Reviews

Last month IsaacV posted a preview of the Jesus for President tour stop in Raleigh. Here’s my review of one stop on the tour, cross-posted from As of Yet Untitled.

Last week Charletta and I spent 5 days at the Cornerstone Music Festival promoting Christian Peacemaker Teams. For me, it was an inspiring awakening to the "Revolution in Jesusland" as Zack Exley calls it. That is, the increasing openness of young American Evangelicals to God’s vision for shalom. It’s an awareness that Jesus’ redemption is not just an individual soul thing, but an invitation to transformation of relationships, communities and creation as a whole.

Charletta and I joined Jim Fitz at a booth that he has been staffing for the past 5 years. When Jim first started out, no one at Cornerstone had ever heard of CPT. Furthermore people were openly hostile. "Are you really Christian?" was the frequent challenge. Over the years, responses have begun to change. Even the one person who sat down and argued for half an hour about the efficacy of nonviolence told us he gets our newsletter. Part of the reason for this is Jim’s persistant witness. Many people come by with a familiar greeting for Jim. His beard and his hat are well known. But Jim’s perseverence is not the only influence on changing attitudes.

A week ago, Zach Exley posted the story of a young man titled Put one back in the Mennonite column. It’s a story that resonated with many readers of the post (see the comment from Tyler for example). And judging by the conversations I had at the CPT booth, it’s an increasingly common story. One young man told me that he used to thing CPTers were hippies and peaceniks and then he read the The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne and now he really thinks we’re doing great work. We talked for 20 minutes and he told me about the challenge of discussions about pacifism with his middle-aged Republican friend.

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No Country for Old Men is released today in select theaters, which leaves me wanting to live in a more important city.Nonetheless, I have only to wait two more weeks before the nationwide release.

Reviews are already rolling out and I highly suggest to all of you that you see the film if you are able. I have been anticipating this one for quite some time. Los Angeles Times movie reviewer Kenneth Turan describes the moral underpinnings of the film:

The story of stolen drug money and the horrific carnage it precipitates, “No Country for Old Men” doesn’t celebrate or smile at violence, it despairs of it, despairs of its randomness, pervasiveness, its inescapable nature, of the way it eats at the soul of society and the individuals in it.

No one should go into “No Country for Old Men” underestimating the unnerving intensity of its moments of on-screen violence, its parade of corpses and geysers of spurting blood. But as the story unfolds with the awful inevitability of a modern myth, it’s clear that the Coen brothers and McCarthy are not interested in violence for its own sake but for what it says about the world we happen to live in. “I got it under control,” a confident deputy says, and in moments he is dead. He didn’t have anywhere near the mastery he imagined, and in this truly despairing vision, neither does anyone else.

Commenting on the transience of life – particularly in the context of the war in Iraq, AIDS crises in Africa, and the genocide in Darfur – is an apt reflection on our current condition.
I think ‘No Country for Old Men’ will turn out to be a ghastly film filled with horrid violence. But that’s it’s exactly why it should be seen by Americans – who too often forget that war entails blowing someone’s head off, repeatedly. This is a call to renewal in our understanding of the depravity of violence, to understanding exactly what violence means: without romantic, cathartic, or exciting character.

Watch the Trailer here

“The epic rescue of thousands of war-ravaged Mennonite refugees”

Due to a desire to go back to my spiritual roots, I decided to spend free time this summer reading books about Anabaptists. So far I’ve only read one. I stumbled across it unintentionally and am glad I did because I hadn’t come across it in my online searches (which have been few) for books related to Anabaptists and Mennonites. Months ago, I had mentioned this summer reading goal to a YAR friend of mine, and he asked if I would write reviews on whichever books I read. This review is more of a summary and reflection, a smattering of thoughts I had while reading. Let me say, first of all, that I recommend it. It is a very poignant story of a group of people trusting God’s faithfulness and provision despite heartache, persecution, hunger, fatigue and seeming hopelessness.

Some of you may be familiar with Up From the Rubble, written by Peter and Elfrieda Dyck. I had never heard of the book nor the story it tells. My Mennonite lineage is Swiss-German whereas the Mennonites in this story are from Russia. I don’t know anyone (or anyone’s grandparent) personally who went through this, but I felt a connection due to being a Mennonite, and that connection served to make the story seem all the more real as I read and digested it. (more…)