “It was Western Europe that invented Eastern Europe as its complementary other half in the eighteenth century, the age of Enlightenment” (Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994], 4). Wolff asserts that people today “have passively inherited the Europe” that those Enlightenment authors “actively reconceived” (Wolff, Inventing, 5).
Some of the greatest minds of the European Enlightenments participated in this endeavor to discover and explain Eastern Europe to the allegedly far-more-advanced Western side of the continent. A French ambassador to Russia, Count de Segur, perceived as he traveled through Poland that it was like traveling through a different century. Voltaire never visited Eastern Europe, and yet he popularized perceptions of Eastern nations to his own audience as a way of controlling the narrative about them. “Voltaire could declare these lands to be lost and allow himself the satisfaction of discovering them, analyzing them, classifying them, and putting them on the map in their proper relation to Western Europe” (93). Again, portraying Eastern Europe as poor, backward, and intellectually behind was a foil for the alleged intellectual and philosophical progress of the West.
Travel-logs and novels were increasingly popular to an increasingly-literate eighteenth century European populace. Europeans began to have more of a sense of the geography of their continent, and of the world in general. But these kinds of literature portrayed eastern European areas as rustic, primitive, and culturally lacking relative to England, Spain, France, and Germany. Real and fictive voyages were replete with accounts of poor roads, unreliable travel, sex slavery, and other signals that culture was largely lacking from these lands.
Authors regularly “othered” Eastern Europeans; that is, they were treated as different, and something other than European. From Casanova’s and Mozart’s trysts into Eastern Europe to Voltaire’s vicarious voyages there, Western Europeans traveling east felt that they had crossed a cultural boundary out of Europe, but not entirely into Asia. They conceived of Eastern Europe as a cultural buffer between the barbarism of the middle and far East and the Enlightenment of the West; it was “a realm in between” (Wolff, Inventing, 23). Enlightenment historian Edward Gibbon likened the peoples in northeastern Europe with Scythians and Goths who accosted ancient Rome, implying that some ethnicities in eastern Europe had made negligible progress culturally in over a millennium (Wolff, Inventing, 298-299). Wolff states that for some of these authors, Eastern Europe “was not Europe . . . but neither was it Asia, the Orient. It was some intermediary geographical space, with no precise location in time or history” (19). Artists and authors congratulated themselves for discovering and explaining eastern Europe to the western side of the continent, and for providing some civilization and culture of the West to the eastern side.
Wolff himself notes parallels between his study and Edward Said’s Orientalism, which portrays the condescension of Westerners toward middle-easterners and Muslims. Said asserts that “Orientalism [is] a western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Edward W. Said, Orientalism [New York: Vintage Books, 1978], 3). The Orient, he argues, is a construct based on perceptions that were in some cases accurate, and in many cases, not. Westerners, allegedly, invent the Orient, depicting it in certain ways, leveraging Asian tropes and stereotypes, and thus controlling how people think about Asia. Said demonstrates how European authors, novels, and even movies portrayed middle-eastern and Asian nations as romantic and exotic; however the different-ness or “otherness” hinted that these nations were also somewhat backward and not up to the West’s standards of civilization. I do not recall if Said distinguishes whether these images came from eastern European or western European sources, but I believe he was primarily referring to artists and authors from France and Britain. If this is the case, the same land predominately responsible for constructing conceptions of the middle-east and Asia were responsible for formulating and inventing conceptions – sometimes true, sometimes false – of eastern Europe, as well.
Wolff may overstate his case that Eastern Europe was an invention and construction of Enlightenment authors, especially in light of some of his occasional qualifications that he makes in this work. I do not disagree, however, that Western European nations – and the United States, as well – have yet entirely to free themselves from the fetters of condescension toward and false images of Eastern Europe, and certainly, other areas of the globe, as well.
The Eclectic Web Journal is written by Matt Kasper and edited by Martha Kasper. Matt is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Dallas Theological Seminary, and he recently completed a PhD. in Reformation history from Georgia State University. Matt is the pastor of a small church northeast of Atlanta called Grace Atlanta Bible Church, and is involved in several other groups and activities in the Atlanta area, as well.
We had written a decade’s worth of articles in our previous web journal, called, The Eclectic Kasper, which we published from 2011 to 2021. Those articles are also arranged topically in our “Eclectic Archive,” which you can access here.
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