Category Archives: Nihilism

Rowan Williams argues that there are three approaches to theology: the celebratory, the communicative, and the critical.[i]

The celebratory is the attempt to draw out and display connections of thought and image so as to exhibit the fullest possible range of significance in the language used. It is typically the language of hymnody and preaching, but it can also be found in the work of Dante and Langland, Byzantine iconography, and some of the more intelligent modern choruses.[ii] Williams also notes that celebratory theology is the dominant mode of reflection in the Eastern Orthodox Church and, in some cases, in the work of western theologians, like that of Hans Urs von Balthasar.[iii]

Communicative theology is, by contrast, what Williams describes as theology experimenting with the rhetoric of its uncommitted environment.[iv] What Williams is referring to here might also be described as apologetic theology, as long as one hews fairly close to the classical definition given to that enterprise. It is the effort to persuade or comment, to witness to the gospels capacity for being at home in more than one cultural environment, and to display enough confidence to believe that this gospel can be rediscovered at the end of a long and exotic detour through strange idioms and structures of thought.[v]

Williams seems to imply that this task only becomes necessary or important when celebratory theology becomes so densely worked that the language is in danger of being sealed in on itself, but it is unclear why that would necessarily be the case. Described as a separate theological endeavor, communicative theology could easily be understood as a parallel and complementary effort. Widening the audience that the church has for its message and broadening the categories at its disposal, communicative theology vindicates the churchs claim to universality and embraces a wider world. Examples that Williams offers include the use made of Stoic and Platonic categories by the Apologists, Clement, and Origen or feminist theory, as used by Sarah Coakley.[vi]

The third endeavor that Williams describes is critical theology. Here again, he offers a somewhat linear description of the relationship between critical theology and the preceding theological endeavor. Arguing that communicative theology takes the theologian into a struggle with the question as to what is continuous with what has been believed and with what the fundamental categories really mean, the task becomes critical alert to its own inner tensions and irresolutions.[vii] Once the theologian embarks on this task, Williams notes it can go in a variety of shapes. But it runs in two fundamentally different directions: toward either agnosticism and even nihilism or towards a rediscovery of the celebratory.[viii]

As before, it is not clear that the strains in a communicative theology are the only occasion for critical theology. One might reasonably argue that the critical task is essential to the articulation of the Christian message as culture changes and time passes. The critical task in that sense is not tied to either the failure of Christian categories or questions about the necessity or coherence of those categories.

Ultimately, the way in which we navigate the theological task can be more or less life-giving. A celebratory theology that becomes moribund betrays the lively and lived connection with God that the church depends upon. Communicative theology that values the cultural assumptions of its surroundings over the native language of the faiths essential assumptions betrays its task. And, plainly, a critical theology that trends toward agnosticism and nihilism will undermine the churchs relationship with the Resurrected Christ.

As Williams notes, lively theology is never confined to one of the theological tasks to the exclusion of the others.[ix] Theology, he notes, is the product of an essential restlessness in the enterprise of Christian utterance that reflects the eschatological impulse at its heart; and it resists any attempt to picture the world as immanently ordered or finished.[x] But the restlessness that Williams describes is not native to theology per se and his description of its origin as eschatological though accurate masks a deeper reason for that restlessness. It is rooted in the experience of the Resurrected Christ, shaped by baptism into the body of Christ, and fed by the liturgy and the prayer life of the church.

Today, the failure to acknowledge the necessity of all three tasks and the tendency to emphasize one task to the exclusion of the other two presents the greatest theological challenge that the church faces. Those who do nothing but advocate for a lifeless reassertion of the churchs doctrine court one set of problems. Those who do nothing but advocate a critical theology unmoored in the churchs celebratory court another set.

But because the conversation about theology is always a conversation about Gods hope for the church and the world, this is not an abstract challenge. It is a lived, spiritual, and missional challenge as well. Attending conscientiously to all three tasks in an integrated fashion is the only solution.

[i] Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology, Challenges in Contemporary Theology, eds., Gareth Jones and Lewis Ayres (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000): xiii.

[ii] Ibid., xiii.

[iii] Ibid., xiii-xiv.

[iv] Ibid., xiv.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Ibid., xiv-xv.

[viii] Ibid., xv.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Ibid., xvi.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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Theology and the Church | Frederick Schmidt - Patheos

To capture the essence of everything in a single movie is no easy feat, but with the right production, storytelling and execution, the finished product is impeccably other-worldly. A24s 2022 film Everything Everywhere All at Once manages to illustrate the aspects of what it means to be as the title alludes everything, everywhere, all at once. A movie like no other, it avoids taking itself too seriously, thus crossing the limitations of what should and shouldnt be shown in the movie. It also touches upon eight subjects at the same time, not getting tangled up during the process and weaving them all into the central theme of individuality.

The movie stars the legendary Michelle Yeoh, who plays the role of working Chinese immigrant mother and wife Evelyn Quan Wang, a coin laundry service owner. Her role coupled with other Hollywood legends such as Ke Huy Quan, her husband, James Hong, Evelyns father, and Jamie Lee Curtis, an IRS tax collector, along with new upcoming star Stephanie Hsu, their rambunctious daughter, makes for a colorful cast that brings a certain charm to the film. In a movie where each actor keeps changing personalities and characters, the delivery by each actor, even the minor roles that only appear for certain scenes, are performed wonderfully.

Minor Spoilers

Everything Everywhere All at Once balances themes of individuality, legacy, parenthood, generational gap, generational trauma, nihilism, love and empathy. Even with this many themes and messages within a single film, the movie never overwhelms the viewer, even within its two-hour run time.

The movie captures the viewer in two ways. First, with its unique action-comedy-sci-fi-drama genre, having the viewer either at the edge of their seat, uncontrollably laughing or uncontrollably crying, all within the setting of the multiverse concept. The pace the genres are divided upon never interrupts one another and seemingly flows together, synergizing the sentiments of sequences throughout the film.

The second way is dividing the movie into three acts: 1. Everything, 2. Everywhere and 3. All at Once, titled respectively. This framing allows the viewer to have a handle of the pacing and doesnt feel like one act is dragging along in particular. Additionally, it builds anticipation for the next act, creating a sense of wonder for what crazy scene will occur next. With this movie, expect the next scene to one-up the previous one, in all the best ways possible.

With many great works of art, a simple and word strained definition would give no justice to the real work of art that it is. To some, the movie might seem idiotic and a trippy fantasy-action-comedy with some sappy scenes in the middle, but for others, that stupidity transcends the surface level viewing and stirs a grand hole of existential dread, leaving many speechless with runny noses and watery eyes. While it cant be decided what the viewer will experience, Everything Everywhere All At Once is certainly a once-in-a-lifetime cinematic experience that will leave you shocked and wanting more.

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Criticism: 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' review | Life & Arts - Texas A&M The Battalion

The grieving people of Uvalde, Texas, a town in the Hill Country about 80 miles west of San Antonio, now confront the irreplaceability of life in one of its most ghastly and unnatural incarnations: the murder of at least 19 children and two adults, with several more injured. In their mourning they will join dozens of other communities scattered throughout the country where school shootings this year alone have injured or killed people, and in their special torturethese children were elementary schoolers; they still had the faintly round faces of babiesthey will join the families of the children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in another episode of stochastic annihilation only 10 years ago.

Yet somehow that brief report of conditions on the ground understates both the scope and the nature of the problem. The nature of the problem, as best I can tell, is that American life isnt about what is good but is rather about nothing at all (which is, at least, broadly inoffensive and inclusive of most tastes and creeds) or about violence itself. The scope of the problem includes every facet of life that culture touches, which means most every element of daily life.

David Frum: Americas hands are full of blood

Violence begets injury begets death, and any culture debased to vacillating between violent struggle and idle nihilism is shuddering toward its end as a culture of death. And a culture of death is like a prophecy, or a sickness: It bespeaks itself in worsening phases. Right now, we find ourselves foreclosing upon our own shared future both recklessly and deliberatelyand perhaps, gradually, beginning to behave as if there is no future for us at all; soon, I sometimes worry, we may find ourselves faced with a darkening present, no faith in our future, and a doomed tendency to chase violence with violence.

The murders in Uvalde barely begin to describe the scale of American violence, but they do provide insight into its character. School shootings are only a subcategory of mass shootings, which are themselves only a subcategory of gun crime. America sharply surpasses other comparably developed countries in each of those classes of violent crime. A country in which those indicators arent necessarily signs of terminal decline is conceivable. But these arent the growing pains of a society making difficult advances toward an orderly peace. These are the morbid symptoms of a society coming undone, and they arise largely from policy choices made by interested parties with material motives.

Graeme Wood: Think gun laws are hard to change? Try gun culture.

Call that deliberate foreclosure of the future, a category of offense that also includes the impoverishment of American mothers and children far out of proportion to their international counterparts; blithe indifference bordering on outright malice toward any policy or practice suggesting care for the climate, environment, or preservation of the majesty of the natural world; the subtle but rising set of pressures and risks coupled with an overall sense of stagnation that, taken together, amount to the reason Millennials now have the lowest birth rate of any generation on record. The reckless foreclosure of the future is perhaps most visible in the daily, wanton mistreatment of others that is part of the warp and weft of American life.

But perhaps the most troubling symptom of our cultural rot is the sense, detectable already in some people, that there simply is no future for us at all. This sentiment takes many forms, whether individual or national. Some people are taking their own lives in despair or exhaustion, a phenomenon reflected in spiking suicide rates. Some say theres going to be a national divorce, a cowards term for a Second Civil War, and some say there ought to be such a war, and its difficult to distinguish the two; either way, if you take them at their word, there is no future for the United States of America. Some say the planet is dying and were already living on borrowed time. Those people have something like an end point in mind.

Clint Smith: No parent should have to live like this

Then there are some who say that every terrible thingincluding even this untenable thing that no civilization could endure, this demonic murder lottery of schoolchildrensimply must go on, and somehow, they are winning. After all, wasnt the Newtown massacre like the breaking of a seal, the final entry in a national catalog of stunned loss that had begun with Columbine? It wasnt that there would be no more losses. It was only that we could no longer be stunned. Yesterday, before the families of Uvalde had buried their children, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a televised interview that he would much rather have law-abiding citizens armed and trained so that they can respond when something like this happens, because its not going to be the last time. That is to say: Its going to go on indefinitely. Its not an end, exactly, but life inside a permanent postscript to ones own history. Here is America after there was no more hope.

Carol Ann Davis: 10 years after Sandy Hook, here we are again

We are already living through this. It is hard to bear. All around us things that ought to matter shrink in proportion to things that ought not to; a sense of real agency in politics or government feels limited, distant; lives that used to seem perfectly accessible to your average young person seem impossible now, while darkly fantastical liveslike those of the mass shooters whose profiles are now too many and too common to differentiate, with their weird paramilitary bravado and meme-inflected manifestosare growing more familiar to us. I fear theyll become more familiar still. When we say, in despair, that these men are by-products of a society weve created; how could we possibly stop them?, we could be referring to almost anyone in the great chain of diffuse responsibility for our outrageous, inexcusable gun-violence epidemicthe lobbyists who argued for these guns to be sold like sporting equipment, the politicians who are too happy to oblige them, the shooters themselves.

Moral decline of this kind produces strange and grotesque effects as it works its way, acidlike, through a society. Resignation takes the form of anger, mistrust, hypervigilance, depression, withdrawal. Nihilism arrives not as society fading quietly to dust but as fruit flush with lurid color, ripening until it bursts. It is the fruit of a culture of death.

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A Culture That Kills Its Children Has No Future - The Atlantic

Photo: Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images

As Johnny Depp and Amber Heards defamation trial nears its welcome end, the breathless speculation about the cases purported deeper meaning shows no sign of slowing down. Depending on who you ask, the trial might be a referendum on Me Too, a commentary on TikTok bullying, a simple legal issue obscured by sensationalism, or an example of the hot-take express at work. Throughout the six-week trial, celebrities and public figures have sporadically weighed in later apologizing for doing so, depending on what they say. The high-profile trial, which is being aired on CourtTV and livestreamed everywhere else, has become the perfect recipe for half-baked, overbaked, and nearly raw analyses. But maybe they are all right? Maybe all of them are wrong? Maybe the public really does care what Courtney Love, Drew Barrymore, and Amanda Knox think about the case? Or maybe and apologies for the nihilism the big question we should be asking instead of What does this really mean? is What is really the point of this trial?

Throughout the proceedings, Depp has claimed that Heards 2018 Washington Post op-ed about domestic abuse defamed him and insisted that she actually abused him. Heard claimed that Depps denials through one of his lawyers, Adam Waldman defamed her and reaffirmed he abused her. Depp and Heard both claim they suffered reputational and professional harm as a result of the allegations and denials, respectively. Depp said his motivation for being in court and suing Heard was to not only attempt to clear my name for many reasons, but I wanted to clear my children of this horrible thing that they were reading about their father.

The point of this trial? Essentially it was called by Johnny Depp to reclaim his reputation, get movie roles back, and be able to make a living again and not be ostracized as he had been because of this article, said Juda Engelmayer, the public-relations and crisis-management veteran who reps disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein. That is the crux of it, and I believe thats really the ultimate goal for him, to be seen as someone whos marketable, able to come back not the evil guy he was painted as.

Even if that is the point, after six weeks of trial, nothing has really emerged that makes either of them look all that great, let alone clear their reputations. Testimony revealed the couples own marriage counselor felt that they had engaged in mutual abuse. Depp and others close to him described his extensive history of drug and alcohol abuse on the stand. Some recordings shown to the court seem to cast Heard as an antagonist and, at one point, she admitted to hitting him in the face. There have been hours of graphic discourse over what, or who, cut off Depps fingertip. And testimony from both sides witnesses made the exes seem like untethered elites who spent excessively and neglected philanthropic efforts.

Much of the trial has been marked by conversations around each partys respective careers Heards desire to expand hers and, she alleged, Depps insistence on not letting that happen. Both have alleged that their respective abuse claims tanked their careers. Regardless, the outcome of this trial might not impact the ex-couples career prospects in all that negative a way, Engelmayer predicted. The proceedings, albeit messy, might even help their career prospects. I think a vast majority of the public decided that they like Johnny Depp and that they want to support him, and I believe studios will ultimately see that for the money that it might be worth, he said. While he probably wont get leading-man roles in family happy films, he might get roles in gangster films as a bad guy, as a guy youd love to hate, things like that. Successes would build on each other. And if the box office continues to do well, hell get bigger rolls again, he added.

And it wouldnt be just Depp back in good graces, despite the adamant online abuse Heard is receiving. I think Amber Heard, also, because she did what she did, he said. She put herself out there. Shes a hero for women. She stood her ground. I think studios will give her roles too.

It seems to me that Johnny Depp wanted to get his side of the story out and let the public determine who wins here, and in the court of public opinion, Johnny Depp is the clear winner. He has accomplished his mission, Winter Wheeler, an arbitrator and mediator who previously worked as a litigator, said. Ultimately, though, I believe most people had chosen a side before trial started, and theyve only gotten more entrenched with each passing day.

Wheeler said of the public sentiment: Johnny Depp has already emerged as a tragic hero and the trial is ongoing. Hes clearly flawed but owns up to those flaws. He went from villain to underdog in a matter of weeks, and people really want to see him win. And just as much as people want to see him win, they want to see Amber Heard lose.

The potential legal outcomes also raise the question: What is the point? Brett Turnbull, a veteran personal injury attorney with Turnbull, Holcomb, and Lemoine, explained the numerous possible verdicts. Jurors could vote in favor of either Depp or Heard, of course, and then decide to award the winner a sizable sum. The jury could also decide to vote in favor of either Depp or Heard but decide to award the victor a nominal sum like $1. Someone wins, Turnbull said, but in that situation, its a symbolic verdict that says, We support your claims, we find in your favor, but were not willing to consider that for actual monetary damages. The jury could also find against both Depp and Heard, meaning they could decide that neither defamed the other. Its their right to evaluate the witnesses and the evidence and make decisions based on what they hear and what they see, Turnbull said. And they literally have the right to come back and say, We find that Johnny Depp did not prove his case and that Amber Heard did not prove her case and it will be just null and void on both ends.

Its also unclear why people care so much about this trial, seemingly more so than other high-profile cases. For me, its all about the timing, Wheeler said. For weeks on end, we were bombarded with Ukraine coverage to the exclusion of all else rightfully so but I was very welcoming of the reprieve the Depp v. Heard trial has offered. Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter journalism institute, also had an explanation. I got two words for you: Johnny Depp. Clark continued, Ive got another name for you: O.J. Simpson.

Schadenfreude might also play a role. After building up celebrities and other public figures, Clark said, theres also this kind of counterweight, in which we want to pay close attention when theyre torn down. A fair point.

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What Is the Point of the Johnny DeppAmber Heard Trial? - Vulture

Nihilism about the Senate's ability to do anything after yet another horrific mass shooting this one taking the lives of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas permeated social media and the halls of Congress on Wednesday.

The big picture: Most lawmakers, even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), remain highly skeptical that this time will be the time lawmakers strike a compromise. But there are at least five reasons to believe the dam may finally be ready to break.

1. The majority of Americans support background checks.

2. The National Rifle Association is weakened.

3. Children were murdered. Again.

4. It happened in Republicans' backyard.

5. Key bipartisan players are talking again.

The bottom line: For all the justified pessimism stemming from past failures to act, all that matters in the Senate right now is counting to 10.

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5 reasons this could be the time Congress finally acts on gun reform - Axios

Tommy Thomas| Abilene Reporter-News

Good evening, Wylie Class of 2022; my name is Tommy Thomas, and it is truly a blessing and an honor to be with you all tonight.

First off, I would like to congratulate all graduating students, especially those on this stage (many of whoms outstanding achievements far exceed my own). I would like to also thank our staff and fFaculty, who labor tirelessly to cultivate and serve the students of this school.

Finally, I would like to thank my mom, dad, friendsand church community, who have walked with me every step of the way.

In writing this, the temptation was to present a meticulously crafted valedictorian speech that would only serve to reminisce on the path to graduation and give somewhat relevant advice to our upcoming future. I, however, firmly believe that in order for something to be truly meaningful, it must also often be equally challenging. With this in mind, I would like to present to you something I have considered in my life many times: significance.

Now, what is significance, and how would one define it? According to Oxford Languages, significance is defined as the quality of being worthy of attention or importance. This logically begs the next question, what is significant or worthy of attention or importance? This precise point is where I believe that many people miss it. In a very short amount of time, you will soon be on your own making decisions that will not only affect yourself but others also. We all want to live lives full of significance, and the temptation will be to seek significance by filling our lives with success.

Many of you will spend your lives in the pursuit of money, power, recognition, and prestige in the hope that your life will be considered significant when all things are said and done. Although these things are arguably good, you will not make your life significant by seeking these.

You see, all of these things are what I would characterize as success, but success is only about you while significance is about others. By chasing these things you likely will have been successful, but the question is, did you do anything worthy of persistent importance? Did you do something with your life that truly mattered to not just yourself but to others in the long run?

I insist that this is something you need to think about now while you have not yet invested so much of your life chasing significance but ultimately pursuing success. I insist that your extremely valuable yet finite lives would not be used in the age-old pursuit of materialism, which in every instance leads to nihilism and unfulfillment. And again, success is not a bad thing, it's just success in the absence of significance will not lead to satisfaction.

Well then, the next question follows as how does one live a life characterized by significance? The answer is really quite simple; significance can be found in three things: serving others, dedicating your life to something bigger than yourself and your desires, and living your life not just in the present but in the context of eternity.

Now, what do I mean by the first two? The reason why serving others and serving something bigger than yourself is so important is that it shifts your default, self-centric mindset that is often plagued with anxiety to a selfless mindset saturated with purpose. Furthermore, scientific literature shows that serving others provides a myriad of benefits, and in one study, those who served were 44% less likely to have health complications.

Now the last point, what does it mean to live in the context of eternity? Our culture today emphasizes living to fulfill every desire and the instant gratification of said desires, and the temptation will be to conform to this trend. I would implore that if you are able to resist this and live your life in a meaningful way, you would be far more satisfied in the long run. By viewing life holistically through the lens of significance, you will both mitigate aimless gratification and promote lasting impact.

In closing, I want to present to you what I truly have found to be the key to a life of significance so that as you venture past this first major milestone, you will be fully equipped to lead lives of satisfaction and fulfillment. I have found that in order to live in a way that is in profound service to others, one must follow the example of Jesus Christ, who is quite literally the fulfillment of the definition of significance. He is the one who is worthy of attention and importance, and if you would give your life to Him just as He gave His life for your sins, you surely will live a life of significance.

As you all leave this building tonight as Wylie alumni, I pray that you all will embrace your positions as leaders of this generation, that you will venture into the future emboldened to change the world, that you will live a life of significance, and that when all is said and done, every single one of you would hear the words well done good and faithful servant.

Thank you and God bless.

Tommy Thomas, Wylie High School valedictorian

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2022 val speeches, Wylie's Thomas: Ahead of you is a life of significance - Abilene Reporter-News

Dear Reader, this is not short, but I would ask you to take your precious time, which I respect, and read to the end and think deeply with me about this subject. Thank you.

Nearly every American has voiced an opinion this week about this. Why Uvalde? The horror. The tragedy. The unthinkable. And how to stop it? Confront mental health. Gun control. More security. Some compromise, somehow.

With no expression of sarcasm whatsoever, I humbly yet boldly say this, I know the answers to both of these questions. But you need to hear this, the answers are not mine. And I am certainly not the only one with this information.

These answers are clear and direct, coming from the only perfect source of information, and that is A Biblical World View. Yes, it is in and through the Bible, the very Word of God, the eternal and timeless Word of God, that we can find these answers. We do not necessarily like the answer to the first question, but we certainly are thankful to have the answer to the second question.

Why Uvalde? And tragedies like this, both large and small? The Bible is very clear in Genesis that after the glorious creation of all things by God (which is key in a Biblical World View), humankind fell from perfection and brought imperfection to all creation. Thus, now all humankind carries this Sin and lives in a fallen world, a world that is now under the power of sin, death, and the devil, as Martin Luther so well described it.

Yes. This Sin (theologians use the upper case for this over-all fall from grace) separates us from God and puts us at odds with each other. Left unchecked, our Sin would ultimately destroy us and all that exists even for all eternity.

If you are not a person of this understanding at this point, I would challenge you to explain the reality of our world with any other feasible explanation.

There are certainly consequences of this Sin, which become evident everywhere we look. These consequences include, but are not limited to, denial of this Biblical World View, disease, behavioral problems, broken relationships, mental health problems, crimes of all kinds, wars, human chaos of all sorts, human death, etc. Throughout the Bible we see time and time again these consequences of Sin that were evident before us, and now we see through the lenses of Scripture the reason for the presence of all these consequences in our own time. Well come back to this.

Sin. Yes, left unchecked would ultimately destroy us. However, and thankfully, Sin was and is not left unchecked. Of the Two-Point-Truth of the Bible (the first being Sin), the second is the good part, even called The Good News, even called The Gospel. Yes, fortunately, oh-so-fortunately, God Himself did not leave Sin unchecked. First of all, He made His Holy Promise to send a Savior to take on Sin and conquer it, and thereby saving the whole world from these destructive consequences of Sin.

Then, He sent even His own Son, Jesus, to be our Savior. By His perfect life, by His death on the cross to pay the ultimate sacrifice to forgive all sin, and by His conquering even death in His resurrection, Jesus has beaten Sin for all eternity. In reality and in His Perfect Will, God has chosen to leave us in our fallen world at this time, but with these promises. Since Jesus has already defeated sin, death, and the devil, we are now empowered by His Holy Spirit to live our lives meaningfully and faithfully even in the harshness our fallen world; and Jesus will return again at His Perfect Time to bring the new heaven and new earth (The Revelation) into eternal existence for all who believe in Him.

The perfection of The Biblical World View is this. The Law of Scripture shows us our Sin, its consequences in our lives, and our need for a savior because we cannot conquer our Sin by ourselves, even with our best human effort. The Gospel of Scripture declares to us the Good News that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

However, there is still one more key component in Gods Plan as revealed in His Biblical World View. Jesus gave His disciples The Great Commission right before He ascended into heaven (the event we marked just this past Thursday, 40 days after the resurrection). Jesus said, Go therefore and make disciples of all people, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all which I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. (Matthew 28:19)

So, the perfect Biblical World View has us now taking all that I have just laid out from the Bible to the world. That is the Mission of The Church. And here is the way that has played out in history. When The Church has positively influenced governments and societies to live within the Biblical World View, for the most part life for humankind has been better, much better. I cannot go further into world history at this point, and some scholars would certainly disagree with this statement, but I would challenge that a full denial of this is impossible.

So, what about our society? Our government? Our quality of life at this present time? It is sadly clear that in our society today, in the United States of America, that the Biblical World View, upon which our country was founded (yes!), and by which our society lived for the most part in previous generations, it is sadly clear that we have drifted and been driven away from the Biblical World View in far too many ways. Argue if you will, but true. I do not believe our society is already doomed and defeated. So much good still lies within us, but warnings have been and must continue to be made concerning this.

Heres the question: In the absence of The Biblical World View, what takes its place? Many -isms, for sure: atheism, hedonism, narcissism, just to name a few. However, I believe there is one that is now more prevalent and perhaps even more dangerous to our society. And that is nihilism.

Ever so quickly, nihilism is nothing-ism. People believe nothing. People believe nothing is real. People believe they are nothing. People believe their lives mean nothing. People believe nothing is wrong. People believe nothing is contrary to society. People believe nothing is permanent. People believe nothing is of value. And into that nothingness comes the evil of a fallen world.

Combine the reality of mental illness in fallen world with the absence of a Biblical World View, replaced with nihilism, and you get evil rising up and a gunman shooting children! To which we all shout, Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop!

What will make it stop? Ultimately, only the return of Jesus Christ to bring His Full and Holy Kingdom for eternity. But until then, we of The Church must take up even more vigorously The Mission of bringing the world, our world, our family, our neighbors, into the Biblical World View of the reality of Sin, the need for forgiveness, the saving work of Jesus Christ, His love for us, and our love for one another, even those who may differ from us.

So, to those who put down our faith and our beliefs and our mission; to those of you in our own government who continue to try to shove us Christians and our Biblical World View further and further to the edges of influence in our society; to you I say, Watch out! Here we come again! We Christians will again become Christian Soldiers, armed not with human weapons, but with the Truth and Love of Jesus our Lord and Savior! Only this will turn the hearts of the people of our society to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. (Micah 6:8) And I would certainly add, And walk with each other in justice, kindness, and humility.

This is the Ultimate Answer. Amen! And Amen!!

[Kollmeyer, a Fayette County resident for 36 years, is Pastor Emeritus at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Fayetteville. Follow Pastor Scott Ness and this great church at http://www.princeofpeacefayette.org. Kollmeyer until recently was Interim Pastor at Word of God Lutheran Church in Sharpsburg. Find some of his video recorded sermons at http://www.woglutheran.org and follow Pastor Jason Dampier and this great church on this site.]

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Why Uvalde? How to stop it? - The Citizen.com

Pick of the weekAbbott ElementaryAbbott Elementary. Photograph: Prashant Gupta/ABC

Quinta Brunsons mockumentary comedy set in a rough-round-the-edges Philadelphia school manages a rare feat. As any teacher worth their salt might demand, it shows rather than tells. Were encouraged to sympathise with the schools scrappy kids and hard-pressed, passionate teachers. But the show strikes a fine balance between comic charm and subtle polemic about the inadequacies of the US education system. As we join the action, a teacher has been fired for kicking a student and a funding battle begins over basic equipment. Brunson also stars as Janine Teagues, an endearing if slightly scatty teacher who delights the kids but sometimes bothers her superiors. Disney+, from Wednesday 1 June

Based on Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Joness memoir, Danny Boyles six-part comedy-drama rattles along energetically enough, summoning up the mood of dank, repressed mid-70s Britain. The angle feels relatively new Joness (Toby Wallace) perspective has been explored less than Sid Viciouss and Johnny Rottens, and his abusive childhood is evoked in all its claustrophobic grimness. But theres an earnestness to the script and performances that feels slightly off, undercutting the bands nihilism. However much they gurn and sneer, the actors simply arent grubby or delinquent enough to pull it off. Disney+, from Tuesday 31 May

The heyday of Scandi-drama seems like a distant memory, but the return of Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen) feels like a welcome visit from an old friend. A decade ago, she felt like a principled anomaly. In the populist era, shes even more of a liberal wish-fulfilment fantasy. Nyborg is now minister for foreign affairs and when oil is discovered in Greenland, shes at the centre of an international power struggle in the Arctic. She also has to keep an eye on Katrine Fnsmark (Birgitte Hjort Srensen) who is milking her status as a Nyborg expert on TV. Netflix, from Thursday 2 June

I may be a superhero. But Im still just a man who fell in love with the wrong woman. Homelander (Antony Starr) is attempting a rebrand, but his gentler mode seems even more unhinged. This is par for the course for this returning superhero spoof it manages to have its cake and eat it by satisfying a taste for satire and spectacular ultraviolence. Butcher (Karl Urban) now works for the government and is unusually calm. But when the Boys learn of a mysterious anti-Supe weapon, they collide with the Seven and all hell breaks loose. Amazon Prime Video, from Friday 3 June

Strip clubs had a tough time through the pandemic, and the Pynk in the fictional, deep south town of Chucalissa was no different. Covid-related departures created vacancies. Cue Roulette a new dancer (portrayed by Gail Bean of Snowfall fame), ready to give the club a few headaches and a much-needed fresh lease of life. The first season of this show was a sleeper hit, but P-Valley deserves more attention: its saucy in every sense, but the stories are told generously and from the perspectives of the dancers, and are all the better for it. StarzPlay, from Friday 3 June

This Lycra-clad comedy-drama, launched last year, aims to do for the fitness video what Glow did for female wrestling: present it as an emblem of an era, set in amber and ripe for all sorts of melodrama and kitsch period detail. The problem is, unlike Glow, the characters are never quite well-drawn enough for it to convince, either as drama or comedy. In season two, Sheila Rubin (Rose Byrne) deals with the aftermath of breakthrough success her workout video has spawned imitators and jealous also-rans eager for a share of her spoils. Apple TV+, from Friday 3 June

Season one of this wonderfully daft adventure show (think The Crystal Maze with regular plummets into boiling red gloop) did big, albeit possibly Covid-related, numbers for Netflix, so a second season was a no-brainer. But once youve created an obstacle course of bubbling volcanic matter, how do you raise the stakes? Its obvious really: a massive volcano, spewing even hotter lava! Its fair to say no one can be accused of overthinking this shows USP, and thats part of the appeal. Put it this way: youll watch more than one episode.Netflix, from Friday 3 June

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Pistol to Borgen: the seven best shows to stream this week - The Guardian

The stories collected in Paul Dalla Rosas debut, An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life, are similar enough that you sense a theme, different enough that each comes as a relief. Theyre about young modern lives: precarious and disappointing houses, boyfriends, jobs; trying to make beautiful art, or a beautiful self, to do something or be someone that matters (at least to someone). And the lust and vanity and vulnerability of that.

Many of these ten pieces have appeared elsewhere in Australia and overseas, and marked the Melburnian as a writer to watch. In 2018, Dalla Rosa described his idea of a great short story: It appears, everything else fades away, then its gone An act of transubstantiation, matter simultaneously changed and unchanged. To weigh someones work against their own criteria for success might be a friendly way to load the die but it does describe what these stories achieve.

Characters have no massive epiphanies. In Brooklyn, Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Dubai, innocuous miscalculations make their lives variously more stressful: they slide into debt; get saddled with bad housemates; botch hook-ups, professional opportunities and dermal fillers. You leave them at (or just over) the brink of an awkward moment, anaesthetised dismay, or something darker but not fundamentally different. Still you feel yourself, as a reader, subtly rearranged. Not least because you can breathe again after 20 minutes of wincing: Dalla Rosa is both curious and unflinching about the weirder things our bodies do and that we do to our bodies, a tone set early on in a macabre incident with a boil. But also because theres something absorbing about the bleak acuity with which he renders a bad moment. He knows when to let someone go quiet, or to set an ache of despair against a slash of colour or beauty (phosphenes. Sparks. A burning filament).

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He is very funny, with a lightness of touch that both eases the bleakness and makes it worse skewering his characters with a deadpan economy that belies his keen interest in them. One couple, from the window in the apartment they cant afford, can see the tops of oaks, branches beginning to bud with leaves, and, across the street, a woman rummaging through trash. He sees the pretensions of these people oh, let us live gorgeously, in debt, desperately blindfolded to the suffering of others, the inadequacy of our personal trysts and the total absurdity of the lengths they go to, to preserve delusions of who they might be. But he doesnt hate them. He cares about them, even. Good for you, you find yourself thinking to all these characters burning their lives to the ground, these aspiring life coaches, influencers, Pancake Saloon waiters, stars.

Dalla Rosas publisher compares him to other observers of the ugly, beautiful parts of life, Lucia Berlin, Ottessa Moshfegh and hes been mentored by Abigail Ulman, whose Hot Little Hands isnt far from that family tree. Hes previously referenced Lydia Davis and Lorrie Moore: restless, clever writers, also ruthlessly interested in the way we want things, and get annoyed at the people who dont give them to us.

These characters sit at the edge of jealousy, loneliness, fear, panic, numbed out by greasy phone screens and chat sites and eBay, all horribly exposed by the threadbare stuff of their dreams, their longing to be someone slightly other.

I said Thats great and he said, It is great and I said, Great.

I mean, its okay, he said. Maybe the novel isnt very good.

No, I said. Its great.

We walked like this, me repeating Great, all the way home.

Ive felt all that, Dalla Rosa said in 2019, the feeling of being stagnant, things not going how you planned them too, the feeling of time moving, the realisation you dont get it back. These stories, he told novelist Marlowe Granados earlier this year, come from obsessively trying to figure out the problem of being young. He is fascinated by shock value, takes a knowing glee in it, but doesnt rely on it for momentum, or fall back on sarcasm or nihilism this writing is acid, not sour.

One character moves to LA. She takes her family to the Walk of Fame, and her father tells her one day shell have her own star. Alice said nothing but felt something keenly, something close to pain, because though it was tacky he had said exactly what it was she wanted.

The jokes are deftly executed; the dialogue is cringingly funny. But underneath, these well-choreographed car crashes are all pulled toward the same, tender magnetic pole.

An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life by Paul Dalla Rosa is out 31 May in Australia ($29.99, Allen & Unwin)

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An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life by Paul Dalla Rosa review deftly executed and cringingly funny - The Guardian

Emily St. John Mandels third novel Sea of Tranquility is expansive and complex, sweeping through huge swathes of time and space from the Canadian wilderness in 1912 to moon colonies in 2401 as it explores art, human morality and disease. While earlier sections of the novel excel, I was ultimately disappointed by its worldbuilding and character arcs. Nevertheless, Sea of Tranquility poses intriguing questions about human nature and the meaning of life over which I found myself ruminating long after finishing the book.

Sea of Tranquility is a novel composed of multiple overlapping storylines, marked by four distinct time periods. In 1912, Edwin St. Andrew travels from Britain to Canada, where he lives in exile. In 2020, a woman named Mirella learns of the death of her estranged friend Vincent. In 2203, a novelist named Olive Llewellyn travels from the moon colonies to Earth on a book tour to promote her newly released novel amid a devastating pandemic. In 2401, detective Gaspery Roberts investigates a mysterious anomaly in a Canadian forest that features in the previous three timelines; this anomaly, when witnessed, allows one to momentarily travel through time. Throughout the novel, Gaspery time travels to the past to interview and observe characters from the previous three time periods.

The first section of Sea of Tranquility is undeniably the highlight of the novel. Mandels quiet, understated prose excels at capturing the quiet wilderness in which Edwin finds himself. In contrast, later sections of the novel falter; Mandels description of a futuristic world of moon colonies and holograms is ungrounded and vague. The novel seems needlessly complex in its worldbuilding; it is spread too thin over its timelines and characters.

The characters of Sea of Tranquility also seem vaguely defined, perhaps due to the novels large cast size. At times, Mandel seems to gesture towards character complexity, but stops short of actually realizing it. For example, early on in the book, Edwin meets two Indigenous women while on a walk, and has the impulse to assert his opposition to colonization, perhaps out of a sense of guilt. However, he decides to say nothing, the moment passes, and this internal conflict is never explored further.

In another example, Gaspery and his sister Zoey are said to have an emotionally distant relationship; Zoey, in Gasperys mind, is elusive and mysterious. It is only at the end of the novel that Gaspery realizes the full extent of his sisters loneliness and comes to the conclusion that he is her only person. Mandel seems to use these brief scenes to methodically prove that these characters are worthy of sympathy. However, the sparsity of these moments, in conjunction with their failure to access the complexity of these characters, renders them unconvincing. Mandels characters ultimately lie somewhere between fully fleshed-out people and archetypes: they are given just enough interiority to pass as adequately sympathetic characters, but cant be considered to have any real depth.

I wondered whether the novel could have benefited from a smaller cast of characters with further exploration of each. Many of these characters, when taken together, are strangely cohesive they face similar moral dilemmas and obstacles in life almost to the point of redundancy. For instance, pandemics feature prominently across all timelines: Edwin dies from the 1918 flu pandemic, Mirella experiences the COVID-19 pandemic and Olive dies from a futuristic disease in the twenty-third century.

Mandel seems rather self-aware of the abundance of pandemics in her novel. So Im guessing Im not the first to ask you what its like to be the author of a pandemic novel during a pandemic, a journalist, at one point, asks Olive during her book tour.

The book also plays with thematic ties through art. In the twenty-first century, a musician composes a piece based on the anomaly that his sister once saw in a forest. Centuries later, Olive writes a novel that describes a character who listens to that piece in an airship terminal and finds herself transported back to a forest in Canada. In this way, the novel is incredibly recursive: it is very aware of its own form as a book.

Through these intersecting timelines, Mandel raises interesting conundrums about time travel and the value of human life. Zoey warns Gaspery not to attempt to save the lives of the people of the past, in fear that it will compromise the future; she proclaims that the job requires an almost inhuman level of detachment. Additionally, multiple characters throughout the novel grapple with the possibility that they are living in a simulation. Gaspery refers to the anomaly as a corrupted file, and he ponders the possibility that the world as he knows it is not truly real. This worry is compounded by the fact that, in the books futuristic timelines, very little of the characters lives, as they see them, are truly real. The humans who inhabit moon colonies live under an artificial sky that is meant to resemble that of the Earth. To communicate across space, characters utilize holograms that give only the appearance of a face-to-face meeting. On a more abstract level, the characters arent unfounded in their worry; they are, after all, living in a simulation called a novel.

Ultimately, I found the easy resolutions that the novel poses to these conundrums unconvincing. Gaspery, seemingly without any difficulty at all, resolves to save the people of the past from their fates. He warns Olive to cancel her book tour so that she can avoid contracting a disease that would have resulted in her death. Later on, he warns Edwin not to tell anyone about the anomaly that he experienced in Canada to prevent him from getting committed to an asylum. In the final years of his life, Gaspery comes to the conclusion that whether or not he is living in a simulation simply does not matter, as a life lived in a simulation is still a life. Such a conclusion, to me, cheapens the premise of the questions that this novel raises.

Sea of Tranquility is certainly an ambitious novel that, through futuristic worldbuilding, raises interesting questions about human nature and the significance of a single human life. However, I found Mandels attempts to address these questions to be lackluster and overly simplistic. Im left unconvinced, ultimately, of whether this novel needs or deserves a neat, easy resolution at all.

Editors Note: This article is a review and includes subjective opinions, thoughts and critiques.

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Emily St. John Mandel's 'Sea of Tranquility' is an overly simplistic exploration of Nihilism - The Stanford Daily