Perverting The Promised Land

Who really killed Lincoln? The value of history is understood less and less in our world. ItÕs an easy subject to underestimate. But the reality is that knowing history is vital to a peopleÕs survival. Creating connections with the past orients and stabilizes us. It provides specific lessons that can inform our decision-making, both individually and nationally. It supplies our memory as a people, as well as our understanding of and appreciation for personal and national character. It fortifies us to face hardships with resolution. And it is extremely prophetic, as it tends to play out in repetitive cycles. The lessons are many, and they are invaluable. What sorts of lessons will this history teach? Will it fill our students with a sense of positive purpose? Will it inspire them to follow the best examples of their forebears and to build heroic character? Will it strengthen them for future challenges? The better you understand history, the better you can understand why our ignorance of it is so dangerous.

The issue of the church is one of the most divisive issues in Christendom. In this volume, Professor Fenison restricts his studies to Pre–New Testament and New Testament uses of the Greek term ekklesia. He then evaluates the more modern universal invisible church theory in its relationship to the historical usage of ekklesia and in its relationship to the very fundamental basics of biblical soteriology. In particular, Fenison demonstrates that this post-biblical theory is not inconsistent with regard to the primary consequence of the fall (spiritual death/separation) and its only possible fundamental solution (restoration to spiritual union with God). Fenison argues that ecclesiology was never part of that solution prior to the cross and is no part of that solution after the cross. Fenison totally repudiates church salvation in every form but insists that salvation consists in its most fundamental essence as restoration to spiritual union with God, which is affected by the internalized empowered gospel as the Spirit’s creative Word (2 Cor. 4:6; Jam. 1:18; Pet. 1:23,25) without any relationship to the church or its ordinances in any way, shape, or form.

This volume of essays draws together specialists in the field to explain, illustrate and analyze this religious diversity in Ancient Israel.

(Peeters 1995)

Filmmaker David Lynch's work is viewed here as patriotic and Puritanical. This Lynch is an idealistic conservative on a reformer's mission. Lynch promotes a return to the values inherent in a mythological America, but he indulges in a voyeuristic pleasure which he simultaneously condemns. Like Jeffrey peeking through the slats of Dorothy's closet in Blue Velvet, the viewer of Lynch's work is a rationalist plagued by his dreams; intrigued and repulsed, fascinated and judgmental, he both craves and resists cultural assimilation. Works presented include all features from Eraserhead to Mulholland Drive, shorts such as The Amputee and The Grandmother, and contributions to television such as Hotel Room and, of course, Twin Peaks. This study develops an idea of Lynch's politics, analyzes his work, and explores Lynch's paradox of condemning an immoral world through disturbing images and concepts, and touches on such points as the identifiable figure of evil in his works as well as the archetypes of the nymphet, well-meaning traditionalist, and struggling ethicist. Also included are a history of moralistic criticism in American literature and a review of existing Lynch criticism within this context.