The Dark Knight
Tom and I got absolutely soaked on the way to see the Dark Knight last night. About twenty seconds before we were due to leave, it started pouring with so much rain I felt I was back in the tropics – even in rainy Bristol this was impressive! The roads in the city centre became like shallow rivers in places, and the water came up above the toes of my shoes. We arrived, epitomising the word bedraggled, and fortunately found there were still tickets left.
Once the film had started, we didn’t notice any more, because it’s one of those films that doesn’t let up the pace throughout the (almost three hours long) film. In terms of reviewing the film, I’ve not much to say; I enjoyed it a lot, Heath Ledger is as good as the reviewers say he is, and there’s lots of action, good dialogue and fun set-pieces. As before, though, one of the best parts of the film was some of the moral questions it raises. (Spoilers follow.)
The most interesting one came towards the end, with the introduction of Two-Face, the corrupted district attorney (read “chief prosecuting lawyer”) Harvey Dent. Dent is driven mad by the death of his girlfriend at the hands of the Joker; the concept of what is “fair” emerges, and Dent’s conclusion is that the only thing that’s fair is to leave things up to chance:
You thought we could be decent men in an indecent world. But you were wrong; the world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair.
Morality is only determined by chance; in the end, we don’t make the moral decision, but chance decides. That is the only way to be fair.
Now, this isn’t the morality the film portrays, but as a result Tom and I got discussing where morality comes from.
In the world of the film, Batman is portrayed as morally good, despite being a violent, law-breaking vigilante. Why? He wants to save people from pain, fear and death, and in his view the end justifies his means. Here, the highest good is to improve life for humans, in some sense whatever the cost. Batman’s moral philosophy, then, is a form of humanism. When thinking about this I was struck with a similarity to the Operative from the Firefly universe:
The Operative: I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin.
Mal Reynolds: So me and mine gotta lay down and die… so you can live in your better world?
The Operative: I’m not going to live there. There’s no place for me there… any more than there is for you. Malcolm… I’m a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.
Both the Operative and Batman do what might be considered morally wrong (the Operative more so), in order that a better society might emerge – a society that, ironically, they can have no part in given what they do. It’s not quite the same with Batman, who can merely leave the cape behind and return to a normal life, but the parallel struck me nevertheless.
So Batman is a humanist, who sees a greater morality than individual actions – the long-term good justifies the short-term wrong. I guess in this situation we have to ask: who decides that this is right? Who decides whether this long-term good is the right one, if it’s at the expense of (even minor) short-term wrong?
I’m going on for far longer than I’ve planned, so I’ll not go into the humanist understanding of where morality comes from. I don’t find it convincing, however, to think that humans can logically deduce what is right and wrong; I can’t see how the concepts of good and evil make any sense in an atheistic worldview. This quotation by Richard Dawkins is probably the most commonly used by Christians, but it fits here:
In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
If this is the case, then Two-Face might just be right that chance is the only morality. If that leaves an unpleasant taste, that’s because it’s not true. Not only does morality come from a loving, perfect God, this loving, perfect God is sovereign over everything – and so a pragmatism in morality like Batman’s is unnecessary. We’re called to live morally in whatever situation; God will sort out the outcome. We can trust him that in the end, all will be well.
Matthew @ 12:29, July 29, 2008 to Discussions | Permalink | Comments (0)
The three-part call to set apart ministry
As mentioned before, I’ve been thinking a bit about the idea of “creation” and “new creation” work, and whether God is calling me to the latter. The whole idea of “calling” it seems isn’t really a Biblical category. When the Bible talks of calling, it’s talking about people responding to the gospel – the “call to faith”.
So how, then, to figure out whether to go into a “new creation” job – or, to use another term, “set apart ministry”? By “set apart”, I’m referring to those who are supported financially (and in prayer) by a group (usually a congregation) to spend their working week on new creation tasks. In other words, a full-time pastor, missionary, youth worker, or other person whom until recently have been referred to as “Christian workers”. Not wanting to use that term (all Christians who work are Christian workers!) as it implies working for a church is perhaps the more “Christian” thing to do, I’ve gone with set apart ministry. There’s probably something wrong with this term too, but it’ll do for now.
After all that introduction, now for what I actually want to say. Following on from a conversation with a friend, he talked of three things you should be sure of before going into this kind of ministry. (He credited Don Carson with the ideas, though I’m pretty sure Carson would credit Scripture if indeed it was him my friend heard this off.)
Firstly, desire. You’ve got to want to do it! If you don’t, it’s probably not for you. (1 Timothy 3:1 seems to suggest this, and it makes sense: God gives us our desires as we submit to him – and if we didn’t feel like we might want to do it, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to us in the first place…)
Secondly, gifting and maturity. Can we do it? It’s all very well wanting to be a youth worker, but if you can’t engage with teenagers then don’t do it! On the other hand, if you’re interested in apologetics, great at explaining things to non-Christians and can give a pretty good talk for an evangelistic barbecue, maybe you should consider becoming an itinerant evangelist. However you might still feel you need to grow up a bit, or get more experience. Maturity (or good character, to say it another way) is also necessary.
Thirdly, other people. Does your pastor think you could do it? Do your friends? Do your parents? Do others in the church?
All that’s left now is figuring out if you want to do it, and whether you have the gifts to do it, whether you feel you’re mature enough to do it, and find out if others think you should do it. How do you do that? Just get on and do it! If you want to be a youth worker, then get involved in youth work; if music’s your thing, then start playing music in church; if opportunities in universities excite you, then get involved with a CU or do Relay. If you’re becoming even more certain, then maybe do an apprenticeship. Doing something like that gives you an opportunity to test out your gifts, your desires, and have older Christians mentor you and tell you if they think you should do it long-term. In other words, they give you a perfect way of seeing if you fit the three points above.
I wrote back in April:
So what constitutes a calling? Does it mean a pastor or other leader taking you aside and saying “you should consider this work”? Does it mean you feel like you could do it and would quite like to do it? Does it mean trying it out in an apprenticeship scheme and seeing by doing whether it’s for you?
To answer my own question, I think the answer to the above questions is “yes”, though perhaps “calling” isn’t the right term.
Matthew @ 13:54, July 28, 2008 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (2)
Life imitating art
- Randall Munroe posts a comic about Wikipedia to xkcd.
- Wikipedia article on Wood is edited/vandalised to conform to the comic’s satirical content, adding a section on “Wood in Popular Culture”.
- Changes are reverted, and administrators decide to limit changes to the article.
- Discussion begins on article’s Talk page concerning the events, at which point the following is written:
User 1: Shouldn’t it be “Wood in poplar culture”?
User 2: It should, but we’ll just have to be content with the fact that there’s now a protection log for the article.
This not only says something about the popular culture of the internet, but also something about me, given that I read the comic and assumed that this exact sequence of events would happen, so headed over to Wikipedia hoping to make a blog entry out of what I found on the Talk page…
(In other news, I have a job, but still no laptop. Also, I’m cooking prawns for supper. It turns out raw prawns aren’t pink. It occurs to me this should have been my assumption.)
Matthew @ 18:33, July 8, 2008 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (1)
