by Steve | May 22, 2013 | Features, Top 10
Good News has been an independent, evangelical voice within The United Methodist Church since 1967. From the outset, we have been a community of believers who have a passion to see our denomination renewed. As a movement, Good News has been a beacon of hope to traditional United Methodists by urging the church to be faithful to the biblically-based principles of its historic Wesleyan heritage.
In other words, we want to see The United Methodist Church centered on Jesus Christ. Furthermore, we want to see our church engaged in vital ministry, growing disciples of Jesus Christ, and transforming the world.
The Good News magazine and website have always been bold, informative, and inspirational forums for evangelical and traditional United Methodists. Maintaining a Wesleyan vision, we publish for both the head and the heart. We keep a sharp eye on the complex issues facing our church and we place a high priority on edifying and inspirational stories.
Good News has always been a ministry within United Methodism with a consistent voice to reflect our evangelical convictions. Whether we are speaking with bishops or local congregations, general agencies or the General Conference, the United Methodist News Service or the Associated Press, Good News has been both measured and passionate about conveying vibrant orthodoxy.
Good News believes that prayer makes a difference. Furthermore, we believe intentional, directed prayer is the most effective catalyst for renewal within The United Methodist Church. We invite United Methodists to pray for the vitality, growth, faithfulness, and outreach of our denomination.
Since the 1980 General Conference, Good News has made a well-organized and serious attempt to renew and reform The United Methodist Church through the legislative system. Good News has a trained team present for the 10-day period of General Conference to monitor legislative sessions and floor activities with our Renewal and Reform Coalition partners. Good News and the Coalition assist local renewal groups in getting delegates elected to General and Jurisdictional Conferences in order to bring change and renewal through the official structures of our church.
These are just some of the ways Good News has worked faithfully for spiritual renewal and organizational reform. Our mission is to lead all people within The United Methodist Church to the faithful and vibrant practice of orthodox, Wesleyan Christianity.
A 23-member Board of Directors, both clergy and lay people, give policy leadership and financial guidance to Good News. We receive no funding from the denomination. Our support comes from grassroots United Methodists like you who believe in what we are doing. Local congregations also support Good News through their missions budget or special offerings.
We place a high value on accountability and trust. We are firmly committed to good stewardship of the funds entrusted to us by our friends and donors. For that reason we are a charter member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA).
We have published this Top 10 Good News article collection in order for you to get a good sense of why we exist, what we believe, and the vision for a faithful future that we have for The United Methodist Church.
![Transforming Justice]()
by Steve | May 14, 2013 | Features, Magazine Articles, May-June 2013
By Bethany H. Hoang
Seeking justice doesn’t begin at the door of a brothel. Seeking justice begins with seeking the God of justice.
For followers of Jesus, the difference between a pursuit of justice that brings transformation for real people suffering real violence and a pursuit of justice that amounts to little more than good intentions is simple—perhaps even simpler than we want it to be. The difference is found at our starting point, every single day. It begins with the choices we make, large or small, all day long.
Fighting injustice—the abuse of power that oppresses the vulnerable through violence and lies—can be excruciatingly hard work. It can be exhausting.
It is relentless. But Jesus offers to make our burdens light, even the burden of fighting injustice. And so, seeking justice—bringing right order and exerting life-giving power to protect the vulnerable—does not begin at the threshold of abuse. Seeking justice begins with seeking God: our God who longs to bring justice; our God who longs to use us, every one of his children, to bring justice; our God who offers us the yoke of Jesus in exchange for things that otherwise leave us defeated.
Every day we have an opportunity to respond to the injustice we see in the world. And every day we will be tempted to figure it out on our own, whether that means charging forward with blind ambition or shrinking back in frustrated resignation.
At the end of the day, if our attempts to seek justice do not first begin with the work of prayer, we will be worn and weary. And our weariness will not be that deeply satisfying, joy-filled tiredness that comes from the worthy battles of justice, but rather a bone- and soul-crushing weariness.
But when the work of justice is pursued first, and throughout, as a work of prayer and an outpouring of our relationship with Jesus Christ, obstacles become opportunities to know the riches of God’s glory and great presence in ever-increasing measure. And the victories won through the hand of God will be breathtaking beyond what any of us could ever imagine.
If you have heard accounts of slavery, human trafficking, rape, police abuse and other forms of violent injustice in our world today and have felt compelled to act, I invite you to join others in bringing lifelong sustainability to your convictions. I invite you into a rhythm of daily spiritual disciplines that will not only enable you to be strengthened in the work of doing justice when the going gets tough, but to ground your entire justice passion not in temporary reactive bursts but rather in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the very source of all that you do and give in the name of God’s own character of justice.
One of the ways that I live out my own response to God’s justice call is through my work with International Justice Mission (IJM). Compelled by the biblical command to seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow (Isaiah 1:17), IJM brings tangible relief for those who suffer from violent injustices such as slavery, forced prostitution and illegal detention. For my colleagues, being obedient to God’s clear call to justice looks like this: we partner with local authorities to bring rescue to victims of violent injustice and hold their perpetrators accountable under local laws; we equip survivors to heal through long-term aftercare and support; and we work with the local government to actually transform the elements of the public justice system that are broken (such as local law enforcement, courts or social services) so that the poor are protected in the long term, because would-be traffickers, rapists or slaveowners are afraid to harm them.
God has called his people—all of God’s people—to the work of justice. But understanding how that call plays into our daily lives isn’t always easy. Both the work of justice itself and the daily work of discerning our roles in God’s movement of justice in our world today require thoughtful rhythms that will serve to sustain us and form each of us individually and as a body into the very likeness of Christ.
Sometimes, when faced with enormous need in our world today, we ask, What can I do? And, as Christians, often what we are really thinking is, What can I do . . . besides just pray? But usually when we ask that question it is not because we’ve grown to a place of satiation in our prayer life— rather we are at a place of exasperation, thinking to ourselves, I hardly even know where to begin when praying, and I’m not sure how it can possibly be as effective as doing something other than praying.
We might know in our heads that prayer and other spiritual disciplines matter, but more than likely we pursue prayer more as a half-hearted occasional duty rather than as the God-given relationship and power undergirding and fueling all of our action. Or perhaps we view it as much more relevant to our personal spiritual growth and the issues and pain we see in the lives of those closest to us—not the pain and mind-boggling complexity of millions who suffer injustice in the world. And yet this great power and source of intimacy with God is what God intends prayer to be in our lives, in every area of mission to which God calls us.
More often than not we are so eager to jump straight into whatever we perceive to be “action” that we distract ourselves from the very practices that must form, inform and even transform our action—the very practices that must form us if our action is to be wise, effective and sustained throughout the inevitable obstacles and distractions to come. For many followers of Christ, being obedient to God’s commands to do justice is certainly a daily, on-the-ground, person-by-person work of rescuing and protecting victims and restraining the hand of oppressors. However, for every follower of Christ, being obedient to God’s commands to do justice is just as much a daily, on-the-ground, person-by-person work of prayer.
The explosive growth in passion for justice over the past ten years has been an incredible testimony to the reality of need in our world today and also the reality of God’s call on his people to act. In many ways this growth is an outworking of the movement of the Holy Spirit. But there is a danger at hand as well. With large-scale growth, a movement can lose its moorings or never fully find them in the first place.
When we seek justice without first, and throughout, seeking the God of justice, we risk passion without roots. And passion without roots cannot be sustained. Burnout is inevitable. Beyond this risk of burnout, when a justice movement loses its roots of formation in Christ and yet continues wildfire growth for a season, justice itself can be turned into a commodity for consumption by the very people passionate to pursue it.
The commoditization of justice is a sign that we have begun to pursue justice more as a means toward our own self-actualization rather than a means toward the true end of freedom and transformation for those who desperately need rescue from violent abuse. We must learn to see and know the difference between a movement that is growing and being sustained because it is well-grounded versus a movement that is growing and being sustained because it is providing a commodity for self-actualization to the masses.
You have been called into a daily pursuit of God that permeates every aspect of your life. And as you grow to know God more with each day, I pray that God will daily lead you to better understand the specific ways you have been created and called to act in the face of injustice in our world today.
The apostle Paul makes a bold claim in Romans 5 that if we hope in the glory of God, this hope will not disappoint, simply because God himself has poured out his love into our hearts through his Holy Spirit. This same Holy Spirit intercedes for us when our words have run dry, when we feel we can no longer even pray. The Holy Spirit pouring God’s love into our hearts enables us to cast off all temptation to despair and instead to pour out our hearts before our God.
Sometimes our prayers are met with great effect. There are other times when we pray and pray, and we do not seem to see God answering. But even as we pray, because we are drawing near to the God who is good and gracious, by the mystery of the Holy Spirit interceding with groans and words we cannot even express (Romans 8:26-27), we draw strength to persevere and to acknowledge God’s ultimate reign even in uncertainty. As we pray, we find that God himself is drawing us even deeper into the riches of his call and his kingdom.
The choice to pray, to ask of God, to listen for his voice, leads us to encounter hope that trumps our temptation to despair. In prayer we are reminded that decades and even centuries of injustice sometimes take great time and persevering work to reverse. And so we wait in prayer with hope. We keep asking God. We listen with great expectation.
We bring God our hope for the little girls locked in darkness. Hope for the slave trapped by viciously brutal owners. Hope for those unjustly accused.
We pray with hope as Paul instructs, without ceasing.
When and if we begin to open ourselves to see inhumanity and injustice around the globe, “man’s inhumanity to man” can all too easily become crushing. Unbearable. Paralyzing. Even numbing. It can evoke utter despair.
And yet God asks us, as those who would take up our cross and follow Jesus to Golgotha, to allow ourselves to be drawn into the pain of suffering and violence. To let it break our hearts. Even to lead others to these places of pain.
Yes, we are called to “bear witness.” But our witness must not end with observation or with unbearable pain as the final word. We are called to live as those who, in the midst of the unbearable, in the midst of pain, do not shrink back but rather rise up.
We are called to rise up, engage injustice, take “the pain of man’s inhumanity to man” and bring it to the foot of the cross. At the cross we meet the God who drew near to us without fear. We meet the God who moved toward the oppressed. We meet the God who joyfully submitted to bearing all our sin, all our shame, all our burdens; the God who offers us his yoke, who makes our burdens light. At the cross we can proclaim with boldness the call of the psalms and the prophets, “I will remember the deeds of the Lord” (Psalm 77:11).
May we make choices every day that move us toward the God who alone can deepen the passion and conviction of his calling on our lives, the God who alone can sustain us; our God who will cleanse us from broken-hearted fear and despair; our God who, when we simply ask, will surely make us people who are marked and moved by great hope, courage and, above all, love.
May we move forward with deep roots, filled with the Holy Spirit, sustained by knowing the only hope that never disappoints—the hope of God’s glory, the hope of God’s healing, the hope of God’s kingdom, now and to come.
You are invited.
Bethany Hoang serves as the Director of the Institute for Biblical Justice for International Justice Mission (www.ijm.org). IJM is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression.
This article was excerpted from her book Deepening the Soul for Justice (InterVarsity Press). Reprinted by permission of InterVarsity Press. Reprinted by permission of InterVarsity Press and International Justice Mission.
by Steve | Jan 9, 2013 | Features, Jan-Feb 2013, Magazine, Magazine Articles
She captured America’s heart every week as the divine messenger with the lilting and soothing Irish accent on Touched by an Angel. He is the creative genius behind Survivor, The Apprentice, and The Voice. Together, Roma Downey and Mark Burnett are one of Hollywood’s most uniquely equipped married power couples.
Beginning March 3, you will be able to catch their latest ambitious venture on the History Channel. The Bible is a fabulously scripted five-part docudrama produced by Downey and Burnett after a 4 month location shoot in Morocco.
The 10-hour version of this Biblical epic was conceived after the husband and wife team watched the spectacular Ten Commandments by legendary filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959) for the first time since childhood. “Give me two pages of the Bible and I’ll give you a picture,” DeMille once said. With this new venture, Downey and Burnett have produced an entire photo album.
Good News editor Steve Beard spoke with Roma Downey and Mark Burnett about their new project.
How did this become a project that you both wanted to do?
Roma Downey: Well, that was a God thing. I believe we were called to do this, for such a time as this. We are at the fortunate place in our careers where we can choose projects that honor and are pleasing to God. And we joined forces, bringing our talents together and our faith and our love and it has been the most exciting and thrilling and humbling few years of our lives as we’ve brought this to light. And we are so excited because it’s within inches of being finally finished, Steve.
How do you go to the History Channel and make this pitch in a way that they’ve not heard it before?
Roma Downey: Well, if you were me, you would go and knock politely on the door and wait until you’re invited in. But if you were my husband, you would arrive and you would kick the door down. And you would just somehow go in there and present it in such a way that they absolutely knew they had to be part of it.
I love that. And Mark, how did you go about doing that?
Mark Burnett: We heard of a documentary someone was going to make about the Bible that was asking why God is so mean to everybody and why would God flood the earth and kill everybody, why would God tell Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, et cetera, et cetera. Roma was so offended and she said to me, “You know, we should just do a Bible project on…” I said, “What, the whole Bible?” She said, “Yes, we should do that.” I said, “Roma, you’re crazy. There’s no way. Who do you think we are? Cecil B. DeMille?” She said, “Maybe. We should do this.” I said, “Roma, this is impossible, you know.” And she said, “Well, so was Survivor, so was The Voice. Why don’t we do this. We love the Bible, we love these stories, we believe.” And I said, “No, no, no, this is crazy.” And then a couple of days later I decided, you know, maybe she’s right, maybe I should listen to my wife.
We took a year and a half to think exactly how to present it in a way that would be impossible to say no to. There is an art form to how to present an idea in our business, to get someone to say yes.
Mark, you certainly know how to do that.
Mark Burnett: Yes, I’m probably the most experienced person in television at doing exactly that.
This obviously is much more serious than anything else we’ve ever done. But you have to decide upon what’s the entry point and what’s the three-line message? What is the story of God’s love for all of us? And realize that the worst thing you can present is like a rule book: Don’t do this, don’t do that — and in a dry kind of way. If you do it in a dry kind of way, why would someone want to see it on television?
If you want to do it on television, it better be a fresh visual, emotionally connecting way of presenting the sacred text. And I think that’s what we did. Rather than telling you the rules from the Bible, we tell stories and the moral underpinning and rules are evident in the stories of the interaction with the characters. And that’s what we’ve done. And it just took a while to figure out exactly how to do it.
Ten hours of television is nearly the equivalent of half a season. That is a gift-wrapped blessing in Hollywood. What stories did you tackle?
Mark Burnett: They are not going to give us 100 hours, you know, which is what you’d need. So obviously, if you were approaching this as almost a Sunday school greatest hits, there’s certain things you’ve got to do, right?
What we outlined was Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samson, Samuel, Saul, David. Then on to Zedekiah, which led nicely into Daniel and Cyrus and the releasing of the Jews from Babylon and Daniel’s dream about the coming of the Son of Man which was the entry point, naturally, into the New Testament. The New Testament is through the Gospels and then dealing with Stephen, his martyrdom, and dealing with Saul/Paul and on to Revelation.
As we were filming, we realized something had to give. Eventually the story we didn’t film was Joseph. It was Moses or Joseph and we had to do Moses. You just have to because of the parting of the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments and leading into Joshua, because otherwise, that’s the entry point of how you meet Joshua at Jericho. Obviously we wanted to do more, but that’s how we did it.
Roma, how much praying did you have to do through all of this because everything didn’t go as planned? I’ve got to assume there was all kinds of headaches. What was it like going through this process with your husband?
Roma Downey: The fact that we have gotten through the project and we haven’t killed each other yet, I think, is a testimony to our faith. [laughter]
And our God is a good God. We had a few moments where the challenges were great. There were logistical challenges on the set. We filmed in Morocco. We were there from the beginning of February to the beginning of July. We crossed all seasons and all kinds of terrain and there were snakes and scorpions and there were casts of hundreds and herds of sheep and chariots and horses. You can imagine the endless things that might go wrong and they did go wrong, but ultimately I think the hand of God has been on the project from the beginning. We have great teams of people who have been praying with us and for us and in the way that the sea parted for Moses, unbelievably things just kept turning up for us and the right people kept arriving for us and things that we did not know how to do, suddenly somebody was there who did know how to do it. And even in terms of casting, we were challenged right up to the last minute with finding the actor who would play the role of Jesus for us, which was our singular most important cast member.
Very understandable. That’s one casting decision you want to have serious faith in. [laughter]
Roma Downey: We were just a month away from filming and we hadn’t found him yet. We were praying, we were looking for Jesus everywhere. And we had everyone we know praying for him. And then, he just remarkably showed up and he was the perfect actor and he brought all of the qualities that we were hoping this actor would have for this most important part. We cast a Portuguese actor called Diogo Morgado and he is simply sensational. He brings the qualities of the lion and the lamb to this role. And his natural charisma and his natural humility and his natural strength all come off the screen in this beautiful and authentic way. No one has ever played Jesus like this before and I think that his performance is going to touch the hearts of millions of people around the world.
That was a very key piece of casting for us. And there were other moments, too, where God just kept showing up.
One night we were filming a scene where Nicodemus asks Jesus about the kingdom of God and Jesus tells him that he, too, can see the kingdom of God – that he has to be born again of the Spirit. Nicodemus doesn’t fully understand what that means and Jesus describes to him how the Spirit can blow like the wind and it goes where it wishes. And suddenly, as if on cue, the most amazing wind on this very still night blew in through the camp as if God was saying, “Here I am, I’m right here.”
Everybody had hairs stand up on their arms and we all looked at each other in awe. And thankfully, the actors never broke concentration for a moment. And even though the trees were blowing behind them and the hair of the actor playing Jesus was blowing, they both held the moment and it’s just a fantastic moment on camera where it really felt like the Holy Spirit showed up. And there were numerous moments like that for us throughout the experience.
You filmed in Morocco. You’ve mentioned a Portuguese actor and a British actor. What was the international flavor of the rest of the cast?
Roma Downey: The cast is mostly made up of UK actors – English, Scottish, Welsh, and a good healthy sprinkling of Irish.
I love it. I’m a seventh generation Irishman in the United States so that warms my heart. [Laughter.]
Roma Downey: Oh, you are, really? So I have to tell you that King Saul is Irish. Our Moses is Irish. And I stepped myself into the role of Mother Mary. And as you know, I am Irish.
Splendid. I was going to ask if you crossed lines from co-producer to actress.
Roma Downey: I hadn’t planned to play the part, but we had cast the younger Mary through the annunciation and through the Nativity – a beautiful young English actress. And we knew that we would have to find someone that would bear some resemblance 30 years later to the actress picking up that role through the mission of Jesus and then through the Passion of Jesus and so on.
Sounds like a perfect fit.
Roma Downey: Mark said to me, you know, of all these actors that we’re considering for the Mother Mary role, you actually look more like the young actress than any of them. Would you not consider playing it yourself? And I hadn’t really considered playing any part at that time. I had my producer’s hat firmly on my head, but I thought, well, I’ll pray on it. It was the right thing to do and I’m so glad that I did. It was just such a fantastic experience for me. I have loved Mary my whole life.
Oh, believe me, I’m a big fan of her’s as well. I’m glad you took the role.
Roma Downey: It was maybe through loving Mary that I really came to love Jesus. My own mother had died when I was a little girl and the role of Mary in my life became very much like a nurturing mother figure that I didn’t have.
I simply love that. Let me shift gears here. I think a lot of people would be surprised to discover that there is a very vibrant faith within the Hollywood zip code and in the creative world.
Mark Burnett: Let me say that what we’ve done on this project is the best collective work of our entire careers. And that means everything from Roma’s incredible portrayal early in her career of “A Woman Named Jackie,” playing Jackie Onassis, as well as “Touched by an Angel,” “Survivor,” “The Apprentice,” “The Voice,” “Shark Tank,” the Emmys, all the things we’ve done. I don’t lightly say this, the Bible project is the best work we have ever been involved with or made.
That is quite a statement. Are people surprised to discover that the guy who created “Survivor” and “The Voice” is a Christian?
Mark Burnett: My answer is, why not? Why would you assume that because someone was really good at making commercial television they wouldn’t be a Christian? Why would that matter? You’d be pleasantly, happily surprised at the enormity of people of Christian faith within the creative community. That is not the challenge. The challenge is to actually get something about faith on television.
People are very quick to want to put shows on which call faith into question or shows that might say was Jesus married, was the parting of the Red Sea a phenomenon of nature, all these sort of shows are on TV that you’ve seen. Why would they do those? Because, I guess, they think it’s sensational and shocking. But when you want to make the story of God’s love for all of us, people are a little slower for whatever reason to buy into it. Well, we were called because we’ve got great credibility and people think we’re really good at our jobs and we got the opportunity and we’ve made it and we are really grateful to History Channel to seeing that and stepping up for us and with us. No one in our zip code in Hollywood will be surprised that Roma and I are Christians and have made this.
But I wanted to let you know how deep the community is and that many of us who choose to walk in the creative arts also have deep faith. And every now and then you get an opportunity to live that out in the project.
How do you hope the viewers who usually turn to the History Channel for “American Pickers” will experience your project on the Bible?
Roma Downey: Well, the over arching embrace is of God’s love for us, it’s woven through every segment of the show, leading through, of course, to the New Testament, that He loved us so much that He sent His only Son to redeem us. So it’s a beautiful story of love and redemption. And it is our hope that the series goes out and that it touches people’s lives and that it is a great reminder that God loves them, and that it draws people back to the book itself, that they are reminded of how amazing our story is because it is our story, you know, we are those characters.
It’s as current today as it was when it was written. We all go through the same journey. The situations have changed but the feelings are the same, the challenges are the same, the hopes and dreams are the same. So it’s our story. They mirror us. There is such an opportunity here for the faithful, yes, but for people maybe who have never opened a book or who have never stepped inside of a church, but who will get to turn their television set on and see something like this. It’s just a very exciting prospect for the Kingdom.
I should say it is. Thank you both so very much for your time.
Roma Downey: Good. We appreciate you. Thank you for your partnership on this, in helping us to spread the Good News.
by Steve | Feb 15, 2005 | Features
Archive: Chronicles of Narnia: “Values that the book embraced”
Steve Beard talks with Mark Johnson
November/December 2005
Mark Johnson has been producing films for more than twenty years. He has been involved in projects as diverse as Diner, My Dog Skip, Good Morning Vietnam, The Rookie, and The Notebook. Good NEWS editor Steve Beard spoke with Johnson about the production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Is there much of an awareness in Hollywood of the writing of C.S. Lewis?
Mark Johnson: It’s interesting. l think everybody is aware of C.S. Lewis, and it’s amazing the number of people in Hollywood who read The Chronicles of Narnia. I don’t think anybody was saying, “We’ve got to make some movies based on C.S. Lewis’ work.” Tolkien was probably a similar type of aspect I suppose. But it’s clear for us to have made this movie the way that we did. And it’s a very expensive movie – I can’t reveal the budget – but it’s a big production.
Was there a temptation to make the movie radically different than the spirit of the book?
Johnson: Hollywood has ruined a number of books and a number of projects by trying to appeal to an audience that maybe the underlying rights didn’t appeal to or wasn’t aimed at. Everybody’s wary of Hollywood. When people see their favorite book, no matter what kind of book it is, being turned into a film, they are sort of wary. You’re hoping, “Oh gosh, l hope they didn’t ruin it.” Andrew and I wanted this movie to embrace the same values that the book embraced. And neither one of us was interested in any way of changing it.
In what ways was C.S. Lewis’ step-son, Douglas Gresham, involved in the project?
Johnson: Douglas was very involved in every stage from the script development to casting.
What was the greatest challenge in bringing this book to the big screen?
Johnson: J.R.R. Tolkien described everything in great detail. C.S. Lewis did just the opposite. He gave us a touchstone and then in your mind you create Narnia. You imagine, more specifically, what the White Witch looked like, as opposed to having everything described. And so there was a combination of having to be loyal to what he gave us, and then be able to use that as a jumping-off spot. And so people will say, “Gee, I thought the White Witch’s hair would be shorter.” That’s not because of anything C.S. Lewis said. That’s because of that White Witch existing in that person’s imagination.
It sounds as though director Andrew Adamson had his work cut out for himself.
Johnson: Andrew Adamson has taken what C.S. Lewis gave him and then has taken an artist’s imagination and has said, “Okay, the final battle is about a page and a half in the book. And yeah, it’ll be about 15-20 minutes in our movie.” So obviously a lot of it has to be made up. But Lewis was so smart in what he gave us was so to the point and so provocative chat it’s a great jumping-off start for an artist.
by Steve | Feb 15, 2005 | Features, Uncategorized
Archive: Chronicles of Narnia: Faithful Adaptation
Steve Beard talks with Michael Flaherty
November/December 2005
Michael Flaherty is the president of Walden Media, the film studio that is producing C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. He recently spoke with Good News editor Steve Beard about the upcoming movie.
Walden has adapted other books for children for the big screen. How is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe different than other projects such as Holes or Because of Winn Dixie?
Michael Flaherty: It’s amazing. I don’t think it’s that unique because Walden looks for books that we can use to teach kids a lot about life and to get them to ask the big questions. So it’s like Holes or Because of Winn Dixie in that sense. This book has been around so much longer and it has such a much larger fan base.
Was there a temptation to change the setting of the book such as placing the story in modern-day America instead of Great Britain during World War II?
Flaherty: When we were interviewing, looking for writers and directors, we heard a lot of that. But the good news was we always made sure that everybody that was brought aboard wanted to make a faithful adaptation – that was the mantra. And once we met with director Andrew Adamson, who gave us the most incredible vision for how he would faithfully adapt it, everything fell into line. He made sure that everybody was on board with his vision. None of those intentions were there to put it in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles.
With his directing credits being limited to animated films such as Shrek and Shrek 2, was there a gamble in calling on the talents of Andrew Adamson?
Flaherty: They’re completely different kinds of movies. You know, he’d never done a live-action film before. But he knew exactly what he wanted to do and exactly how he wanted to bring it alive.
How did Walden secure the rights to The Chronicles of Narnia?
Flaherty: Over five years ago, my business partner Cary Granat and I were talking to Phil Anschutz about starting this company. Phil asked us for examples of films we wanted to make and Narnia was at the top of the list. That was something Phil had always wanted to do as well. So that was a real priority for the company. Right after they expired at Paramount – I think this was probably four years ago now at this point – we came in and got the rights to the film. We found screenwriter Ann Peacock and director Andrew Adamson. Disney came aboard after we had finished the script and the scouting and we put quite a bit of money into research to prove that we could successfully bring Narnia to life in a live-action film.
Many C.S. Lewis fans assumed that a Hollywood production of his books would diminish the spiritual nature of the stories. Did you anticipate that kind of reaction?
Flaherty: When we purchased the rights to these films, we had not released a single movie. So we had no reputation, no track record. And so we completely expected that. Let’s face it, Hollywood has a history, whether something has spiritual content or not, to completely gut and rewrite a lot of great literature. We bumped into this with Holes, which was our first movie out. A lot of people said, “I can’t believe that they’re making us watch another terrible Hollywood adaptation.” But then I think we earned some respect when people saw Holes and then Winn Dixie was another step along the way of showing people that we have great fidelity to original source material.
What is it about The Chronicles of Narnia – what C.S. Lewis described as the “gateway to a magical world” – that has intrigued audiences of all ages for so long?
Flaherty: It is such a beautiful story and simple story. It’s a great read. l remember myself and my brothers reading it really young in our years in grammar school. And I remember it being a read-aloud book even younger. The story is so easy to grasp for kids, but at the same time it’s so rich and complex for adults. We’re really happy because we feel like we have a movie for ages 6 to 106. What I love is just the messages of family and forgiveness and hope in a hopeless world. There are so many great themes. But best of all, here are two brothers and two sisters who stick together. And that’s the greatest family film in that sense – to see a family hold.
Lewis wrote a lot of letters to children. He addresses this and talks about how great fantasy heightens the readers’ sense of reality and responsibility. And I think that’s what we have here. So what’s amazing about it is it’s this incredible fantasy, but at the same time it’s this incredible window into our own personal lives this very day.
by Steve | Feb 20, 1990 | Features, Uncategorized
Archive: We Must Surrender Ourselves
By E. Stanley Jones
May/June 1990
Good News
Why is God so cruel? Why does he demand so much of us? In demanding self-surrender, is God being cruel or consistent?
God obeys every law he demands of us. He especially obeys and illustrates the law of finding his life by losing it. This principle is at the very heart of the universe. One verse vividly proclaims that fact “the Lamb who is at the heart of the throne will be their shepherd and will guide them to the springs of the water of life” (Rev. 7:17 NEB). That phrase, “the Lamb who is at the heart of the throne,” is the most important of any verse in Scripture, or in literature anywhere. Show me what you think is at the heart of the universe and I will show you what will be at the heart of your conduct.
Call the roll of the answers of philosophy and religion as to what is at the heart of the throne of the universe, and what answers do we get? Justice, power, law, indifference, question mark, favoritism, something that cannot be wangled, the non-manipulatable, the ground of our being. Nothingness. Not one could rise to, or could dare think of, self-giving, sacrificial love, “the Lamb” being at the heart of the throne. That would be unthinkable; it could only come as revelation. The Word had to become flesh; we had to see it in the Lamb, God on a cross!
The unimaginable revelation is this: God not only redeems in terms of Jesus Christ, he rules in terms of Jesus Christ. The Lamb is at the heart of the throne, not merely the cross! Does God rule from a cross? Then the cross is final power and not only absolute goodness. Is this a stray thought woven into the fabric of Christianity or is it the warp and woof of the whole? This verse lets us see that it is at the very basis of the Christian faith: “Therefore, my brothers, I implore you by God’s mercy to offer your very selves to him: a living sacrifice” (Rom. 12:1 NEB). The word therefore is the pivot upon which this whole epistle turns from doctrines to duties, from what God has done to what we are to do. And what has he done? The whole of Romans up to the eighth chapter is an exposition of what God has done to redeem us. The following passage lets us see what he has done: “Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, and that is God’s own proof of his love towards us. And so, since we have now been justified by Christ’s sacrificial death, … For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, … now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. But that is not all: We also exult in God through our Lord Jesus, through whom we have now been granted reconciliation” (Rom. 5:8-11 NEB). Also: “He did not spare his own Son, but surrendered him for us all; and with this gift how can he fail to lavish upon us all he has to give?” (Rom. 8:32 NEB). Put with the above this: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19 NEB). Put these passages together and they spell out the astonishing news: God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.
So self-surrender is at the very heart of God. When he asks us to surrender ourselves he is asking us to fulfill the deepest thing in himself and the deepest thing in us. It is not only the deepest in God – it is also the highest in God. God was never higher than when he gave himself for us. If there were a cosmic newspaper announcing: “GOD THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE GIVES HIMSELF TO REDEEM A PLANET CAILED EARTH,” the universe would gasp in astonishment. That would be news. It would set the standard for life in the universe. We must do what God does, surrender ourselves. If we do that we are in harmony with the universe. If we go against what God does, make ourselves the center of life, then we are running athwart the universe; we have nothing behind us except our lonely wills; we are estranged and out of harmony with the universe and ourselves. We have saved our lives and have lost them.
So Paul says, “Therefore, … I implore you by God’s mercy to offer your very selves to him: a living sacrifice.”
Why by God’s mercy? Is he implying, “God have mercy on you if you don’t?” I think so, for life says so! All the problems of human living come out of self-centered living. Center yourself on yourself and you won’t like yourself. And no one else will like you. A psychologist says, “It’s a million chances to one that the self-centered are unpopular.” With whom? First, with themselves. They do as they like and then don’t like the self they are expressing. But when you try to digest selfcenteredness the stomach turns sour. You are made for outgoing love, not ingrown self-preoccupation. Neither can you as a person digest it, nor can your relationships.
This law of saving your life by losing it is not based on God’s whim, nor even upon God’s will – it is based on God’s character. That is the way God is, and that is the way God acts, and if we act otherwise we are at cross-purposes with God and consequently get hurt. For you cannot be at cross-purposes with reality and get away with it. You don’t break this law, you break yourself upon it. It registers its consequences within you. You are paid in your own person the fitting wage of such perversion, the perversion of making yourself God instead of surrendering to God.
So surrender to God is not merely a religious doctrine, it is a life demand. The rest of Romans 12:1 says that offering “your very selves to him: a living sacrifice” is “the worship offered by mind and heart.” Note “mind,” or as the King James Version says, “your reasonable service.” To surrender to God is “reasonable,” the sensible thing to do. From the moment you surrender to God, life takes on meaning, goal, purpose, a sense of going somewhere worthwhile – life adds up to sense.
The article is excerpted from Victory Through Surrender by E. Stanley Jones, copyright 1966, Abingdon Press. Used by permission.
