What Oscar could learn from Grammy

Disclaimer: Every post I've ever written to this point deals with theology.  This post does not deal with theology at all.  It deals with movies, which I love almost as much as I love theology.  The only reason I'm posting it here is because I couldn't think of anywhere else to post it, except as a note on facebook.  But that would have been lame.

Unless your name is Colin Firth or Natalie Portman, the 83rd Academy Awards left a really bad taste in your mouth.  Producers seeking to reach a younger demographic selected fresh-faced actors James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host the program, and the result was generally viewed as disastrous-a tedious, rambling mess of a program that dropped 10% in ratings from the year before and was labeled as the worst ceremony ever by 57% of responders to a Fox News poll.

Producers of the 84th Academy Awards, which will take place on February 26 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, are obviously hoping not just for a ratings recovery from last years debacle, but for a genuine viewership boost as well.  And in order to accomplish this, they've turned to Oscars legend Billy Crystal, who will be returning to host the show for the ninth time.

But as great as Crystal will surely be, the most his presence at the Oscars will accomplish is dramatically improving the twenty or so minutes throughout the four hour show where the host is featured.  To use a cinematic analogy, using Billy Crystal to improve the Oscars is like sprinkling a handful of clips from the original Star Wars into The Phantom Menace.  Just like with Episode I, the real problems with last year's (and virtually every other year's) Academy Awards are much deeper.  And if the producers wish to solve those problems, they'd be best served not by looking to Billy Crystal for salvation, but by looking to the Grammy Awards for inspiration.

I recognize that it's a bit of a strange thing to say.  The Oscars are a highly polished production, with far more pretty and far less weird than the Grammys, Bjork's swan dress notwithstanding.  And there are plenty of things that the Grammys do horribly, horribly wrong.  Like not locking Nicki Minaj in her dressing room after yesterday's dress rehearsal.  

But as goofy as the Grammys can be, there are a few things they get absolutely, positively right.  And if the Oscars would follow suit, their ceremony would improve dramatically, both in terms of ratings and in terms of sheer audience enjoyment.  Here are two of those things.

Thing 1: Don't give out so many awards in the televised ceremony.

Question: What do Mikhail Gorbachev, Hillary Clinton and Tia Carrere have in common?

Answer: They're all Grammy winners, for Best Spoken Word Album for Children, Best Spoken Word Album and Best Hawaiian Music Album respectively.

Would you like to know why you didn't know that?  Because they don't give out those awards during the televised ceremony.  And would you like to know why they don't give out those awards during the televised ceremony?  Because nobody cares who wins these awards.

And nobody cares who wins Best Sound Editing or Best Original Non-Acoustic Score for a Documentary-Short Subject either.  So do what the Grammys do.  Give out those trophies at another ceremony, and reserve the big awards (acting, writing, music, directing, maybe cinematography, and certainly best picture) for the televised one.  Do this and you'll cut out about two hours of intolerable filler.  Those two hours can be replaced with some kind of content that normal human beings actually find entertaining (see below) or they can just be subtracted from the show altogether and we can all get to bed at a reasonable hour.

Thing 2: Have the nominees show us why they were nominated for something in the first place.

Whenever a community convenes to give itself awards, that community brings with it a noxious cloud of self-important pomposity.  And if one is not a part of this community or does not desire to be a part of it, the only chance this community has to make that cloud dissipate is to convince people that these awards are being given by true artists in appreciation of true art.  And the best way to do that is to let people see the people giving and receiving these awards put their art on display.

The Grammys get this right.  Because a Grammy is an award for musicians.  And when you watch the Grammys, musicians actually perform their music.  For example, last night, Paul McCartney performed with a Bruce Springsteen, amongst others.  And as these two Grammy winners joyfully made music together, that made the audience think, "wow, this guys really love music, and so maybe these awards are about the purity of art, and not just self-congratulation."  That performance also made people think, "wow.  I bet Bruce Springsteen's amp hasn't actually been turned on for the last 30 years."  Likewise, Adele performed her award winning song Rolling in the Deep last night.  And that performance made people think, "wow, what a great singer and what a great song.  I can totally see how people want to give her awards for that."

But the Oscars don't do this.  When you watch the Oscars, which are awards for film makers, you never see people make film.  You never see writers write or directors direct or actors act (except when they act happy after losing).  Even when the acting nominees are listed before giving out those awards, producers often won't show clips of the performances that are supposed to be so worthy of an award.  And the only time we see fellow nominees interacting with each other is when they praise the work of the other people they totally just beat for an award, which comes across as a rather passive-aggressive form of rubbing it in, even if it's not intended that way. So the result is that the Oscars basically tell people, "what we're doing is super duper really important and worthwhile and you should totally watch us praise each other for doing that stuff, but you should just take our word for it that it's worthy of praise, since we're not actually going to show you why."

So here's the Grammy-inspired solution to this problem: Have the film makers make film.  

Have each of the screenwriting nominees write a segment of the show, even if it's only a minute or two long.  Have each of the directing nominees direct a short in the show-whether it's the segment for the Honorary Oscar winner of the night or that awful In Memoriam segment where we clap louder for some dead people than we do for others because we're super sad that they're dead and we're only a little sad that those other people are dead.

And have the actors act.  In particular, have them act in pre-taped segments poking fun of their own movies.  Not only does this help dissipate the noxious cloud of pomposity by showing that these folks don't take themselves too seriously, it will also make the show much, much more entertaining  Think about it...you weren't that bummed when Eddie Murphy dropped out as host this year because you weren't sure that his monologue would be all that great.  But if his departure meant that you would no longer get to watch a skit involving Eddie Murphy and Minnie's chocolate pie, you would be covering yourself in sackcloth and ashes for the next six months.  As well you should.

So there you have it.  If you want to make the Oscars better, if you want to improve the entire ceremony, beyond the few minutes that the host is cracking wise on stage, that's how you do it.  If you want to ensure that the show will still be great even if the monologue bombs, it's not hard to accomplish.  Cut the filler.  And fill its place with the art you're praising.  

That and don't praise the moral superiority of the Academy three years after the Academy gave a standing ovation to a guy who couldn't collect his Best Director award in person because he drugged and raped a 13 year old girl.  Because that makes it really hard to take you seriously.

How Sweet It Is to Be Mocked by You

Pat Robertson is right.

My fingers still hurt from typing that, but it's true.  At least in this very specific instance.

Last weekend, Saturday Night Live aired a sketch where Jesus comes to visit Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos, the highlights of which were Jesus asking the Broncos QB to tone down his public displays of faith a notch and telling the rest of the Broncos that, if he's going to keep helping them win, they need to stop playing terrible football for the first three quarters of the game. 

So the sketch was pretty sacrilegious concerning Christ and pretty rough on His sheep Tim Tebow.  And that made televangelist (and cuckoo-bananas false prophet)  Pat Robertson mad.  While discussing this sketch on whatever "Christian" channel he's on, Robertson had this to say:

If this had been a Muslim country and they had done that, and had Muhammad doing that stuff, you would have found bombs being thrown off!

Now, aside from "bombs being thrown off" not making any prepositional sense, Pat Robertson is right.  Islam does not take kindly to mockery, especially concerning its chief prophet Mohammed.  And had SNL done a skit mocking the Koran, the prophet and/or Muslims the way they mocked Christianity, I'm sure that somewhere in the world, you would have found some bombs being thrown off in some form or another.  So it's not as though SNL's lack of Islam-mocking sketches is born from a genuine appreciation of the religion.  I sincerely doubt that the head writers at 30 Rock haven't asked Jason Sudeikis to dress up as Allah's prophet because they genuinely respect the beliefs of 1.6 billion Muslims throughout the world.  Rather, any respect they give to Islam is born out of fear of violent retaliation, the same fear that caused Comedy Central to wimp out of showing a depiction of Mohammed in a South Park episode a number of years ago.

And while respect born from fear may be an acceptable thing if you're Tiberius Caesar, it's not worth squat if you're a pope or a prophet or a Presbyterian.  So, as Christians, the fact that we're not given the same respect as Muslims shouldn't make us angry.  Instead, that should make us happy, very happy.  Because that means that people view the Church precisely the way Christ said they'd view her-as something lowly and meek, something that can be mocked with impunity. It means that people expect us to do exactly what Jesus told us to do when they strike us-to turn the other cheek.  

And as someone who very frequently fails to act in a Christ-like manner, it's pretty comforting to see that, somehow, the world still expects me to be exactly who Christ says I am.   It's a great reminder that neither my sins nor SNL sketches can stop Jesus from being Lord of His Church.

Zach Wahls is messed up. Here's how.

I've seen this video floating around facebook quite a bit the past day or so.  If you haven't seen the video, watch it.  If you already have, just to refresh your memory, the YouTube video summary says exactly this: Zach Wahls, a 19-year-old University of Iowa student spoke about the strength of his family during a public forum on House Joint Resolution 6 in the Iowa House of Representatives. Wahls has two mothers, and came to oppose House Joint Resolution 6 which would end civil unions in Iowa.

In many of the facebook threads I've seen linking this video, those sympathetic to his cause have asked the same question. How can you possibly disagree with him?  People want to know.  After watching this, how can you possibly believe that being raised by a gay couple is harmful to children?

Easy.  By hearing what Mr. Wahls says.  By merely listening to the words that come out of his lips.  Because when I do that, it's quite clear that being raised by two women has, for lack of a better phrase, really messed him up.  Here's how:

30 seconds into his speech, Mr. Wahls informs us that he and his younger sister are full blooded siblings because his biological mother was artificially inseminated twice with sperm from the same anonymous donor.  And how does he feel about that?  That's something which is really cool for me, he states.

So, to dial things back a bit, Mr. Wahls' biological mother wanted to be fruitful and multiply and raise her children with another woman.  This, however, was problematic for her because, per the natural laws of the God who made the heavens and the earth, it takes man parts and lady parts in order to make a baby, and neither she nor her lesbian partner had such man parts.

So to remedy that problem, what did Mr. Wahls' biological mother do?  She went to a sperm bank.  And by doing so, however indirectly it may have been, she encouraged a man to take the precious gift of life that God put into his loins and spill it into a cup.  She took the gift of fatherhood, the sacred title that our Father in Heaven blesses men to share with Him, and she mocked it.  She looked at the titles husband and father, and said,  I don't want your love.  I don't want your sacrifice.  I don't want your guidance or your courage or your care or your forgiveness, and I don't want to cherish you as one flesh with me.  All I want is something very specific from your sexual organs.  And I'll give you money for it, if you'll agree to just go away once we're done.

That's what Mr. Wahls' biological mother did.  She paid money to sexually humiliate another human being.  She paid a man made in God's image to give her what God Himself had told her she could not have as long as she lived contrary to His law.  Though she never saw this man's face, and though he may have left his "donation" willingly, she treated the father of her children like a prostitute.  

And what does her son, Zach Wahls, think about all that?

That's something which is really cool for me.

The sexual orientation of my parents has had zero effect on the content of my character, Mr. Wahls says later in his speech.  And I have no doubt that he wants that to be true.  But it's not true.  Because, in service of their sexual orientation, the two women who raised Mr. Wahls told him that men are entirely disposable once they've been harvested of their seed.  They spent 19 years proclaiming to their son that a man's faithfulness to his offspring can be purchased for nothing more than fifty bucks and a pornographic magazine.  In every day of his life, Mr. Wahls two "mommies" taught him that women have every right to humiliate men, to pimp them out, to demean and shame them if it suits their purposes.

And in the end, he believed them.

So, while Mr. Wahls may be very polite and articulate, while he may be intelligent and dignified and a million other things that nobody has ever said that children of gay couples can't be, he doesn't respect men.  He doesn't value fatherhood.  And he doesn't understand the horrors of glorifying yourself by shaming your neighbor.  And he doesn't do those things precisely because he was raised by two women.

In Defense of Shyamalan Preaching

Back in 2004, M. Night Shyamalan released his movie The Village.  And I went to see it because, like most of the nation at that time, I had not yet fully realized that Mr. Shyamalan was a one-trick-pony who was going to make increasingly horrible movies financed with the credit that is our increasingly begrudging continued respect for The Sixth Sense.

This one-trick that Mr. Shyamalan rode to fame was the plot twist, especially towards the end of the movie.  So, in The Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis was really dead the whole time.  In Unbreakable, Bruce Willis was really a superhero the whole time.  And in Signs, Mel Gibson was really Bruce Willis the whole time.  I think.  I never actually saw Signs.

So by the time The Village came out, we all knew how this guy's movies worked.  Something was not going to be as it seemed.  Crazy twisty twists were going to happen and we would have to reevaluate everything we'd seen in the movie thus far.  And, like most people in the theater that day, because I knew that a twist was coming, I immediately went into The Village trying to figure out what it would be.

And figure it out I did in the first five minutes.  You see, the setup of The Village is that a bunch of old timey people are living in an old timey town and are all afraid of a bunch of monsters living in the woods.  And so, before the inciting incident, I thought to myself, "oh, the twist is obviously that they're only pretending to live in old timey times and the monsters are just made up to scare the kids away from the modern world."  

And once I figured that out, watching the remaining 103 minutes of The Village became a virtually unbearable experience.  It was like having to sit on your couch for an hour and a half while all of your friends and family gathered in your room, turned off the lights, then turned them back on and shouted "happy birthday" to commence the surprise party you knew they were throwing for you the whole time.

So the moral of the story is that if your audience knows you're going to pull the rug out from underneath them, you'd better make sure that they don't know precisely how you're going to do it.  At least, that's the moral of the story when it comes to three or five act story structure.  And that's why, in great part, M. Night Shyamalan is a really terrible filmmaker.

But when it comes to two part sermon structure, when it comes to Law and Gospel preaching, I don't think this rule applies so much.  In fact, I think there's great value in being a Shyamalan preacher.  Because unlike the job of a thriller filmmaker, the job of a pastor isn't to take you someplace that you never imagined you'd go.  His job is to take you exactly where he takes you each week: to the cross of Jesus Christ.

Look at it this way:

A pastor is preaching on the Parable of the Tenants.  And the setup, he tells us, is that we are all tenants of God's vineyard who have sinned against the ones God has sent to collect His fruit.  God sent us pastors to harvest from our hearts repentance and faith by preaching the Word to us.  But we abused them by refusing to turn from our sins and treating our pastors cruelly.  And in doing all of this, we, as tenants of that vineyard, are guilty of having killed the Master's Son.

So that's the scenario that the pastor presents.  That's the setup.  But because the pastor preaching this is a good pastor who won't walk out of the pulpit until he preaches the forgiveness of sins, the twist comes in.  And yet, the pastor tells us, through this very same death, the Son forgives those who put Him to death.  Through the blood that those wicked tenants force out of His veins, the Son erases their wickedness, undoes their despising of the preached Word and the preaching office, and gives them the right to join Him in His everlasting vineyard.

So who saw that coming?  Who expected that twist in the story?  Well, pretty much everyone who's heard this guy preach before.  They know that his story isn't going to end with sin ruling the day.  They know that his movie isn't going to conclude until Christ has drowned the sinner's sin in His blood.  They know that the sermon won't end until the twist occurs where the sins condemned become the sins forgiven.  And they know all that because that's what the pastor does every week.  Just like M. Night Shyamalan in The Village, his writing is really predictable and anyone who's paying attention already knows where he's going long before he gets there.

And that's exactly how it should be.  Because the Gospel is always different forms of the same story with the same twist and the same ending.  It shouldn't have come as a surprise to the Jews when John identified Christ as the Lamb whose blood would cause the wrath of His Father to pass over the sins of His people because that's the plot twist they'd heard every single time they celebrated the Passover.  It shouldn't have come as a shock when Caiaphas prophesied that Christ's death would forgive the sins of the world since that was the big reveal that had already been revealed a bagillion times throughout the Old Testament.  Nicodemus shouldn't have been caught off guard at the twist that God would save people through faith in the Son of God lifted up and made into sin for them because that's exactly the same twist God used when He had Moses lift up the Bronze Serpent in the wilderness.  So, to put it quite simply, if God's preaching is this predictable, ours should be too.

Granted, the same thing that happened to me when I went to see The Village is bound to happen when pastors preach in such a predictable manner.  People will get bored, roll their eyes, and mentally check out because they already know where their pastor is going.  But that's not a preaching problem.  It's a listening problem.  We only do that because our sinful nature will take any chance it gets to close our ears and ignore the Word of God.  Boredom is perhaps the most frequently used name on Unbelief's fake ID.  

But if ever a pastor encounters this reaction to the predictability of his preaching, he ought to consider it a blessing, a wonderful cross to carry, because it means that he's preached the Gospel so much that people just assume he's going to do it again.  If our world is facing a dearth of good filmmaking, M. Night Shyamalan is certainly not the answer.  But if our world is facing a dearth of good preaching, and it certainly is, a few more Shyamalan preachers would go pretty far in turning that around.

Peace out, cub scouts.

Save ULC! Director's Commentary

I don't have anything terribly insightful to say about this video.  I suppose the best I could do is link back to this post I wrote when this issue was first rearing its ugly head in the internet world.  But aside from that, please continue to keep all those involved in your prayers.  Pray that the Minnesota South District's Board of Director's may repent of breaking the ninth commandment.  Pray that Christ may continue to feed His sheep through the Word and Sacrament ministry of University Lutheran Chapel.  And pray that Pastor David Kind and his flock may rejoice to know that they have been counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Christ.

Also, my flock and I are making pancakes for ULC this Sunday at 8:00 am.  Anybody in the neighborhood is free to join us.

For Max

Yesterday my cousin died in a car accident.  It's utterly heartbreaking for a multitude of reasons.  Nonetheless, this is a sonnet I wrote for him, clinging as tightly as I can to the words of 1 Thessalonians 4:13.

Max

Today the wicked one approached my eyes

To steal, with news of violent death, my tears

His serpent stomach hungered for the prize

Of tasting on his tongue my liquid fears

And so he tossed at me this horrid word

Of final breaths from you, my kin and friend

And with that word, despair in me was stirred

And sorrow started flooding without end

But right before the foe could fill his cup

Your Savior claimed the tears upon my face

He seized them as His own, then filled them up

With promises of bloody hope and grace

Yes, still my stream of tears for you is long

But now I cry with Easter in my song

Overdue Director's Commentaries

Frequently, my wife tells me that I need to write on my blog more often. When she does, I tell her that I write a commentary on all of my videos, so I am usually posting at least once a week.  She then says that doesn't count.  I say yes it does, even though I know she's right.  And because she has gradually succeeded in convincing me that writing director's commentaries on the Lutheran Satire videos isn't real writing, I've gotten behind in doing it.  So if you've been upset by that, don't blame me.  Blame Katie.

I love you, honey.

Anyway, I'm a few videos behind.  So here's some lickedy split catching up:

1. Things Your Lutheran Pastor Totally Loves: The Feast of the 156th Fruits (Ep. 9)

So, if your congregation needs things, and you want to give your congregation those things, make sure you give nice things and not semi-toxic garbage.  Otherwise you end up treating the church like a ratty hand-me-down wearing, nose picking, red-headed step brother.  And that's not a good thing.

Also, on a side note, the final joke in this video is probably my favorite Lutheran Satire joke of all time.

2. ...and you lost me.

If you're a politically conservative fellow like me, and if you've ever watched those presidential debates between all those fringe third party candidates, you've probably experienced having the Constitution party pull the rug out from underneath you.  So the Constitution candidate will be talking about limited government that respects the free market and you'll think, "yeah, that's right."  And then he'll display a firm grasp of economic principles that is entirely lost on most Democrats and Republicans and you'll think, "man, this guy is awesome."  And then he'll give an impassioned speech about the need to defend the rights of the unborn, and you think, "dude, I'm totally becoming a member of the Constitution Party."  And then he'll say, "and that's why we need to force public school teachers to lead prayers for Israel every day after the Pledge of Allegiance," and you think, "yeah!  That exactly...wait, what?"  This is pretty much what happens to me every time I'm ready to sign up for the High Church Guy Club that many of my dearly beloved Lutheran pastor buddies belong to.

3. The "How To" Show: How to Start a Cult (Ep. 6)

This is pretty much how the Mormons, the JW's, the Branch Davidians, etc... rolled into existence.  And if you want to roll as they rolled, this is how to do it.  But please don't roll as such.  Because if you do, you'll probably get killed by an Illinois Militia or the United States government.  Oh, and you'll also go to hell.

4. The "How To" Show: How to Have an Official Position (Ep. 7)

Lightly inspired by the cremation debate, the point of this video is that the only way to truly solve issues of controversy is:

1. To learn what God's Word says about an issue.

2. To say what God's Word says.

3. To encourage those who have adopted practices in violation of that Word to repent and receive absolution.

But when your goal is to say something that sounds sort of God-ish without offending anybody and then pretend like you've genuinely addressed the issue, you just end up with really stupid theology.

Also, for the record, I believe that spinning cats around by the tail is cruel.  If you find an unwanted cat in your presence, either call your local humane society or shoot it in the face.

5. The "How To" Show: How To Be a Biblical Scholar (Ep. 8)

A few years ago, some "Biblical Scholars" got the tinglies in their tummies when this story came out, attempting a "scientific" explanation behind the miraculous story of Jesus walking on the water.  "You see," these scholars said, "research shows that, occasionally, it can get cold enough for the Sea of Galilee to freeze.  So what might have happened is that some water froze, and Jesus was walking on a flow of ice, and the disciples saw it and they were all like:

And so the idea got around that Jesus had miraculously walked on water because people who lived a long time ago were superstitious idiots and not smart, rational people like me.  So, uh, yeah."  Granted, it takes way more blind faith to believe that Jesus just happened to be around during one of the four times that it got cold enough for the Sea of Galilee to freeze, and that he somehow walked out on an ice flow without getting hypothermia or slipping and falling into the water and dying, and that his disciples were so dumb that they couldn't figure out that he was standing on that frozen water stuff.  But, of course, the job of a Biblical Scholar is not to say reasonable things that are backed up with actual evidence.  The job of a Biblical Scholar is to reject the Word in favor of anything else, no matter how stupid anything else may be.

And yeah, I spelled "alma mater" wrong.  I tried to fix it and repost the video, but I have a stupid PC and I can't get the battery to charge anymore, so my video editing computer is dead and if it bothers you that much, send me some money to buy a Mac.

Ok.  I'm caught up now.  Bye.