Breaking Dawn

I am a chocoholic. I'm also a bookaholic. I LOVE to read!!! I like theology books, history books, (some) technical books, children's books, but my favorite to read just for recreation are fantasy books: Percy Jackson, the Inheritance cycle, The Chronicles of Narnia, etc. I would rather spend eight hours reading a book, than two hours watching a movie-- unless the movie is based on a book! ;) I'm a fan of all the details!

Before the movie "New Moon" came out, Shorty & I decided to read the books to see what all the fuss was about-- and to be able to talk about them intelligently. Over the next few months, we read all four books in the Twilight series. After reading Breaking Dawn I was bluesy for several days-- or maybe longer. It usually took Shorty and me a few weeks to process through the themes of the books and address them through a biblical perspective. When I had had time to process, I came to the conclusion that Breaking Dawn frustrated me because it offered all the benefits of eternal life-- youth, strength, beauty, power, immortality-- without correcting the root issue: sin. This was especially hard for me at the time because I was being faced with my own mortality and sin.

I was up late reading recently and came across this passage in Knowing God:
"We have all heard the gospel presented as God's triumphant answer to human problems-- problems of our relation with ourselves and our fellow humans and our environment. Well, there is no doubt that the gospel does bring us solutions to these problems, but it does so by first solving a deeper problem-- the deepest of all human problems, the problem of man's relation with his Maker. And unless we make it plain that the solution of these former problems depends on the settling of this latter one, we are misrepresenting the message and becoming false witnesses of God-- for a half-truth presented as if it were the whole truth becomes something of a falsehood by that very act. No reader of the New Testament can miss the fact that it knows all about our human problems-- fear, moral cowardice, illness of body and mind, loneliness, insecurity, hopelessness, despair, cruelty, abuse of power and the rest-- but equally no reader of the New Testament can miss the fact that it resolves all these problems, one way or another, into the fundamental problem of sin against God."

Now I know that Breaking Dawn was not attempting to preach a biblical gospel, but it does offer a "hope", albeit a fictional one. As a Christian engaging in this world, I want to be able to contrast those well, and hopefully offer someone a TRUE and REAL hope. =)

A Song of Ascents. Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
Psalms 130:1-8
 
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
2 Timothy 1:6-10