Group Film | Fuel

Hey groupies,

The film Fuel will be shown at my off-campus house tomorrow (10 January) at 5:30pm.
Director Josh Tickell travels an 11 year investigation in his "Veggie Van" to come up with concrete ways of ridding America of the oil addiction and find alternate resources. By finding solutions such as creating "green", eco-friendly jobs and responsible auto production, Tickell works towards cleaner water, energy independence and better foreign policies with oil.

Favorable Review

Critical Review 

Truth in the Matrix?

The first cultural artifact I chose to do is the movie The Matrix. This story is about a computer hacker named Neo who has come across something called the Matrix. He soon learns that the life he was living was not real and that it is a computer program designed by artificial intelligence. It was intended to keep the world and the people of it under control while they harvest and grow humans as a source of energy to sustain themselves. Neo is believed to be “The One” because it is prophesized that he will save the human race from the machines. I think this movie tells of how we make our own futures every second of our lives by the choices that we make. Every time we make a decision, a sort of path is made. Just like Neo, we all face many choices throughout each of our lives. There are an infinite number of “doors” and “pills” for us to take, and each of these represents our decisions. Neo’s choice to “follow the white rabbit” is ultimately what leads him to finding Morpheus and discovering the truth about the world. It is the same for us. The choices we make either lead to us to God or away from him. It is our purpose in life to make decisions, and figure things out for ourselves or else God would not have gave us this amazing ability. I also think the agents represent sin in our lives and Morpheus symbolizes God. Like the agents, sin has a way of finding us and following us wherever we go. It can also take form in millions of things in the same way that they can pick anyone to take over. Sin creeps into our lives and “infects” all that we do, separating us from God. Just like God, Morpheus provides a path out for Neo. During the scene in the office, Morpheus tells Neo that he will have to make a choice to do what he says or let them take him. God tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 that he will always provide us with an escape so that we may rise up against what is trying to crush us.

Discussion Questions:

                  1.  How do you know whether the things you perceive are real or just an illusion?

2.  Do we know anything for sure?

3. If our world was an illusion would you prefer to live in the "real world" if in many ways that world sucked?

The Matrix

The movie “The Matrix,” released in 1999, was written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski. The movie’s title refers to the computer-generated world that all of humanity believes is reality. Neo, or Thomas Anderson has been searching for the truth of the Matrix and in the end, he is determined to rescue the world from that trap.  The movie’s plot shows that human purpose has been reduced to being a battery source for the machines that humans themselves created.  The main evil in the world – the matrix, the machines, the agents – came about from humanity itself.  Humans were the ones who brought this kind of evil, and it seems like only one human can rescue all of mankind from the slavery that it has been pulled into.  Despite the darkness and hopelessness that fills most of the movie, I think it does in one sense long for the coming of the kingdom.  It calls for truth to be revealed and people to believe enough in themselves to show that truth to everyone else. 

King Corn

Hey guys,

We will be watching “King Corn” in Schultze 252 tomorrow (Thursday) at 7:00 pm. “King Corn” is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat—and how we farm.

The New York Times gave it this critical review:

http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/movies/12corn.html?_r=0

Owen Gleiberman gave it this favorable review:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20152841,00.html

Here is the trailer, if you’re curious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr5HQrgg9mM

See you all tomorrow. And in class today, I guess.

Andrew

Real Steel

For my first cultural artifact, I chose a movie called the “Real Steel.” Directed by Shawn Levy, “Real Steel” is about robot boxing in the near future. The film involves action, drama, and science-fiction factors to portray a transformation of a formal, immature boxing champion to grown champion of the robot boxing with his trash-like robot and 11 years old son. As the story develops with the main character, Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), discovering back the glittering moments by winning the robot boxing, the director emphasizes the importance of one’s gift and happiness as the crucial factors of human purpose. The portrayal of the ancient boxing robot from the trash becoming the champion of the competition signifies one’s creation and talent in fulfilling his/her purpose of life. Evil, therefore, originates from anything that hinders people from realizing their vocation in lives. Consumerism is one of the main interrupter as appeared with bankruptcy and destruction in Kenton’s personal life. Many owners of the boxing robots are obsessed with consuming better fighting robots. The main villain named Tak Mashido invests a lot of finance into Zeus robot to win the robot boxing competitions. However, Zeus is defeated by the trash robot and Kenton, who fought with their true purposes in lives. Redemption is found in the relationship between Charlie Kenton and his son Max Kenton. Not only Charlie had left Max with his mother, but also Charlie has sold his custody to Max for money. In the final scene, Max forgives and contributes Charlie to start a new life by encouraging him on his vocation. The artifact unnecessarily mentions of the Kingdom of God, but it certainly supports cultural empire to respect old creation and development. The trash robot succeeding to be the champion of the robot boxing competition clearly conveys potential of once thrown away stuff.

Real Steel was a “feel good” movie with dramas, action, and dynamic moments. The movie, however, fails to convey profound meanings. Would this kind of movie be able to impact on the viewers or make the audience ignorant of the worldly concerns?

The movie is set on the environment where technology has developed to include robots in sports. The film, however, does not focus its light to the potential detrimental effects of such development in humanity. How would the director’s single-sided worldviews and perceptions impact our thoughts? How should we discern on such kind of unclear existence of worldviews?

Killing Them Softly (2012)

The other night, I went to a cheap theater with a couple friends, and we saw a film from November entitled “Killing Them Softly.” Starring Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, and Ray Liotta, this film is about a trio of amateur thugs who rob an underground, high-stakes poker game in New Orleans. As a result, the crime economy collapses and hit men (Pitt & Gandolfini) are called in to enforce the consequences.

This film says some interesting things about human purpose, and also features obvious political subtext about America. In numerous scenes, either a car radio or television screen is playing presidential debates between George Bush and Barack Obama wherein they comment on the nation’s current financial condition in a way that follows the film’s plot and provides seamless segues between scenes. According to director Andrew Dominik, human purpose is chiefly concerned with the acquisition of money, with women on the side. This film did not reveal any slice of Heaven, or “kingdom vision” to me at all.

One could make the argument that evil actually stems not from organized crime in general, but more specifically from the degenerate wanna-be organized criminals that forget their place in the food-chain, so to speak. And when all is said and done, not one character realizes redemption—yeah, it’s one of those cynical movies where everyone dies or gets picked up by police officers. In the end two guys are left, Pitt and Jenkins, and one conflict is left unresolved: the question of money. Pitt’s character (Jackie Cogan) meets Jenkins’ (The Driver) in a bar to collect payment for his recent “house-cleaning,” but the two can’t agree on a price. From a TV, Obama speaks about reclaiming the American dream and realizing that “out of many, we are one,” to which Cogan replies, “This guy wants to tell me we’re living in a community? Don’t make me laugh. I’m living in America, and in America you’re on your own. America’s not a country. It’s just a business. Now f***ing pay me.” Cogan seeks his redemption in a paycheck.

The implication in this film is that life in the empire is a dog-eat-dog world of violence, money and drugs. “Killing Them Softly” is a film that numbs our perception of the kingdom vision, and tells us that this broken world is all we have.

1. What does “Killing Them Softly” encourage the viewer to desire, or believe in?

2. Does this film provide an accurate sketch of America’s society and politics?

The Show Goes On - Lupe Fiasco

     Lupe Fiasco, one of my favorite rap artist, is well respected and known for his inspirational lyrics. Hip-hop music are viewed negatively as they usually deal only with drugs, alcohol and sex. But Lupe tries to teach or encourage through his lyrics. “The Show Goes On” is one of Lupe's famous hits and it was on my top played playlist for awhile simply because I liked the beat. But as I was singing along and trying to mimic his rap, different lines struck out to me and I began to gain interest in the lyrics.
     Lupe tells the story of segregated African American kids who live in the ruins of the ghettos. We can infer that he is talking about African descendent kids because he mentions Africa and Haiti along with New York and Detroit. Lupe brings up the concern of the African American identity and the existence of racism, which had been created through the selfishness and sinful nature of human beings.The first verse talks about how the black people felt that they were still being treated as slaves and that they aren't happy about it. He emphasizes the mistreatment with a phrase about whips on the back and threats.

     The origin of evil in the lives of these ghetto kids is their childhood in broken families and no education. They are only exposed to and therefore, automatically engage in the culture of substance abuse, violence and sex out of marriage. But Lupe tries to bring redemption to them and encourages his fellow “home boys” to go on with their hands held high even though something knocks them down. He tells them not to give up as he repeatedly sings the chorus “the show goes on!” which symbolizes the continuously moving world. He is trying to preach the message that we have to keep going because the world won't stop for us. The kids should not give up but pursue their dreams just as he himself did and succeeded with hip-hop, going against what others predicted, rapping “say hip-hop only destroy, tell em' look at me!”.

     If the listeners endure their hardships and continue to stay strong, they will be able to brake free from their chains of evil. Lupe is a collectivist as he influences and works for the common good and flourishing of others.

1. What are some other reasons these segregated ghetto communities have become increasingly destructive?

2. How can we get involved in helping these ghetto communities experience the Kingdom?

artifact1: The Iron Giant

I know: it's okay for men to cry. In no way, however, does that mean it's easy for me to cry. Maybe it's because I'm an optimist, maybe it's because I'm just plain emotionless (although I doubt it, I did theater all through high school, and that took emotion). If you ask me, though, I would say it's because there are only a small selection of things that can make me cry. The things that usually make me cry are goodbye's, ends of eras (notably friends graduating), select pieces of music (m83's album Hurry Up We're Dreaming; straight feels, Debussy's Claire De Lune), Select television episodes (most notably this clip from Fresh Prince of Bel Air: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7Ha08rKkqc). But perhaps no other piece of media can make me cry more than Brad Bird's The Iron Giant. I can't make it through the last half hour of the film with out tears streaming down my face. And the reason that this movie is so apt to tug on my heart strings is due to it's emphasis on the fact that everyday, each and everyone of us is doing the best we can to hold back the brokenness and evil within us. This is showcased through the Iron Giant himself as he (with the help of Hogarth Hughes) does everything in his power to fight his true purpose of death and destruction. The Iron Giant, in contrast to it's message on the evil of humanity, also reveals to us that we are all capable of extreme good, and that above all else, the most beautiful action capable of humanity is self-sacrifice (John 15:13 "Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"). But what does that mean for us as humanity? are we born good, doing our best to keep ourselves from evil? Or are we inherently evil doing everything in our power to become good? I would lean more towards the latter, but perhaps we will never know.

The Album "Fever's End"

The artifact I chose is the album called or “Fever’s End” by Tablo, a Korean hip-hop rap artist. The inspiration behind the album comes from his hardship death threats and harassment from the society to him and his family (If you are interested in the reason for the death threats, look up “Stalking of Daniel Lee.”). The harassment almost ended Tablo’s musical career until this album came out after a year of solitude and escape from the society.

There are two parts to this album, each containing five tracks. Few songs I want to mention is the song called “Dear TV,” “Origin,” and “The Tide.” “Dear TV” is an English lyric song which talks about what goes on in the media today by portraying the media to a television. Some notable lyrics is “Dear TV, desensitize me. Give me more genocide please. The world is your aphrodisiac, so you stay turned on every minute, every second I breathe.” This song well describes the evil in the pop culture and the things that are being forced upon people like the matrix in the movie Matrix. I recommend people to listen to this song because the song is only one verse which is also in English.

The song “Origin” talks about how we have to thank the origin of where all our comforts come from. Some of the lyrics, translated by myself, is “A cup of coffee, from poverty,” “people who made my shoes are bare feet,” “one’s luxury means one’s poverty,” “but I need technology, build me another factory please!” “doesn’t matter of the forest is gone. Only focused on a single apple on a branch.” This song well portrays the social class in today’s society and how many luxury people get is from poverty and sacrifices from another. “For the fuel that runs your car, someone runs the battle ground,” says Tablo. This song also connects well the song of Mary and the Right-side-up Kingdom of God. The last verses go like “for the people who keep quiet because I talk, thank you and I’m sorry.”

The song “The Tide” talks about how the world traps people in cages and cell that has no escape by comparing people to fishes. “You try to escape/resist from the tide, when the world is an aquarium,” “you try to escape the fish hooks, when the world is a net.” This song also relates to how the world is like a matrix. It can also relate to the Seahaven in The Truman Show where Truman is locked in a city bounded by sea which he can’t escape.

The whole album reveals that humans naturally live for their own goods and that the world is becoming a prison with no escape. This album itself does a bad job revealing anything about redemption and the whole album is felt by many people to be depressing. However, his later album as Epik High called “99” has more hopeful and somewhat redemption relating messages. 

Q1: In the song "The Tide" 

“You try to escape/resist from the tide, when the world is an aquarium,” “you try to escape the fish hooks, when the world is a net.”

do you agree? and how realistic is this lyrics to everyday life?

Q2: Can Christian songs contain the kind of lyrics and messages as in Tablo's album "Fever's End"?

Lars and the Real Girl

Lars and the Real Girl:

        Lars is the younger brother of the story who has a mental illness caused by events and experiences in his childhood. When he is older, he buys a life-size doll that he thinks is his girlfriend to help him with his loneliness. He names her Bianca and talks to her as a normal person. Everyone in the town is weird-ed out at first, but in order to help Lars, they treat her as a normal person, and slowly she begins to grow on them all. As he becomes less lonely and more comfortable with regular people, he slowly finds ways to get rid of the doll, ending with her death.
         This movie shows us that people are created as social beings and long for companionship. People aren't very good at being alone and in solitude. I think it also shows us that the world was created as a good thing, but has fallen. Everyone wants to create something good in the world, just like Lars created Bianca, but as time goes on, the good eventually goes away and something else can take its place. We can see this when Lars creates a "death" for Bianca so he can be with the girl from his work.
        I think this movie is crying out for the kingdom. It shows us that people are created for companionship, not only with people but with God himself. We can't replace God with other people, things, or emotions. Human beings are created for this purpose.
       This movie causes us to desire a true relationship with God and others. We aren't meant to be left alone, so we should work on all of our relationships.
       The origin of sin in this movie begins when the brother left his dad and Lars alone. He abandoned them when Lars needed him the most, but didn't realize it until later in the movie. The sister-in-law brought out the loneliness and caused Lars to realize just how alone he was in the world.
       Redemption in this movie comes from all the people in the movie, but mainly the doctor and the girl from work. As the movie went on, Lars realized that all the people in the movie cared about him, so they worked to include Bianca as well. The doctor helped him to cope with all of his past experiences and work through them, and the girl from work helped him get over his fear of being with people.

Lars and the Real Girl

Lars and the Real Girl is a story about a man is so lonely that he buys an anatomically-correct doll that he can call his girlfriend. The doll's name is Bianca. At first everyone in Lars' community is really weirded out by the idea of him having a fake girlfriend, but soon came to accept that Lars was lonely and needed to overcome his issues from his parents' death in his own way. The community began to incorporate Bianca in activities such as "modeling" and "teaching".  As Lars' loneliness subsides he declares that Bianca is sick and so she eventually dies.

This movie shows us that humans are created as social beings. No matter how hard someone tries to be alone, they always long for companionship; even the loneliest people talk to themselves as some form of interaction. This movie shows us that we live in a fallen world, but that God's kingdom will fulfill our longings. When Lars first orders Bianca he is looking for companionship, much like humans who try to fill their lives with things. After awhile Lars discovers that there is no substitute for an actual, interactive relationship after he begins to notice a girl from his workplace. This can be compared to God's interactions with us and how we only feel fulfilled through an interactive, two way, relationship with Christ.

I believe this artifact is crying out for the kingdom because it promotes the idea of having an actual relationship with God instead of trying to fill the "God-void" with material things. Just as Lars wasn't fulfilled by his relationship with Bianca, we cannot feel whole when trying to focus our lives around other things besides a living God. Lars and the Real Girl encouraged me to hope and desire a better relationship with God. I could accomplish this goal by searching for God in my life instead of waiting for moments when I feel like He's reaching out to me. No relationship can be successful or grow when it's one-sided.

The origin of sin in this movie is Lars' loneliness. Loneliness itself is not a sin, but is a product of a sinful world. Lars feels he is not worthy of love because he "killed" his mother during childbirth. Redemption in this Lars and the Real Girl is found when the community gathers around Lars to make Bianca feel welcome, which in turn makes Lars feel welcome and safe within the community. When Lars realizes the love around him he no longer needs Bianca and finds love in a real girl.

1. What is good about community based on this film synopsis and discussion?
2. Can something be presented as a sin even if it is not an "Actual" sin?

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Helpless

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a TV show about a teenage girl whose destiny as "The Chosen One" changes her life forever. As the opening title of the show puts it, "In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer". However in "Hopeless", as a rite of slayer passage, her Watcher, Giles, begins poisoning her during their training sessions. The organic compound he injects her with drains Buffy of all her slayer strength and coordination. All slayers upon reaching their 18th birthday are required to be striped of their powers and locked in a dark house to fight a vampire.

         Without her strength, Buffy isn’t even able to stand up to human high school bullies or fight off cat-callers. Completely dismayed, Buffy tells Giles how scared she is. His heart breaks for her so he tells Buffy about the rite of passage. Horrified that her own Watcher would poison her, Buffy runs home only to find out that the insane vampire she was supposed to kill has kidnapped her mother. Forced to engage in this barbaric ritual for her mother’s safety, Buffy enters the house. She eventually outwits the vampires, kills them, and rescues her mother.

         This episode shows that even without her strength Buffy still has power. Even though her father forgot about her birthday, Giles cares enough about her to loose his job. Buffy has purpose beyond her slayer calling. Even those without superpowers can fight evil, like the Scoobies and Giles. Redemption comes from Buffy’s will to rid the world of evil not her slayer powers.

Why do you think that the directors chose to show Buffy’s lack of physical strength in a sexualized way from males? Is this something that most women without superpowers feel?

Do you think that Giles deserved to be fired? Did he care too much about Buffy to do his job? Or do both Giles’ passions and Buffy’s passions make them better fighters of evil?

Eternity's Edge

As I just finished a novel over the weekend I decided that this would be a good opportunity to share a bit of a larger artifact. I read the book Eternity's Edge, the second book in Bryan Davis's Echoes from the Edge trilogy. I have been a fan of Bryan Davis since third or fourth grade and have read his works extensively. I can now see that this has affected me in many ways.  The motifs of light and darkness and epic battles between Good and Evil in his primarily Christian fantasy writing shaped the way I view the world.

The novel Eternity's Edge is imbued with many of the same traits as Davis's former writings, but there are some shifts in theme that reflect changes in culture that I have identified with strongly.  The plot is based around the idea that there are three parallel universes. One can pass between the dimensions with a special mirror, music, and a bright flash of light.  The protagonist is a teenage violin prodigy named Nathan.  At this point in the story Nathan is teamed up with several people from different dimensions trying to stop "interfinity" which is the merging of the three worlds. "Interfinity" would cause mass chaos, destruction of the worlds, ect. Basically lots of bad stuff. Nathan's closest companion is a girl named Kelly.  However Kelly has a rocky past, and hasn't been raised with the strong virtues that Nathan had.  This causes some confusion for Nathan especially.  He doesn't really know how to think of Kelly.  She wants to be by his side for every adventure, no matter how dangerous.  This conflicts his sense of chivalry to no end.

This novel does a good job of showing how the line between good and evil cuts through the heart of everyone.  Everyone has a "fatal flaw" so to speak.  It also shows that the purpose of Christians is to combat evil in whatever form it appears, especially if it is within us.  It shows that we cannot redeem ourselves.  We are broken lumps of iron, that only God can forge into a tool worthy of his purpose.  Those living in the empire are shown to be in fear, but unable to do anything to protect themselves.  Those who can see the light of the kingdom can see their own helplessness as well, but they understand that although they are broken, God can still work through them, showing his strength in their weakness.

How should chivalry be interpreted within modern culture?

What does battling evil look like in the modern empire?

The Matrix

Released in 1999, the Matrix is a movie that tells the story of Neo, a computer hacker who is brought out of the Matrix, a computer simulation that mentally imprisons humanity to provide power for a race of machines. Only a few humans remain free and fight the Matrix. 

One of the amazing things we see in this movie is that until seen from the outside, virtually no one even begins to doubt that what they know as reality is not real.  This points us to our own blindness: we see this world from the perspective given to us by our culture, and we see nothing else. It is not until we are brought out of our culture that we can see the world from another perspective, and we then realize that there is more to see than we could even have imagined. We live life with a huge number of assumptions about how things work, what is possible or viable, and what is not. The Matrix shows us that these are only assumptions, and therefore may not be true. But as humans, it's most comfortable to simply live with these assumptions and not questions them. This is shown to us by the character Cypher who is willing to betray the rest of the resistance in order to be reintroduced to the Matrix, forget about everything else and once more live in a life of ignorance. But as shown by Neo and the resistance, we are called to see more than just the Matrix; we are called to see the Kingdom God has envisioned. Our purpose is therefore to be redeemed from the evil of accepting our blindness by questioning our assumptions, and then helping others to do the same.

This leads us to some important questions:

What assumptions do we have? This question is difficult because we most often need another perspective before we can even doubt our own; this is why help from others is important.

What can we do to provide ourselves some alternative perspectives?

What is the hidden cost of living without questioning our perspectives?

artifact1: Lana Del Rey

The first time I heard of Lana Del Rey was around June 2011 with her single debut "Video Games". Since then Lana's music and physical appearance has been captivating and interesting to the human eye. Through her single debut, Lana came out with a heart-breaking, morbid, wild yet carpe diem theme album called "Born To Die". Throughout her album Lana also talks about the ups and downs of love and the consequences that come along with it; like not being able to see her hubby on the 'other side'. She also sings about her love for living on the 'wild side' by expressing her love for drugs, vanity, and her version of the American Dream.

The stories that this album tells about human purpose, according to Lana Del Rey, is that life is a way to express one's love for another or something through action. In "Dark Paradise" Lana talks about her love for her lover in a morbid way, however throughout the lyrics Lana talks about her (human) purpose as non-existing anymore because her lover is gone. She therefore goes on to sing more about through her album hence the title of her first track on the album and the album itself.

Throughout Born To Die, Lana Del Rey reveals that life in the empire and/or Kingdom of God is dead. Even though Lana mentions God in a few of her songs, they are technically positive. In her song "Gods and Monsters", Lana goes on to say that her 'perfect heaven' is a heaven in where innocence is lost, wants to get f**ed hard, shooting up, basically doing whatever she pleases or as she sings "doing anything that I needed".

Do you consider Lana Del Rey's lyrics a form of art?

After reading this post, would you still consider listening to Lana Del Rey's music now having a somewhat understanding of what her lyrics are saying?

Assuming that everybody in class is a believer, could you think of anybody else that has similar lyrics and/or 'beliefs' similar to those of Lana Del Rey?

How I Met Your Mother - False Positive

The TV show "How I Met Your Mother" is a show about a man named Ted, his friends(Lily, Marshall, Barney and Robin) and, as said in the title of the show, his life leading to the point at which he met the mother of his children, to whom he is retelling the story. And so in the twelfth episode of the sixth season, Ted, Robin and Barney go through Lily’s, Marshall’s wife, news of pregnancy(later on revealed as false) which leads all four of them (Ted not included) to rethink their lives then relapse into their old lives once they learn that Lily isn't really pregnant. In the end it was Ted who brought them all back to senses, telling them the things that they needed to hear.

                This show as a whole depicts what might be the norm of the world, always hanging out in bars, sexual relations out of marriage and stuff like that. And yet they still have an inert sense of good. Lily’s pregnancy caused them to reexamine their life so Barney gave his Christmas bonus to charity(not one of his strippers). This episode emphasized on following ones dreams, of Robin’s dream to be a reporter for a big network, and Lily and Marshall’s dream of having a baby.  They also have a great sense of community in that although they may have arguments at times, they share each other’s burdens, and they intervene when they see that a person has gone off to the far end. In this particular episode, Ted convinces the gang to be sensible and get them back from their relapse.  Christians should have this sense of community, an intentional community that will encourage one another and will rebuke when one has strayed off the path. Reexamining our lives gives us knowledge of what has gone wrong and what we need to do. We should keep our resolve and lift it up to God.

                But a couple of questions come up:

                Examine your dreams and your life goals, do you think that it would line up with what God has in store for you?

                Are you in an intentional community or are you just trying to live your life alone?

Artifact 1

The artifact that I chose is the movie title “The reason of this crime”. This is movie is explaining about the life of people who lives in the small island in Korea. There is this girl who lived her entire life in that island. Since not that many people live in that island she get raped by many people but no one really talk about it because they want to keep the island quiet and peace even though they know that. Her daughter get killed her husband by accident but most of the people in the island saw how it happened but all of them pretend they didn’t know anything about that. So she became crazy and killed all the people in the island.

In the beginning of the this movie, main character was really kind and nice even though people in the island is really mean and make her work all day. The scene where I felt that all the people have an evil inside is when she became crazy. She didn’t learn how to kill people or be mean and rude. From that I thought all the people have the nature of evil inside of us. I couldn’t really find redemption in this movie.

In this movie, main character keeps talk to God that I suffered so long time and even though I kill many people I will go to heaven. Also, before she kills the people, she said that God told me to do this. In this movie, I think the kingdom of the God meant good place or only good people go to.

Questions.

What kind of plan does God have to this person?

Since this main character killed all the people with reasons and she was really nice for a long time, will she go to the heaven? 

Artifact 1: Locked out of Heaven

For my first cultural artifact, I chose to look at Bruno Mars’s music video for his hit single “Locked out of Heaven,” which is from his second studio album entitled Unorthodox Jukebox.  Bruno’s smooth vocals croon about a marvelous relationship in this pop-reggae track.  The concept of this vintage-style music video is simple: Bruno Mars having a good time with his friends—drinking, hanging out, and partying. 

This music video captures the essence of what a lot of today’s popular culture embraces: sex, alcohol, and just a good time.  Some of the lyrics of this song bluntly state that “your sex takes me to paradise.”  This particular phrase corrupts something that God intended for a man and a woman to enjoy in the confines of marriage; it takes something God created as good and perverts it into something foul and loathsome. 

This particular element of culture, in essence, “numbs us for the empire.”  It fosters in us the idea that our ultimate goal in life is just to have a good time and, partially, that finding that certain someone is of the utmost importance.  However, reality will prove that going out with friends and having a significant other will not generate eternal happiness.  Humans were made to worship; humans were made to worship God.  Worshipping anything other than God—even if they are “good things” such as friends or family—will not satisfy us for more than a short while. 

Neo, in The Matrix, was looking for something more than the life he was living.  With the help of others, he found out the world he thought was real was actually just a façade.  The truth was cold and harsh, but the truth ultimately set him free.  Similarly, we, as Christians, have to remember that the world in which we live is not truly where we belong.  Although we are immersed in a culture that completely and totally contradicts Christianity, we must remember the truth: only belief in Jesus Christ will set us free.

1.     Why does this music video have nothing to do with the lyrics of the song?

2.     Would the lyrics of this Billboard 100 song have the same success in, say, the 1950’s?  Or would the brazen lyrics about sex be considered offensive?

3.     What does the success of this extremely catchy song say about our current pop culture?