Alternative Culture: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter Review

Some months ago, I caught the film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, a movie based on the mashup novel of the same name. Having low expectation due to the ridiculousness of the title, I was pleasantly surprised by the movie-- it was a lot better than I had anticipated.

Synopsis
Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) witnesses his mother murdered by a vampire when he was young. Thus he swears revenge against the vampires, and gets mentored by a vampire hunter named Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper).

However Lincoln realises that even if he slayed his mother's killer, he would have only killed one vampire. The vampires run the slave trade in the United States in order to obtain an ample supply of food (i.e. slaves). Thus Lincoln runs for president and makes abolishing slavery his top priority. This brings him into conflict with the head vampire Adam (Rufus Sewell).

Theological thoughts
Although the film itself is probably not meant to be thought-provoking, there was one scene that made me think deeply. In one of the scenes, Lincoln finds himself pinned against the floor via a chair. Adam then goes into a long harangue, telling Lincoln that slavery was an inevitable consequence of human existence.

From the Jews in ancient Egypt to the Africans in the colonial times, Adam reminds Lincoln that some men are meant to be ruled. However, he goes further than that. He asserts that even if Lincoln was opposed to the slavery of the blacks, Lincoln was already a slave-- a slave to an ideal.

Does he have a point?
You might find it surprising that I think Adam is right. Slavery is inevitable, especially when it comes to ideals. Some of us are slaves to money, slaves to power and even slaves to celebrities.

The point is this, no matter what we do, we are a slave, or are chained to our desires. And the Bible accepts this metaphor to: Consider what Romans 6:16 says

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

As we read on in Romans 6: 17-18:

But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

So the only way to be free to be follow God. However, if we read carefully, we would not stop being slaves -- we become slaves to righteousness. Even Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-30 that he offers a yoke:


“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Why is being a slave to Christ better than being a slave to our desires? Ironically Christ's death for us frees us from the death that results from sin, if we read on in Romans 6:19-23:

^"I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Christ is the only one that frees us from our sinful desires.


Back to the film

I surprisingly enjoyed the film and loved the action scenes. I give this movie a 70/100.

Theology 1.0: How does the principle of embarrassment support the historicity of the Gospels?

The central message of Christianity is that a man called Jesus claimed to be God incarnate, physically died for the sins of mankind and bodily rose from the dead. One of the factors of whether or not we should accept these assertions depends on the historical reliability of the New Testament. The aim of this post is to explore the the reliability and accuracy of the Gospels using one of the historical methods-- the principle of embarrassment.

What is the "Principle of Embarrassment"?

According to law professor Annette Gordon-Reed, this principle states that "Declarations against interest are regarded as having a high degree of credibility because of the presumption that people do not make up lies in order to hurt themselves; they lie to help themselves."

In other words, this principle surfaces itself when an author makes negative remarks against the cause he is supporting; this adds weight to the author's testimony as the author would not write against his intentions, unless the "negative" alleged events really did occur.

1) Women as the first witnesses of the resurrection
In all four of the gospels, women were reported to be the first witnesses of Jesus's resurrection. To the modern reader, nothing seems to be wrong or embarrassing about this. But in the ancient world, an woman's testimony is worth less than a man. If one wanted to advance the story of a risen Christ, one would certainly not want to include women as the chief witnesses to the resurrection (Habermas, 2003). The only plausible reason to include women is that it really happened; that the first eyewitnesses to the Jesus's rising were female.

2) The disciples' portrayal in the Gospels
The disciples were portrayed as cowardly. For instance, Peter denied Jesus three times under pressure (Mark 16:66-72) and the Jesus's followers fled when he was arrested (Mark 16:50). Even Jesus's own brother, James was described as unbelieveing (Mark 3:20-25; John 7:5). Why would the authors placed the people close to Jesus in such a negative light, to the extent that some of them doubted his divinity (eg: John 20: 24-29; Mark 16:14)?

This seems to suggest the events really did happen, and the authors were concerned about reporting as factually as possible.

The counter-argument
I suppose opponents (people who believed that the Gospels are fiction) might argue that the Gospel writers might have included such negative things make the Gospels more convincing to unbelievers. However, this would not have worked in the Roman Empire, especially to pull the people away from their strong array of gods.

Conclusion
Based on the principle of embarrassment, the Gospels show a strong likelihood to be first-hand, factual accounts on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. (I'll explore other historical methods and arguments in another post.) So why not come and see what makes Jesus so compelling?

References

Gordon-Reed, A. (1997). Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy

Habermas, G.R. (2003). The Risen Jesus and Future Hope.

For further reading

Bethinking