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They are neither left nor right but only deeper. They bang drums and drive a “Jesus For President” bus that burns vegetable oil. They care about abortion, and homosexual marriage but they also care about poverty, the environment and social justice. They are the next generation of evangelicals. Experts are prognosticating that their influence will diversify the evangelical vote in the 2008 election cycle.

I think they are the grandchildren of the original Jesus people.

My Father, David Lee McAtee, was born in 1936 in the midst of the poverty of the great depression. He was born into a farm home where his Mom, who was single and pregnant, was forced to marry a man who had several children already and had recently lost his wife in childbirth. Dad was never sure if the man his Mom married was really his Dad.

I never knew my Dad’s Dad as he died before I was born. What little I pieced together over the years suggested that my Dad’s Dad was ‘bad to drink,’ and that he took his liquor out on his son, my Dad. As is the case with many women who are pregnant out of wedlock, my Dad’s mom was overprotective of my Dad to a fault. All this is to say that my Dad’s upbringing was difficult.

He fled home immediately after high school enlisting in the US Army Paratroopers. Dad didn’t speak much of the war years in Korea but what little he did speak suggested that he was uncomfortable with his role in Korea. He once made an offhand comment about shooting people the way he shot rabbits when we went hunting. I don’t ever remember my Father shooting a gun and missing what he was aiming at. Dad was eventually given a medical discharge for a injury received while jumping with his unit. Somewhere around here there is a picture of him in some military magazine in a hospital shaking hands with some visiting British dignitary.

Between his messed up upbringing and his messed up time in the military my Father was a hard man who had a difficult time functioning in social settings. His cruelty, learned from his own Father, carried over into his own family especially to his eldest son. In retrospect, and as odd as it might sound, I think Dad was mean to his eldest because he had the greatest fondness for him. His inability to function in social surroundings took him through a series of revolving jobs. I remember him as a union president at a local factory. I remember him as a salesman, though for the life of me I couldn’t tell you what he sold. I remember him, because I was one of his assistants, along with my siblings, delivering newspapers at 2:00 am on Sunday Mornings. I remember him as an accountant. His revolving jobs meant that Mom did most of the bread-winning in the family. This was a reality that itself caused a great deal of anxiety for him, I think.

Dad had a hard time earning money but he didn’t have a hard time spending it. He loved guns and fishing gear. He also loved books. He didn’t let the fact that he couldn’t afford these things get in the way of actually purchasing them on credit. In later years this came back to bite him as he had to sell many of his collectible firearms in order to square up with the IRS — the one creditor who insists on being paid.

As a boy I remember playing with those weapons while Dad was at work. I never fired them because I knew he would find that out but I would handle each weapon being awed by the craftsmanship.

Whereas men could get away with cruelty in their marriages in earlier generations and get away with it more easily, the times were changing. This meant that the cruelty that Dad carried into his marriage eventuated in his divorce. Women, in the 70’s, while still not having good options in a bad marriage still had more options then their mothers had.

Perhaps, surprising to us all, Dad was able to make a reasonable go at a second marriage, but eventually his spending habits and his inability to hold a job brought tensions into that marriage. His second wife, who was in many ways a kind woman, died not long after their 10th anniversary.

I’ve always thought that Dad’s life may have been a little more adjusted if he had worked with the Department of Natural Resources or something where he could be outdoors. The great outdoors seemed to be the one place where he was able to escape his demons. He was a outstanding fisherman, huntsman and woodsman. He also knew a great deal about hunting dogs. Growing up we always seemed to have a least one beagle and two bird dogs. As I mentioned earlier he also was quite the marksman. I have many fond memories of fishing and hunting with him. I remember hunting rabbits with him accompanied by the neighbors. Both of the hunting parties had Beagles but one of the dogs was particularly high pitched while the other had a bass voice. When the two of them got on a rabbit trail together it was a kind of beautiful sound I’ve never heard since.

Often it was Dad’s habit to say to me after returning from a hunting trip in the evening, “The man in the moon thinks your a goon.” Kind of a funny thing to remember, but it seemed to be a little game he liked to play. Once home we would make sure the dogs were well taken care of and we would proceed to clean the wild game that we shot. I’m not sure now, 35 years later, if I could remember how to skin an animal but when I was 13 I could do it with my eyes closed.

It has been 7 years now since Dad died. I can’t say I have anymore regrets now that he is gone then I did while he was living. My regrets are found in his difficulty to form attachments with those he loved. My regrets are found in in my inability to find a way through his difficulties.

In many ways I am a great deal like my Father. I’ve often thought of myself as a Christian version of my Dad minus the baggage plus God’s incredible saving grace.

On this Fathers Day I thank God for my Dad, being certain that God used him in my life to bend me in the direction that he wanted me bent and I pray that I might be the Father to my son that my Dad struggled being to his children.

Last week, I attended the Prince Caspian movie along with most of the families who are part of the Church I serve. A few observations.

1.) What’s with the collagen treatment on the lips of Anna Popplewell (The actress who played Susan)? When you compare Anna’s lips from the last Narnia movie with this one you can clearly see that Anna’s lips went through a growth spurt that Wilt Chamberlin could’ve only envied. When she laid a kiss on Prince Caspian at the end of the movie I was afraid that the guy was going to disappear in those lips, never to be found again.

2.) The writers of the script turned Lewis’s Susan character from being a soft spoken but wise Queen to a horny warrior princess. She went from being the Queen of Sheba in Lewis’s book to being an in heat Annie Oakley with a bow in the movie. On the transformation of Susan from being a Queen of Sheba type in Lewis’ book to being Annie Oakley with a bow in the movie the Director of Caspian, Andrew Adamson, made his views known.

“I know C.S. Lewis didn’t think women should fight, but I have a different view about how strong or assertive women should be. That was something I discussed and said there was no way I was making a film that says that.”

You know if Adamson wants to make a movie about his different views about ‘how strong and assertive women should be’ why doesn’t he first write a series of books called ‘The Chronicles Of Adamsonia,’ have them become treasured volumes and bestsellers to generations of Christians, and then make them into a Movie instead of defecating on the Chronicles of Narnia by injecting his modernistic Worldview onto a book that was decidedly not infected with modernity?”

3.) What gives with the kissing scene? This was another example of Adamson injecting his modernistic Worldview on to a book that was essentially medieval in its setting and flavor. I seriously doubt that most Christians thought about that scene as that kind of thing is the norm among our 15 year old girls today but it really isn’t a role model we should want most of our 15 year olds emulating.

4.) The character development was awful! You never got a sense of the refusal of ‘doubting Trumpkin’ to believe in Aslan. The film created no wonderment at Trumpkin’s loyalty in spite of his disbelief. The Nick-A-Brick character was completely flat and barely revealed the nature of his treachery. Peter comes across as a tyrant who will brook no counsel and who never repents of his boorish behavior. Reep-a-Cheep was the character that was perhaps most true to the novel. He was my favorite character in the movie.

5.) The character development could’ve been pursued somewhat if the script writers hadn’t decided to invent, whole cloth, a scene that is not in the book. The whole invasion of the Castle was yet another example of Hollywood try to improve a book instead of just telling the story of the book. This scene contributed nothing to the plot of the movie (though it had its due sense of daring and excitement) and it was used to despoil the Susan character by turning her into an assassin. You know, as I think about it, I think Susan had more kills in the movie then Caspian, Peter, and Edmund combined.

6.) Nick-a-Brick, who in Lewis’s book was the villainous ‘Black dwarf,’ was played by a White guy while the heroic Centaurs and Minotaurs were played by Black guys. Coincidence?

7.) The invented scene ended with the entrapment of a large Battalion of Old Narnians trapped behind the Castle Gate, who you knew were being slaughtered by Miraz’s army. It was a bit intense for children.

All in all if you could view it as a movie that had nothing to do with the book it was OK. The thing that gripes me is that these movies make their money by attaching themselves to the books. If they want to make stand alone movies that have nothing to do with the books then let them have at it. But if they are going to make Movies and suggest that they have anything to do with the books besides a few character names then it would be nice if they actually had something to do with the books.

Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

1.) Sex outside of marriage turns out well for all involved

There is such a commonness about this state of affairs that it is easy to miss. In the film Indy knocked up the leading lady 20 years prior to the time shown in the film and suddenly discovers 20 years later that he has a son. Everything went just perfect for the damsel who was pregnant out of wedlock in 1937 (appx.) and the son grew up to be a mostly well adjusted young man whom Indy looks on in pride.

That is not the way it usually works in real life folks.

2.) Mankind received its intelligence from Alien ‘god like’ beings

This is a common theme for Spielberg. If you recall, he explored this theme in his films E.T. and in Artificial Intelligence. Spielberg is a Cosmic Humanist of some sort (remember the force in his Star Wars films) and that comes out in this flick. What I find interesting at this point is the correspondence between the Worldview in this film as it touches origins and the Worldview of some of the ‘scientists’ that Ben Stein interviewed in ‘Expelled.’ In both the Indiana Jones IV movie and from interviews in ‘Expelled’ you have a Worldview on origins explicated that holds that intelligence on earth and perhaps mankind itself came from Space Aliens.

I think we need to be very aware of this Worldview on origins that we are seeing from both the intellectual community as displayed in ‘Expelled’ and from the pop-culture as displayed in the recent Indiana Jones movie.

The answer to the question ‘How do we know’ is ‘We know because of the revelation of Space Aliens.’

3.) Knowledge is the ultimate treasure

At the end of the flick Indy makes some kind of observation that the inhabitants of the long deceased culture that they are searching for found its value in treasure, which knowledge was the highest expression of. This wouldn’t be so bad except obviously knowledge is not related to the God of the Bible but rather it is knowledge as measured on a humanistic scale.

The answer to the question ‘What is our ultimate value’ is, ‘Our ultimate value is knowledge apart from God who made us.’

4.) Women are physically tough.

From the pony tailed cheerleader in the 50’s sock hop Malt Shop who slugs the guy who slugged her boyfriend (with a right cross that would make Joe Frazier proud) to the female Communist villain to the Mother of Indy’s son, all the women roles in this film are men’s physical equal. No need to protect the women here.

File this observation under anthropology.

5.) The Issue of Myth

Clearly the movie deals with the myths that govern a culture. What is interesting here is that while many today in our post-modern culture will tell you that it doesn’t matter if the myth is historically true or not (since there is no capital ‘T’ truth) the myth that is initially seen as just being another myth (Indy initially says, ‘it’s just a story kid.’) ends up being not only Myth but also historically true. This is interesting because increasingly I am finding Christians who are saying that it doesn’t matter if the creation account is true or not since it is our guiding myth or that it doesn’t matter if the miracle accounts are true or not since they serve as our guiding myth. What is important, according to these folks, is that we show non-Christians the superiority of the Christian myth over other myths. Yet, even in a mind candy film like Indiana Jones there seems to be some recognition that myth needs to correspond to historicalness in order to be anything more than a ‘story.’

Indiana Jones is a fun adventure movie in the Spielberg strain. It’s worldview is decidedly messed up but what epistemologically self conscious person watches movies in order to be informed in their Worldview?

Another Memorial day has passed in America. The parading bands were out. Red, White and Blue bunting festooned houses. Little American flags flew promiscuously in yards all across a thousand communities. Family graves were visited and spruced up. In the Midwest, this is a weekend when people will plant their family gardens. Here in Charlotte, we had the Vietnam Wall memorial visit us and many people made pilgrimage to the wall. Also, in Charlotte the Methodist Church held her annual luncheon barbecue where the community gathered to hob-knob and talk about the Pistons and the Red Wings.

Just another Memorial Day in small town America with cherished customs and traditions that have been pursued for years and years.

On this Memorial Day though I couldn’t help but think about the purpose for which Memorial Day started over 100 years ago and that is to remember our war dead. And then when I started thinking about the necessity of remembering the war dead and the sacrifice they made I began to wonder if those who died for their country at Saratoga and at Cowpens died for the same country as those who died for their country at Fallujah and Rumaylah? I wondered if those Brave Americans who died on the beaches of Normandy or at sites across the South Pacific would still want to risk dying for the country we have become? Would my Father still have jumped with the Airborne troops in Korea and would my Grandfather still have wanted to drive for the Big Red One in the Battle of the Bulge if they could see what the country for which they risked all has become? Would the American Dough boys who did not return from Marne or Belleau Wood recognize the country for which they died?

On this Memorial Day I couldn’t help but ask myself, as I remembered the sacrifice of American Brave, what the sacrifice has accomplished. Did our Fathers fight and die in the jungles of Vietnam to stop the falling dominoes of Statist Communism so that the falling dominoes of Statist Globalism could be achieved? Did our Fathers land and die at Inchon and crush the Reds so that America could be landed on and crushed by the environmentalist Greens? Did our Father’s in WWI stop the Hun from covering Europe in order that ‘political correctness’ could cover the world? Did our Father’s in WWII stop the holocaust of the Jews so that the Americans would have the right to bring a generational holocaust upon the unborn in our country?

On this Memorial Day I wondered if America’s Dead could speak what they would say? What would they say about America being invaded and conquered by illegal immigrants? Would they notice the ghastly irony in their dying to protect America from foreign influence only to see later generations invite foreign influence? Would the brave American dead, if they could speak, lecture that they did indeed die to protect the rights of Homosexuals to get married? Would they say that they charged that machine gun nest or jumped on that grenade in order to protect the disintegration of the American family? Would they wax eloquent that their great sacrifice was accomplished to protect the right of no fault divorce, 30% illegitimacy rates, and 1.3 million abortions annually? Would they use close and carefully reasoned arguments to prove that they died in order to protect the right of their progeny to kill the America they died for through cultural hari-kari and demographic winter? Would they explain that they died in defeating Empires in order that their sons and grandsons could die building an Empire? Would they lead the rhetorical charge in explaining that they died so that their daughters and grand-daughters could die in a military uniform? Would they explain that they made the supreme sacrifice in order that the ideological sons of their enemies would rule their descendants?

Yesterday, during Memorial Day, I was patriotic with the best of them, but my patriotism was flowing in different channels. I pray God that He might once again raise up a brave warrior class that are willing to live and die for the America for which our Father’s died — an America very different from the one in which we are living.