Considering The Avengers

I don’t actually go to the movies very often. Way too expensive to happen as often as when I was younger. So, I wait for the movies that beg for the big screen: action. The Avengers is one of those movies whose siren call I could not resist. And I was not disappointed.

I really wasn’t into comic books as a kid. Some of my friends were. The medium was just lost on me. Seemed too much like the children’s books. I don’t know. But I’ve always enjoyed the movies starting with the Superman series when I was a teenager. Okay, just the first two. Did they make any others?

This year will be comic book hero heaven as they wrap up the Batman series, re-boot the Spider-Man series with a darker take (why did they do this again?) and introduce The Avengers series. They have been building toward this with the 2 Iron Man movies and then both Thor and Captain America last year. Those two movies introduce some key elements to the plot of The Avengers. I only saw Captain America, but I was fully able to follow along with what was happening in The Avengers. Some of the other characters appeared in some of the Iron Man movies.

Mark Ruffalo is in there, somewhere

So, you walk into the movie having back stories on some of the Avengers. This is the third movie for Hulk, and the third actor playing him. The second was essentially a reboot of the first (and much better). Edward Norton did a great job as Hulk, but apparently fans just miss Bill and Lou because Hulk, despite his incredible strength and jumping ability can’t get off the ground as a series of movies. Enter Mark Ruffalo with his take on Hulk (this is turning into the first Batman movie series: both Kilmer and Keaton were very good, and Clooney utterly horrendous). It is almost like the other two movies didn’t exist. Mark is sort of the hippie Hulk. The laid-back genius who is supposedly angry all the time. He was better than Eric Bana, but … Apparently I am in the minority because Ruffalo has been signed to additional movies. Sadly, Edward Norton has gone the way of Val Kilmer: a great actor with a bad reputation for working well with others (rumor has it, that in Val’s case the directors probably should have listened to him more often but you know how that goes).

Hawkeye and Black Widow share a moment

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Considering Creation Care

In chapter 4 of The Radical Disciple, John Stott moves into our responsibility beyond ourselves.  I think he does well to address the issue of creation care.  I just think he didn’t address it well.

The creation mandate reveals our relationship to creation as God’s stewards of creation.  We were meant to subdue it, make it productive and habitable.  Man was meant to imitate God in his creative wisdom.  As his image, were to represent his rule to the rest of creation.

Adam’s disobedience changed a few things.  Our task was made more difficult.  The creation was subject to frustration.  It produces weeds and thistles, and we have to work very hard to produce fruit, veggies and grain.

But something else happened.  We moved in two extremes.  First, some began to worship created things and/or creation (Romans 1).  Abram, before his conversion, was most likely a worshiper of Sin, the Mesopotamian sun god.  The Egyptians, whom the original audience of Genesis was well aware, worshiped many gods of created things.  The Lord proved his superiority (and the vanity of their idolatry) in the plagues.  He whooped up on their gods!

Second, some exploit creation.  They utilize the resources in a destructive way, like strip mining.  We see both of these sinful tendencies in Avatar.  The Navi had a pantheistic world in which all was part of god.  The humans exploited Pandora, just as they had exploited the earth.  Sadly, there are no real heroes in that story.

That’s the basic biblical framework in which Christians should ponder creation care as we follow Jesus who created and sustains all that is (John 1, Colossians 1) and will renew creation at the consummation (Romans 8, Revelation 21-22).  Salvation has cosmic, not just individual, aspects.  We must realize that, but without going to either of the 2 extremes.

“But we can surely say that just as our understanding of the final destiny of our resurrection bodies should affect how we think of and treat our bodies we have at present, so our knowledge of the new heaven and earth should affect and increase the respect with which we treat it now.”

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