Seven Quick Takes, Friday, November 6

1. I read a fascinating book this week called “The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist.” It’s a true story about a California priest who just a couple years ago was appointed to be the exorcist for his diocese. The book follows his training, which was quite extensive. He learned about how to distinguish between demonic oppression and mental illness, participated in a number of blessing and exorcism services, and came away with a real passion to help God’s people live in victory over the enemy. Very well written, and successfully walks the fine line between ignoring evil spirits and being obsessed by them.

2. This is a cool art site run by a deacon out West. He does all sorts of religious imagery, and we have his poster of the 3 Archangels up in our playroom at home. I really like his style, especially his non-wimpy angels. For a very reasonable price, I was able to purchase one of his pieces, of the 7 original deacons, to use as my email signature when I send out church-related email.

3. On another deacon blog (The Deacon’s Bench), I ran across “Rules of Engagement for Catholics on the Internet.” Which in my opinion is too narrow a title – these rules are good for all of us Christians. My favorite was #2 – “Your salvation is more important than your involvement on the Internet.”

4. Today on the radio I heard “Revelation Song” sung by Philips Craig and Dean. I love that song! I want to do it at church, but the verses have some odd rhythms, so we'll have to see if it ever makes it onto the playlist.

5. If you don’t already subscribe to Touchstone magazine, may I suggest you run out and do so? It’s a marvelous journal of “mere Christianity,” and lots of cool articles that make you think (and yell at sometimes, too). The current issue has a fascinating article by John Granger about the Mormon influences on the Twilight series, that Sara read to me the other evening. We had a good time discussing how much we agreed with Granger’s contention that Meyer is deliberately engaging in Mormon apologetics by some of her settings. For example, all the important confrontations between the good vampires (the Mormons, in Granger’s interpretation) and their enemies take place in a meadow in the mountains. Which just happens to be very similar to a place where the early Mormons wiped out a group of immigrants, apparently without provocation – although the Mormons hotly dispute the lack of provocation, and this episode has always been a large bone of contention between the Mormons and the Gentiles. In Meyer’s retelling, however, the good vampires are always justified in wiping out the enemies - and in fact, the enemies attack first. Sara was skeptical at first that Meyer was deliberately setting up this alternative retelling – she thought at most it might be unconscious use of imagery that Meyer was used to. I disagreed, thinking that Meyer most certainly knew what she was doing here. So I’d like to run a small experiment, if that’s okay. For those of you who are or were connected with the Kingdom, if you were writing a story that took place on a yacht up in the North Atlantic, and you were careful to cast the leader of the expedition as wise and well-intentioned while describing those who wanted to turn back as rebellious and unbelieving, would you have any specific incident in mind? Or would this just be a random setting for you with no specific association with history? I think Meyer’s writing here was completely deliberate.

6. An interesting tidbit from FaithWorld, Reuters’ blog on religion. I hadn’t thought of swine flu causing a problem for pilgrims. And wouldn’t it be cool to be part of a huge pilgrimage like those in the picture at the top? “Next year in Jerusalem.”

7. Last night Sara and I watched a movie that I really, really liked. It’s called “Hero,” and it tells the story of the first emperor to unify China. Told through the eyes of several assassins who are trying to kill him, I found it incredibly moving and thought-provoking. Lots of cool twists and turns.

For Conversion Diary’s 7 Quick Takes on Friday.

--DJ