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Should Christian educators use film and television as primary sources for teaching worldviews in the church? Are there resources available for teaching worldviews, particularly a biblical or Christian worldview, using these media? Is it wise for evangelical believers to use Hollywood television shows and film as a resource or medium to teach youth about worldviews?

For well over a decade now many youth workers and pastors have taught both youth and adults about worldviews by calling attention to and discussing popular television shows and movies. Indeed, thousands of churches follow this approach to teach middle and high school-aged youth about worldviews, including comparing the Christian worldview to other worldviews, but also teaching Christian philosophy and ethics. When I first encountered this practice, quite frankly, I had some doubts about the fruitfulness of it. After all, in doing this were these youth workers encouraging young people to spend more of their time watching movies and television? Were they encouraging them to be discerning in what they viewed, or were they simply giving them some Christian insight into those shows and movies they already viewed? In my experience, most youth workers would say it is the latter. In other words, what they are doing is simply taking something youth are already spending a considerable amount of their time doing, and using it to educate and provide them with Christian insight and perspective they would not likely otherwise gain.

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Jacob (James) Arminius (1560-1609) is often described by Calvinists as a heretic. From a Calvinist perspective, this is understandable.  In the age in which we live, marked as it is by theological disunity which tends to focus more upon what Christians disagree about than upon what we agree, basically every believer is a heretic according to someone. But, regarding Jacob Arminius and Calvinism, the fact is, since the Protestant Reformation, there have been many Calvinists who have followed in the same footsteps, as it were, of Arminius, first setting out as Calvinists, but then, due to their continued study of the Bible, changing "sides." Arminius was not just a common, run-of-the-mill Calvinist, but a leading Calvinist scholar who was known for his intellectual and theological acumen, especially in the midst of doctrinal debate, in which context he excelled at putting down those who dared to disagree with the teachings of Calvinism.

However, not unlike a Hollywood script, Arminius himself came to have second thoughts about defending Calvinism against those theologians and biblical scholars who disagreed with some of its teachings. Again, this was not due so much to the arguments or criticism he had encountered, but to Arminius' own study of Scripture, specifically, when he was seeking to synchronize Calvinism and illustrate that it was nothing less and nothing more than exactly what the Bible itself taught. Indeed, even today Calvinists favor the phrases "Calvinism is the Bible" and "Calvinism is the gospel."

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Luttrell Psalter, British Library

Michelle Brown points out that the Luttrell Psalter is one of "the best known and most loved masterpieces in the British Library's collections" (Brown, The World of the Luttrell Psalter, The British Library, 2006, 6). But this statement is only true in the context of England, as proportionally few people outside of England have even heard of the Luttrell Psalter. The exception would be primarily book dealers, collectors and, especially, bibliophiles, who when the Folio Society's facsimile edition of The Luttrell Psalter sold out last summer, despite its price tag of just over $2,200 (with shipping), saw the limited edition facsimiles of this medieval Psalter almost immediately increase. Just weeks after the Folio Society sold its last available limited edition facsimile of the Luttrell Psalter, one copy of the same book was available in mid-July 2011 through abebooks.com for $3,600, the seller being New Boston Fine and Rare Books in Tucson, Arizona. Even if the Tucson bookdealer purchased this title directly from the Folio Society, the store's profit would be $1,400, that is, if it sells. I'm told quite a few bookdealers will purchase dozens of limited edition titles for the sole purchase of reselling them later at a considerably higher price when the limited edition books are no longer available from the publisher.

Many Christian professors and authors, like Donald L. Brake, vice president and dean emeritus of Multnomah Biblical Seminary in Portland, Oregon, are avid collectors of rare Bibles and manuscripts. Brake is a collector, chiefly because he wants to preserve these treasures so that forthcoming generations will be able to view them. However, Brake has also been known to sell a Bible out of his collection in order to raise money to purchase another one which he does not own.

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It has been said that "of the intellectuals who transmitted and adapted the Renaissance spirit to northern Europe, Erasmus (1466-1536) was the greatest. Taken together, his writings reflect a rare combination of practical Christian piety, biblical and patristic scholarship, and broad Humanistic learning" (Robert Ellis, Great Lives from History: The Renaissance & Early Modern Era, edited by Christina J. Moose, Salem Press, 2005, 314). Years before the Protestant Reformation, Erasmus clearly stated "his dismay at the excesses of an increasingly worldly and corrupt" Roman Catholic Church "and urged church leaders to return to Christian essentials" (Ellis, 317, my emphasis). In this light some church historians argue Erasmus "sparked" the Protestant Reformation through his writings. There is much truth to this line of thinking. However, while Erasmus was critical of the Church (Roman Catholicism) on many points, he could not bring himself to join the Protestant Reformation.

Rather, Erasmus sought to reform Catholicism from within, rather than encouraging yet another distinct branch of the church in addition to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, which had officially separated in 1054. In addition to preferring reform from within, Erasmus preferred the Roman Catholic doctrine of free will, which many reformers rejected, including both Martin Luther and John Calvin, Calvin's entire system of doctrine being oriented around the doctrine of predestination, and Luther having much to say about the "bondage of the will." The Reformers generally held that God's election of believers was a reality prior to and separate from any particular person coming to faith in Christ. Indeed, Luther's famous De Servo Arbitrio (On the Bondage of the Will, 1525), was written in reply to Erasmus' De Libero Arbitrio Diatribe Sive Collatio (On Free Will), which had appeared just the year before in 1524. Erasmus' On Free Will was his first public criticism of Luther's ideas and where he saw them leading. For many years prior to this, Erasmus had Bulletin of Evangelical Ministries, January 2012, page 3. been wary of Luther's teaching concerning free will and predestination.

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