Somehow I knew this was going to be the first question…I’m not gonna lie. Sex is one of the big issues. I wish I was a better man, and could simply ignore that side of myself, but I’m not. I get as frustrated as anyone else, and working through that is difficult.

What followed was one of the best interactions I have seen concerning the difference of what real love is and what much of our society thinks it is, someone else followed up and pressed the issue further;

Have you ever considered or had a discussion with your wife about making the physical aspect of your relationship open? You both have needs, and I respect your patience and efforts to be a good husband. However, I feel that on a level of need you may benefit from having an agreement with your wife about a sexually open relationship while maintaining an otherwise monogamous one.

This questionsuggestion hurts my soul every time I read it.  I do not know if this person genuinely believed this idea was a good one or he was just wondering out loud what the man thought about it, but this is entitlement not love.  It says, “Love should be about you getting everything you want and if you are missing anything then you should go get it!”  Sure, redefine the way a monogamous relationship works to fulfill your needs.  You deserve it.  You’re entitled to it.

The married man answered;

I’ve had others ask this question before, but lets be serious here.

My wife already deals with feelings of inadequacy because of the things she can’t provide for me physically. She knows I love her anyway, but she can’t help feeling like she’s somehow less than a “real” wife.

Were I to go elsewhere for sex, romping around with some able-bodied lady, even if it was done with her knowledge and nominal permission, any sense of security that she has in me, in us, would be gone. That kind of damage is irreparable.

An “open relationship” would signify only that my physical needs are more important than her emotional ones. And that just isn’t true.

Beautiful.  This man gets it.  Ladies if you ever doubted men, let this man restore your faith that we aren’t all douchebags.

Yes I know, sex is not love.  I think that love is greater than sex, they are connected, and I think that is another way of looking at what is being misrepresented here.  When this man opens himself to questions about his marriage and someone asks him about sex, he doesn’t try to disconnect the two like the second questioner does because the married man knows they are very much related.  He knows asking him “How’s the sex life?” is part of asking him “How’s the marriage life?”.  Look back, his answer would probably be very similar if the question was changed.  The man understands that to go outside of his marriage for sex, or for anything, would render his marriage pointless.  Whatever benefits he would receive from outside his marriage are worth nothing to him if his marriage or wife suffers.

I believe that our biggest need is love, but love is a funny thing because in order to do it correctly one must put another’s needs before their own.  And that is so hard to do sometimes.  Being a selfish 22 year old, my innate desire is not to put Hallie’s wants or needs before my own.  My brain says that the most efficient way to enjoy the benefits of life is to have all my needs met without doing any work.  But because I love her, I make any of her needs more important than all of mine.  Well, I try to.  I fail a lot, but that is another story.  The point is we cannot fulfill our own need for love, we must love something beyond ourself if we want it to be real.

Another person made a snide comment;

So it’s essentially a one-way deal, where she gets here psychological needs met, and you don’t. Got it. But then, I guess you made that decision when you got married. Oh well.

The man responded;

Not really, no. It is called love. It is letting the needs of someone else supersced your own. I’m rather sorry you feel the way you do. You’re missing out in the long run.

Blue Like Jazz finds a way to talk about spirituality in a relevant way to our culture.  This is big.  It isn’t preachy, cheesy, and it doesn’t judge.  It is witty, intellectual, and offers, what I think is, a sincere look at faith and what it looks like.  It follows a college freshmen’s existential struggle through life as he explores what Christianity is, what it means to others, and what it means to him.  While some movies try to explain life’s hardships, Jazz stands out because it offers the idea that maybe life is messy because life is messy and we can’t simply pray or follow 4 easy steps to make the conflict of life go away.  With a great deal of influence from his new found friends, consisting of a lesbian, civil disobeyer, and the college pope, Don begins to piece together what life is all about and where his faith belongs(if at all).  Something as miraculous as life and the human experience deserves to be struggled with and tried first hand.  There is no easy right or terribly wrong answer and Jazz doesn’t try to give you one since that is something you need to find for yourself.  Very few movies are brave enough to bring up spiritual struggles like this in a well balanced discussion that believers and nonbelievers can both enjoy.

The difference between Blue Like Jazz and other Christian-genre films is Jazz never turns you away for not believing or acting a certain way, but instead apologizes if you were ever turned away in the first place and offers to take you out for a drink.

It isn’t the best film of the decade, or even the year.  But it gets across what so many other movies have failed to in an entertaining and worthwhile way–Christianity can be(and is!) relevant in our culture.

Go see it!  If you don’t like it at all I will pay you back.

Kevin Wilkinson : Associate Producer

“The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it…). They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.”
― N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

My previous Easter posts if you’re interested.

It is beautiful.

Why trying to appear right all the time is lame:

1. Its fake and you know it.  What good is it to appear right when you know you were wrong?
2. Its fake and they know it.  If others can blatantly see you trying to appear right all the time they will lose respect for you.
3. You will seem arrogant to others.

You can never be right all the time.  Don’t let this get you down and don’t try to fight it!  Instead, embrace the fact that you can’t be right 100% of the time, and you don’t need to be!  Start to recognize when you are wrong and use it as an opportunity to learn for next time.

Why learning is cool:

1. You learn something new that you didn’t before.
2. It is an important skill to have; if you can’t learn anything then you aren’t going to go very far in life.
3. People will respect you more when you learn something from them, or when they learn something from you.

If you are ever faced with this choice I encourage you to learn instead of trying to appear right.  I’ve been trying this and its amazing how much more you learn when you aren’t wasting energy trying to prove how much you already know.

Brief summary of the campaign;
This last week Invisible Children launched their latest campaign called KONY2012.  It is an effort to massive flood any form of communication we have to point to a 30 minute video they put together roughly summarizing who Joseph Kony is and what he has done in the LRA.  It calls for support to stop this man and bring him to justice.  Facebook, Twitter, posters, phone calls, and even sandwich signs were used to aid the spreading of the campaign.  If you haven’t seen the video, check it out here.

My thoughts on the campaign;
I think this is an overall very good thing.  At times I couldn’t see anything else besides the video on my newsfeed.  People were watching it and people were spreading it.  Many of these people hadn’t ever heard of Invisible Children, Joseph Kony, or the LRA before.  Word is getting out and causing people to act and discuss it with each other.  This was their goal, to raise awareness.  Afterwards each person has to decide if this is something worth taking action on and if they should support Invisible Children.

There has been some controversy over this video spreading.  As usual anytime something receives a lot of public attention, it generates a lot of negative criticism.  Some of the noise is just curiosity to learn more about the whole issue, some people don’t think Invisible Children are doing the best job to fix the situation, some say they aren’t doing any good, and some are annoyed that their Facebook newsfeed appears to be hijacked.  Reading some of the most popular articles of controversy make me cringe; their facts are so grossly twisted, wrong, or perhaps accidentally misstated.  This is not just me discounting the article, compare them to Invisible Children’s responses.  Some of the accusations or reasons for Invisible Children being a scam are so stretched I can’t help but think the writers have a serious beef with the company.  Like most articles regarding controversial topics, the loud and completely one sided ones are often shared or spread around more than the sensible middle of the road ones are.

To the outlets of controversy I say this;
Critique is one of the finer parts of a discussion, and it is needed and welcomed especially when both sides want the best possible outcome.  I am all for other ideas on how to handle situations, and so is Invisible Children.  But blatant misrepresentation of Invisible Children or attacking them for the way they approach things shouldn’t be accepted(this is what the visiblechildren tumblr page was in my opinion).  I found it very hypocritical when so many people were saying “Silly people, you’re all jumping on the bandwagon for some video you just found and you think it explains everything. Look, read this article I just found that explains everything.” Do you see the parallel there?  It does no good to anyone and doesn’t help the issue here that we all can agree is terrible(Kony).

My thoughts on Invsible Children in general;
I’ve been involved with Invisible Children for 6 years now.  Taking part in every single campaign they’ve put on since their launch, president of the UCI Invisible Children club for a year, and flying out to DC to help talk with congressmen about our countries involvement in ending this conflict.  I whole heartedy believe that Invisible Children has the best interest at heart for Uganda, its children, and what may come of the Joseph Kong aftermath.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes their planning teams pain stakingly decide what course of action is best and how can they achieve it in Africa.  I wish I could give you a well thought out article as to why I believe Invisible Children is doing the right thing. I wish I could show you how they have researched all possible ramifications of their actions. They have many partial answers on their website(invisiblechildren.com) and I hope you read through them if you are curious about what they are doing in Africa.  And if the reading doesn’t satisfy you, I hope you call and talk with a representative about it more. They will talk to you.

So much has already changed in Uganda because of IC’s involvement with this conflict and I’m very glad this organization has given people like me a chance to try to change a little part of this world for the better.  KONY2012′s goal was to raise awareness, and I believe they met that ten times over.  After all, who ever heard of a 30 minute long viral video?

Besides considering the webpage layout/code itself, I also find myself thinking over the purpose of a website.  When I create a new web application I want people to have a reason to use it and to keep using it.  If they can get the same functionality somewhere else, I haven’t really accomplished anything.  Some web sites don’t really try to serve a particular purpose(heynicebeard.com) while others do.  I specifically want to discuss social networks here.  What purpose does each one serve?  How come so many people have multiple social networks?  Do we really need another social network?  Is it accomplishing its purpose?  Who is actually using it?  Well I thought I’d do a write up of sorts to name the most current most popular.  Shout at me in the comments if there is one you want my thoughts on.

• Facebook
• Facebook has done everything right.  They captured our interest by being an exclusive group(at first) and offered us order from our terrible MySpace free-for-all-layouts.  Currently there is no alternative in my eyes(Google+ being the closest, more on that below) so everyone uses it and will continue to use it as they keep forcing new changes on us.  Now matter how much we complain they know we aren’t going anywhere.  The scariest part about facebook is that they make so much money off of us by selling our information.  Facebook isn’t the product in this scheme, we are.  You should always be careful what you put on the internet.  Just food for thought.
• Goodreads
• Goodreads is one of the newer social networks gaining ground.  It is a network centered around sharing books with your friends.  Fairly useful if you like to chat, share, and keep track of books with friends.  I’ve rather enjoyed using it.
• Google+
• Google+ is a fully functional social network, just without users.  In many ways it is better than Facebook, and Facebook took note of them and copied those features.  I use social networks to socialize with my friends but only a minuscule part of my friends use Google+, and that is why I don’t use it even though I think it is better designed.
• Linkedin
• Linkedin is marketed as a business related network, people connect with each other and create a sort of portfolio/resume via connections, employers, and projects.  However I’ve never personally encountered a use for it beyond that.  I can imagine the connections would be useful for finding jobs through old empoyees or recommendations.
• MySpace
• MySpace was the first Facebook, it held the monopoly on social networking at one point.  Its biggest fault was to give too much layout freedom to the users.  Too many MySpace pages were slow loading, hard-to-read, multiple-music-video-playing abominations.  Apparently it still survives as a more music related social network, but I don’t see how.  Its slowly dying from the stigma of its own past.
• Pinterest
• This is the newest social network I’ve encountered, and oh boy is it popular.  Personally I think it is the lamest thing on the web right now.  I have to give it credit since it has done a lot of things right to amp itself up–like be invite-only to appear exclusive.  Here is my main beef with Pinterest: it offers no functionality that you cannot already do with almost any other social networking site.  What do you do?  You share pictures that you have either a) upload yourself or b) get from another user.  ”But Kevin!  Pinterest makes it so much easier!”  Really?  I didn’t know the share button on any Facebook link or picture was that hard to use.  ”But Kevin!  I can have all 9000 of my pictures in my profile all sorted into their respective categories!”  And do what with them?  Let them sit there that is what.  95% of the pictures I see on the internet I get a good laugh and move on.  4% I keep open in a tab on chrome to get more laughs throughout the week.  1% I will save in some fashion(save on reddit, share on Facebook, or post on my blog).  ”But Kevin!  I found a great recipe that I need to keep on Pinterest so I can cook it later!”  Recipe.  Book.  Write it down.  A+ for the name though.  It has a ring to it.
• Tumblr
• Tumblr is essentially a rebranded blog system.  It offers nothing new except this tumblrity feature that measures how many people have reblogged your content.  That’s cool I guess.  If someone reblogs my stuff I would hope they credit me somehow.  Again, my issue is with the network’s purpose being a duplicate of an already existing and functional social network(wordpress/blogger/any-other-blog-system).  If you didn’t catch on in my Pinterest rant I am bothered when something that offers no new functionality from what we already have captivates people as something totally new.  Tumblr to a lesser degree.  Pinterest is basically an even more boiled down version of Tumblr.  I see many people just using it as a blog and I would encourage them to use WordPress or even blogger.  More freedom and cooler plugins.  Also, the name is stupid.
• Reddit
• Reddit.  Where do I begin with Reddit.  I love it and I hate it.  It restores my faith in humanity and makes me realize how messed up we are.  I learn all sorts of interesting facts and waste hours scrolling through nothing.  I can’t think of another social network where I can read endless amounts of content from nearly every single subject that interests me.  I wrote a rather long blog post on my thoughts on reddit a while ago.  Most of it still stands.  The coolest thing about Reddit is that it serves as a completely open and non-censored(apart from the illegal) content library.  You can either post or read almost anything.  The oddest thing about reddit is how amazingly broad but eerily similar its user base is.  When the hivemind is in effect Reddit looses its appeal very quickly.  It is then that I become frustrated because the hivemind effectively censors that it disagrees with from being seen, which goes against Reddit’s initial purpose.
• Twitter
• Twitter is something I see as the most misunderstood social network on the web.  I’ve had this exact conversation with multiple people regarding Twitter:

So what is this Twitter thing?

Its pretty cool.  Its a way to instantly share what is going on with the rest of the world.

That sounds stupid.

No it isn’t.  Look I can read 30 different updates from my friends about what they are currently doing.  It even has helped a lot of social movements in the Middle East organize against their oppressive governments.

Why would I want to read about what people are doing right now?  I don’t want to read about people going to the bathroom.

….

• They either miss the point of Twitter entirely or they just don’t think technology itself is very cool and that its going to corrupt your soul if you tweet where you are ate lunch.  One thing I don’t like about Twitter is that it is quickly becoming a library of idiots’ thoughts.  People are either making stuff up to appear cool/funny, complaining about mundane facts of life, or trying to make their hashtag trend(OH. EMM. GEE. I just got asked if I knew how to use powerpoint.  #mac4life #thingsthatartisticbarristasdealwithintheirdowntime)  On the whole I find Twitter very interesting.  It is one of the least structured social networks and while its only functionality is very similar to Facebook’s status updates, it serves a different purpose entirely.  It initially started out asking people to answer the question “What are you doing?” but has switched its question to “What’s happening?”(Twitter’s blog post regarding the matter).  A small change that had enormous impact on its purpose that I found fascinating.

Well those are my opinions and thoughts on some popular social networks.  I am always on the lookout to for new and interesting stuff on the web so if you ever find something, send it my way!

Honestly, I can’t see any good reason to get too upset about this book.  A pastor wrote a book on what he thinks about spirituality, salvation, heaven, and hell.  I’m sure Bell believes that he is right(why else would he believe it), but I don’t think Bell believes that his opinions are 100% correct.  But remember, this is just a collection of a man’s thoughts.  A man.  A human being affected by our depraved nature.  Something in there is screwed up somewhere.  So don’t get bent out of shape if you absolutely disagree with something in Love Wins, its normal to have different opinions on grey areas.

And why are there grey areas about theology?  Why shouldn’t we think that what we believe is 100% correct?  Because, if we know everything about God then we have God figured out.  If we have all the answers, what do we need God for?  One of the questions I get asked a lot by atheists or agnostics is “How can you hold onto your faith when you have so many questions about salvation, theology, and God himself?”  I do have many questions that I can’t answer.  There will always be questions and grey areas and, quite frankly, I think its worse to claim/believe/lie to yourself that you have them all figured out.  Some things we can know for sure(what is 1+1?), some other things we cannot know(If God is 100% loving then why is my friend dying from cancer?), or know if we ever will know.  So why pretend?  Why say “HEY I HAVE THE ANSWER AND YOU ARE WRONG IF YOU THINK DIFFERENTLY!”  Lets be real about it.  We can discuss what we think about it and get good conversations going.  We might even learn something new!

But there will always be questions.  Sometimes we can answer them, sometimes we can’t answer them yet, and sometimes we never will be able to answer them.  God is bigger than us.  He operates at a higher dimension and we cannot comprehend how He works.  Personally, this is one of my favorite attributes of God; Him being beyond me.  There is always ways to fall in love with Him again.  And you can’t love something, or someone, after you’ve figured it out; the appeal is gone.

One of the most beautiful things I have heard regarding this idea was from a thread on reddit.

I do not claim to hold the truth. I claim that the Truth has gotten ahold of me, and I am merely doing my best not to lose sight of it.

Anther thing, I covered this above but I want to stress this again just like Bell did, “nothing in this book hasn’t been taught, suggested, or celebrated by many before me  I haven’t come up with a radical new teaching that’s any kind of departure from what’s been said an untold number of times”(XXX).  This is true.  Everything in this book has been said, taught, and believed before.  Inclusivism?  CS Lewis.  Multiple chances for Salvation?  Origen Adamantius.  Heaven isn’t the end destination?  NT Wright.  God loves everyone?  The Bible.

That’s more or less my attitude towards what the majority of what other people think.

What most people who have a problem with Bell or Love Wins will say is, “Bell says that people don’t need to know Jesus to be saved”  Well…what Bell actually says is, “sometimes people who have never heard about Christ and then who hear about Christ say “That’s who we’ve been looking for. Or that’s who we’ve been worshiping. You gave us his name.” Missionaries experience these stories.  How common is this?  It’s probably pretty rare, but I believe the missionaries are right and that those people were and are experiencing the true Christ.  How can they know the true Christ before ever hearing about Him?  “What [Jesus] doesn’t say is how, or when, or in what manner the mechanism functions that gets people to God through him. He doesn’t even state that those coming to the Father through him will even know that they are coming exclusively through him. He simply claims that whatever God is doing in the world to know and redeem and love and and restore the world is happening through him” (154).  Many, many, many people have a problem with this.  I don’t really.  As I explained it in part one, I am an inclusivist.

The Big Question

The big question Bell asks, “Does God get what God wants in the end?”  Its kind of a loaded question really.  Does God get his entire creation redeemed from our corruption and back in harmony with Him?  If not, can you still consider Him God if he can’t get what he wants?  If God is all powerful why aren’t we all saved if that is His desire?  The better question, in my opinion, ”Can God get what God wants in the end?”  Can it happen at all?  If God is all powerful it should be able to be possible, right?  Well…here inlies the title of the book I think, Love Wins.  In the end, we get what we want.  No we aren’t more powerful than God, but He did give us a little thing called free will.  He gave us an ability called love, which is a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature(I had to sneak in a Harry Potter quote in here somewhere).  Our ability to love or not to love God is our choice to choose or reject him.  And that is what ultimately wins, our choice.  Our love.

If you want to read some other thoughts on Love Wins then check out my friend’s take on it http://jobandthestorm.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/love-wins/

Check out my other thoughts on Love Wins

• Love Wins: What I Liked
• Love Wins: What I Didn’t Like

I’m going to do a brief outline of the plot and what I thought of each.  Massive spoilers here obviously…

• The Seven Potters: This scene was brilliant.  They kept it humorous and then turn into pure excitement in the chase.  As soon as everyone broke through those clouds there were curses and death eaters going every which way.  And that is how it should have been.  The only thing that could have been changed was the fact that the death eaters could already fly, so when Voldemort starts flying it isn’t  a huge deal.  But this was an unfortunate choice made in the 5th movie.
• At the Burrow: Nothing too important here.  Mostly filler time.  The Ginny birthday kiss was pretty funny, that was a welcome change I would say.  The wedding was done well.  Elphias Doge’s part was minimal, more on that later.  The escape from the wedding was cool, Kingsley’s patronus was a bit slow talking.  At first I really liked that they kept the Tottenham Court Rd scene, but then after the rest of the movie I thought they should have just tossed it(more on this later).
• Ministry of Magic: Kipping out at Grimmuald Place is easily filmed enough.  They got to show off Sirius’ room and then they found RAB.  They didn’t do a great job at explaining exactly what Kreacher/Regulas accomplished, but it wasn’t really needed in the movie.  Breaking into the Ministry of Magic was great.  They did a good job showing just how frantic and clueless they trio was during all this.  It was fun to see the decoy detonators work their magic in the nazi propaganda assembly line.  I don’t understand why the movies insist on having the actor’s voices while transformed by Polyjuice Potion, maybe to confuse the audience less?
• Camping: It was good to see this was kept to a minimum in the movie.  While the camping scenes were boring in the book, it was where a lot of the plot development happened with the trio.  I was glad to see that the movie wasn’t bogged down with this but they still showed the characters developing.  Ron’s departure was maddening and understandable as it was supposed to be.  The entire time the locket can be seen smugly atop their chests, draining their hope.  Let it be known, I loved the splinching effect they did with Ron.  Awkward Harry/Hermione dancing scene is awkward, still not sure who thought could ever be a good idea…Just bad writing really.
• Godric’s Hallow: I was a little disappointed in this scene.  Nagini did not erupt out of Bathilda Bagshot’s body like in a horror movie, Bathilda’s body kinda turned into the snake.  Maybe they didn’t want a rated R scene, but it was supposed to be terrifyingly creepy.  Also, Voldemort never came.  That was another moment where Harry escapes his wrath and I still don’t know why they left that out.  I mean if Voldemort wasn’t there, Harry and Hermione should have stayed to kill the snake right?  They knew it was a horocrux after all.
• Ron’s Return: I never really liked the patronuses(patronai?) they showed in the movies.  They looked too…whispy.  They didn’t even do Harry’s stag patronus right(I won’t forgive you either Alfonso Cuarón!) in the third or subsequent movies.  So the Doe was barely even recognizable I thought, now would it matter since they couldn’t make the connection that the stag+doe = James+Lily.  Harry trying to get the sword, the locket trying to drown him, and Ron showing up to save him was all good.  What I really liked(I loved it.  I thought it was brilliant.  On some level I think it should be long in the books) was when the locket was opened up.  It was like a bomb.  This great big mass of muck shooting out everywhere to fight Ron off was pure genius!  The horocrux attempting to crush Ron’s hope was executed perfectly, and when Ron pulls through stabbing the locket with the sword I almost got up and cheered.  I was really excited to see such a emotional part of the book done well.
• The Deathly Hallows: Little things I enjoyed after Ron’s return was the humor he brought back with him.  The audience knew that Ron regretted leaving and is back to his old self again.  Also adding the touch of Harry not being able to use another’s wand as easily was good to see.  Very interesting art direction of the Tale of the Three Brothers, I thought it was really good and set the mood well.  Again, didn’t like the death eaters flying around crashing into the Lovegood’s house.  Dumb useless additions…The end of this scene was pretty sloppy I thought.  The trio apparates away from the Lovegood’s residence right into some snatchers by mistake…and tries to run away?  What?  Just apparate away again!  Which brings me back to my Tottenham Court Rd point; there is never any explanation of the fact that the word Voldemort was jinxed so they could find you.  They kept the part at Tottenham Court Rd, but never explained why.  They could have easily had Harry or Hermione say Voldemort at night after their escape from the Lovegood’s and then get caught, but instead they do this stupid lucky snatcher bit.  This was one of my larger gripes with DH part one.
• Malfoy Manor: This was more or less straight from the book.  Everyone is terribly excited that they may have caught Harry Potter, Bellatrix goes nuts when she spots the sword and kills most of the snatchers(I loved that they kept that bit in there), and then Ron and Harry are scuttled off to the dungeon while Hermione is tortured for information.  Down below, Dobby shows up and starts the rescue.  I didn’t like that they didn’t even kill off Wormtail in the movie.  I mean what gives, do all the bad guys die except for Wormtail?  Harry gets Malfoy’s wand, a very important part of the plot.  Then they are at the standoff with Bellatrix about to slit Hermione’s throat, this is where I thought the scene went down hill.  Dobby shows up and takes several minutes to unscrew the chandelier(Seriously, what was that about?  Was it supposed to be funny?) to fall on top of Bellatrix, who decides that pushing Hermione towards Harry/Ron and falling backwards is the best way to overcome this problem.  Then, Dobby decides to make an even longer speech about friendship and Harry Potter while there are about 5 wizards pointing a knife and a couple of wands at their heads.  Finally Dobby disapparates them all to shell cottage, but not before the audience BLATANTLY sees Bellatrix throw the knife into their disapparating mess.  Now everyone knows that Dobby is going to die, and that kinda ruined it.  It was still sad to watch Dobby utter his last words, but it just wasn’t the same feeling as in the book when it was a surprise.  Also, in the movie Hermione just watches Dobby die when she can easily use some magic/dittany to save his life, so much for her love of house elves.  Overall this scene was good, I just wish it had the same sense of surprise and sadness that JK Rowling accomplished in the book.  Not to mention this is where DH part one ends, it should have been a big shocker and go out with a bang instead of trying to force some humor before an obvious death.
• Shell Cottage: Dobby’s grave was nicely done, keeping it being dug by hand was another nicety.  Griphook’s responses were the same, but they threw in a HEAVY hint about Snape.  I wasn’t too sure how I felt about that.  I didn’t like the fact that Ollivander knew, and shared, about the Deathly Hallows.  Him not knowing about them made them seem more mystical, more crazy/impossible to be true.  They kept Bill’s warnings about Griphook and the goblins in.  Didn’t show too much about the planning of their break-in, but I guess they didn’t need to show it.
• Gringotts: I thought they showed the imperious curse very well, which I thought would be pretty hard to pull off.  Helena Bonham Carter did a great job being Hermione trying to act like Bellatrix.  For some reason they had it appear as if Harry/Griphook were just invisible and not under the cloak.  Come to think of it, they didn’t even mention the cloak to be a Hallow.  Man they never do explain anything about James Potter, bit of a shame really.  They kept the germino charm on the goods in the vault, but didn’t bother with the flagrante curse.  The dragon escape was pretty good.  After they disembark the dragon Hermione yells at Harry to stop letting Voldemort ‘in’, but Harry is definitely not letting Voldemort ‘in’.  They didn’t address this when they should have in Shell Cottage, Harry finally overcomes his occlumency problem.  A problem in the plots consistency.  Even though I liked that they showed Voldemort killing people out of frustration, I didn’t like how they killed Griphook and show the sword vanish.  To heavy a hint, like the one about Snape earlier, kinda ruins the coming surprise.
• Return to Hogwarts: Even though they completely threw out the entire Dumbledore trust issues plot from the book, they kept Aberforth’s appearance.  The entire scene in the Hog’s Head is really explaining key plot points that they never really brought up in the first place: Dumbledore’s backstory, the mirror, and witches/wizards giving up hope.  I guess this was their way of trying to fit everything in at the last minute.  I probably could have forgiven them if they never did anything with Dumbledore.  They couldn’t really not explain the mirror.  I dunno, I really saw it as a filler scene for the movie; not terribly important but not bad either.  When they finally get into Hogwarts its a good sight.  The room of requirement is done up right.  I’m not sure if I liked the Harry revealing himself bit in the great hall to Snape, I definitely didn’t like the lame McGonagall vs Snape duel(this is sadly the trend for the rest of the personal duels).  Where was the epic two(McGonagall & Flitwick) on one(Snape) fight?
• Battle for Hogwarts: This was pretty cool.  Artistic license all the way throughout the battle.  Big shield surrounding Hogwarts gets set up and is taking shots from the death eaters, McGonagall summons the (stone?) suits of armor to defend Hogwarts(I didn’t care too much about her funny line), Neville’s bridge trap, the deatheaters flying around blowing up parts of the castle, very-fast-shots-of-wizards-getting hexed on both sides, etc.  It was all good show, I really enjoyed it.  The Ron/Hermione scene was alright, I still say the original scene Rowling wrote is better.  After a rather weird scene with Harry and the Grey Lady they are off to the room of requirement to find the diadem.  Finding the diadem was kinda lame, when did Harry get horocruxdar?  The Fiendfyre was pretty sweet, not exactly how I imagined it but it worked.  I do NOT like how Voldemort can feel a Horocrux get destroyed, it goes against what they try to reinforce in the very next part(that Voldemort has become subhuman from his horocrux creation).  Voldemort loosing his temper again and killing of Thicknesse was a cool tidbit, seeing his emotional state again.
• Snape’s Memories: Maybe it was just me, but I thought that the Voldemort voice that everyone could hear sounded nothing like Voldemort.  The Snape death scene was decent.  I always thought it was a bit funny that they were so close to Voldemort during that scene.  Not sure what Snape’s memories were doing leaking out of his eyes, weird.  They added another line for Snape, “You have your mother’s eyes.”  I’m not usually one to like that kind of stuff, but I thought it fit and added more depth to the scene.  Then they had the “look at me” line, but Harry’s eyes STILL AREN’T GREEN.  Back to the castle; RIP Remus, Tonks, and Fred(JK Rowling I will never forgive you for that).  They killed off Lavender for some reason, kinda sad.  The actual memories were pretty good.  And now LILY’S EYES AREN’T GREEN EITHER.  WTF.  Alan Rickman didn’t get a big variety in his acting of Snape over the movies, but his scenes in the memories were brilliant.  I was very impressed with how they did the Dumbledore scenes in the memories, captured it extremely well I thought.  I don’t remember, did they leave in the “Sometimes I think we sort too soon” line?
• Forest Scene: Was not a fan of Harry telling Ron and Hermione he was off to go die.  First of all, it just isn’t in Harry’s character.  Second, they were too okay with it.  They’ve spent the last 7 years facing certain death with Harry, always trying to find their way through, but here they’re just “Oh okay.  I guess this is it.”  Hermione gives him a little hug and Ron just looks at him.  What was that?  No last mention to Neville about the snake, more on that later.  Resurrection stone was done alright, the snitch opening was pretty cool.  Then here comes Harry right into Voldemort’s camp, where we finally get to see Hagrid, to get blasted by Avada Kedavra.
• King’s Cross: Let it be known that I loved this part of the book.  Might be my favorite chapter in the entire series.  So I was ready to hate on this scene.  I can’t.  It was near perfect.  Voldemort’s sickly damaged soul, Dumbledore’s answers, Harry’s confusion, it was all great.  They one thing they didn’t explain was the bit about Voldemort using Harry’s blood, too complex for the movie audience I guess.  And that last line stayed the same, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”  Loved it.
• Final Battle: They kept Narcissa asking if Draco was still alive, that was good.  Sadly, this is when the movie takes a turn for the worse.  Voldemort and his posse troop back to Hogwarts with ‘dead’ Harry in tow.  For som reason there is an awkward hug between Voldemort and Malfoy, who wrote this?  Three different characters’ paths were ruined following this scene.  First up: Neville Longbottom.  Neville was on his way to becoming the BAMF he was in the book.  But instead of taking a heroic stand against Voldemort ending in a headless Nagini, Neville makes a long winded speech.  By not having Harry tell Neville to kill the snake, Neville has no clear direction of what to do.  There is no clear break in the action for Harry to get away without being noticed, and in this movie Harry just gets up and runs.  No invisibility cloak here either.  Immediately the fight breaks out again and Neville gets blasted backwards into the Great Hall.  Now several minutes have passed, Harry and Voldemort have run off fighting somewhere else, and now Neville gets up, looks around confused, picks up the sword and walks away.  This isn’t badass Neville.  This is the same Neville we saw in movie 4 or before.  He doesn’t know what he’s doing.  For some reason Neville walks AWAY from the fight in the Great Hall, doesn’t use his wand for anything, and happens upon Ron, Hermione, and Nagini.  His reaction was correct, kill the big mean snake that is about to eat my friends, but the setup was all wrong.  Next character: Molly Weasely.  Yes they kept the scene where she kills Bellatrix.  Yes they kept the “Not my daughter you bitch!” line.  Rightfully so, both of those things were important to show.  But again, the setup was all wrong.  Bellatrix looks like a bully pushing Ginny around in front of about four other grown witches/wizards.  There wasn’t any epic duel, just Mrs Weasley stepping in and saying a spell or two to get rid of Bellatrix.  Mrs. Weasley didn’t even show much fury, her famous line was a little more than a whisper.  Disappointment.  And the final character: Harry Potter.  The running/battling up the stairs in Hogwarts was actually pretty cool.  It showed some cool spells/moves from both wizards and it showed how frantic Voldemort had become now that all his horocruxes had been destroyed(post Nagini).  Just had a thought, Harry never really knew that Nagini was killed did he, hmmmmm.  All the way up to the bell tower they fight…and then it gets stupid.  Harry barely mentions his knowledge of the Elder Wand, and then they both fall/fly all the way down to the courtyard.  Here it gets even more stupid.  This is the final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort.  In the book, this is where Harry calls him Tom Riddle and Voldemort can’t stand it, this is where everyone is watching what is happening, this is where Harry doesn’t out duel Voldemort but plays him for the coward that he is.  But in the movie, this is where barely any words are said, no one is watching, and it is confusing as to what actually happens.  And then, Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard of all time, dissolves into paper and floats away.  What.  The.  Heck.  No suspense, no action, no surprises being revealed.  Just a mellow duel with a lot of confusion.  Two seconds later, everyone is happily having tea in the Great Hall.  There isn’t even a “good job Harry!”  Then Harry walks outside with Ron and Hermione and explains to them what actually happened with the Elder Wand.  How stupid.  It was way better throwing this in Voldemort’s face and seeing the look of panic on his face when he realizes he may have not worked it out correctly on his own.  Then, without repairing his old wand mind you, Harry snaps the Elder Wand in two and throws it away.  What is he going to do, use Draco’s wand for the rest of his life?  Such a sad way to ruin to the climax from what you had going…
• Epilogue: The epilogue was good.  All the older-looking kids looked funny, but that’s what you get when you try to make young twenty-year olds look much older I guess.  Funny names aside, what Harry says to Albus before he leaves for Hogwarts is always heart warming.  No mention of Neville being a Hogwarts professor, another way they shaft him out of what he should be…

Yes I was being extremely critical, it is what I do.  Overall, I thought the movie was great.  Both part 1 and part 2 of The Deathly Hallows were some of the best film adaptions of a book I have seen.  They are easily the best of the Potter films.  I look at this last midnight release as the end of my childhood.  Here I am graduated from college, holding a fulltime salary job, and looking to buy a house in the coming months to live in.  No more new Potter books or movies are coming, but I will always have these 7 books to dive back into when I feel the itch.

Thank you JK Rowling for writing such awesome books about faith, love, friendship, sacrifice, unity and fighting for what’s good and true at all times.  They truly were magical.

Second part of my thoughts on Love Wins.  Love Wins: Other Thoughts will come next week sometime.

What I didn’t like about Love Wins

While I touched briefly upon Bell’s talk regarding a personal relationship with God, he also makes the argument that a personal relationship with God isn’t even found in the Bible.  Well this is kind of awkward Bell, because it certainly is.  Maybe not the exact phrase personal relationship with Jesus is in the Bible, but the idea certainly is.  What did Adam and Even have with God?  What did Abraham have with God?  What about Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, or Elijah?  What about the word covenant?  Doesn’t it mean something personal to both parties?  I don’t think Bell was insinuating that God isn’t personal since he tends to talk very much about this in his other books, but for the sake of his argument Bell kinda oversteps and implies this.  If Bell was trying to make the point that there is more to salvation than this idea of a personal relationship with God, I think there are better ways to do this rather than “the problem, however, is that the phrase ‘personal relationship’ is found nowhere in the Bible.”(10)

Bell takes many(if not all) of the verses he discusses at face value.  Prophets saying that everyone will be in Heaven(34, 99), Jesus giving water to Israelites in the desert(143), Jesus explaining that everyone will be saved through Him(155), and many many others.  Now, I’m not saying that some, or all, of these verses could, or even should, be interpreted as Bell does(I don’t know).  But from what I’ve heard from many different friends studying in seminary or comparative religions, ancient languages are always a challenge to translate.  Where it says ‘everyone’ could also mean ‘a lot of people’, or it could very well mean ‘everyone’.  On top of that, what if the author was writing metaphorically?  Then where it says ‘everyone’ could very well literally mean ‘everyone’ but the author meant ‘a lot of people’ instead.  I’m not asking for a thesis on each Bible verse and what its implications are, but I would love to hear more about the text especially when your book is under attack for being heretical.  It is also not only flippant but inaccurate to say Gehenna is merely the town dump — it is a metaphor for divine judgment.  Sure it was a metaphor for an undesirable place the Jews knew in their present day, but Jesus wasn’t just talking about the local trash pile…For this reason, I thought many of this arguments less then compelling.  What good is a Biblical argument that you back up with flimsy verses?

Not much elaboration in key statements.  Multiple places Bell states something and then carries on using it as a basis for the rest of the chapter or idea.  He does this in a couple different places, one in particular that struck me was talking about multiple(if not infinite) chances to repent to God.  In my head I was thinking, “Whoa, wait up.  Where did this come from?”  I’ve never really heard it discussed much in a Christian setting so I was interested in how Bell thought about it.  Too bad because you won’t get any elaboration about it in this book.

And connected to that last point, my one major problem with the book: What the heck do you believe Bell?!?  Maybe its just not in the spirit of the book, but the book contains absolutely zero arguments for any particular theological position.  I love Bell’s parade of ideas and questions, but give me some content to chew on please!

As you can see, much less things that I didn’t like than I did like; but my desire for content is pretty big so I saw that as quite a large problem…

Check out my other thoughts on Love Wins

• Love Wins: What I Liked
• Love Wins: Other Thoughts