From the Scrolls: Why Luther Still Matters

When we look back over the past five hundred years in the West, it’s easy to wonder at the battles between Catholics and Protestants that dominated the landscape. From our perch of plurality, the idea of Christians killing other Christians seems absurd. (For many of us the idea of killing over ANY religion – my story of God is better than your story of God – is more than absurd, it’s insane.) For centuries, however, especially in places like England (The battles continue in Ireland to this day), Catholics and Protestants fought a vicious, bloody battle that see-sawed through a long line of Monarchial reigns and caused the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents.

The question then, is why it still matters. What importance does Martin Luther, the figure at the heart of the Catholic/Protestant split, hold in a time where a Lutheran church and a Catholic church can be found within two blocks of one another? And what does it matter for those of us who aren’t particularly religious, except to make the point that “fighting over religion is stupid.”

Protestants, of course, lionize Martin Luther, even when he is criticized. (His anti-Semitism, for example, is often brushed aside.) But they regard him for his religious ideas, for his theology that forms the bedrock of their faith. What we miss when we discuss Luther’s revolution, however, is not only did he crack the Catholic Empire with his theology of “every man a priest,” he did so much more. The issue regarding diversity of opinion was seriously challenged for the first time. New feelings of nationhood came into effect. Our attitudes regarding work, art, and human failings all changed. We saw the first effect of mass media. And two centuries later the Protestant revolution would twin with its secular cousin in the Enlightenment and form the basis for the concept of Western Democracy.

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So who was Martin Luther? Well, he was a miner’s son from Saxony, a devout monk and professor of theology at Wittenburg. For seven years he had wrestled with his faith, agonizing about the state of his soul in his quest for purity. When the sale of indulgences, a kind of certified check drawn by the pope on the “treasury of merit accumulated by the saints”, became a regular fundraising practice of the church, Luther was abashed and angry. (A person could buy an indulgence to lessen the term of a person, either themselves or a friend, in Purgatory.) For Luther, the whole concept of forgiveness rested on grace. This was not a trivial issue for him, but the core of the Gospel. How could true penance be bought in the open market? He was thirty-four years old when he posted his 95 theses on the door of All Saints’ church at Wittenberg, though at the time it was hardly a rebellious act. (The equivalent today would be posting a provocative article in a scholarly journal.)

What happened, however, changed the course of history. Word of his ideas spread like wildfire through Germany and beyond through pamphlets. The printing process had advanced enough to allow thousands upon thousands of Luther’s arguments to be disseminated and absorbed by the masses. Politically, Germany had been looking to break free from the papacy, and so the German princes backed Luther. What happened next, of course, is a matter of history. Later, Luther himself would persecute the early Anabaptists, who had some radical ideas of their own.

The Protestant Reformation was as much about politics as it was about theology, but in the end, it was the power of an idea that made the difference. Luther changed the common narrative. For tens of thousands living under a hierarchical and oppressive rule, particularly for the peasants, Luther’s greatest accomplishment was giving them a different story. A story that said they mattered as individuals. That God loved them despite their low station. And that they did not need to follow the dictates of corrupt, power hungry officials to be accepted by God.

When we track history, we often track individuals. Great figures that somehow stand out in their time. But usually, it isn’t the person so much as it is the idea that brings change. Martin Luther still matters because he reminds us that our struggles are often shared. That the pain we experience (in this case, it was his desire to worship devoutly and sincerely) is usually felt by those around us. And that our choice of narrative is perhaps the greatest decision we will ever make.

Who are you? What story have you chosen to live by? Are you a pawn in the masses, a person with no voice and no importance? Is your value minimal, or can you accept a new narrative that sings with your importance? Martin Luther believed that you and I were important. That we were born free, free to pursue our passions and purposes. Free to worship and live without waiting for our “betters” to tell us what to think or intercede for us. (“Every Christian is a free lord, subject to none.”) Luther believed that and changed the world. Five hundred years later he remains an important figure, not only for his accomplishments, but for the questions he asked. Questions we’d do well to answer.

-Steve

Tuesday Link Love: Super Bowl, MIA and Harrison Ford?

    So how was your first day of the Monday Challenge? If you're not sure what I'm talking about, you can find it here. Good luck and have fun with it.
    Over the past week or two, I've been working on a plan for this site, regular features that will appear on certain days. This makes it easier for you to figure out what days you might want to check in (all of them?), and easier for me as it provides at least a loose grid to center my ideas. I may post on other days, as well, but here's the schedule moving forward.
    Monday – Encouragement, Facing Challenges, etc… Your weekly post designed to encourage you and push you towards your dreams.
    Tuesday – Link Love: interesting articles from the previous week that you might find interesting with a minimum of commentary (there has to be some, right?)
    Wednesday (or Thursday) – From the Scrolls – As a fantasist, I read a lot of history, so this day will be a post on something I've read recently that I think you might find interesting. Hell, it might even be relevant. We tend to be a surficial culture, what with the plethora of information continually being thrown our way. These posts will be short but deep digs into the past, both recent and ancient.
    Friday (or Saturday) – Entertainment Blog Top Ten List – A weekly top ten list from the entertainment world. Movies, Books, TV shows, Sports, and Music are all in play here. Feel free to send me your ideas for future lists.
    All Other Posts – It will all depend on my schedule, need to vent, excitement level, etc… As always, send me an email if there's something you want me to write about.

Okay on with the Link Love…

     The Super Bowl set a record for ratings again this past week, peaking with Madonna's brilliant halftime show. Wow. Kind of put the Black Eyed Peas to shame, didn't she? Unfortunately, one of the "singers" she chose to perform with her, MIA, apparently gave the crowd the finger. I don't remember that part, but when you consider the source (MIA, not Madonna) it makes sense. If you're not familiar with MIA (her big hit was "Paper Planes"), or if like me, you thought she was just another 'indie' darling, read this NY Times piece and you'll realize that she's yet another artist doing more harm than good. Balancing this need for fame and attention with authenticity is usually a bad mix, especially when it comes to geo-politics. Sigh.
    And you may have heard that Gisele Bundchen, Tom Brady's wife, was getting ripped in the press after the game when some classy Boston reporters blamed the New England loss on Tom Brady. (A ridiculous sentiment, by the way, that he somehow damaged his legacy. Michal Rosenberg has it right.) Cornering her at an elevator, she wondered if her husband was supposed to "throw the ball and f****** catch it too." Frankly, I loved her response. I know reporters have a job to do, but sometimes you wonder if these "reporters" are just idiot fans in disguise. The journalists I know are professional and would never do that. It is Boston, however, and you have to wonder if there's something in the water. Cathal Kelly had good take on the whole thing. I say good for Gisele. Go get 'em.
    Oh, and for the Super Bowl commercials. Meh. Do we really need another GI JOE movie, even one with Bruce Willis? The one movie I am excited about is John Carter of Mars. I read the 12 book series a number of times as a kid and loved it. I wonder what ERB (Edgar Rice Burroughs, also the creator of Tarzan) would have thought to see his creation up on the big screen in all its glory. Here are the movie trailers that appeared on Super Bowl Sunday. Enjoy.
    ***
    Last week, my Eblog was the Top Ten Science Fiction/ Fantasy Movies of all time. Blade Runner was number 10 on the list. Apparently Harrison Ford is in talks to reprise his role for a sequel. Interesting? Well, it'd be interesting to see where they take it, and I'd probably see it. The difficulty is that the first Blade Runner was based on a Philip K. Dick short story. Who's writing the sequel? The best science fiction usually comes from novelists and short story writers. (Usually ** cough ** Star Wars ** cough **)
    That's all for today, folks. Feel free to post a link below in the comments if you saw something interesting this past week.
    -Steve
  

Change Your Life: Take the Monday Challenge

When I was a kid, I used to love reading stories about characters that changed their life. Either they were athletes who trained and practiced and after initial failure, eventually found success. Or, they were fantasy characters sent on an unexpected journey who discovered they were capable of more than they imagined. Those stories still touch a deep part of me. (I’ve spent the past three years writing a story like that.) I suspect they connect with many of us. And when you’re young, they seem more plausible, don’t they? Life hasn’t become a complicated routine yet and everything is in front of you. Change, a new life, doesn’t feel so impossible. Your dreams are there, just outside your reach, and with just a bit of work and luck, you know that it’s only a matter of time.


But the years pass and you never get any closer. You feel trapped in this life that has developed around you seemingly without your consent. University and high school are well into rear view mirror, and we find ourselves working at a job we don’t love. Some of us assume the responsibilities of marriage and parenting. We have no regrets, but we know something is missing, and somewhere inside the routine is slowly bleeding us to death. We find that we’re angry, even if we manage to keep it hidden so it’s not easily visible to everyone else. We want to change, we want excitement in our life, but we don’t know where to start. And when we do make an attempt to break out, to do something different, we soon get discouraged by the enormity of the task and end up flowing back into our old routines. And when we hear people talk about “changing our life”, we scoff at the notion. (It doesn’t help that companies use this powerful idea of changing our narrative by promoting shit like Viagra or vacations or a new household appliance.) The years go by and we become people who are shrinking instead of growing. Our fears crowd us into a corner, and we justify these feelings by assuring everyone that “it’s just the way things are.”

But the idea that we can’t change is pure bullshit. Of course we can! We just have to take off our skeptic’s goggles for a few minutes. Will you do that for me? I have something that might help. I call it the Monday Challenge.

The rules are very simple. Every Monday I want you to pick something in your life that you will do differently the upcoming week. You can pick anything, but I would suggest small things to start. What route do you take to work? Pick another. What TV shows do you normally watch? Skip them, and pick up a book at the library to read during the time you normally watch that show. Go for a nightly walk. Learn a new board game. Go to bed at a different time. The key is to pick ROUTINIZED items, and change them. Don’t go for the big things at first, necessarily, the idea is to readjust to variation in your life. (You’d be surprised how difficult that becomes.)

Make sure you write it down. Open a file in your phone or on your laptop, and mark the week and your Monday Challenge that week.

At the end of the week, reassess. If the change you picked is working for you, try to do it another week, but only to a maximum of four weeks. Now obviously, you can continue with the changes, but after 28 days you want to pick a new challenge as well.

Throughout this challenge, remember that attitude is very important. Whatever goals we set, make sure you hold them lightly. NO GUILT IS ALLOWED. Have fun with it. If the change doesn’t happen one day, or you forget another, don’t worry about it. Try again the next day. It’s only a week, and if it doesn’t work, choose something else the next week.

Changing our life often seems like a daunting task because we try to tackle everything at once. The voices in our head and in our life compete for our attention and we become exhausted just thinking about it. With the Monday Challenge, we’re not worried about the entirety of your life, we’re only thinking about the next seven days. Take one small thing, chart it somewhere, and see what happens.

At some point in our lives, most of us have been told that we shouldn’t dream, that we shouldn’t challenge ourselves, and that we just need to accept things the way they are. The implication is that we can’t be responsible and still live a life that pushes us forward. Why not? Why should we live in fear of change? Why should we accept a life without dreams, the same dreams that propelled us when we were kids?

Look, life will never be perfect. It will be filled with tragedy and heartache and sadness. Unfortunately, that’s the human condition. But there’s joy in humanity as well, especially when we challenge ourselves, contest our own ingrained status quo, and start stepping outside the box. Whatever you’ve been told; let me assure you that you can do it. There is so much out there for you, so much more than you realize, just waiting to be discovered. All you have to do is take the first step.

Steve

PS Fill me in on your challenges below if you like, or email me, and let me know how you’re doing. Good luck, my friends!

Eblog: Top 10 Science Fiction/ Fantasy Movies

Fantasy and science fiction are different genres. Yes, they’re lumped together sometimes (as they are here) and there are similarities between the two, but they are different literary approaches used primarily to provide social commentary. Science fiction is generally predictive, and comments on current society by using a futuristic setting. Fantasy is generally reflective, and comments on current society by using a loosely historical past. There are novels that mash them together. And yes, I’m aware of the explosion of non-traditional-fantasy like urban or steam punk that really are a combination of the two. Hell, Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files crosses mystery and fantasy. But generally speaking, the two genres are separate, and if this was a list for novels, hell would snap, crackle and pop and THEN freeze before I would lump them together.


However, fantasy never translated well to the big screen until the leaps in CGI about fifteen years ago. Science Fiction meanwhile has carved out a nice niche for itself. An, ahem, very nice “niche.” And so for the purposes of this list, I’ll swallow my fantasist’s pride and combine the two genres.

THE RULES: The rules of this Top 10 list are simple. Due to the dominance of trilogies and series, I was allowed to pick only ONE movie from each trilogy or series. So if a certain LOTR movie is not on the list, you understand why.

THE LIST: Perhaps more than any two genres (particularly fantasy), any attempt to translate a SFF story to the big screen requires a certain amount of graphic capability. That’s why you’ll notice a dearth of older movies here, like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Movies are a visual medium, and if the movie now looks cheap or campy, regardless of how it was received back when it was first released, I left it off the list. In the best Science Fiction and Fantasy, setting is not merely decoration, it’s usually the core of the story. So if the movie looks like shit, it ruins the story. For these two genres especially, the ability of the viewer to engage the settings matters a great deal. And so some SFF films that might have been highly regarded twenty years ago are not nearly thought of in that manner because of the dynamic nature of the medium itself.

10. BLADE RUNNER (1982)


Remember when Harrison Ford wasn’t a grumpy old man? Back when he was cranking out great movies? Apparently he clashed on this film with director Ridley Scott quite a bit, so maybe he was always cranky. I'll be honest, I respect the power of Blade Runner, but I never loved it. The visuals could use a Lucas like upgrade as well. Still, I respect the depth of what they accomplished here.

9. STAR TREK (2009)

I can already here the muttering by the legions of Star Trek fans in my choice of JJ Abrams version over the likes of WRATH. I’m sorry, but the older films in the series look campy, and even when their budget increased, the storytelling doesn’t hold up to an origin story like this one. (Origin stories always have an advantage.) The actors are uniformly excellent here, no need to highlight one over another, although Zachary Quinto as Spock is particularly good. STAR TREK is science fiction royalty, and for good reason. It has spun off a number of excellent TV series and movies, and it deserves to be highly regarded. When it comes to a single film, however, there simply isn’t one that rises near the top. Still, I loved this movie and highly recommend it.

8. 1984 (1984)

If we were judging science fiction films based on their source material, 1984 would be closer to the top of the list. However, we’re judging movies based on their merit as films alone. Even still, 1984 the movie is a haunting cautionary tale about the power of an organization or government that desires to control its population. That idea still resonates today. Conservatives would argue (wrongly) that the idea of “political correctness” is a form of thought control. (When in actuality it simply means that we need to be more inclusive and be careful not to stereotype people based on race, gender, sexuality, etc…) And liberals would argue that means censorship, which we have seen again and again over the past century with books like Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer banned. (Something Orwell witnessed backed when he was writing the novel) Closer to the mark, however, would be the tradition of communist Russia in the 20th Century, now carried forward by the ruling communist party in China. John Hurt is the perfect Winston Smith, and the washed out look of the film is a visual metaphor for what happens in a world where we no longer control our own destiny. Stunning.

7. AVATAR (2009)

“It’s such a simple story.” This is the most common complaint for AVATAR, and I heard it a thousand times even after it continued to smash records to become the biggest box office draw in history. It would be a reasonable argument if AVATAR wasn’t a work of art, but the visuals are so entrancing, the world so well drawn, that the argument doesn’t hold. As I mentioned above, setting matters greatly when it comes to fantasy or science fiction, and so to argue that the story is “simple” implies that the other, less visually compelling films on this list are deeply complex. I find it interesting that James Cameron referred to Edgar Rice Burroughs in his interviews regarding the story, and AVATAR certainly recalled that for me. I read most of ERB’s novels as a teenager, and there are definite allusions to John Carter of Mars and Burroughs’ four book series on Venus. So yes, the plot is not especially complex, but the message is a good one, and the film takes you to another world, which is exactly what the best SFF material attempts to do. It should probably be higher on the list.

6. ALIEN (1979)

I hesitated to include ALIEN because it’s a horror movie first and a science fiction movie second. Technically, however, it makes the cut, which means it has to be included. ALIEN is a riveting, scary-as-shit story with tremendous pacing and large swaths of silence through the film which serve to build the tension. I love the way this movie takes its time. Sigourney Weaver kicks ass in the lead role, her first, and the other (older) veteran actors provide gravitas to a fairly unsophisticated “alien in outer space” story. I should note here that the same people who accuse AVATAR of being “simple” never make that criticism of ALIEN. Why not? If you’re going to criticize certain SFF movies of simplicity, you probably have to start here.

5. HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (2004)

Okay, so being able to pick only one from the biggest money making fantasy series of all time was daunting. But the first two were for kids, and it isn’t until the third installment, with Alfonso Cuaron on board to direct, that we had a fantasy series for adults to dig into. Much darker than the first two (and the fourth, which sucked), this was the defining movie of the series. It promised what was to come, and visually it works on a much different scale that is later replicated in the later installments. I’m shocked when I see lists of all-time great fantasy movies and Harry Potter is left off the list. How is that possible? The themes in these books are as dark and complex as anything you’ll find in literature. This isn’t Twilight. (An idiotic and morally challenged series about whether a girl gets the boy and what she has to do to “keep” him) At this point, keeping Harry Potter out of a top ten list smacks of jealousy and vain pandering. I’m guilty of those things occasionally, but not this time.

4. CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982)

Fantasy can be broken into many categories, and continues to splinter. Unlike LOTR, Conan is considered Sword & Sorcery, a very different subset than typical epic fantasy. I read the original Conan books as a kid, including the ones by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter and later Robert Jordan’s six Conan novels in the eighties. (This was before he became famous writing the Wheel of Time series.) If I have any problem with putting this movie on the list, it would undeniably be due to the themes reflected in the film, many of which are disturbing. The Nietzschean epigraph is easily evident here, as it is in the source material, with Schwarzenegger as Howard's Aryan ubermensch. Women are portrayed as little more than sexual companions, including Valeria, who is clearly submissive. (Look at her position in the posters) While some of this is reflected from the source material, the original Howard stories held Conan’s female companion (Belit or Valeria) as someone who could drink and fight and hold her own with him, and so the outsized misogyny is disappointing here. The themes of American individualism are also evident. (We need only to will ourselves to be greater, and that when we do, we will see victory.) As for the rest, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his film debut, is perfectly cast as Conan. The physicality of Conan is of great import to his character, akin to that of a superhero, and so perhaps only a seven time Mr. Olympia champion could capture that. The plot is scattered, and at times it moves slowly, but it helps that the movie is backed by perhaps the best cinema score in history thanks to the genius of Basil Poledouris. This film is an interesting and complex reflection on philosophy, theology and sociology in the guise of simple fantasy. Howard was brilliant, and this movie captures a good portion of that.

3. THE MATRIX (1999)

It’s easy to forget that THE MATRIX is science fiction. Sleekly visualized with cutting edge photography, it never feels “heavy” like so many dystopian settings typical of its genre. Not until, that is, we cut to the harrowing scenes of millions of humans being “milked” in rows and rows of machine cornfields like some nightmarish cemetery. The film is essentially a treatise on postmodernism, a mashed up set of ideas that references everyone from Baudrillard to Plato, though most people seem unaware of its origins. (You know that you’ve spiked a vein in narrative when widely varied groups claim a story as a defense of their beliefs. In this case, everyone from conservative fundamentalists to liberal anti-consumerists were happy to showcase THE MATRIX as “proof” of their claims.) Beyond that, it’s a smart, fast paced action movie that still holds up, and thirteen years later remains a visually stunning masterpiece. This is science fiction at its best, pure and simple.

2. STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

There’s still a great deal of debate whether STAR WARS is actually science fiction or just another space opera. I like to think of STAR WARS as fantasy in the guise of science fiction. The commentary here is not nearly as deep or rich as you find in the STAR TREK anthologies, (and certainly not what you find in THE MATRIX) but the world building is second to none, and what commentary you do find, while simple, is telling and important. The philosophy of Taoism is represented here (the force) and again, feels much closer to a work of fantasy. The visuals are stunning, and yes, they’ve been updated by Lucas through the years, but they still hold up (unlike the old Star Trek movies). And in terms of its impact on the movie industry, well, STAR WARS changed it forever. (Some would say it destroyed it. We now get Transformers 4 instead of smaller films built around great ideas.) For all its criticism, however, STAR WARS is a masterpiece of storytelling. I chose Empire because I could only pick one from the series, and as a stand alone film, I give it a slight edge over the first. (I liked Return of the Jedi, but I hated the ridiculous “Ewok” teddy bears, which undermined the seriousness of the whole story.)

1. LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001)

The greatest work of fantasy (the first of its kind) converted into the greatest fantasy movie, and one of the greatest films of all time. Oh, I know, it’s only “fantasy”. It can’t be an “all-time great”, right? Bull shit. Next year, we’ll get another list of the 100 "greatest" movies of all time and it will have the same shitty ass films from the 1940’s that look and sound terrible with actors not actually acting (before Brando), and great, visually stunning pieces of art like LOTR will be relegated somewhere at the back of the line. Here’s the thing, film is a progressive art. That doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate the films from fifty years ago or what they accomplished, but Gone With the Wind, for example, is a terrible f***ing movie. It’s unwatchable. Unlike literature or painting and sculpting, film generally ages poorly due to its technological base. And if we’re going to compare film properly, than that means LOTR is in the discussion as the greatest movie of all time. Like the book, the film is actually one movie broken into three parts. I chose the first, not only because it was such a stunning revelation, but because RETURN OF THE KING meanders a bit too long at the end and TWO TOWERS is the meal that isn’t finished yet. When it comes to top ten lists such as this one, LOTR is head and shoulders above the rest, and for my money, deserves a spot on any list that discusses the greatest movies of all-time.

Okay, so what did I miss?

-Steve