Captain! There be spoilers here!

When I first watched the 2009 Star Trek movie, the retelling of Star Trek in an alternate universe delighted me greatly. Since then I have been anticipating the next movie, and yet the previews I’ve seen in the last year have disappointed me. It looked like Star Trek was going to become just another action movie franchise.

What I love about Star Trek is its creativity, its science, its idealism, the exploration, the interaction with strange new cultures and technologies, the character interactions, and the way all of the above reveal what makes us human. Action happens, but it has never been what makes Star Trek Star Trek. Even the worst Star Trek movies have been at their best when they have explored humanity in alienness. Yet the trailers for “Star Trek: Into Darkness” were so slanted toward the action-movie market that I was afraid of what it might become, even in the hands of the ever-skillful J.J. Abrams.

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On May 18, France became the 12th nation to legalize same-sex marriage when President Francois Hollande signed into law a bill that allows same-sex couples to both marry and adopt children.

But the bill’s passage didn’t come without a serious fight—a fight that may not be over yet.
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On April 29, popular professional football quarterback Tim Tebow was released by the New York Jets, after a season in which he was used only sparingly. On the same day, Washington Wizards center Jason Collins announced that he was gay. Both Tebow and Collins are, or soon will be, "free agents," meaning both are free to sign with another team.
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“You think it’s too much?” Jay Gatsby (Leonardo di Caprio) anxiously asks Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), after filling Nick’s house with flowers in anticipation of Daisy’s (Carey Mulligan) arrival.

Silly Gatsby. Of course it’s too much. The flowers, the jewels, the furs, the parties, the fireworks, the liquor, the music, the crazy driving . . . all of it. “The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s commemoration of Jazz Age excess, has been brought to vivid, opulent life in Baz Luhrmann’s new film—and everything in it is just too much.

But oh, it’s beautiful.
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There's an elephant in the living room. Only it isn't an elephant, and it isn't in the living room. It's a golden calf, and it's in our baptismal font and our pulpit and our sanctuary and our Sunday School class and our Bible study group and everywhere else we worship and serve God, because, truth be told, it's in our hearts.

To put it bluntly: We, the church of Jesus Christ, have an idol.

It's called ministry.

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God’s Word assures us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Our DNA’s construct is carefully interwoven into our make-up; our brains have great capacity, yet are still limited, so that wonderment stretches beyond us and keeps in place the glass the Scripture speaks of, that we see through but dimly.

The new movie “Iron Man 3” speaks greatly to the power of the human mind, but also to the power of human limitation and the danger involved in attempting to force our brains and DNA to evolve beyond the limitations imparted by our Creator.

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But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby,” Chapter 2

The eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg will gaze at audiences in 3D, when Baz Luhrmann’s remake of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” opens on May 10. This highly anticipated production promises to depict the Roaring Twenties in all their glory, embodying art deco with lavish costumes, vivid scenery, and exquisite cinematography.

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My last atheist fixed me with a look through his Harry Potterish glasses: “So you believe in God?” I nodded. “Well, do you also believe the U.S. government brought down the Twin Towers on 9/11?”

I knew this would not end well. “I don’t appreciate being insulted,” I answered. “You’re saying that if I believe in God I’m a nutso conspiracy theorist.”

Denial and backpedaling ensued, but then came his next salvo: “You believe in one God, right?” I clarified, “Three Gods in one, actually.”

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Nearly every girl wants to be beautiful, and nearly every boy wants to be handsome. Our popular culture teaches us that it’s the slender, beautiful girl with perfect hair and skin who is most popular, who gets the glamorous jobs like modeling and acting, and whom every boy wants to go out with, or sleep with; and that it’s the strong, handsome boy who gets all the girls and becomes the heartthrob actor or football player. Our young people long to be that girl or that boy, and even as we grow older and wiser, we still walk in the shadow of an unattainable ideal.

The Christian culture tries to oppose this.

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The year is 1961. The place is southernmost Ohio, a rural residence facing a narrow, curvy road. Behind the house is a six-year-old boy. Having grown tired of his stick horse, he casts it aside. He raises his arms and begins to run. Imitating the sound of flight—“sssshhhhhhh”—little legs churning, imaginary cape flapping behind him, he charges down the steep hill toward the house. For some reason, he’s unable to stop himself. The ecstasy of imagination burns away in the flaming terror of—

Crash!
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“42” opens as postwar America is ushering in a renewed and thriving democracy. And sports reporter Wendell Smith (Andre Holland)—a black man barred from the press box, who sits at each game in the stands behind third base with his typewriter in his lap—believes that all that should matter is the numbers in your box score and your batting average, not your religion, your political leanings, or the color of your skin. Major League Baseball executive Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) agrees, and he wants to break the color barrier and sign the first player of color to the Brooklyn Dodgers. He settles on Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman): a fast, temperamental shortstop whose Army and UCLA background have previously associated him with white men.

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“A formidably self-possessed young woman with a fully realized, detailed moral sensibility.”

As the main author of the book “Unseduced And Unshaken” points out, this is not usually what comes to mind when people think about what a godly young woman should look like. But it is a description applied by a secular critic to, arguably, the most moral, godly, and intelligent young woman in fiction, Jane Eyre. And as Rosalie de Rosset also points out, it is a description that any godly, intelligent young woman should aspire to.

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When Roma Downey and Mark Burnett undertook the task of turning the Bible into a miniseries, the results were staggering. Ratings skyrocketed beyond expectations as cable television dedicated a primetime spot to the retelling of the Word of God on a bold, broad, beautiful canvas, aided by modern technology and computer graphics.

I can just imagine how daunting their job must have been: to choose Bible stories to spread over 10 episodes aired on a major cable network, and to appeal to a wide audience of believers and nonbelievers, scholars and seekers, and those merely looking to be entertained. It’s safe to assume that many viewers were completely unfamiliar with the source material when they turned on their television that first Sunday evening.
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Now that I have your attention, permit me to explain.

There's an ongoing debate in Reformed and Evangelical circles regarding the mission of the church. That's good, because the Body of Christ needs to be clear on what the Head expects the hands and feet to be doing.
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It’s a traditional dance that’s been popular in America for decades among militant unbelievers: trampling vigorously on Jesus Christ. But some ingenious new moves surfaced recently with the story of the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) student who says he was suspended from his “intercultural communications” class when he refused to stomp on a piece of paper bearing the name “Jesus.” Junior Ryan Rotela, a devout Mormon, said the assignment made him feel “deeply offended,” according to reports from DailyCaller.com and Mediaite.com.
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