saw m:i:3 last night. fun. but also saw the preview for pirates of the caribbean: dead man’s chest. great trailer — watch it here.

elizabeth: there will come a moment when you have a chance to do the right thing.

cap’n jack sparrow: i love those moments.

(pause)

cap’n jack: i like to wave at them as they pass by.

thanks to stephen at faithmaps/emergesque blog for compiling two incredible resources:

this massive (and constantly evolving) list of links for resources and articles and opinions about the divinci code.

and

this massive (and constantly evolving) list of links for resources and articles and opinions about the gospel of judas.

such helpful tools for youth workers and ministers of all sorts — shoot, and thinking christians of all sorts.

got home from youth group last night (more on that later!) and was pretty tired. picked up the remote to channel surf a bit. american idol was on, and a guest performer was on stage, doing something in the realm of singing, but not quite.

holy crypt, batman, have you seen rod stewart lately?

i mean (throat clear), nothing against 80 year-old people at all. no, really. i have LOTS of 80 year-old friends. i know many 80 year-olds personally.

but rod, dude, the home called and you forgot your walker. stop singing sexy songs (and what is WITH those hot young-ish women in the audience swooning over him like he’s brad pitt?).

if you are any kind of a matrix fan, or any kind of a muppets fan, or — especially — if you can conceive of being a fan of both (!), you must see this. just brilliant.

(ht to bob carlton)

i didn’t realize i could watch tony’s appearance on the colbert report in its entirety. go here, then scroll right on the ‘next’ button under ‘guest interviews’. great stuff — it sure is nice to have a christian appear in mainstream media who doesn’t come off as a nut-job!

my new friend roger, from the a-team blog, has posted a pretty funny list of bauer facts. see, roger and i have found things to stack hands on!

Jack Bauer believes in Divine Election because he understands what it means to control everything.

Jack Bauer is a Complimentarian- everyone submits to him.

Jack Bauer once questioned the authenticity of the Bible, so he brought the authors back to life and tortured them until he was convinced they were telling the truth.

Jesus will return when Jack Bauer dies. The problem is that he keeps coming back to life.

Jack Bauer knows whether the earth is “young” or “old,” but no one’s successfully tortured it out of him.

For Jack Bauer, confrontation is the only form of evangelism.

1/3 of the angels fell when Jack Bauer kicked them out of heaven for not telling him who they worked for.

Jack Bauer is proof of Intelligent Design.

Luckily, the Egyptians gave in after the 10th plague because number 11 was going to be Jack Bauer. (HT: Amy)

The 10 spies gave a bad report because they saw Jack Bauer.

Jack Bauer is his own accountability partner and community.

ooh. this is fun. a whole SLEW of jack-isms, just ripe for use.

(ht to tammie)

don’t know how i missed this, but — wow — talk about scathing commentary on us evangelicals. oof.

read this first, from terry mattingly’s email newsletter:

People are supposed to meditate in church, but the epiphany that rocked filmmaker Rik Swartzwelder two years ago was different.

It started when he visited several churches in Charlotte, N.C., while visiting family. In service after service he heard preachers telling people it was their “Christian duty” to rush out and buy a ticket for “The Passion of the Christ.” There were brochures for Mel Gibson’s bloody epic
in the bulletins, posters in sanctuary lobbies and preview clips for the faithful.

Swartzwelder began thinking about the biblical drama in which, as St. Mark said, “Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.”

So he pounded out a sarcastic — some would say bitter or blasphemous — script entitled “The McPassion,” a feverish vision of what would happen if Hollywood and the fast-food industry teamed up to sell Holy Week. The script sat on a shelf until Swartzwelder decided that Tinseltown’s love affair with born-again marketing was growing instead of fading.

The results have been posted at www.TheMcPassion.com, a 4-minute blast that opens with chipper children scarfing down their McPassion meals, complete with a crown of thorns and round fries that the announcer notes are “shaped just like the Eucharist.” Then there’s the McLast Supper from Burger King of Kings or the McLoaves and Fish Sticks dinner (all you can eat, while supplies last). The meals come with toys, like the pretend stigmata tattoos, a simulated leather cat of nine tails, Shroud of Turin towelettes, a kid-sized crucifix and the “cool McPassion hammer.”

The pitch ends with this call to commerce: “Buy one today! Make Jesus happy! … Alleluia, God’s lovin’ it!”

None of this is terribly subtle.

“I want people to wince,” said Swartzwelder. “I wince when the girl says that dipping the body of Christ in ketchup is fun. I wince when the boy
hits the girl’s palm with the toy hammer and you hear that clink, clink sound.”

The goal was to inspire heated discussions and Swartzwelder and director Benjamin Hershleder were more than willing to infuriate many Christian viewers in order to get their point across. The result was an online firestorm that has been both painful and gratifying.

“I keep reminding people that I am a Christian and that, if they really want to know, I am a big fan of what I thought was a courageous movie by
Mel Gibson,” said Swartzwelder, a freelance filmmaker in Burbank, Calif. He is best known as the creator of “The Least of These,” a short film
released in 2002 that won 27 awards and played at mainstream and religious film festivals around the world.

The Emmy Award-winner stressed that he is glad that “The Passion” rang up $370 million at the U.S. box office, opening doors for more artists to make more films — From “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” to “The End of the Spear” — that can tap into a faith-friendly marketplace out in Middle America. As an admirer of Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, he is glad that the “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is rising toward $290 million in U.S. ticket sales.

Swartzwelder is even pleased that many evangelicals, after decades of merely throwing stones at Hollywood, are now seeking positive ways to
engage the world of entertainment.

The problem, he said, is that some religious leaders have allowed movie publicity campaigns to bleed out of the marketplace and into the church sanctuaries that are supposed to be safe havens for vulnerable souls.

“At some point we have to ask: What is the purpose of worship? What is the purpose of the pulpit?”, asked Swartzwelder, who also has led filmmaking workshops at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“Even with the best of intentions, using the pulpit to push movies — even good ones — is dangerous. And what happens when we start seeing more people making more movies for this audience? How do we decide which movies to plug? There could be, no there will be, abuses and that’s going to lead us into murky waters.”

then, watch the 4-minute movie here.

(ht to matthew mcnutt)

if you happen to need a david hasselhoff fix today, this should sure do it for you!