Yesterday I received an email regarding a divorce. No, it's not the same one as I posted on yesterday. It's another one of the Great Lakes crowd. It's on the internet, so it's public.
The tough times of Aleks and Kristi.
Also, if you know of a good Christian lawyer in the Branch County area or can offer any words of encouragement, feel free to head on over to his website and do that.
Now onto Friday Night movie night.
Gattaca is one of my favorite movies of all time. Along the lines of our discussion yesterday of Spider-Man 2 not being the greatest superhero movie of all time, I will propose that Gattaca is the best science fiction movie ever. The reviews at Amazon seem to confirm this. However, those reviews are like blogs. Anyone with one finger, an internet connection, and the time can say whatever they want.
Gattaca is full of theology like the book of Esther is full of theology. For those who do not know, the book of Esther never directly references God. It's a story of God being at work and in control even when you don't see his hand directly. It's the same with Gattaca.
In Gattaca, you have the main character, Vincent Freeman, who was born as the result of natural conception. This is fine and dandy except for he lives in a society that genetically engineered babies and placed everyone in positions based upon their genetic sequence. If they weren't born with the proper genetic makeup, then they wouldn't rise to the stars, symbolic of salvation, as Vincent desired to. He proceeded to take a life on the black market and live through a disabled man who had good genes.
It's a story of hope. It's a story of tragedy. It's a story of bigotry. It's a story of failure. It's a story of salvation. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it.
Those of faith being able to overcome the bad situation they're in is one of the themes of the movie. Those who place their trust in a God who cannot be seen in the civilization around them can reach salvation. That also parallels Esther. In Esther we see the Jews, who are in Persia, approaching a day of slaughter that is the result of a wicked decree proposed by Haman. Esther, being a Jew who had found favor with the king and became his wife, was perplexed by what to do in that situation. Mordecai had the following to say to her:
(Est 4:14 NASB) "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?"
I find two comforting things about this verse. For starters, if Esther failed, God would still deliver the Jews. His will, in action, is unstoppable. Second, God placed her in a position to be used by Him. The finest thing in life is to be an active part of God's will. I believe God is still doing amongst us the same things he did to Esther.
Esther, like us, had a choice. She could either step up to the plate and do what God, who wasn't so obvious, wanted her to do, or she could sit back and miss out on being part of the works of God. We are placed where we are at to do God's will where we are at. What does God want you to do? The stars are waiting.
Tomorrow, I'm going to discuss the Christology of Gattaca. It really frustrated me when a group of people used this in Theological Themes class at Great Lakes and George Brown said it didn't have any. Not only did it have theological themes as stated above, it also has Christological themes. I do think that the class should have been named Christological Themes rather than Theological, but that is another topic all together.
Any thought from those who took that class would be greatly appreciated.
Watch out for the potholes.
