Gregory Scott

Movie Review: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

“Greed is good,” according to the villain of the “victimless” crime, Gordon Gekko. Oliver Stone disagrees, and he makes sure you understand it in his latest movie, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

Gekko is out of prison and lurking in the background of the stock market’s most recent collapse, playing the role of prophet and profiteer. You don’t know whether to love him or hate him, and that’s the way Stone wants you to think about Gekko because, as Gekko says, “We are all a mixed bag.”

Some bags are worse than others though, and in this movie, as in the original classic, Wall Street, the bad are the greedy.

Although the movie suffers from some preachiness and too much reliance on narration, the message is a good one: Greed is not good. For this Stone should be commended. He drives his point home on so many levels one can hardly miss it.

Greed is what cost Gekko his marriage, his daughter’s love and his son’s life. Greed is what cost taxpayers a $700 billion government bailout, millions of jobs and the worst economy in 70 years.

This is a movie Christians should encourage people to see because its message is one straight out of the Book: the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. (I Timothy 6:10).

There is no nudity or sexual content in the movie, and little profanity, if any.

However, I am confident that because Christians perceive Oliver Stone as a liberal they will not flock to this movie and will not encourage others to do so. This, I fear, is evidence too many Christians value politics more than virtue.

The bottom line is that this is an entertaining movie with a great message. It’s a movie worth seeing. Rated PG-13. GS

3 Presuppositions That Make You Ineffective In The Kingdom

Presuppositions are foundational beliefs that are usually assumed and unexamined. The are generally not adopted as a result of study and investigation. The are caught rather than taught.

That makes presuppositions particularly dangerous because chances are even if you aren’t consciously aware of your presuppositions, you will act on them. They affect what think and how you interpret reality.

Here are three presuppositions that will make you ineffective and irrelevant as a Christian.

1. Dualism. Dualism is the belief that the spiritual is good and matter is bad; or as Tarzan would say, “Heaven good. Earth bad.” It separates reality into the sacred and profane, the spiritual and the secular. It believes the full-time ministry is the highest calling and that so-called secular vocations are not as important. It’s what leads you to call Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Switchfoot sell-outs for crossing over from Christian to secular music. Dualism, however, misses the mark. Jesus’ incarnation invalidates dualism. How can one maintain the dualistic belief that matter is evil when God took it on to become man in the person of Jesus? Moreover, when God finished with creation, he said it was “very good.” (Gen. 1:31).

2. Escapism. Escapism is an excessive fixation on heaven that results in seeking an escape from the world. If you’ve ever been accused of being so heavenly-minded you are no earthly good you may suffer from this presuppostion. Another symptom of Escapism is rapture fever. Regardless of what your eschatology is, any eschatology that leads you to abandon the earth is clearly contrary to the command of Jesus, who prayed for His disciples the night He was arrested, “I do not ask You to take them out of the world…” (John 17:15). Too many Christians are obsessed with getting out of the world; Jesus is trying to get them back into it.

3. Passivism. Passivism is the presupposition that God generally works for us rather than in and through us. For example, Passivists expect God to take problems away from them rather than giving them the strength and wisdom to solve them. God will work for you if you are Christian, but He has chosen to work primarily in and through Christians. Consider these scriptures: “God is at work in you, both to will and work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13); “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Phil 4:13); “Christ in you, is the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27); “Greater is He who is in you than he that is in the world.” (I John 4:4).

If you suffer from one or more of these three presuppositions they are probably sapping your effectiveness as Christian. They will lead you to spend all your time in so-called spiritual pursuits and with other believers rather than engaging the world, and you will find yourself increasingly irrelevant and unable to relate to non-Christians and the world. Have you caught any of these presuppositions? GS

Transformation In The Kingdom

Emerging monarch — (c)iStockphoto.com/cathykeifer

Transformation is one of the hallmarks of the kingdom of God. Jesus redeems us and then begins to sanctify us, transforming us into His image. Also, Jesus became man, busting up into history to plant the kingdom seeds that would ultimately change the world. He now sits at the right hand of God the Father waiting for us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to transform the world into the place He intended it to be. In short, Jesus changes us so we can change the world.

One of the great transformation stories in the New Testament is that of Jesus’ disciples, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They must have been an interesting pair. Their nickname was Sons of Thunder. I suspect this was because they were zealous, aggressive, ambitious and competitive. Once, when a Samaritan village refused to accept Jesus, James and John asked Jesus if He wanted them to call down fire from heaven and destroy the village. (Luke 9:54). Another time, they asked Jesus (through their mother) if, in Jesus’ kingdom, they could sit on his right and left. (Matthew 20:20-23).

Yet later, after Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection, and after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they apparently underwent a change. They were still zealous and aggressive. They both risked martyrdom because they refused to stop preaching the Gospel. But there is evidence they had acquired a profound humility.

Church historian Eusebius, writing in the early 300’s A.D. notes that after Jesus’ resurrection, when it came time to pick a leader of the church in Jerusalem, rather than advocate for themselves, James and John recommended James “the Just”, the brother of Jesus, be appointed. In other words, in just a few short years, the brothers who asked to sit on Jesus’ right and left in His kingdom had become so humble they refused to even suggest they be appointed as leader of the local church. It’s change like that, multiplied across peoples and generations that adds up to a changed world. GS

Old Testament Leadership Examples

Leadership is essential to the expansion of the kingdom of God on earth. It should be discussed more in Christian churches than it is. I’m glad I’m part of a church that has leadership as one of it’s three core values and is committed to training Christians to become leaders and world-changers.

One of the cool things about leadership is that it takes many forms. One doesn’t have to be the top guy or gal in an organization to lead. Leadership is not just authority; in it’s broadest sense it’s influence, of which authority is merely one form.

The Old Testament highlights examples of leadership by those with seemingly no power under the authority of repressive regimes yet who influenced those in authority to change the world.

Joseph was elevated from a prisoner to the chief administrator over Egypt and was responsible for influencing Pharaoh to save the empire from famine. As a result, Joseph helped preserve the royal Jewish line through which Jesus would come.

Daniel rose from near-slave status to the third most powerful man in Babylon, influencing Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar and helping preserve his people during the transition from the Babylonian to the Persian empires.

Mordecai went from being an ordinary foreigner in Susa to a favored man in the Court of the Persian ruler, Xerxes. He influenced Xerxes to save the Jewish people under Persian rule from genocide. And, of course, Esther went from being an ordinary Jewish girl in a foreign nation to queen to the most powerful man in the world and, like Mordecai, helped influence him to save her people from genocide.

It surprises me then when I hear Christians say the world is so anti-Christian the kingdom of God cannot succeed on earth unless Jesus comes back and imposes His rule on people.

I believe these three prominent Old Testament examples were given to show us, who would receive the Kingdom, that perfect conditions are not necessary for Kingdom growth or influence to prevail. The Kingdom doesn’t require Christian hegemony such as existed during the Byzantine Empire to flourish. It did pretty well, for example, under the oppressive Roman Empire.

One thing is clear though, if Christians believe they are powerless to change the world they will act accordingly and their belief will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. GS

Toothpaste, Trials & Trust

I went to the grocery store yesterday to buy a tube of toothpaste. I don’t go to the grocery store much. I don’t believe in it. Going, not grocery stores. Actually, I just say that because I don’t like going and usually leave it up to my wonderful wife in accordance with our verbal contract that I will make the money if she promises to spend it.

Anyway, when I arrived at the dental care products aisle I was paralyzed by the number of choices. There must have been at least thirty different types of toothpaste. There was cool mint, whitening formula, sensitive teeth, anti-plaque and various combinations thereof. I found myself comparing the relative strengths of each one and even trying to determine which box looked better, which is a stupid reason for choosing toothpaste. It would have been easier if they had just offered me 2 choices. It would have taken me no time at all to make a decision.

As I’ve become a more experienced trial lawyer, I’ve noticed I don’t give my clients as much information or as many choices as I used to, and I think I’m a better lawyer for it. I think my clients like it better too. After all, I went to law school for three years and have been practicing law for twenty years. They trust I’m in a better position to know which strategies to use, procedures to employ and arguments to make to get the case to the point where I can present them with a decision they can understand. It’s usually a decision like, “Should we accept what they are offering to settle or not?”

That got me to thinking about how God deals with us. He doesn’t give us a buffet of Jesus’ from which to choose. He doesn’t ask, “Do you want the Jesus who is your friend but not Lord, or the Jesus who will bless you with riches and never refine your character by trials?”

We don’t have 30 brands of Jesus from which to choose. I suppose God could have created a universe in which we could choose a Jesus with different options, but He didn’t. It’s a yes or no proposition. Jesus said, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). Jesus can’t be your friend and not be your Lord because that’s not who He is, and if that’s the Jesus you know, you don’t really know Jesus. Jesus made it real simple. He said, “Believe…in Me.” (John 14:1).