Coach Carter

Just watched this really amazing movie. It's about this coach who benches his undefeated high school basketball team because they are failing their classes. There are so many good messages in this movie about education, inner-city schools, the cycle of failure, perserverance, and what really counts in life. The acting was great, the production values were great...it was a well-done movie.

And yet I am upset. I'm upset for two reasons. First, it portrays abortion as a necessity in the inner-city for anyone who wants to escape. It's the only sensible thing to do. This grates on me for obvious reasons if you know my pro-life positions. But that wasn't my biggest problem with the film. My biggest problem was a philosophical problem. At the most pivotal moment of the film, as the players finally decide to own Coach Carter's decision for themselves, one of them stands up and recites a portion of this famous poem from Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

In the new version of Godspell's "Prologue", this is the quote chosen to represent the New Age worldview. Marianne Williamson is one of the world's most prominent New Age leaders. The use of this quote in Coach Carter automatically aligns the ultimate goal with the New Age. And that's what really bugs me. This movie was so full of good morals, good lessons for life, but then the justification for all these lessons is...a page out of the New Age handbook.

Yes, most movies these days represent this New Age, postmodern outlook on life: "Believe in yourself," "Be true to your heart," "Follow your dreams, and you can do anything." Sure, Coach Carter is not even close to alone in proclaiming these views. What amazed and disappointed me was that it so blatantly chose to align itself with this worldview that it would even quote something like that. I find it greatly depressing.

So final evaluation: Great movie, great lessons, terrible worldview. And that is highly unfortunate.

Senior Challenge

This is the challenge I delivered last Saturday night. I passed out right after I talked about the ice storms. Apparently somebody got it on tape, and if they did I'll try and get it on YouTube and post it here.

I was saved at the beginning of middle school, and really got serious about God as I moved into high school. In the fall of my senior year I auditioned for Godspell. Little did I know what a major impact that show would have on my life. To start with, I didn’t get the role I had wanted and ended up as an understudy, which left me disappointed. I was having trouble relating to a lot of the people in the cast, even though I was good friends with many of them. It began to take over my schedule so much that I was forced to back out of other activities I had been interested in. It was difficult for me at first, but my parents kept bringing me back to Scripture and helping me see that God works everything out for my good, even when I can’t understand how.

Godspell progressed, and it seemed as if I had everything figured out and under control. But God had different plans for the show. Production week rolled around, and suddenly everything went wrong at once. We had rehearsals shortened or cancelled due to storms and ice. Members of the cast began getting sick left and right until we were forced to do the dress rehearsal with four understudies out of a main cast of 13. I was one of those understudies, and I ended up performing in the role of John the Baptist for most of the week, including opening night!

I am so thankful for the leadership of our director, Cathy Mays. Every time something went wrong, her first response was always, “God is in control, and he knows what he’s doing. Praise the Lord!” She kept the entire cast focused on God during a time when our natural reaction would have been anxiety and panic. And the amazing thing was, as we focused on God and trusted that he was in control, he always managed to work things out for the best.

Godspell is over now, and I’m moving into a new season of life, but I feel that this past year, and my experiences in Godspell specifically, have prepared me well by teaching me that God is always good, no matter what. A life of ease doesn’t help me to grow, but trials and sufferings do. God gives me trials and sufferings to sanctify me and to make me more like Jesus. So whatever happens to me in college and further on in life, I can trust that God is working it all out for my good, for as Romans 8:28 says, “in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”

I’m not the only one who has or will encounter trials. Every one of you will face trials, and many of them will be much, much more severe than what I’ve just described here. If you don’t truly believe that God is good, worry and anxiety will take over your life. Instead of standing strong and glorifying God in the trial, you will not be able to stand. I once read an article by a pastor named Dan Phillips, and he said something very helpful: Christian friend, if you are going to believe what you say you believe, then there are only two kinds of situations: situations in which you will see God's goodness immediately, or situations in which you will see God's goodness eventually.

And that is why I, Sam Branchaw, challenge you, the youth of Covenant Life Church, to trust God with all your heart, because he works all things out for the good of those who love him.

Grey Balloons

The characters in the beginning of CLC's Godspell are people you'd see any day at the train station. A sales executive with a briefcase in hand. A sports jock with her iPod cord dangling from her ear. A homeless guy begging for spare change. One by one they hurl out their philosophies of life into the universe, using the words of Socrates, Galileo, da Vinci, and Sartre. They are all in the same train car, but they live worlds apart. They are completely and utterly alone.

One of the images is especially poignant. A harried mom is dragging her kid across the stage, talking on her cell phone, when a balloon salesman approaches her. The kid begins begging for a balloon, until the exasperated mother shells out the money for the trinket and yanks the kid out of the station. What makes it so interesting is that the balloons are grey. As a matter of fact, almost everything on the stage is grey. All the clothing is grey. All the accessories are grey. But what really gets the point across is that even the balloons are grey. The whole picture carries a feeling of despair, of hopelessness. In what kind of world are balloons grey?

When the director conceived this interpretation of the prologue, she focused on the balloons. In the process of explaining the concept to the actors, she made a comment that I will never forget: "Life without God is like a grey balloon." That's the point she was trying to make in the whole prologue. These are people without God. They live and interact with people, but they are alone. Their lives are falling apart. They are without hope, without real purpose. That is, until Jesus comes along with good news. Suddenly the whole stage fills with color as the handyman, the student, the runaway are suddenly dressed in the brightest shades of red, blue, green, and yellow. Life suddenly has meaning, and nothing is the same after that.

"Life without God is like a grey balloon." What does that mean exactly? Well, what is a balloon? A balloon is a sign of festivity. They appear at birthdays, at dances, anywhere where people are having fun. Kids love balloons, amazed at how they float in the air, and they love the bright colors and goofy designs that often appear on them. Balloons are fun. And yet what do you do with a grey balloon? All of a sudden the festivities aren't so festive anymore. If all your balloons are grey, where is the color? Even something as happy as a balloon isn't happy anymore when it becomes grey. It is the ultimate sign of hopelessness.

That's what life without God is like. Even the happy things lose their joy. Life is hopeless, purposeless, meaningless. We seek after things to give us pleasure, but they don't fulfill. They feel worthless and empty. We run around, grabbing onto this balloon and that one, hoping that it will be something other than grey. But it isn't. They never are.

Then this guy comes around. He tells us that he has a place where life is full of purpose. He has color and laughter and festivity. Most importantly, he even has a red balloon that's just for you. "This balloon used to be grey," he says, smiling, "but I found a way to make it red. Welcome to true joy." Then you see his hands, which are marred by these two enormous scars, and you realize where the red came from. You look at him, shocked. But he smiles, and places the balloon in your hand. "It's okay," he says, "I did it because I love you."

The hopelessness is gone. Life has a purpose again. You can experience true joy because of the sacrifice that this man made to give you a life with meaning...like a red balloon.

(Photo credits: Kate Price and Kristen Leigh)

And now for a word from our sponsors...

Well, I have all kinds of things to say in this whole predestination argument...but it's going to have to wait. Life has become absolutely nuts for the primary reason that it's production week for Godspell! Nonstop rehearsals since Thursday only broken up by classes, homework, and graduation planning. Not to mention looking for scholarships...

Anyway, my point is that I have decided to take a break from this blog for the next week, and possibly the following week as well. I'm sure that Claire, Peter, and Paul will still have many good things to say on the subject by then, plus I'll be able to do a little brushing up on what I believe in the meantime.

Just to clarify for Claire, I am an essentially Reformed charismatic, meaning that I hold to most of the basic tenets of Calvinism (i.e. TULIP), although I differ in many important respects (i.e. baptism), and I believe that the Holy Spirit is still active and gives miraculous gifts to the church. For a more detailed summary, click here.

Can't wait to see you all again in a few weeks! Pray for Godspell, with God's grace it will be quite a show!