The Definitive Christian Review of The Hunger Games

Okay, well actually it isn’t.  I’m just rather surprised at some of the negative reviews this book (and movie) has earned from some Christians.  Some of the reviews take aim at the supposedly a-moral, relativistic worldview of the author.  Well, in brief point form and in no particular order, here’s my take on the book.

1)  It’s not a Christian book and does not pretend to be.  Don’t expect it to be.

2)  The author has a gift for telling a story.  I found the book difficult to put down.  I read it in a day.

3) The book makes no mention of God at all.  God’s name is not even used in vain once (unlike in the movie — 2 or 3 times).  Like in The Cellist of Sarajevo, we have a world here without God — a world that can only be imagined (thanks to John Lennon for that insight!).

4) Nevertheless, the protagonist makes some decisions and takes some actions which are compatible with Christian ethics.  For example, Katniss offers herself as a substitute for her weaker, younger sister Prim.  She defends the weak and powerless in the Hunger Games.  Yet other decisions and actions seem more consistent with the atheist world in which she lives.  For example, her burning hatred for her enemies, mercy killing, and the whole fake romance thing.

5)  The story raises many important discussion points for parents to engage their children.  My twelve year old daughter read the book after me and we had an excellent discussion about it.  I don’t think this is a book that should be independently read by Christian young people, but thoughtful parents and teachers could use it as a starting point for some good teaching opportunities.

6)  Was the violence gratuitous and overly graphic?  That depends what you’re measuring it against.  Compared to the Berenstain Bears or the Hardy Boys, yes, it was way over the top.  Compared to Ehud’s exploits in Judges, not so much.

7)  It seems to me that comparisons with Nazi soldiers fall short because Katniss chooses to participate in the Hunger Games to save her sister.  She also hates the system and seeks to defeat it.  The means are not that praiseworthy perhaps, but what do you expect from a sixteen year old in an imaginary atheist world?  This is a point worthy of discussion with our young people:  from a Christian vantage point, what would you do in this scenario?  Defend the weak and helpless to the greatest extent you can in the Games or have yourself martyred at the outset for refusing to participate in the Games?  Tough call.

To conclude, no, this is not a Christian book and, on the whole, it doesn’t portray a Christian worldview.  But does that automatically mean that we can’t read it or discuss it?  I fail to see the logic in that — unless (and this is a big UNLESS) parents are disengaged or disinterested from reading anything that might appeal to their children.

Book Review: The Next Story

The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion, Tim Challies, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011.  Hardcover, 204 pages, $21.99.

This book is a must-read for those in leadership positions in our church and school communities.  There’s not a lot of careful thought going on about technology and how it relates to a Christian worldview.  Technology is often regarded as what theologians used to called “adiaphora” – things indifferent.  You say “potăto,” I say “potāto,” you use your Kindle, I read a traditional book – what’s the difference?  It may start affecting worship too.  Does it really make a difference if a church uses a projector in the worship service instead of hard copy books?  What’s at stake?  These are the kinds of questions that this book will help us address.

The author is a well-known Canadian author with a widely-read blog at Challies Dot Com.  He brings together an interest in technology, a steady set of writing skills, and a good grasp of a Christian worldview.  He’s also written The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment (Crossway, 2007) and this newer book can be considered an extension and application of many of the biblical principles found in that earlier volume.

Let me give you a taste of what you’ll find in The Next Story.  Sometimes pastors will mention the ancient heresy of Gnosticism and its matter-spirit dualism.  The Gnostics taught that physical matter is bad and anything spiritual is good.  Challies illustrates how this thought is being resurrected in the digital era with a contemporary twist.  Cyberspace now “gives us a place to be apart from our bodies” (101) and this is almost universally seen as a good and desirable thing.  Read the book to find out more!

Challies has helpful critiques of Wikipedia and Google in connection with the concept of truth.  He notes that Wikipedia represents a model whereby truth is reached via consensus.  Google, on the other hand, presents us with truth via relevance.  Both present challenges to the Christian view of truth.  This is all found in chapter 8 – the most important chapter in the book.  We all quickly and mindlessly go to Wikipedia for answers, but we have to be aware that it is sometimes inaccurate (e.g. the article on the Canadian Reformed Churches until recently stated that the merger process with the URC has been called off), yet, more critically, it can subtly influence how we regard the very notion of what is true.

Written in an engaging way with many helpful illustrations and anecdotes, The Next Story ought to be on your must-read list.  Most of the chapters also have questions for reflection at the end, a helpful feature for group discussions at book clubs and so on.  I’m just going to make one small critical notation in this review.  I don’t understand why the publisher put this book out without justified margins on the right side of the page.  Challies doesn’t do this on his blog and I’ve never seen a book published by a large house like Zondervan with that feature.  It not only looks unprofessional, it’s also distracting.  If the medium does relate to the message (as Challies rightly argues), then this should be fixed if there’s ever a second edition.

The Strange, Beautiful Power of Prayer

I’ve been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.  Chapter 3 is entitled “The Day Alone” and it covers the personal life of a Christian.  In that chapter he has an insightful section on prayer.  I have found what he says here to be true.  As a pastor too, I have observed that when people who’ve been at odds begin praying for one another, remarkable things happen.  Here’s what Bonhoeffer says:

A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses.  I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.  His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.  This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others.  There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned.  Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the fellowship must enter every day.  The struggle we undergo with our brother in intercession may be a hard one, but that struggle has the promise that it will gain its goal.

Some theologians have described prayer as a means of grace or as an instrument of sanctification.  Truly it is.

Satan Loves Christless Christianity

“The devil doesn’t mind ‘family values’ as long as what you ultimately value is the family.  Satan doesn’t mind ‘social justice’ as long as you see justice as most importantly social.  Satan does not tremble at a ‘Christian worldview’ as long as your ultimate goal is to view the world.  Satan doesn’t even mind born-again Christianity as long as the new birth is preached apart from the blood of the cross and the life of the resurrection.

Pastor, Satan doesn’t mind if you preach on the decrees of God with fervor and passion, reconciling all the tensions between sovereignty and freedom, as long as you don’t preach the gospel.  Homeschooling mom, Satan doesn’t mind if your children can recite the catechism and translate the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ from English to Latin, as long as they don’t hear the gospel.  Churches, Satan doesn’t care if your people vote for pro-life candidates, stay married, have sex with whom they’re supposed to, and tear up at all the praise choruses, as long as they don’t see the only power that cancels condemnation — the gospel of Christ crucified.  Satan so fears that gospel, he was willing to surrender his entire empire just to stave it off.  He still is.”  (154)

Thinking of God — Thomas Watson

“To have frequent and devout thoughts of God witnesses sincerity.  No truer touchstone of sanctity exists than the spirituality of the thoughts.  What a man is, that his thoughts are: ‘For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he’ (Prov. 23:7).  Thoughts are freer from hypocrisy than words.  One may speak well for applause, or to stand right in the opinion of others; but when we are alone and think of God’s Name, and admire his excellencies, this shows the heart to be right.  Thoughts are freer from hypocrisy than an unblamable life.  A man may in his outward behaviour be fair, yet have a covetous, revengeful mind.  The acts of sin may be conceived when the heart sits brooding upon sin; but to have the thoughts spiritualized and set upon God is a truer symptom of sincerity, than a life free from vice.  Christians, what do your thoughts run upon?  Where do they make their most frequent visits?  Can you say, Lord, our hearts are still mounting up to heaven, our thoughts are lodged in paradise; though we do not see thy face, yet we think on thy Name?  This is a good evidence of sincerity.  We judge men by their actions; God judges them by their thoughts.”  (85)