Sherlock - The Lying Detective - Episode Review

My review of The Six Thatchers

Just when I thought Sherlock couldn't surprise me, it comes out with this. While The Lying Detective isn't quite to level of the show's highs, it corrects almost all the problems I had with the previous episode and turns the series back in a positive direction. Whether that will last is up for grabs, but I'm feeling optimistic.

Dreams Come True

When I went to visit my grandmother the other day, she said, out of the blue: "Leah died."

"Huh?" I mentally ran down a list of people we both know.

"Princess Leah," she explained. And then I understood. Carrie Fisher.

Public mourning is a weird thing, especially for actors. In the last weeks of 2016, a spate of celebrity deaths caused many fans to engage in something...not quite like grief, more like nostalgia. Carrie Fisher was not Princess Leia, but it can't be denied that what most people are missing about her is the white-clad space rebel she portrayed.

And that's even more strange, because Princess Leia is not dead.

The World's a Small Place

As I wove through the streets of Antigua, sidestepping trash and leaping onto the curb just in time to avoid a motorcycle shooting through traffic, I wondered why I didn't feel disoriented. Over the scene loomed a mist-haloed volcano - it wasn't active, but the other volcano on the other side of town had been spewing lava down its side all day, a track of glowing orange in the distant night sky. The smell of frying meat and melted cheese (mixed with the ubiquitous Diesel fumes) made my stomach grumble. Musical Spanish voices crowded the night air; I had to focus to pick out my meager vocabulary from the jumble, respond, and then shell out a few Quetzales for a meal. 

And bizarrely, I felt right at home.

Inspector Lewis - Magnum Opus - Review

My review of the previous episode: One For Sorrow

It's not often I'm erudite enough to recognize the names or references that flit through your average Lewis episode, but the instant a character in the opening to Magnum Opus referred to Charles Williams, I jumped out of my seat. In fact, Williams’s name had already sprung to mind when the soon-to-be-dead college don Phil Beskin referred to the Bible's injunction to "bear ye one another's burdens."

Phil Beskin, murdered and laid out in a sinister ritual, loved Williams, fashioning an ideology around the late theologian’s ideas. Williams was a treasure trove when it came to occult belief, and the murder itself seems to have something to do with alchemy (the episode alleges there was no connection between the two, but commenter Grevel Lindop assures me otherwise). Lured into the woods by a text message from a student, Gina Doran, Beskin is killed and covered in leaves and maggots in a wooden hut. As Lewis and Hathaway further investigate the case, it appears that Beskin is the first of four killings, each planned to fulfill the steps of an alchemical process known as the magnum opus.

Kim Davis vs. Sir Thomas More - How Now Shall We Disobey?

The latest battle in the gay marriage debate: I'm sure you know the story. Kim Davis is the county clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky. Since the Obergefell decision, she has refused to hand out any marriage permits to either gays or straights, nor to authorize her deputies to do the same. She's now been held in contempt of court and thrown in jail.

These confrontations have become more and more common as the American government begins to tackle the gay marriage issue. Post-Obergefell, there's no reason to imagine the numbers will go down. Kim Davis is merely an opening skirmish.

As per usual when these issues surface, my immediately appeal for guidance is to historical cases I admire. Above all, I think of my favorite meditation on religious freedom, the film A Man for All Seasons, which examines the conflict between personal conscience and obeying the government.

Sir Thomas More was chancellor of England when King Henry VIII decided to amend the law, dissolve his own marriage, separate from the church of Rome, and declare himself lord over the newly-established Anglican church. More - a devout Catholic - heartily objected to the king's decision, but was aware of the danger of saying so. Instead, he resigned his post.

What If Aborted Children Could Speak?

"There are things that you will only be able to learn [from] the weakest among us. And when you snuff them out, you are the one that loses....What sort of people are you going to be?"
~Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor

Since 1973, there have been 54 million children aborted legally in America. 

Over the last few weeks, I've been meditating quite a lot on those missing 54 million. I thought of the half-full services in mountain churches around my home. The dying congregations. The two-child millennial families. The elementary school that closed because there weren't enough children to keep it running. I imagined my college classmates blinking out of existence one by one - until 20% of each generation had disappeared. Celebrities and politicians and doctors and abolitionists and world-changers...blink - gone - blink - gone. Who would die? Who would live? Who were they? What were they like?

If they could speak to us - what would they say?

Planned Parenthood: The New Confederacy

Photo credit: USA Today

When I was about ten years old, my family attended Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The dinner show took place in a huge barn, where guests ate greasy food with their fingers and watched a dramatic display of stunt riding and antebellum fashion, to the backdrop of bluegrass. It was Southernness exaggerated, packaged, and monetized on an enormous scale. The guests were filtered to either side of the arena, based on place of origin. Yankees on one side; Johnny Rebs on the other. My family sat with the Confederates, and booed whenever the boys in blue galloped across the arena. Our Yankee opponents did the same as the Confederates appeared. It was fun, all in good humor, and in retrospect, more than a little obscene.

150 years ago, 600,000 men were slaughtered in a conflict which concerned the forced enslavement of 12.5 million human beings. The Dixie Stampede reduced that conflict to the level of a football game.

I didn't notice, because I didn't think about it very seriously. I wasn't alone. Southerners are quick to defend the confederate flag, because to them, it means a football game and not a war. Ask them to defend the flag, and they'll talk your ear off. Ask them where Antietam is, and they'll say, "What?" If you didn't know, the battle of Antietam was the single bloodiest day in the history of the United States.

The Gospel of Bono

In all the talk about how Bono may not be able to play the guitar again, the media has (shocker!) been missing all he says about Christmas. It's a pretty good way to start off the year.

At this time of year some people are reminded of the poetic as well as the historic truth that is the birth of Jesus. The Christmas story has a crazy good plot with an even crazier premise - the idea goes, if there is a force of love and logic behind the universe, then how amazing would it be if that incomprehensible power chose to express itself as a child born in shit and straw poverty.... 

But back to the Christmas story that still brings me to my knees - which is a good place for me lest I harm myself or others. Christmas is not a time for me to overthink about this child, so vulnerable, who would grow so strong... to teach us all how vulnerability is the route to strength and, by example, show us how to love and serve. 

To me this is not a fairy tale but a challenge. I preach what I need to hear... 

Read more>

Longish

P.D. James - The Last Victorian

If I'm still writing at the age of 90, I will die happy. I hope P.D. James did, anyway.

One thing is for certain: no one could have predicted her life would have ended here, as a world-wide respected author. At the age of 16, she left school to help support the family - her father didn't believe in higher education for women. Throughout her lifetime, she worked in a tax office, as a stage manager, as a member of a hospital board and at the Home Office in the forensic science and criminal law departments. When her husband was sent to a mental institution after World War II, she became primary breadwinner for their two daughters. 

She started to write detective novels in the 50's, and her first book Cover Her Face, was published in 1962. While it received favorable reviews, it took until 1980, with Innocent Blood (my favorite) for her career to skyrocket. After that, she seldom wavered from the adventures of her poet-detective, Adam Dalgliesh. One notable exception was The Children of Men, a fascinating religiopolitical dystopia built on the premise of an ingenious question: What if mankind stopped bearing children? In 2006, it was made into a movie, directed by Alfonso Cuarón (we'll be reviewing it this week on The Pilgrim's Podcast.) In 1991, Queen Elizabeth made James a Conservative peeress: Baroness James of Holland Park.

Losing My Mind - Religion, Reason, and Truth

I’m fascinated by beauty. It is my final fortification against materialism, a barrier from reducing the world to numbers. Sam Harris’s arguments are very sound—they explain things, fill in the gaps. But atheism specializes in the details and misses the sunsets and the waterfalls and Beethoven’s Ninth and Charles Dickens.

The sky’s on fire in the west tonight

 A chorus of pink, purple, blazing orange

 The air pulses with meaning and—

 I think of random particles,

 of chance and infinite typewriters,

 but no cold device could make the beauty,

 nor make me understand it.

Gracepoint - Episode 1 - Review

I just had to get this off my chest.

Gracepoint would have been a much, much better show if it was set in Appalachia.

David Tennant, an uppity Yankee, arrives in small-town Gracepoint just in time to investigate the murder of Opie Taylor. Assisted by a shocked local sheriff, he must cross-examine all the inhabitants of this seemingly idyllic town.

I kid. But only a little.

In remaking the amazing British show Broadchurch, it's inevitable that some themes would cross over. The idea of a small town turning on itself. The theme of Christianity and community. There would be no better place to transport this conflict than a small Appalachian town - that symbol of American rural life - complete with a heavy dose of Flannery O'Connor.

Mirror, Mirror: How the Modern Fairy Tale Reflects Us

Mankind should have outgrown happy endings a long time ago. From merely a brief perusal of the daily news, it seems unlikely that we would still be interested in the whimsy of fantasy. Yet in the wake of such seminal tragedies as 9/11, in a world fractured by war, disease, and death, fairy tales remain one of our most recognizable cultural icons, as evidenced by the enduring popularity of books such as The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

Canon Andrew White - “Vicar of Baghdad"

Earlier this month, in a post on Eric Metaxas, I highlighted his interview with Canon Andrew White, vicar of the only Anglican church left in Baghdad. After watching that, I sought out a few documentaries, which I link to below, illustrating Andrew's work.

The Canon is quite a colorful figure, a 6'3" priest often sporting a bright bow-tie, but besides his ebullient personality, these videos also display his incredible courage and tenacity, living in what is effectively a war-zone.

The videos don't focus only on Andrew - but the sufferings of the church in Iraq. If I could summarize the message in one word: perspective.

In the first two parts of this documentary, we see the church and the sufferings of the people in Baghdad's most dangerous areas.

Silence - The Cruelty of Tolerance

I’ve never met Brendan Eich. I really don’t know much about him, except that he is now without a job. I'd assume, since he was formerly a CEO, that he’s not living on the street. But it may not be long, given that the marketplace is now hostile to those who disagree with American cultural mores. A question. Where, exactly, is it okay for Mr. Eich to be employed? The local 7/11? A small private business never visited by the self-proclaimed tolerance police?

Let me start off by quoting this excellent piece over at Kevin DeYoung's blog, speaking about society's acceptance of same-sex relationships:

The problem is that our ascendant moral logic amounts to an imposition: affirm me or else. It used to be that tolerance meant granting to your intellectual, political, or religious opponents the right to be wrong (as you see the wrong). Now tolerance means the freedom, if not the obligation, to utterly shame those you deem intolerant. Ours is a supremely moralistic age. I would call it puritanical, except I don’t want to insult the Puritans.... 

There is no conversation any longer, just condescension. No acceptance of diverse viewpoints, just personal obliteration for anyone who dares to question Oceania’s Ministry of Truth. The talking heads and the purveyor’s of cultural correctness don’t feel the need to make arguments anymore. They don’t feel the need to listen either. After all, who can refute a sneer? 

No need to prove your dogma when stigma will do.

Broadchurch - By Grace Ye Have Been Saved

[The first of a series of posts which bind my twin loves, philosophy and TV detectives, for no reason whatsoever. Next up: Inspector Morse: The Transcendence of Art, Sherlock Holmes - The Aragorn Complex. Upcoming: Foyle's War and moral absolutes.]

“A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret...that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!”

~Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities


Broadchurch isn't a murder mystery. Sure, there's a whodunit at the center of the plot, but that's not really what it's about. Instead of whisking in a clever clogs London detective who then, having dispensed almost divine justice, sweeps cleanly out of the aftermath, Broadchurch places its two main characters directly in the path of the storm.

A Homeschooled Pride and Prejudice

I've watched Price and Prejudice many times over the years, but the fact that it's really about homeschooling families had never jumped out to me. It is, of course, complete true.

Check it out here.

Longish

Introducing My New Blog: Longview

Cinephilia: the term used to refer to a passionate interest in cinema, film theory and film criticism.

I think I've contracted acute cinephilia. Last year, I tried to list five movies on my best of the year list. I ended up with only three. This year it was a struggle to reduce the list to fifteen. Not that I've gone to the movies a lot. Overall, it's been four times; twice for the first and second installments of The Hobbit, and twice for the latest two Marvel movies: Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World. No, I just watch a lot of DVDs. And usually, they aren't even new movies.

Christmas - The Greatest Eucatastrophe

Eucatastrophe: a sudden joyous turn in a dark tale—the happy ending "a piercing glimpse of joy...that for a moment...rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through."

“The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—particularly artistic, beautiful, and moving: ‘mythical’ in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of creation.

Do You Hear the People Sing? - Guest Post from Allan Long

[Longish: I haven't written anything for the blog in a while, amid the craziness of NaNoWriMo and school, so I thought I'd fill in the gaps with this wonderful Facebook post of my dad's.]

There are occasions that God provides us with glimpses of what heaven may look like. Or at least what it would feel like. Apparently music is a part of that. What a wonder music is. The Bible mentions it in passing and one is left to wonder what melodies Jesus may have hummed while scribbling in the sand or planted beside a campfire. I think of the angels and their heavenly hosts praising God upon bearing the good news of peace on earth, goodwill towards men. And David trying to sooth the savage Saul with music. 

For this moment, I will not get drawn into disparaging secular music. I am not so jaded as to say all secular music is unholy. That would be the same as saying all work – not in God’s direction – is unholy. God can make beautiful things out of dirt (or Garth Brooks... Cher? That may be a stretch). Our feeble attempts at praise are laughable. Like a child that sings "Twinkle Twinkle….”, not understanding the vastness of space, furious nuclear explosions of unimaginable extent and forces that the best of minds cannot fathom. Yet sing they do.

Which brings me to this video. It brings out great things in men. Unity in purpose. Passion. Excellence. And while this is not a hymn, it is a short jump to make the connection that were the focus or purpose of this performance to be God almighty – hearts would be broken. I love this video. Because it makes me think about heaven in a ridiculously hopeful and joyous way. Heaven will be a lot about praise in every tongue. It will be this kind of music (x1000^100 for those math junkies) in a spectacular way. We see now darkly – but then face to face. We will see Christ in His glory and begin to get an appreciation of our helpless estate and the sacrifice Christ made on our behalf. I look forward to heaven for many reasons and new music in dimensions unknown will be a part of that. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

And for the record, I’d like to see the Irish guy and the Norway dude go head to head. They don’t have voices. Those are weapons…


Allan Long

The Children of Men - Review & Quotes

You return man to dust
and say, “Return, O children of man!”

For a thousand years in your sight

are but as yesterday when it is past,

or as a watch in the night….

So teach us to number our days

that we may get a heart of wisdom.
(Psalm 90 ESV)

To those familiar with the mystery genre, P.D. James is a very prominent name. Her series, featuring poet detective Adam Dalgliesh, is among the best contributions in modern mystery. However, she has also written standalone books, among them the dystopian philosophical novel The Children of Men. After listening to clips from a 1992 interview with James on Mars Hill Audio, I decided I must investigate.

There are a lot of doomsayers out there, but one of the most compelling arguments I’ve heard is the idea that those countries with the greatest birth rates will rule the world, as described by Mark Steyn in his book America Alone. America, for instance, is scraping by at just above replacement rate, which means we'll soon have an enormous elderly population alongside a much smaller young generation - there's no chance one will counterbalance the other. It's already happening in Japan.

The Children of Men is an extreme realization of that possibility, and it's simply an amazing novel. (EDIT: Interestingly, Mark Steyn drew inspiration from the book, and is acquainted with its author.) While ultimately falling short of its potential, it touches on a huge variety of relevant themes: apathy, power, hypocrisy, hope, death, worship, love, and above all, the sanctity of life.