Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Amazing Grace


The kids are on Easter break this week, so we had a family movie day -- and a trip to In-N-Out Burgers -- mmmmmmmmm.

Kelly and I choose the movie -- Amazing Grace. While it didn't have the pace of 300 (or 12.5 for that matter) it was a thoroughly enjoyable movie that was visually pleasing and thought provoking. Some thoughts:

1. How often the right thing is considered out of the question because of the financial consequences.

2. How something as despicable as owning other human beings and the indiscriminate de-dehumanization and death inherit therein (and other heinous things) can become so ingrained in the culture that the opposition to the practice is the voice that is "unreasonable."

3. How the human heart is evil to the core, and each one of us has a blindness to the own evil within us.

The two best lines in the movie:

1. Equiano, the former slave shows the large brand on his chest and says, "They do this to let you know you no longer belong to God, but to a man."

2. The aged and now blind John Newton broken and repentant over the 20,0000 "ghosts" of slaves that haunt him says, "I know two things: one that I am a great sinner and two that Christ is a great Saviour."

Ain't that the truth!