Azulão

Composer: Jayme Ovalle (1894-1955)
Lyrics: Manuel Bandeira (1886-1968)

In early March, cellist Yo-Yo Ma encouraged musicians around the world to create music during the COVID-19 global pandemic and attach the hashtag #SongsOfComfort. I first fell in love with this song in 1990 and it has always brought me comfort. So, using my very limited recording capabilities, I recorded this song in my home on March 19. While I uploaded the video on Facebook and Instagram, I completely forgot to upload it here. I hope people will enjoy and take comfort during their time at home.

#SongsOfComfort #StayHome #WithMe #QuarantineAndChill #FlattenTheCurve

The Coronavirus, Giving Feet to Your Prayers, and Not Foolishly Tempting God

“Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:37-38)

There is an old saying: “Put feet to your faith,” or alternatively, “Put feet to your prayers.” In other words, prayer is necessary and important. As Hank Hanegraff has famously said, “Prayer is firing the winning shot before the battle ever takes place.” However, it’s also important to understand that God usually uses people—His people—to accomplish His purposes. In the verse quoted above, Christ tells his disciples that laborers are needed to accomplish God’s purposes. Then, in the very next chapter, Christ sends his disciples to accomplish His purposes (Matthew 10:5). Christ, in those passages, sets the example that we need to pray and then we need to go do something, when we are able, to accomplish what we are praying for.

There was a man who lived alone in an area prone to flooding. One year, a storm came through that threatened to breach dikes and the potential for flooding was extremely high. Officials warned people living in the area where the man lived that the whole area could be submerged and ordered an evacuation. The man laughed at the television broadcast and said, “The Lord will provide.”

As the storm began to roll in, local government officials began going door-to-door to warn people to evacuate. A police officer in a truck came to the man’s house, knocked on the door, and warned him that the river levels were rising, could breach the dikes any minute, and told him he needed to evacuate. The officer even offered to assist the gentleman in gathering any necessities. The man simply waved the officer away saying, “The Lord will provide.”

As predicted, the river breached the dikes and soon the whole area was flooded. At first, the man simply went up to the second floor of his house. A man in a boat drove by and noticed the man in his home. The boatman told the man to get in the boat and the man waved him away with cries of, “The Lord will provide.”

Hours later, the man was forced to the roof of his home as the river waters overwhelmed his second floor. A helicopter from the Coast Guard flew over and noticed the man. They lowered a ladder and told him to climb in, but the man waved them away with the same cries of, “The Lord will provide.”

Finally, the water overwhelmed the house, the man was swept away and drowned. As he stood before God, he said, “I thought you would provide.” In response, God said, “I provided a news report, a truck, a boat, and a helicopter.”

When God told Moses that He would deliver Israel, He also told Moses that he would be the instrument of delivery. James tells us to be “doers of the word and not hearers only” (James 1:22). James also shows us what that means:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:15-17).

A person can’t depend on faith that food and clothing will just magically appear. Something needs to be an instrument of provision. Usually, the instrument of provision is a job, but when people fall on hard times, they turn to charity and God’s people should then become that instrument of provision.

We may pray for the poor, but we also need to provide for the poor. We may pray for change in the world, but perhaps we should take note of Mahatma Gandhi’s advice to “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Often, when tragedy strikes, you will often hear Christians say they are sending their thoughts and prayers. They are then immediately ridiculed by unbelievers who say, “You can pray all day long, but what good will it do? Maybe you should go and do something!” Good point and James makes this very same point:

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” (James 2:18-20)

This is the same conversation—an unbeliever is ridiculing a believer who sits around and does nothing while the unbelievers are out working and making changes in the world. James says, faith is not enough. Even worse, faith without works is dead. You can believe all the right things and even be sure of your own salvation, but what good does that do if you keep it to yourself? The word “dead” is correctly translated, but it is used here as a euphemism for being worthless, good for nothing.

As the song, This little light of mine says: 

Hide it under a bushel?

No!

It’s not enough to say, “I have faith.” It’s not enough to say, “I’m thinking of you and praying for you.” One must show their faith through action. As James wrote, “I will show thee my faith by my works” (James 2:18).

Now, if a family’s house burns down, you may not be able to provide a new house or the long-term housing for a displaced family by yourself, but that’s where the community of faith comes in. The whole church can come together and help those in need. The church I go to has a winter clothing drive in the fall and provides clothing to those in need throughout the year. The church also has a food pantry to help people in need of food. My church is not unique in these ministries. When people are in need, the church can provide all kinds of help to its members and I can speak from personal experience because I have been both the recipient and benefactor of charity through my local church.

To those who mock believers for sending thoughts and prayers, keep in mind that when tragedy strike, it is usually believers as part of the community of faith who are the first on the scene providing aid, comfort, and helping in whatever way they can. When hurricanes hit, churches are usually already assisting in the recovery before FEMA and other government agencies can even get mobilized.

Along with the strange idea that God will magically provide through prayer, as if God has a Star Trek transporter in heaven that He uses to beam down our needs, is the idea that we can put ourselves in unnecessary danger and if we pray to God, He will deliver us from all harm. Granted, if it’s God’s will, He can do some amazing things and even deliver us from all harm, but that doesn’t mean we should tempt God—that is we should not put Him to the test.

In the early 16^th century, the plague hit Saxony (part of modern-day Germany). Wittenberg, the home of one of the most famous men in Church history, Martin Luther was especially hard hit. COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, is unlikely to affect humanity on the same scale like the plague, but Martin Luther’s response seems both relevant to the discussion of putting our feet to our prayers and not foolishly tempting God by putting ourselves in unnecessary risk. One pastor, Dr. John Hess wrote to Luther asking for advice on how to deal with the plague. Martin Luther wrote this in response:

“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.”

Christ told his followers the pray with the faith that they would receive what they prayed for. “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24). However, James also tells us that people often do not have their prayers answered in the way they expect because they were praying selfishly. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3).

Praying selfishly is just another way of putting God to the test. Praying something like, “God. I’ll believe you exist if you give me a million dollars,” or “God, if you make my debt go away, I’ll become a missionary” are hypothetical examples of how people tempt God—put God to the test—through prayer.

There are four lessons to take away from all this:

1. Pray selflessly. It’s okay to ask for your needs and your health, but try to remember that it’s not just about you.

2. Pray with faith that you will receive what you ask for. Don’t just go through the motions of prayer thinking it’s meaningless. Prayer has power. But…

3. Pray with action. God usually uses people to achieve His purposes.

4. Do not pray in a way that puts God to the test. Don’t foolishly put yourself in harm thinking that God is going to protect you every time, and don’t pray selfishly, especially when you know you’re asking for something that God does not want you to have.

Think about it.

How Did Christians Decide Christmas Was On December 25th?

The Nativity by He Qi

A 12th century biblical scholar named Jacob Bar-Salibi wrote a bible commentary dated to 1171 A.D., a copy of which was discovered in the 19th century. In a note written in the margin of the copy that was found is the claim that Christmas was moved from January 6th to December 25th to coincide with the Roman pagan holiday Sol Invictus. From this, Christian critics, legalist Christian sects, and Christian cults condemned the celebration of Christmas as being of pagan origin. While the Bible makes no mention of the date when Christ was born, there is quite a bit of evidence that He was not born in December, namely that the Bible states that there were Shepherds keeping their flocks in the fields at night, which is not something they would have done in the winter. There are other ways to estimate the time of Christ’s birth, but suffice it to say, He was not born in December. Does that mean that Christmas is a celebration of pagan origin?

20th century scholarship, much of it still unknown outside of work by historians and scholars of ancient texts, has actually refuted this idea by looking at the Christian practices and writing of the time the supposed borrowing took place. When Aurelian proclaimed Sol Invictus to be an official cult of the Roman Empire on December 25th, 274 A.D. and thus making that day the feast day of Sol Invictus, most Christians were not celebrating the birth of Christ. There was some interest in determining the date of His birth, with Clement of Egypt writing in 200 A.D., recording some of the proposed dates as March 21st, April 15th, 20th, or 21st, or May 20th. At any rate, one of the reasons why Christians were persecuted from the foundation of the religion until the tolerance of Constantine in 312 A.D. was that they did everything they could to remain wholly separate and distinct from non-Christians. They would not have adopted a holiday from pagans at all from 274 to 312, as well as for many years after.

It was not until the late 6th century that Pope Gregory suggested “Christianizing” pagan celebrations in hopes of getting pagans to adopt Christianity. This also explains why many modern Christmas decorations like the Christmas tree, Yule log, wreath and lights all have pagan origins. No Christian writer prior to Gregory even suggested such a thing. On the contrary, their works suggested the exact opposite, encouraging pagans to throw off all semblance of paganism. Augustine in the third century, wrote a book titled Confessions in which he describes his conversion to Christianity and his separation from paganism and in addition to defending Christianity against pagan scholars, he lifts up his mother as an example by telling how she would stop any activity when she found it had the slightest similarity to pagan celebrations. Since Augustine was the model theologian for the early church and many theologians of his time and for centuries after tried to be like him, it should come as no surprise that there is no encouragement from any writer until Pope Gregory to adopt Christian celebrations and paganize them.

The problem is that Christmas appears as a Christian celebration long before the time of Pope Gregory. Pope Julius I proclaimed December 25th to be the official date to celebrate Christ’s birth in 350 A.D. The first official celebration of Christmas in the Roman Empire was on December 25th, 336 A.D. There is even a record that shows that Christians in Antioch (present day Turkey) celebrated Christmas on December 25th in about 150 A.D. The earliest record of the term “Sol Invictus” is from 158 A.D.

If Jesus was not born in December and Christians did not take the date from pagans, where did the date of December 25th come from? Early Christians may have determined the date by determining Christ’s death. In about 200 A.D., Tertullian of Carthage said that Jesus died on March 25th. A rabbinical tradition that important events repeat on the same date caused Tertullian and other North African Christians to believe that the annunciation—Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would conceive of the Holy Spirit—happened on March 25th as well. Augustine was familiar with the March 25th date and reported it in a sermon he preached.

“For he is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”

In other words, if Jesus was conceived on March 25th, a belief held by Christians for at least 74 years before Aurelian’s proclamation of Sol Invictus, then simply adding nine months gives a date of December 25th according to the same tradition. The evidence is quite clear that Christians were using this date for 124 years prior to Aurelian’s proclamation and even several years before a belief in Sol Invictus even began.

No matter how this issue is approached, the birth of Christ was believed by Christians to have been on December 25th long before the proclamation of Sol Invictus

John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons

Sunday night I had some free time for once and I decided to watch John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons. This is now showing on Netflix and is a filmed version of his one-man Broadway show. Leguizamo attempts to tell the history of Latin America in the form of a narrative about helping his son work on a middle school project.

The show is based on some true events. When Leguizamo's son, Lucas was in middle school, he was bullied by white kids at his school and called names like "beaner." When Leguizamo informed the faculty and the offending students were punished, the bullying was intensified. Lucas became ashamed of his heritage and his father set out to find some kind of Latin American history his son could be proud of. The show is the product of his research.

I'm glad that he took the time to do some research, but as with any actor's attempt to "teach" history, the result is promblematic. Leguizamo's source material includes Howard Zinn's book "A People's History of the United States," which Stanford historian and education expert, Sam Wineburg describes as a far left "crusade built on secondary sources of questionable provenance, omission of exculpatory evidence, leading questions and shaky connections between evidence and conclusions." Leguizamo's interpretation of Latin American history echoes the leftist crusade, is reductionist and reiterates leftist canards, one of the worst of which is that Europeans deliberately and systematically wiped out 95% of the indigenous population.

It is 100% true that the European treatment of indigenous Americans was criminal, and they made a solid go at killing off the population, but even liberal estimates put their achievement at a 15% reduction. The other 80% of the population was wiped out by disease. Leguizamo points this out, but his claim is that the Europeans figured out that European diseases were killing the indigenous people and all they had to do was wait around for indigenous people to get sick and then they could go in and waste the indigenous people. In order for Leguizamo's claim to be true, Europeans would have had to have a late 19th century understanding of bacteriology and epidemiology. Unfortunately for the people of the Americas, the European age of exploration began in the late 15th century. Vaccinology wasn't even invented until the late 18th century and even then, it wasn't well understood. The fact is, even if some "hey dude," peace-loving, hippies came to the New World from Europe, the native population of the Americas would still have been decimated by disease.

That's not genocide, because it's not deliberate, that's just plain bad luck.

At least with Zinn's book, Leguizamo was referencing respected, albeit problematic book. What I found surprising were the number of urban legends and meme claims being reiterated as fact by Leguizamo. For instance, he claims that the founding fathers plagiarized the US Constitution, copying it from the Iroquois Constitution. First of all, he doesn't even get the urban legend right. The urban legend is that the American Articles of Confederation were plagiarized from the Iroquois Great Law of Peace. Second, both of these documents are freely available from a variety of reputable sources. Conduct a simple internet search and you can find the full text of the Great Law of Peace, the American Articles of Confederation, and the US Constitution. Read them, compare them, and contrast them. They are very different. Furthermore, the founding fathers, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson who Leguizamo specifically names had a great deal of respect for Native Americans. While they may have drawn some inspiration from Native Americans (I have no documentation for that), most of the founding documents--the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the US Constitution were based on the writings of European Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Adam Smith, and Charles Montesquieu.

I was also disappointed by how often Leguizamo took the low road of comedy. He often criticizes Donald Trump in his show and I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that he often stereotypically caricatures women, disabled people, people of different races, religions (including Judaism and Islam) and homosexuals. This bothers me on several levels. Donald Trump has been rightly criticized for doing the same thing. Conservative comedians would get raked over the coals for doing a show with content of this nature.

Don't get me wrong, Leguizamo gets a lot correct and if nothing else he addresses serious issues in the American approach to writing history text books. I was surprised he didn't address the Mexican-American studies program in Tucson that was banned by the school board for being un-American based on nothing more than hearsay. I was also surprised that in his search for Latin American heroes for his son, his first major figure was a European born Spaniard, General Bernardo de Gálvez . In his quest for Latin American heroes, he barely gave a footnote Venezuelan born Simón Bolívar , who is often referred to as the George Washington of South America. The Mexican Cry of Dolores lists six heroes of the Mexican Revolutionary era: Miguel Hidalgo, Jose Morelos, Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez, Ignacio Allende, Juan Aldama, and Mariano Matamoros. He could have told his son about José de San Martín who brought independence to Argentina.

There is one last area where I feel John Leguizamo got something wrong. He claims that Latin American history has been systematically cut out of American history curriculum. I disagree, because in order for Latin American history to have been "cut out," it has to have been part of the history curriculum to begin with and it has not been, which, to me, is even more egregious than the history having been cut out.

Latin American history is usually limited to conflict arising from the secession of Texas from Mexico and the resulting Texas Revolution and then the Mexican-American War.

Usually, the only person who gets main billing for the Texas Revolution is Sam Houston and of course the heroes of the Alamo like William Travis, James Bowie, and Davy Crockett. What about Juana Navarro Alsbury, a Tejana who attempted to negotiate surrender for the Alamo defenders? I don't remember being taught about the Mexican-American War other than it happened and resulted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Mexican Cession. I don't remember reading about the Radical Whigs and Mexican Oligarchs working together to unify Mexico and the United States into one country, but being rebuffed by racist Americans in the Democrat party, including President James K. Polk and conservative Whigs who were worried that America was already too big and should not expand. I don't remember hearing that General Zachary Taylor was sent to occupy a disputed strip of land and began sending out patrols to taunt the Mexicans into a fight. When the Mexicans did attack a patrol which was on what the Mexicans perceived to be their territory, Polk claimed it was an act of war and used it as an excuse to force the Mexicans to sell the Mexican Cession for chump change.

I'm not suggesting that we give land back to Mexico. What I am saying is that Latin Americans of all national origins have contributed to the formation of this country, probably more so than any other minority group. I’m also suggesting that, while I believe that America is a great country, the teaching of its history should show everything, the good and the bad--warts, bruises, and all.

I do hope that people watch John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons with the understanding that it is primarily entertainment, problematic history with an agenda second, and with that understanding, I hope people will read and research and find out for themselves how their own ancestors contributed to the development and history of this country. As a historian and an aspiring educator, I hope that future curriculum will worry less about putting America in a consistently positive light and just teach history instead. I think America is great. I think America was built on positive ideals. However, America has not always lived up to those ideals and we have some skeletons in our closet. It might change the shade of light that history curriculum shines on America from rosy to stark, but how can future generations learn from the mistakes of the past if they don't know what the mistakes were?

If you’re looking for a good history of Latin America with no agenda, The Penguin History of Latin America by Edwin Williamson is probably the best there is. The Two-Volume A History of Latin America by Benjamin Keen and Keith Haynes is also good and has the benefit of some great illustrations. Another great book that deals with a lot of border issues during the time just before and just after the Mexican Cession is Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History by Karl Jacoby. I can’t recommend that book highly enough. I’m kind of obsessed with it.

Leguizamo did recommend two books that are worth reading. One is Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. This is a great book that discusses why societies collapse and though it was written 21 years ago, it’s still relevant today. Jared Diamond also has a Ted Talk called “Why do Societies Collapse?” That condenses the findings of the book if you don’t want to read the whole book. Leguizamo also recommended 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. Mann is a science journalist and this book consolidates the growing body of work by archaeologists, historians, ecologists, geographers, and anthropologists regarding Native American history.

Christine Blasey Ford, Brett Kavanaugh, the Seriousness of Accusations, and the Presumption of Innocence

I should probably be using my down time at work to be working on homework right now, but I am just too angry and I have to get this off my chest.

A few minutes before I began writing this, I was on patrol at a local college where I work part time as a security officer. I passed by some faculty offices and outside one of the offices, on a bulletin board was a piece of paper with the words “WE BELIEVE WOMEN” printed on it. That was the final straw for me.

Over the past few weeks, I have watched this country degenerate into the worst political state imaginable. It’s not just Republicans and it’s not just Democrats. It’s both and their followers who blindly line up behind their “leaders” lockstep like lemmings and they have all gone over the edge together.

Since I used to be a Republican several decades ago and I still typically vote Republican, I’m going to start with Republicans and people on the right. But don’t worry Democrats and people on the left, I have plenty of juice for you and I am going to give it away for free tonight.

Over the past few weeks from Republicans, Republican voters, so-called conservatives, and way too many Libertarians, I have seen some of the vilest, hateful, ignorant, sexist, and misogynist comments I have ever seen spewed forth from the fingertips and out of the mouths of you people in the name of “questioning the accuser.” It hasn’t been just men either. Even worse, many of them should freaking know better!

“Do all women wait 40 years to report a rape, or is it just Democrats?”

I saw that question in meme form posted on a woman’s Facebook page. But don’t worry guys. A lot of you posted this nonsense too. It’s shameful and it’s ignorant. Here’s a better question: How many women who are victims of sexual violence never report the crime to police? And the answer is about 70%. That’s right, about 7 out of every 10 women who are raped or otherwise sexually assaulted will never tell authorities and their attackers will likely never face justice. EVER! The only reason why we have statistics on this is because women do tell people—friends, family, therapists, clergy, and other people they trust. The reality is, though, that many women may not tell anybody and take the information to the grave with them, so the real number could be higher. Much higher.

I will throw another statistic out there for you women who may be thinking about climbing on your high horse. Men are also victims of sex crimes and while the numbers of men who are sexually assaulted are lower, the number of men who report sex crimes to authorities is only about 10%.

Why would a woman not tell the police they have been sexually victimized? The answer to that is for women have already been victimized, the process of bringing their accuser to justice forces them to be revictimized. They have to go to a doctor who is going to swab every inch of her body for evidence. After a sexual assault, most victims don’t want to be touched at all. They want to shower, close and lock their doors, pull their drapes, and cry themselves to sleep. Then of course, there are the lawyers who are going to question their reputation, their actions, how they dressed. Yes, it is the job of defense lawyers to try and place the blame on the victim if there is solid evidence that the accused did sexually assault the accuser. Then, of course, there is the shame that comes with having been violated that way: What will friends and family think, and if this becomes a big enough deal, what will the public think? Do you want to have your name and reputation dragged through the mud? I don’t think so. Anyone who comes forward, even in a clear cut case is very courageous. This is why we take accusations of rape or sexual assault seriously. Notice that taking an accusation seriously is not, nor should it be synonymous with belief, or disbelief for that matter. But I’ll get back to that in a bit.

“If Christine Blasey Ford was so afraid of flying, why did she fly to Hawaii, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean?” and similar idiotic questions.

The questions about her travel habits may be a clever tactic to convince the weak-minded that there is a problem with her story, but in reality, there are many people who are afraid of flying who do so because it is the only way to quickly get somewhere where they need or want to be. Sean Bean of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones fame doesn’t like flying, but do you think he took a boat to New Zealand to film Lord of the Rings? Nope. He flew. During one filming sequence, the crew needed to take a helicopter to get on set. During the first trip, some of the cast played a prank on Sean Bean and got the pilot to do some “fancy flying” and it scared Sean Bean. So, for the rest of the filming on that set, he got to the site early, got into full Boromir costume, took a ski lift part of the way up the mountain, and then hiked the final few miles. The whole trip took him two hours each direction every day. And yes, he did it multiple days.

Could it be that Ford wanted to avoid unnecessary travel?

I know lots of people who are afraid of flying. I am not one of them, but I have a family member who is afraid of flying. She has flown all over the world with a white-knuckled death grip on the armrests the whole way. But still she flies and I believe she has gotten better about her fear of flying, but I haven’t asked her about it lately. The point is that people who are afraid of flying will avoid flying unless they have to or the rewards for flying outweigh the drawbacks. For Ford to testify in the Senate hearings, she could take a week-long trip by car or a three day trip by train or bus, which would be extremely inconvenient, or she could suffer through the shorter albeit more stressful inconvenience of flying in one day. She’s an educated woman and I believe she made the educated choice. Facing your fears to do what you love or feel is important is pretty brave.

Brett Kavanaugh has many great character witnesses that say he’s a great guy.

So what? Ted Bundy was liked by everyone who knew him. Jeffry Dahmer was described as a thoughtful, active citizen. Phillip Markoff was an honors student. Robert Lee Yates was an active member of his church. They were also all notorious serial killers. If enough evidence comes out to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Kavanaugh did sexually assault Ford, none of his character witnesses will amount to a hill of beans, to coin the Humphrey Bogart line.

Okay Christine Blasey Ford supporters. I have finished flame spraying Kavanaugh supporters, let me aim my frustration at y’all for a while.

“Innocent until proven guilty.”

Need I say more? How about this?

“The burden of proof rests with the prosecution until it shifts to the defense.”

These are foundational beliefs in the American justice system and yet with just an accusation, the anti-Trump crowd has actually decided that a person accused of a crime should be considered guilty until proven innocent. Regarding Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings, former Vice President Joe Biden recently said, “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time. But nobody fails to understand that this is like jumping into a cauldron.” It is almost as if Joe Biden is saying that if there is more publicity involved, the accusation should be taken more seriously. Really?

Here's another one for you:

“Equality before the law.”

I believe that what Joe Biden is saying has some truth to it. A person who has been sexually assaulted by someone prominent who is also willing to come forward is very courageous, but there could be other reasons why a person would make a false accusation against a person of prominence, but I’ll get to that. The fact is that a person is not more believable because they are accusing a person in prominence any more than a person in prominence is more likely to be a criminal. Sure, power corrupts, but that does not mean that we do away with the foundations of our whole legal system. If you think the prison population is a problem now, just go ahead and do away with equality before the law and innocent until proven guilty. A whole world of accusations will explode and so will the prison population.

But I digress.

“We believe women.”

That’s what got me here in the first place. Why are women more believable than men? Why is Christine Blasey Ford more believable than Brett Kavanaugh? But “we believe women.” Fine.

A young man who was a senior in high school, a talented football player, had committed to attend USC, and received a scholarship to attend. His star was on the rise. Then, a female classmate of his accused him of rape. He confessed to the rape in order to receive a plea deal and spent more than five years in prison. He lost his scholarship, while many of his high school friends went on to play professional football. The woman also received a $1.5 million settlement from the high school since the alleged attack occurred on the campus. Of course, a few years later she was found to have lied about the whole thing. Her family had to give back the money plus some, but the man, Brian Banks lost 10 years of his life, what likely would have been a promising, multi-million dollar football career, and who knows what other experiences were stolen from him because “we believe women."

In 2006, Crystal Gail Mangum accused three members of the Duke University Lacrosse team of rape. Women are to be believed right? Well, the case went to court and it was discovered that she had falsely accused the men of rape. That didn’t prevent the men’s lives from being thrown into chaos, having their educations interrupted for months, the mental strain, suspensions, distrust from friends, etc.

In 1987, Mike Pitassi a high school band teacher in Tuscon, Arizona was accused of sexually molesting two girls in the band. Women should be believed, right? Well, it turns out that they were going to receive a bad grade in band and wanted to get it changed. Either Pitassi would change the grade or they would go to authorities and he would be arrested and they would get their grade changed that way. It didn’t work out for them. Of course, it didn’t work out well for Mike Pitassi either. He resigned his position and I have no idea what happened to him. Sure, he was exonerated, but it hurt his career at the very least.

I have personally been the subject of false accusations at the hands of women for simply doing my job. They were believed. I was never accused of sexual assault, but I have still had accusations made against me. I was once accused of sexually harassing a woman. She accused me because I was her supervisor, and I caught her trying to get out of work and put her back to work. Fortunately, there were witnesses, both male and female, who came to my defense in the investigation, but it was a stressful time.

My story and the stories I listed above are not exceptional. They occur all too frequently because we have lived in a world for a few decades now where women are more often believed over men. Why? It’s low hanging fruit. It’s easy to pick and easy to eat. It doesn’t take much intellectual work, but questioning and investigating takes work. That work is made all the more difficult when the events being investigated are 40 years old. It's not just lacking in intellectualism, it is anti-intellectual.

The fact of the matter is that as much as politics plays a role in this issue because a Supreme Court nomination is at stake, this is not a political matter. It is a legal one. Because this is a legal matter, until Ford has a case that she can take to a court of law and try Bret Kavanaugh, Christine Ford’s accusation is just that and nothing more. It is a political maneuver by a woman who has been and still is an outspoken anti-Trump protester. Whether she’s making it up or it actually happened is a matter for a court of law to decide, not the general public, politicians or the media.

Why would anyone put themselves through this kind of a stressful situation where they’re receiving death threats and having to be victimized through the media again?

There are at least four possibilities.

The first I have already discussed. She is making a political maneuver to prevent a conservative judge from getting on the Supreme Court. The circus involved, even if he is eventually found innocent may be enough to get him to pull his name from consideration and let another nominee have his name put forward. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. If you’re a conspiracy theorist, someone might even be offering her some kind of monetary reward for doing this.

The second is attention. She may be looking for her fifteen minutes of fame. Sure, she’s a published Ph.D., but that’s not famous. She’s a household name now, though. Democrats and leftists, politicians and celebrities, and just every day people have rushed to her defense by the millions. She’s been automatically believed. For every negative e-mail or letter, or death threat she has received, there have been equal amounts, if not more support lavished upon her. A person who craves attention doesn't care if it's positive or negative. Sure, positive is preferred, but everything is good.

The third is a case of mistaken identity. I want you to think back to your time in high school, especially if you went to high school decades ago. Did you go to any parties? I did. Did you meet people from other schools? I did. Members of the opposite sex? Yep. Lots. What were their names? Uh oh. I went to a ton of parties. I met people from different high schools. There were a lot of people whose names I knew at the time because I swam with them for USAA, SAA, or AP&R for years. I also knew people from different high schools because we lived in the same neighborhood or went to the same schools at other times. I can only remember a few of their names now and only two of the females from other high schools. I remember them because I attended junior high school with them. Of the boys’ names from other high schools that I remember from high school parties, there is only one I remember because we swam on the same AP&R team and later the same USAA team. Other than the people with whom I am friends on Facebook, I couldn’t tell you what any of the rest of those people looked like today.

The point I am making is that it might be easy to remember a face, but it can be difficult to remember the name of a person you don’t see on a regular basis. If you throw in alcohol, drugs, or just plain being tired from being up late, you might forget a face, too. Add 20 years to that memory and you see a person who looks familiar, you check the name, and yep they’re from your town, yep, the name rings a bell, that must be the person! Of course, that person now looks like the older version of  another person who victimized you, or your mind is connecting that person to the memory of your victimization, and yes, that happens. In fact, it has been shown that people can be wrong about very simple and seemingly obvious details just moments after a crime has been committed. Adrenaline, fear, and other stressors can cloud details even further. Time does not help you gain clarity.

Then, of course, there is a fourth option: She remembers the whole thing vividly, Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her and he and Bill Cosby should be sharing a cell together. If enough evidence is found to take him to court (no such thing has happened yet), then go to court. What if he’s already been confirmed? The Constitution has the “good behavior” clause and if he is found guilty, he would be removed from the court and jailed.

The veracity of Ford’s claims, or the guilt or innocence of Brett Kavanaugh is not for me to decide, or you, or the media, or politicians, or anyone else for that matter. It is up to a court of law.

Does that mean I disbelieve Ford’s claims and believe Kavanaugh’s claims? No. I take all claims of all crimes very seriously but taking a claim seriously does not mean I believe it or disbelieve it. It means that I believe that the claims should be looked into by law enforcement and if evidence is found to indicate there is a case against Kavanaugh, he should be taken to trial with an unbiased (good luck with that!) jury of his peers and the judicial system should handle the case.

I will not pass judgment on either Ford or Kavanaugh because I was not at the party where the sexual assault occurred. Neither were any of the people who are likely reading this, so for those who are passing judgment on one or the other, I am passing judgment on you: You're being stupid!

I will finish by asking a couple of questions to those who have pushed through their anger to read this far:

Ford supporters: Why are you supporting her? Is it because you believe all women without evidence or is it because you hate President Donald Trump so much that you will grab on to anything to hamper his administration and block his agenda?

Personally, I can’t stand Trump. I did not vote for him in 2016 and I have no plans to vote for him in 2020 either. I will even be honest and say I am not particularly fond of Brett Kavanaugh either. Sure, I love his libertarian and pro-constitution stances on the 2^nd amendment and government regulation. However, he has very problematic views concerning presidential impeachment. He supported government metadata collection in violation of the 4^th amendment, and there are other 4^th amendment opinions he holds that I take issue with. If I had a vote, I would not vote for him. However, does that mean I am willing to call him a sex predator because someone claims he did something almost 40 years ago? Nope.

Kavanaugh supporters: Why are you more willing to support him? Is it because you think that Ford’s accusations lack merit or are at least suspicious, is it because you love Trump so much that you are willing to overlook any possibility of malfeasance on the part of his nominees, or is it because you hate Democrats or anyone who opposes Trump so much that you automatically assume anything they say is a lie?

I am also not fond of most Democrats. However, I am not willing to just dismiss out of hand an accusation of sexual assault simply because of the timing or because it is made by a Democrat, nor am I willing to simply dismiss a claim because it was made 40 years after the fact since most sexual assaults are never reported.

Because of most of the arguments I have seen on the internet and in the media, I do not think either side is thinking about this from a non-partisan and logical perspective. Mostly, it’s just hate, vitriol, politics, and worse, feelings.

In other words, you’re both wrong and I'm not sorry if I hurt your feelings.

Review and Analysis of Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi

“No one’s ever really gone.”

- Luke Skywaker

I will start out by saying, I liked The Last Jedi. I gave it ten stars on most movie review aggregator websites, but that was mostly due to my excitement from having seen another Star Wars movie in the theaters. Now that my initial excitement has subsided, I would probably give it an 8 or 9 out of ten stars. I’ll shoot the gap and give it an 8.5/10. It’s not a perfect movie, but it is an excellent film.

SPOILER ALERT: There will be many spoilers to follow, so if you haven’t seen the film yet and you care about it not being spoiled, stop reading right now.

The plot of the film is available on just about every fan site, Wikipedia, Wookiepedia, and others, so I’m not going to rehash the entire plot, but I am going to dig deep into some of the plot points, the themes, and analyze to an extent why this film is the way it is. So, let me skip to the theme. The overarching theme of the film is “The Past” and what importance does it play in our lives, if any. The past determines who we are, but not who we will become. How we react to the past does.

Rey has been dwelling on her past and letting it hold her back. Like Annie who rejected being adopted by Daddy Warbucks, Rey turned down every opportunity to get off Jakku. Even after she left, she was trying to get back. For Star Wars fans, we assume that her parents must have been somebody because of how powerful she is with the Force. For those who complained that Episode VII was too much like Episode IV, they were hoping for a big reveal that Rey’s parents were some big deal and that she was hidden on Jakku for her protection. Sound familiar? The same fans who complained about Force Awakens’ similarity to A New Hope were hoping that The Last Jedi would reuse the same plot point from the original trilogy. I was not one of the people who complained about the similarities between Episodes IV and VII because it actually kind of made sense in light of George Lucas’ feeling that the films rhyme. I was one of the fans that hoped for Rey’s parents to be somebody.

Unfortunately for the fanboys who all feel they should be in charge, Rey is actually a nobody from nowhere. She’s more of an everyman character than many characters in most franchises of late have been. She’s not the orphaned child of parents who were important people in their world and were betrayed by a close friend, she’s not the child of a great warrior who was raised by an aunt and uncle, and she’s not the child of a great Jedi-turned-Sith who was being hidden for her own safety. No. Rey is the child of alcoholic junk traders who sold her for drinking money. Just like Annie, Rey actually has long known they were dead, but she was letting the possibility that they may return hold her back.

Even though I was disappointed that Rey doesn’t have some major pedigree like Luke, it actually liberates her as a character in the franchise. Accepting that her parents are dead allows her to take up her mantle as The Last Jedi which is passed to her by Luke Skywalker. Her realization frees her up to live her life and move into a greater future than any she could have envisioned on Jakku. She can move on and people who were disappointed that Rey doesn’t have some amazing pedigree should move on too.

The theme of The Past holding one back is also part of Luke Skywalker’s story. After his failure with Ben Solo/Kylo Ren, he went into hiding in “the most unfindable place in the galaxy” and shut himself off from the Force. Luke focuses on failure—the failure of Jedi to prevent the rise of the Empire under Darth Sidious as well as his own failure to train the next generation of Jedi. He ascribes the failure of the Jedi and his own failure to hubris. Luke felt that the power of the Jedi led to their being mythologized and deified and that, in turn, led to the pride of the Jedi order that caused their own downfall. This is why he feels the Jedi must come to an end.

Luke still has a lesson to learn, so he is given a student that must be taught the ways of the Force, and he is also given a teacher in Yoda, who returns to remind him of the training that he received. Yoda’s last words to Luke before he transformed into the Force were, “Pass on what you have learned.” Yoda returns from the Force to remind Luke that passing on what you have learned includes the lessons that failure can teach. Every successful person in history has only become successful through failure. Yoda’s lesson to Luke is perseverance.

Then there is Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. For Kylo Ren, the past is something that must be escaped. He fights with it through both movies. He wants to take up his grandfather’s mantle, but he also has to come to terms with the fact that his father, Han Solo and his uncle, Luke Skywalker were both enemies of the Empire and Luke was a Jedi and user of the light side of the Force. He also has to come to grips with the fact that Darth Vader turned to the light and once again became Anakin Skywalker before dying. He wants to rule the galaxy with Supreme Leader Snoke and to do so, he must reject all of his connections to the light side and yet the conflict tears him apart. He tells Snoke that he killed Han Solo without hesitation and yet those of us who watched The Force Awakens know that he not only hesitated, he had a whole conversation where he admitted to the conflict he was dealing with.

The problem with Kylo Ren is that his method of dealing with the past is to destroy it. He tells Rey, regarding her past, “Kill it if you have to.” Rather than learn from his past, Kylo Ren sees his failures as weakness and that weakness holds him back. He thinks that by destroying or killing all of his connections to the past, he will also destroy memories of his failures which he sees as signs of weakness. In fact, his overarching desire to destroy the past is his weakness and it causes him to fail.

Personality problems aside, Kylo Ren is still an interesting character. After The Force Awakens came out, there were many people who had a problem with how easily he was defeated by Rey and this same criticism is leveled against him by Snoke in The Last Jedi. Something that I think too many fans failed to notice is that Kylo Ren faced Rey after getting shot by Chewbacca’s bowcaster. When anyone else gets hit by Chewbacca’s bow caster they are sent flying. Kylo Ren, on the other hand simply takes a knee. He had to be in the most extreme pain. Proving this point was the fact that he didn’t simply put Finn into a Force hold and Finn was able to hold his own against Kylo Ren, though eventually he was almost killed. Kylo Ren also said that Rey was just becoming aware of her Force abilities and she was growing stronger by the minute. A severely weakened Kylo Ren had to fight against Rey whose power in the Force had strengthened to the point that she could Jedi mind trick Storm Trooper James Bond to let her go and leave his F-11D blaster rifle and she could Force pull Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber to fight with Kylo Ren.

The same fans who wondered how Kylo Ren who was so easily defeated by Rey now wonder how Kylo Ren was able to so easily kill Snoke. Just like the fans who seemingly didn’t notice Kylo Ren’s injury prevented his defeat of Rey in The Force Awakens, Snoke also seems to miss or ignore the same fact. He berates Kylo Ren who has shown nothing but loyalty. While Snoke is monologuing about what a great guy he is and how well he knows his apprentice, his pride causes him to show his hand, that he was able to connect Kylo and Rey’s minds through the Force. During the following shots, we can see Kylo’s anger, but also his concentration. He has partitioned his mind to prevent Snoke from seeing his true intentions. Snoke represents everything wrong with the men in Kylo Ren’s life. He was left with Luke Skywalker to be trained, but he felt betrayed when he thought Luke was going to kill him. His sense of betrayal extended to both of his parents, especially his father.

With the death of Snoke, the Star Wars universe is left with a truly terrifying villain in Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren has demonstrated how powerful with the Force he has become, but he is also struggling with his father issues and hasn’t quite grown up. He already had anger issues and turned them against his subordinates who are terrified to even be in his presence. Rather than learning from the mistake of Snoke whose leadership style of abuse and rule by fear led to his assassination at the hands of his apprentice, Kylo Ren chooses to lead in the same way, but without experience or the cold calculation that helped Snoke rise to power. He immediately builds resentment in General Hux who we can see is mentally plotting how he will betray Kylo Ren.

Another theme in the film is failure. Rey fails to turn Kylo Ren to the light side, Luke fails to teach a new generation of Jedi, and Kylo Ren fails to crush the resistance because of his obsession with killing Luke Skywalker, which he also fails to do.

Three other characters that learn the lessons of failure are Poe Dameron, Finn, and new character Rose Tico, played by actress Kellie Marie Tran.

When the Resistance fleet attempts to escape the First Order by jumping to hyperspace, the First Order appears right on their heels. The Resistance leaders realize that they are being tracked through hyperspace, something that was impossible until then. Sharp viewers will note that this is technology that the Empire/First Order has been working on since before the Battle of Yavin as Jyn Erso discovers a data disc with research regarding “hyperspace tracking” in the data bank on Scarif in Rogue One.

To combat the new tracking technology, Rey, Finn, and Rose hatch a plan to sneak aboard the lead star destroyer, The Supremacy, to disarm the tracking device. Once on board, Finn knows how to get to the tracking device and Rose has the technical expertise to shut it down. In order to get aboard, they will need a code breaker to get through the First Order’s security shields. They contact Maz Kanata who tells them to go to the Casino on Canto Bight and find the Master Codebreaker who is also a high stakes gambler. Poe stays behind while Finn and Rose go to Canto Bight.

Finn and Rose get to Canto Bight and find the Master Codebreaker, but before they can make contact, they are thrown in prison for illegal parking. They failed at securing the Master Codebreaker, but their odd cell mate, DJ, played Benicio Del Toro, tells them he is also a codebreaker and can help them get aboard the Supremacy. The sequence on Canto Bight was one of my first major disappointments in the movie. I wished they had spent more time there exploring more of that world, its denizens and morally grey patrons. I also wished they had developed the relationship between Rose and Finn more as well.

Upon reaching the Supremacy, DJ helps Rose and Finn get aboard and Finn gets them to the tracking system, but they are caught by stormtroopers and sentenced to death. One of the main criticisms of the Rose/Finn subplot is that it doesn’t serve the larger story. If their whole story was cut out entirely, the movie would have ended exactly the same way. That is true, but many good stories are the same way. A good example is Raiders of the Lost Ark. If Indiana Jones had stayed home instead of going off looking for the Ark of the Covenant, the Nazis would still have had their faces melted off and the Ark would probably still be collecting dust on the island. Either way, the bad guys die. So, what is the purpose of the Rose/Finn subplot? Growth for Finn as a character before the final act in Episode IX.

Rey has to learn about the Force, deal with her family issues, and take up the mantle of the Last Jedi. Poe has to learn the hard lessons of leadership which I’ll discuss in a bit. Finn, one third of the new Star Wars trio has to have a story to show how he grows. Remember, Finn was on the run and wanted to still be on the run. He only helped the resistance in The Force Awakens because he wanted to help his friend, Rey. He fought Kylo Ren out of necessity. He probably thought he was going to die anyway, so he might as well have gone down fighting.

After recovering from his wounds, he packs his bags and is getting ready to run again when he’s discovered by Rose Tico who has already stunned three people attempting desertion and Finn turns out to be her fourth victim that day. Rose begins by idolizing Finn. She doesn’t even notice that Finn is attempting to desert the fleet because she is too busy fangirling about meeting Finn in person. She put him up on a pedestal, but once she realizes that he is attempting to desert, her disappointment is palpable, but she is still willing to trust that Finn may be the hero she wants him to be. She’s willing to give him another chance. She has to learn the hard lesson that our heroes are humans too. They have weakness as well as strength, they make mistakes, and they fail us.

While we get to learn about a new character, the point of the Finn/Rose subplot is Finn’s growth. During the course of his adventure with Rose, Finn finds out that the galaxy isn’t a clear-cut black and white place. There are people who are attempting to profit off the war between the Resistance and the First Order, he learns that there are people who are being oppressed not only by the First Order, but the profiteers as well, he learns that people who come from ordinary environments can rise up to become great leaders, even those who lived under that kind of oppression, and he learns that fighting for the weak as part of the Resistance is a worthy endeavor, even when all seems hopeless. Finn goes from fighting for selfish reasons and fighting out of necessity to being willing to sacrifice his life to save the Resistance.

It is at the point that Finn is about to sacrifice himself that he is prevented by Rose Tico and we find out that she has fallen in love with him. She tells him that the war won’t be won by “fighting what we hate, but by saving what we love.” At that point, the failures of the protagonists end. But first, let’s talk about Poe.

Poe Dameron was nothing more than a hotshot pilot in The Force Awakens. He’s a wise-cracking rogue, much like Han Solo. Other than that, unless you read the extended universe novels and comic books, you won’t find out much about him. So, for those who won’t dig into the extended universe, Poe needs to have a story where he grows as well. His story is about leadership and growth as a leader. Having been in the military, his story really resonates with me. I’ve been in some hairy situations where I didn’t know exactly what we were doing and why. Just because you are part of a military unit in a combat situation doesn’t mean you have access to all the intelligence, and plans related to the operation. You can ask and ask and ask, but unless you have the need to know, you will probably never find out the reason why a mission is being carried out the way it is. That is the situation with Poe and it frustrates him to no end.

As a commander in the Resistance, he had access to all kinds of information and had a close relationship with General Leia Organa who kept him in the loop. Unfortunately, Poe disobeys Leia’s orders at the very beginning of the film and it results in the deaths of dozens of Resistance fighters and all their bombers. Leia demotes Poe as soon as he returns to the ship. Leia tells Poe that the sacrifice of Resistance bombers and their pilots served no purpose because they need all the help they can get to fight another day. That’s Poe’s first lesson.

Minutes after coming out of hyperspace, General Organa is incapacitated during a battle with the First Order and a new leader, Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, played by Laura Dern is put in charge of the fleet. She tells Poe nothing, she refuses to share her plan with the crew or even tell the crew that there is a plan. Because of her apparent inaction, the Resistance fleet is slowly whittled away by the First Order. Poe suspects her of being a traitor, has her arrested, and assumes command of the only remaining ship, the Raddus, which Rogue One fans will recognize as the name of the Mon Calamari admiral who led the Rebel forces against the Empire at the Battle of Scarif. After Poe and his fellow mutineers take the bridge, General Organa breaks in and stuns Poe. He wakes up in a transport heading for an uncharted planet called Crait which was an old Rebel base. Leia tells him that as soon as they realized they were being tracked, this had been the Resistance plan all along.

While the death of Admiral Ackbar was disturbing to some fans and Leia being incapacitated for half the film was also annoying, they could not have been in charge for Poe to learn the lessons that he needed to learn. Because Holdo was completely unknown to most film goers, it was easier to see her as a possible traitor and even those of us who know her background could easily suspect that she might turn to the First Order. That added tension would not have worked with Leia or Ackbar in charge. We would automatically give them the benefit of the doubt. From a storytelling perspective, Vice Admiral Holdo’s character makes perfect sense, but only if you realize that she is a supporting character in Poe’s story arc.

Even though it is Poe’s story arc, Vice Admiral Holdo and General Organa have a touching moment together that was actually written by Carrie Fisher and Laura Dern. Fisher and Dern found out that Amilyn Holdo and Leia Organa had been friends since they were girls, so when Holdo decides to remain aboard the Raddus as the other survivors escape, there is a touching and bitter-sweet moment between friends.

We see that Poe has learned his lessons during the Battle of Crait. When he realizes that the attack on the First Order is hopeless and sacrificing his remaining pilots would serve no purpose, he calls off the attack and orders a general retreat. With his lesson learned, he is able to retake his mantle of leadership and leads the Resistance to safety. Even Leia says, “What are you looking at me for? Follow him.”

When all the protagonists have grown by learning the lessons of their story arc, the failures end. Poe recognizes the folly of needless sacrifice, Finn learns the value of individual sacrifice and serving something bigger than yourself, Rose realizes the importance of saving what we love, and Rey takes up the mantle of the Jedi. At that moment, Luke arrives on Crait to face Kylo Ren. Deus ex machina? Yes, but not in the normally contrived way. In fact, Luke’s arrival demonstrates just how powerful a Jedi he has become, but also that he has learned the lesson that he needed to learn. The Jedi must go on and Rey is the Last Jedi. A fact that he relates to Kylo Ren when Luke faces off with him. Luke’s arrival distracts Kylo and the First Order long enough for the remnants of the Resistance to escape aboard the Millennium Falcon. Luke has also learned that the success of the resistance won’t come from fighting what we hate, but saving what we love, and he loves his nephew, Ben Solo. So, Luke does not physically come to Crait, he manifests as a Force projection strong enough to appear real and allows Kylo Ren to waste time and energy attacking him. Once the remaining Resistance fighters have gotten to safety, Luke tells Kylo Ren that Rey is the Last Jedi and his Force projection fades away.

Carrie Fisher was also responsible for some of the dialogue between Luke and Leia when she sees his Force projection, "I know what you're going to say," she says. "I changed my hair." Rian Johnson also provides my favorite line of the film. Luke hands Han Solo’s dice from the Millennium Falcon to Leia (which we later find out are also part of the Force projection) and tells Leia, “No one’s ever really gone.” When Rian wrote that line, Carrie Fisher was still alive and of course Luke’s line was both referring to the death of Han and possibly hinting at Luke transforming into the Force, but with Carrie Fisher’s death last December (which I heard about in the middle of my first screening of Rogue One), Luke’s line carries an extra sentiment that I am sure most fans of Carrie Fisher share.

We also find out that Rey has taken the Jedi texts aboard the Millennium Falcon and Yoda says she has everything she needs to become a Jedi which is why Luke is able to fully pass the mantle to Rey and transforms into the Force.

I have heard lots of complaints about the writing in this film. I have heard it called lazy and cliché. I frankly don’t understand the accusation of cliché because I literally could not have predicted any of it. The twists in the film, especially the surprise death of Snoke, were worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. Finn and Rose’s story seemed rushed and I am sure that some of the material that ended up on the editing room floor would have helped their story along, but probably would have mired the film’s fast-moving pace. The tone of the film was very dark and without the humor balancing it out, the film could have been downright depressing. The humor was not slapstick and most of it was in line with what we have come to expect from the characters. The only unexpected humor came from Luke who most of us probably expected to be more serious after thirty years as a Jedi, which I am sure disappointed many Star Wars fans. However, the humor from his character made sense for the character that Luke has become in this story.

I have also seen some criticisms of the acting in The Last Jedi. Again, I don’t really understand that. I don’t think anybody went into this film expecting to see a great performance worthy of a Shakespearean actor or high drama. We did get a lot of high drama, but I don’t think that anybody is going to get any Oscar nominations. That being said, the acting was better than anything from the prequels and pretty much in line with the original trilogy, but maybe not as good as Empire Strikes Back.

The special effects are mostly impeccable. Unlike George Lucas in the prequels who seemed more concerned about what he could do with special effects, often to the point of distraction, Rian Johnson effectively uses CGI and other effects as a tool to tell a great story. The only place where the special effects were kind of lacking were in Rose and Finn’s escape from Canto Bight. The scene has Finn and Rose wrecking Canto Bight on the back of animals called Fathiers. The animals were computer animated and Boyega and Tran were not well integrated into the effects shots. On the other hand, Admiral Holdo sacrifices herself by aiming the Raddus at the Supremacy and then jumping to hyperspace destroying most of the First Order fleet at Crait. The design of that scene and its execution were simply breathtaking. In both screenings that I attended, the audience reaction reflected just how amazing it was. It was art.

As for the music. John Williams is amazing. He weaves the themes of the old characters with the new characters. Yoda’s theme is back, the Luke and Leia theme from Return of the Jedi is back. We also get some new cantina music from the Canto Bight sequence. Frankly, this is my favorite part of the Canto Bight sequence. It retains that sort of Tin Pan Alley feel of the original Cantina music with a little Gershwin glitz and glamor thrown in to remind us that this isn’t a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but rather the Monaco of the galaxy far, far away—the playground of the rich and successful, the haven of the galactic one percent. The main theme has steel drums and kazoos and a samba section that feels like Aquarelo do Brasil then shifts into that 1920s swing Tin Pan Alley style with sliding clarinets and wa-wa muted brass that made the original Cantina music so much fun.

There’s probably a lot more I could say and I definitely will say eventually, but I ought to tie this up and summarize for the too-long-didn’t-read crowd. This is a great entry into the Star Wars cannon. It makes a mostly clean break from the original characters and sets up the new characters quite nicely. It has its foibles, but it is, overall, a great film that I was happy to see twice in the theaters. It’s definitely worth full price and I’m looking forward to owning it on BluRay. The critics don’t always get it right, but this time, I believe they did. As far as the poor audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and other review aggregators, don’t worry about them. It turns out that those results are not the actual sentiments of most audiences. Rather, there is a concerted effort by a few fans whose theories didn’t come true who have created fake accounts to give multiple bad ratings to the film. By contrast, in-person theater polls conducted by Cinemascore.com resulted in an A rating for The Last Jedi. Both of the screenings I attended confirmed this. Most people liked the film.

The Café Conversation: An Apologetic of Christianity versus Islam

This post is going to be a little different. For my final project in my World Religions class, my professor gave us a choice of possible topics. The topic I chose had the following description:

"Imagine that you are in a coffee shop and you meet the following three characters: (i) Adbul, a dedicated Muslim, (ii) Peter, a dedicated Christian, and (iii) an agnostic seeker or group of agnostic seekers. As you enter into conversation with these individuals, the seeker asks whether or Christianity or Islam--and the Bible or the Qur'an--is true, and whether the Christians or the Muslims have a more accurate interpretation of Jesus. Then research this topic so that you can create a dialogue that accurately represents what Abdul and Peter would say to this question."

In order to create the “dialogue” in a way that made sense to me, I completed the project in the form of a play, but using MLA8 style for the works cited page. I don’t know how much of the format will translate to the blog, so if anyone would like their own copy of the play to read, or if you get crazy and want to perform it at church, feel free to send me a note and I will more than happily send you a copy.

Without further ado, I present, The Café Conversation (I spent probably all of ten seconds thinking up that title, so I apologize if it doesn’t draw you in.)

The Café Conversation

__________________________

A Dialogue about Christianity and Islam in one scene.

by 

Robert Dietrich

Cast of Characters

Abdul bin Muhammad:                                  A dedicated Muslim

Peter Jonasson:                                               A dedicated Christian

Michael Wendell:                                           An agnostic seeker

Rob Dietrich:                                                  A mature Christian

Scene

A coffeehouse.

Time

The Present.

ACT I

Scene 1

SETTING:                                          We are in a coffeehouse typical of college areas and arts districts. There are an eclectic mixture of furniture including couches, loveseats, chairs, lamps, and tables that, while mismatched, seem to go together and give the café a comfortable homey feel that says, “stay awhile, talk, and enjoy your coffee.” On the walls are a likewise eclectic collection of prints, recreations of famous art, original paintings by local artists, and various photography. The windows look out on a quiet street with historic buildings. The view is somewhat obscured by flyers advertising local events—everything from political rallies to performing arts events. There is also a giant corkboard adjacent to the entrance with a printed banner that reads, “Place Notices Here.” The rest of the corkboard is covered business cards, advertisements, and other examples of the patrons taking the banner’s advice.

AT RISE:                                            ABDUL BIN MUHAMMAD, PETER JONASSON, and MICHAEL WENDELL are sitting at a café table in the middle of the coffee house engaged in a spirited, but friendly conversation. ROB DIETRICH is at the counter waiting for his order. ABDUL is dressed in the traditional Islamic garb consisting of a grey kurta worn over loose fitting cotton pants and a black and grey embroidered kufi. He has a short haircut and a scraggly young man’s beard. PETER, a Christian, advertises his faith with a black NOT OF THIS WORLD T-shirt which he wears untucked over denim pants and flipflops. MICHAEL, a little more serious westerner, wears an oxford style button-down shirt, khaki slacks and Sperry Topsiders. ROB is dressed unassumingly, in a Mexican guayabera over khaki cargo pants and gently worn sneakers.

                                                            PETER

(slightly exasperated)

How can you say that?

                                                            MICHAEL

Hey, guys. We’ve been having a friendly conversation so far, let’s try and keep it that way.

                                                            PETER

You’re right.

(To ABDUL)

We’ve had this conversation before. I know what you are going to say, I guess I just get frustrated.

(ROB has gotten his order and seeing ABDUL and PETER walks to their table)

                                                            ROB

(sitting)

What’s up, guys?

                                                            PETER

I was talking to Michael after our philosophy class today because the subject of God came up.

                                                            ROB

(shakes MICHAEL’S hand)

Nice to meet you Michael.

                                                            MICHAEL

You too. So, Peter said some interesting things in class I had never considered before and I wanted to ask him some questions.

                                                            ABDUL

And I overheard Peter inviting Michael to coffee to talk about Christianity and thought that Michael could use another perspective.

                                                            ROB

So, what’s the problem. It looked like you were having a nice conversation when I came in, but it looked like things were about to get a bit heated just now.

                                                            MICHAEL

Well, I have always had this sort of undefined belief that God could exist and if he did, all religions are essentially just different ways of trying to figure out who he is, but Peter said something to the effect of “If God exists and wanted us to worship Him, why would He just let us flounder about in uncertainty? If God is good, He would want us to know about Him and if He is all powerful, He would let us know the Truth.” Then he said that he thought that truth was in the Bible.

                                                            ABDUL

And of course, I disagree with that premise.

                                                           

                                                            PETER

(rolling eyes)

Of course, you do.

                                                            MICHAEL

(to PETER, calmly pleading)

Come on man.

                                                            PETER

Rob. You’ve been a Christian a while, taught Sunday school and stuff what do you think?

                                                            ROB

I agree with your premise that God would want us to know about Him, that He would provide us with a revelation of who He is and how He wants us to relate to Him, and that He has done that in two ways: Through His Word in the Bible, and in the person of Jesus Christ.

                                                            ABDUL

How do you support your position?

                                                            ROB

If you’ll allow me.

(reaches into his backpack and pulls out a tablet and taps the screen)

I would like to read you a verse from the book of Acts—Acts 1:8, “He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.” The Bible is our best source of information about the life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and it even says there are proofs for this.

ABDUL

How can you trust the Bible? It has been retranslated and changed so many times over the years. The Qur’an, on the other hand, is pure. The Prophet, peace be upon him, has stated in Sura 18:1, “Praise to Allah, who has sent down upon His Servant the Book and has not made therein any deviance.” All current copies have been translated from the original so that the Qur’an today is the preserved form of the original. The Prophet, peace be upon him, also stated at the end of Sura 85, “But this is an honored Qur’an, inscribed in a Preserved Slate.” So, the Qur’an clearly has the more reliable record regarding the Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him.

                                                            PETER

The Bible has its claims of preservation too. Psalm 12:6-7 for instance says, “The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. You, O Lord, will keep them; you will guard us from this generation forever.”

                                                            MICHAEL

But just saying that they’re preserved doesn’t mean they are.

                                                            ROB

Michael brings up a good point. It’s not enough to just say the Bible or the Qur’an are preserved, we must look at the evidence of preservation and what methods have been used to preserve these books. There is a branch of scholarship called textual criticism that examines ancient works of literature to attempt to determine what the original works were like to the highest level of accuracy.

                                                            MICHAEL

How do textual critics determine the accuracy of ancient works?

                                                            ROB

Well, they examine all the available ancient copies, paying particular attention to the oldest copies available. In the case of the New Testament, there are almost 6,000 manuscripts in Greek, the language the New Testament was written in and many of those manuscripts were written in the second century (Taylor). Just a few years ago, a Greek manuscript fragment of the gospel of Mark was discovered that dates to the first century (Wallace). In addition to the Greek manuscripts, there are around 20,000 manuscripts in other languages, hundreds of which date to the early second century (McDowell 34-38). The next thing that textual critics do is they compare all the texts, which is a big job when you realize that there are nearly 26,000 ancient texts to look at, and try to figure out what the original said (“Textual”). The current consensus among biblical textual critics is better than 99% certainty about the accuracy of the New Testament text with none of the variations being of any real significance to theology (Weldon).

                                                            ABDUL

Ah, but the Qur’an is 100% accurate.

                                                            ROB

I’m going to have to respectfully disagree. After Muhammad’s death, even Muslim scholars will tell you that there was no single copy of the Qur’an. The first Caliph, Abu-Bakr charged Zayd to collect all the chapters and verses of the Qur’an to create a single book. By the time of Caliph Uthman, just twenty years later, there were multiple variants of the Qur’an being used, so Uthman ordered the Qur’an to be standardized. The problem is that when early manuscripts of the Qur’an are compared, there are thousands of variant readings. There are 150 variant readings in the second Sura alone. Not to mention, there are also records of verses from early manuscripts that are not contained in modern versions. This is a point of contention between many sects. The Sunni believe the modern version of the Qur’an is the most correct. Shi’a Muslims use the modern version but accuse Caliph Uthman of removing verses that refer to Ali as the successor of Muhammad (Geisler and Saleeb 191-194). One of the difficulties facing the Qur’an is that until recently, no critical edition of the Qur’an has ever been attempted (Small 3).

                                                            ABDUL

So the Uthmanic recension isn’t a critical edition?

                                                            ROB

According to textual critics, no. Right now, the first attempt at creating a critical edition is underway and scholars are hoping to finish by 2019, but it could take longer (Schnöpf).

MICHAEL

Are you saying that the Qur’an is completely unreliable?

ROB

I wouldn’t say that, no. As a record of what Muhammad taught and believed, it is definitely a good source, but it fails the test of accuracy and preservation.

ABDUL

But the fact that the Qur’an has survived to this day should be an indicator of God’s divine preservation.

                                                            ROB

It could be, but think about how the Bible and Qur’an have been preserved. Both Islam and Christianity have zealous followers who want to preserve God’s Word. Christianity and Islam both have strong traditions of scholarship that has resulted in carefully copying and transmitting the Bible and Qur’an respectively over time. Despite that, only the Bible can claim 99 percent accuracy and the Qur’an can’t claim any level of accuracy. Even when the critical edition is released, how receptive will the current world Muslim community be? If God had preserved the Qur’an we would expect some measurable level of accuracy.

                                                            ABDUL

That’s where faith comes in. One must accept the validity and accuracy of the Qur’an on faith.

                                                            MICHAEL

Isn’t that the case with all religion? Isn’t it all just a matter of faith?

                                                            ROB

That depends on what your definition of “faith” is.

                                                            MICHAEL

(thinking)

I guess my definition is, “Believing in something you can’t explain.”

                                                            PETER

I agree with that. The Bible says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).

                                                            ROB

Having “conviction of things not seen” is not the same as believing in things without evidence. Faith must have an object and there must be evidence supporting the object’s existence if we can’t see it. None of us have met George Washington, but we don’t blindly believe in his existence because we can examine the evidence and come to the conclusion that George Washington actually existed. We can apply that same kind of thinking to determining if we should put our faith in the Bible or the Qur’an. Paul actually wrote something that applies to both this discussion and whether or not there is any validity to the entire Christian faith. He said in I Corinthians 15:14, “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” If we put our faith in something that isn’t true, then our faith has no value. It’s foolish.

                                                            ABDUL

Are you saying I’m a fool for believing in the Qur’an?

                                                            ROB

I’m not trying to be offensive, but I have to admit that it doesn’t make any sense to believe in something that the evidence doesn’t support.

                                                            ABDUL

But the Qur’an still has the more reliable account of the life of Christ. I mean the resurrection is just patently ridiculous.

                                                            ROB

And the virgin birth is more believable?

                                                            ABDUL

What do you mean?

                                                            ROB

Suras three and nineteen both affirm the virgin birth of Christ. Sura nineteen is almost an exact retelling of the annunciation in Luke 2. The Qur’an also affirms that Jesus lived a sinless life. If we’re going to reject the resurrection on the basis of logic, why not reject the virgin birth and the sinless life of Christ, two other things that are humanly impossible?

                                                            ABDUL

So you think the Bible is more accurate describing the life of Christ?

                                                            ROB

Of course I do. The Bible has a better evidence for accuracy and therefore better evidence for divine preservation. Even if the neither the Bible or the Qur’an claimed divine origin, I would still trust the Bible more because it was written just a few years after the ministry of Christ, whereas the Qur’an was written almost 600 years later and there are some pretty serious deviations between what the Bible says and what the Qur’an says, namely that Jesus was neither crucified nor resurrected.

                                                            MICHAEL

Whoa, what? I thought the crucifixion was pretty well established fact.

                                                            ABDUL

It’s not an established fact and it’s not just the Qur’an that says it either. There are Christian writings that the church has kept hidden from Christians that prove that Jesus was not crucified, but Judas.

                                                            PETER

(scoffs)

Where do you get that from?

                                                            ABDUL

There is a gospel that was purposefully kept secret from early Christians precisely because it tells the true story of Jesus. It is called the Gospel of Barnabas. In it, it tells that when Judas attempted to betray Jesus, he was transformed into the likeness of Jesus. Jesus was then carried away by four angels who took him to heaven. Judas was crucified in Jesus’ place and the disciples, thinking he really had died, stole him from the tomb which made many people believe that Jesus had risen from the grave. Then Jesus returned and revealed that he had not died. He commanded Barnabas to write an account of his life, but false disciples, like Paul perverted his teaching even teaching the heresy of the death and resurrection of Christ (Gospel of Barnabas).

                                                            PETER

That’s nonsense. There is no such thing.

                                                            ROB

Actually, what Abdul says is true. There is a work called the Gospel of Barnabas.

                                                            PETER

(aghast)

What? Are you agreeing with Abdul? Are you saying Jesus didn’t rise from the grave?

                                                            ROB

I’m not agreeing with Abdul’s theology, just affirming that there is a work that claims to have been written by Barnabas.

                                                            ABDUL

I’m surprised you are aware of it as the Church has gone to great lengths to hide it from Christians.

                                                            ROB

If the Church is trying to hide it, they’re not doing a very good job. I learned about it in a class I took in Bible college. Plus, since it’s in the public domain, you can probably download a copy from the internet.

                                                            PETER

I’ve never heard of it, but it’s a real thing?

                                                            MICHAEL

Yeah. That’s news to me too.

                                                            ROB

It is a real document, but it’s not an authentic gospel.

                                                            MICHAEL

What is it then?

                                                            ROB

It is essentially a compilation of biblical gospel stories with a few anachronisms thrown in. The main deviation is the end, which Abdul has already described where Judas is crucified instead of Jesus.

                                                            MICHAEL

Is any of it true?

                                                            ROB

The parts that retell the biblical gospel stories are, but like I said, there are some anachronisms and the ending is way off.

                                                            ABDUL

Of course you would say that. Why do you continue to lead people astray when you know the truth?

                                                            ROB

We need to look at the evidence again. The earliest copies of the Gospel of Barnabas are from the 17^th century (Wiegers). While I will concede that there may have been an earlier Gospel of Barnabas, the one in circulation today could not have been written any earlier than the 7^th Century CE and Barnabas died in the first century. So, I believe, as do most scholars familiar with the Gospel of Barnabas including prominent Islamic scholars, that the work was written in the medieval era and is not an authentic work of Christianity (Leirvik).

                                                            MICHAEL

Okay. I think you have convinced me that the Bible is accurate and that it accurately portrays what the first Christians believed, but I still have a hard time reconciling the resurrection with reality.

                                                            PETER

Well that one you have to accept on faith.

                                                            ABDUL

The apostles could have stolen the body.

                                                            ROB

They could have, in fact there are a lot of theories about Jesus’ resurrection conspiracy theories. The Bible tells us that the Jewish religious leaders promoted the idea that the disciples stole the body (Matt. 28:13). More recently, scholars have promoted other ideas about the resurrection of Jesus. The first is that Jesus was crucified, but didn’t actually die; He merely lost consciousness on the cross and the Roman guards thought he was actually dead.

                                                            MICHAEL

Jesus passing out is a possibility.

                                                            ROB

Not really.

                                                            MICHAEL

Why not?

                                                            ROB

A lot of research has been done by medical experts on this issue. There have even been books and peer reviewed papers published on the subject. The description of the process of Christ’s trial and crucifixion is historically accurate when it comes to how people who were condemned to crucifixion. The bible says Jesus was scourged which was done with a device called a flagellum which is several leather straps embedded with nails, glass, sharp bone, and any other combination of sharp objects. The subject is whipped across the back, buttocks, and thighs, and skin is literally ripped from the body. Often, victims of Roman scourging were disemboweled because the straps would wrap around the front of the body and even when that didn’t happen, many people died from scourging alone, possibly by hypovolemic shock or cardiac arrest (Retief and Cilliers).

                                                            MICHAEL

That’s horrific.

                                                            ROB

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. The subject of crucifixion was required to carry the crossbar of the cross, called the patibulum to the place of crucifixion. Once at the crucifixion site, the subject would be nailed to the cross with large, square spikes that might not break a person’s bones, but would definitely spread the wrist bones apart and damage the median nerve which of course is painful in itself. The feet were then nailed to a podium called the sedile which was affixed to the upright portion called the stipes. The subject would grow tired and would hang from their hands, but that would make it hard to breathe, so they would lift themselves up by the feet to take a breath. That would get tiring and eventually, they wouldn’t be able to lift themselves up anymore and death, if not caused by shock or cardiac arrest, would be caused by asphyxiation. Depending on how badly a person was scourged, this process could last for days (Retief and Cilliers). The description of Jesus’ scourging is pretty extreme and even if he didn’t die in the process, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear to verify if he was dead the Bible describes “blood and water” coming out (John 19:34). When a person slowly asphyxiates, pericardial fluid, which is clear, builds up around the lungs and heart. If enough builds up to differentiante two fluids, it is clear that the subject most likely died of heart failure. Even if by some miracle Jesus wasn’t dead at that point, the wound from the spear would have been fatal (Thompson).

(The four men sit quietly for a moment. Even Abdul is touched by the description of the crucifixion)

                                                            MICHAEL

How does a person come back from that?

                                                            ROB

Humanly speaking, you don’t. But we can’t forget that there is an element of the supernatural involved.

                                                            MICHAEL

I can’t wrap my head around the supernatural, though. There has to be other explanations.

                                                            ROB

Most of the rest of the theories involve Jesus actually dying. One theory from the last century was by Kirsopp Lake who said that the women who went to visit Jesus tomb went to the wrong tomb, but this theory never really gained a following (Strobel 221). And yet another theory is that the post-resurrection stories were nothing but mass hallucinations (McDowell 272-279). With very few exceptions, most scholars throughout history do not deny that the tomb was actually empty (Perman).

                                                            ABDUL

What about the theory that Jesus’ disciples stole the body from the tomb?

                                                            ROB

There are a few problems with that theory. In fact, there are problems with any theory that results in an empty tomb, but doesn’t result in a resurrected Christ. Some people believe that the watch that was set at Jesus’ tomb were Roman soldiers. Those guys were highly trained and armed and the disciples, while armed, did not have the training to defeat the Roman soldiers without taking their own casualties (Gabriel and Metz). If the guard was made up of temple guards, they would still be more highly trained than the disciples. The second, and biggest problem with any theory that doesn’t result in a physical resurrection of Jesus is how the lives of the disciples were changed. Ten of the original twelve apostles died for their faith (McDowell). Now we know that there are people who will die for what they believe to be true, but only a very mentally disturbed person would die for what they know to be a lie. The same would be true if Jesus had merely swooned, somehow got out of his burial cloth, rolled away the sealed stone of the tomb, fought his way past the guards, and then stumbled his way back to where the apostles were. He wouldn’t have inspired much and definitely wouldn’t have changed the apostles lives to be willing to die for their beliefs.

                                                            MICHAEL

Okay, so the tomb was empty. That still doesn’t prove the Jesus rose from the grave.

                                                            ROB

By itself it doesn’t, no.

                                                            PETER

If the tomb doesn’t prove Jesus rose from the grave, what does?

                                                            ROB

There’s actually a lot of evidence. First, you have the gospel witnesses themselves. Matthew and John were both eyewitnesses. Luke wrote his gospel based on a variety of evidence and was very careful to place his account in a historical context. Sir William Ramsay who was a professor of archaeology at Oxford University in the late 19^th and early 20^th century said, “Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy...this author should be placed along with the very greatest historians” (Ramsay 222). By the way, Ramsay was raised as an atheist and actually entered the archaeological field to disprove Christianity. He was so impressed by the evidence in favor of Christianity, that he converted and remained a faithful Christian his entire life.

                                                            PETER

Wow!

                                                            ROB

And there’s still more. Mark wrote his gospel account based on information he learned from Paul who in turn learned it from the eyewitnesses themselves. He even discusses the witness evidence in his first letter to the Corinthians. He says, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” (1 Cor. 15:3-8).

                                                            MICHAEL

So what’s the point?

                                                            ROB

The point is that there were people in the church who believed and were teaching that Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead (1 Cor. 15:12). Paul wrote to the Corinthians to address a lot of problems, but this was one of the main ones. Corinth was a very wealthy city (Cartwright). Many of the members of the church in Corinth were wealthy people and had the means to travel, if they weren’t traders who traveled regularly already (1 Cor. 1). When Paul tells the Corinthians about all the witnesses, he knows that there are members in the church who could easily verify what he is saying. Nobody in their right mind would mention witness testimony if they weren’t sure their story was going to be backed up. So, when you look at the empty tomb, the changed lives of the disciples, and the witness testimony, it’s very hard to deny the resurrection of Christ.

                                                            MICHAEL

I’ve never heard any of this before.

                                                            PETER

I have to admit, some of this is new to me too.

                                                            ABDUL

I would also like to hear more.

                                                            MICHAEL

Abdul! Are you saying you’re going to convert to Christianity?

                                                            ABDUL

What Rob has said is very compelling. I’m not ready to be baptized and join a church, but I think I would like to look at Rob’s evidence a little more closely. If what he can show me documentation that what he is saying is true, then I must admit, I will have to take the idea of converting very seriously.

                                                            PETER

Rob. Aren’t you going to say anything?

                                                            ROB

(slowly, shocked)

I’m kind of surprised. We’ve had so many conversations Abdul…

                                                            ABDUL

I’ve never really given you time to defend your position. I think if Michael wasn’t so open to hearing both sides, I wouldn’t have let you talk so much today.

                                                            ROB

Well, maybe we should have a more formal bible study. I have lots of resources at home and I can recommend some good books.

                                                            MICHAEL

I have to admit, this is all pretty powerful stuff. I mean, it really seems that the Bible presents Christ in a much more accurate way than the Qur’an and if you can show me the studies about Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, I would be a fool not to take Christianity seriously.

                                                            ROB

(clearly excited)

Would you be willing to come over tonight?

                                                            PETER

I’m down for that. I’ll bring snacks.

(ABDUL and MICHAEL look at each other, shrug, and nod their heads)

                                                            ABDUL

I have no objection to that.

                                                            MICHAEL

Yeah. I have nothing going on.

                                                            ROB

(with outstretched hands)

Can I pray with you guys?

(the four men grasp hands, bow their heads and ROB begins whispering in prayer)

                                                            (BLACKOUT)

                                                            (THE END)

Works Cited

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Gabriel, Richard A. and Karen S. Metz. “The Military Revolution.” A Short History of War. U.S. Army War College, 1992.

Geisler, Norman L. and Abdul Saleeb. Answering Islam: The Crescent in the Light of the Cross. Baker Books, 1993.

The Gospel of Barnabas. trans. Londale and Laura Ragg. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1907

The Holy Bible. English Standard Version, Crossway Bibles, 2001.

Leirvik, Oddbjørn. "History as a Literary Weapon: The Gospel of Barnabas in Muslim-Christian Polemics." Studia Theologica, vol. 56, no. 1, June 2002, pp. 4-26.

McDowell, Joshua. The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001.

McDowell, Sean. “Did the Apostles Really Die as Martyrs for their Faith?” Biola Magazine. Biola University, 2017, magazine.biola.edu/article/13-fall/did-the-apostles-really-die-as-martyrs-for-their-f. Accessed 15 April 2017

The Noble Qur’an. Quran.com, 2016, quran.com. Accessed 8 April 2017.

Perman, Matt. “Historical Evidence for the Resurrection.” Desiring God. Desiring God, 12 Sept. 2017, http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection. Accessed 15 April 2017

Ramsay, William. The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament. Hodder and Stoughton, 1915.

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Schnöpf, Markus. “Corpus Coranicum: A digital landscape for the study of the Qu’ran.” Digital Humanities. University of Hamburg, 2012, www.dh2012.uni-hamburg.de/conference/programme/abstracts/corpus-coranicum-a-digital-landscape-for-the-study-of-the-quran. Accessed 8 April 2017.

Small, Keith. Textual Criticism and Qur'an Manuscripts. Lexington Books, 2011

Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ. Zondervan, 1998.

Taylor, Justin. “An Interview with Daniel B. Wallace on the New Testament Manuscripts.” The Gospel Coalition. The Gospel Coalition, Inc., 2017. blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/2012/03/21/an-interview-with-daniel-b-wallace-on-the-new-testament-manuscripts. Accessed 8 April 2017.

“Textual Criticism – What is it?” GotQuestions.org. Got Questions Ministries, 2002-2017, www.gotquestions.org/textual-criticism.html. Accessed 8 April 2017.

Thompson, Bert and Brad Harrub. “An Examination of the Medical Evidence for the Physical Death of Christ.” Apologetics Press. Apologetics Press, 2017, apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=145. Accessed 15 April 2017.

Wallace, Daniel B. “Dr. Wallace: Earliest Manuscript of the New Testament Discovered?” Dallas Theological Seminary. 9 Feb. 2012, www.dts.edu/read/wallace-new-testament-manscript-first-century. Accessed 8 April 2017.

Weldon, John G. “The Textual Reliability of the New Testament.” The John Ankerberg Show. Ankerberg Theological Research Institute, 2001, www.jashow.org/articles/bible/the-textual-reliability-of-the-new-testament. Accessed 8 April 2017.

Wiegers, Gerard A. "Muhammad as the Messiah: A comparison of the polemical works of Juan Alonso with the Gospel of Barnabas". Biblitheca Orientalis. vol. 52, The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, April-June 1995.