Barnabas File

When Gravity was first released, I missed seeing the film.  A minister friend recommended it to me recently, so I was pleased when it was reissued to theaters after receiving ten Academy Award nominations.  I am not sure what I expected and I am still not sure what genre applies to Gravity .  Rather than science fiction, Gravity is more science reality with a moral center.  It is an action film about people rather than hardware (although a lot of space hardware is destroyed in the course of the film). The film presents a strong argument for the old “there are no atheists in foxholes” argument.  Even those with scant religious background find themselves seeking divine support when things get tough.  When NASA mission specialist Ryan Stone finds herself in an impossible situation, she seeks divine intervention. Although not blatant, there is a religious undercurrent throughout the film.  There are references to at least three major world re...

John Philip Newell has a mission.  He sees the brokenness of humanity, the division between nations, and the destruction of Creation and realizes that something must be done.  Newell’s solution, however, is not something new but something very old.  He calls us back to a time of oneness—a reuniting of the spirit, and the earth and the human soul.  In A New Harmony , Newell is actually presenting the case for an ancient harmony that underlies our world.  He argues that there are certain underlying principles of unity that we have rejected but can learn to embrace in order to overcome our brokenness. After presenting the case for this ancient harmony, Newell discusses how harmony has been broken and then provides a challenge to rediscover and practice that ancient harmony again.  In his concluding paragraph, he writes: “The Spirit is doing a new thing.  It is springing forth now in our consciousness, among every people, in every discipline, ...