The Lampton Worm: Lessons on Church Attendance

 Back in fifth grade, I order two books from the scholastic reader's catalog, Prehistoric Beasts and Monsters. These were both part of the Scholastic Funfact series. It also included one of Ghosts, which I saw in a bookstore (I remember that one for a color painting of a black spectral hound with a single huge red eye!), and another on dinosaurs. The Beasts book was essentially on prehistoric mammals. 

It was the Monsters book that was by far the best, with truly chilling paintings of mythical creatures, paranormal monsters, and one section devoted to dinosaurs. It is the section on mythical dragons though, that is of interest here. There is a cryptic passage therein that Ken Ham would approve, stating intriguingly that some medieval depictions of dragons "look almost like dinosaurs. This is very strange because the legends about dragons were invented long before anyone knew of the existence of dinosaurs." There was another dinosaur book at the time that showed a knight in armor encountering a plesiosaur by the sea, and the caption read "medieval dragons may have been plesiosaurs."

Most, however, resembled winged or wingless worms.

Scholastic's Monsters was where I first read of the legend of the Lampton Worm. I have enountered other tellings of the tale since. There are slight variations, as with most legends, and some leave out that he wore spiked armor, saying that he merely fought the beast in midriver, hacking it with his sword. There is even a catchy song recounting the legend in the movie version of Bram Stoker's Lair of the White Worm. I remember my first reading of the tale right way, hearing that. 

 As the above says, John Lampton caught the beast while fishing, and it's very notable that Lampton was playing hooky from Church at the time. Slightly more detailed accounts mention that he (correctly) recognized his catch as an evil omen, and faced the fact that he was not spending Sunday mornings as the Lord wanted him too. Lampton repented, and thereafter began attending church regularly. It was this incident, in fact, that spurred Lampton to become a Crusader as an adult. Even so, his youthful folly appeared to grown and fester, at last growing monstrous and terrorizing the countryside (a metaphor perhaps, about how past sins can catch up with us?). Lampton heroically defeats the spawn of his youthful idleness and saves the country from the ravages of the worm. But, at least according to an account I read on Karl Shuker's website, the witch who gave him the advice also warns him that he must kill the first thing he sees upon returning, lest his family suffer a curse that claim the lives of each heir (there's plenty of versions of that throughout folklore, and even the Bible!). So of course, he encounters someone dear to him, in this case his father, but can't bring himself to do it, so he kills his best hunting dog instead. The fates aren't satisfied, it seems, and all his descendants suffer tragic deaths. So even though Lampton repented and became a hero, the stain of his youthful transgression never quite goes away. It was him not attending church that caused this entire problem! How very easily all this mess might have been avoided. 

The moral, in case you missed it, is this: the Lord wants you in His house, worshipping Him on Sunday morning. So here's a hint:---go to church!!

Note here that Lampton is not at all like Kevin from the movie Warlock. Lampton willfully shirked off church attendance, unlike Kevin who'd been innocently led astray by his father, one reason I strongly disagree with the movie's punishing Kevin with death for his lack of piousness. Lampton, by contrast, grows up and becomes a hero. 

And on the subject of church attendance, I confess to playing hookey from church many times as a young child--sometimes to watch a silly TV show! My own folks, while not being overtly religious, disapproved, and encouraged me to attend. I definitely knew better, even though church was often boring, and I understood little of the importance of what was said. I remember one morning I stayed home for some trivial reason, while my mom sung in the choir. That afternoon I asked my dad to take my to the zoo in South Bend. He took me, and guess what? The rain started pouring as soon as we got there!!

Later, I told my mom that I thought God had punished me for not being in church that day. She just laughed it off and said that God would have to have billions of secretaries to keep track of what everyone does and adminster punishment. Maybe one of the billionth millionth secretaries noticed I wasn't there "Tony Phillips...was not in church....punishment: rain as soon as he gets to the zoo."

Looking back I see that she was wrong, of course. This is humanizing picture of God if ever there was one. God doesn't need secretaries. he doesn't take coffee breaks. He can answer the every single person simultaneously, because he literally is everywhere. He controls, or can control, every single cell in the universe. He may even have created billions of entire universes! We can only be reconciled to Him through Christ--but if you're a Christian, you're already well aware of this!

But was that rain really His punishment for not being in church that morning? In this life, at least, I guess I'll never know. 

Here's the entire page from the book, that also features the legend of the wooly dragon:

The Believer's Conditional Security

   It was sometime over a year ago that I finally bought and read Dan Corner's The Believer's Conditional Security. It tells all you need to know to refute the false doctrine of Once Saved Always Saved. There are hard and soft versions of OSAS, of course, but I'm mainly talking about the hard form here, which holds that there are absolutely no moral limits to the sin one commits and still get into heaven. 

 I have read much by Dan Corner before, mostly online, and agree with almost everything he says in the book. Corner seems not to believe in Penal Substitutionary Atonement, or the doctrine that Christ was a substitute that paid the legal penalty for our sins. Corner does not deal adequately with Isiah 53, however, and though I was also had some problem with penal substitution, I now believe that whatever exactly occurred at Calvary, when He died for our sins, it was near to the penal theory than to anything else. 

In spite of what I may have written in previous posts on this blog, it seems that C. S. Lewis was mostly, if not entirely wrong in regard to the Ransom Theory of Atonement. Carefully reading the Biblical passages, I've come to the conclusion that we could not have been ransomed to Satan, only to God. Ad much as I might dislike the idea personally, there are just too many passages supporting that God is indeed the judge and he DOES quite literally sand people to hell. Yes, you do in way, "send yourself," by the choices that we all make. But God is indeed our judge when it comes to which way we go. There MAY be something to the idea that hell may not be eternal (for humans, though not for Satan), but there is little evidence to actually prove this. 

As you can see, my views have shifted conservative over the past years of becoming a Christian. This begs the question a bit though; just what was Satan's role in the crucifixion of Christ? Did he really think he had the Son of God defeated, as Lewis suggests in Lion, Witch, Wardrobe? Was Satan anything like Mel Gibson depicted him in Passion of the Christ? There must have been some part he played in the drama of our salvation, but what it is, we don't yet know for sure. 

Re-thinking Theistic Evolution

 

CORRECTION: I spelled Ken Ham's name wrong throughout this post, and I've now corrected all of the misspellings--I hope.

Years ago, shortly after my conversion, I wrote a post defending theistic evolution. I have been what they call a theistic evolutionist all my life. 

But more recently, I've been reconsidering theistic evolution. This is not because any of the scientific evidence actually supports a literally interpretation of Genesis. It is simply that defending theistic evolution may not very wise if one also intends to defend Christianity, tradition, or Western culture as a whole. 

I have been a natural history buff almost from the the start. When I first heard about God, the being that created all things, as a small child, it didn't compute. Plants and animals aren't made; they grow. Only people make things. It was only through reading natural history books at the library and elsewhere, again before grade school age, did I realize that God was designing all things. The archeopteryx as a bird prototype was a prime, example, and I realized there was an intelligence controlling how life developed. 

It never even occurred to me that "creation" meant God willing things out of nothing, nor that the Bible actually contained a creation story. I found out before third grade, and yes, I noticed a difference, and it did shake my faith that everything in the Bible was absolutely true. No, I didn't question God's existence, but therein still my lie the problem with theistic evolution. 

Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis basically takes the position natural history is the root of what is causing Christianity and therefore Western civilization to decline. As I've stated before in this blog, Hamm has observed the churches of England slowly decline and shut their doors, and the same happening in America. THIS is his concern, so we might as well quit debating whether creationism is "scientific" or not. Ditto for evolution. 

Ham is a culture warrior. 

The problem he sees with natural history is, of course, that it fosters doubt. And it is doubt that is acting like a cancer on Western civilization. But is it really?

This post is not going to attack theistic evolution entirely, as at the time of this writing, the clock has swung back a bit. I have donated to Ham and AiG over the past few years. Why, since natural history has always been a passion of mine? The gut reaction when listening to creationist is that my very childhood is being attacked. So why would I support Ham?

The reason is very simple. Ham and I share a common foe: secularism. 

Though I strive to be unbiased, I don't really think natural history  is what is driving so many of today's young people away from the Lord. The real culprit in the culture war is very much more likely to the the cell phone. We've known about the true age of the earth, and about evolution since well back into the 19th century. Yes, we've found many more fossils since, and have a much better idea of how evolution works (and it's not natural selection alone, it's far more, giving all the more credence to an intelligence at work), but the steady falling away from Christianity has kept very good pace with the rise of technology and communication. First radio, then television, prompting the sixties cultural upheaval, then the Internet, then social media, each generation grows more and more secular.

In fact, I might as well make a statement to Ham right here and now: you've fingered the wrong culprit for cultural decline. 

How to combat this I do not know--yet. 

But back to the problem. It's an established fact that churches who stick to Biblical authority are thriving and growing, while the ones that have allowed them elves to be converged with secularism are dying, precisely the opposite of what Shelby Spong predicted in his book, Why Christianity Must Change or Die,  a generation ago. Even Progressive Christian (actually Churchian) sects like that of Rob Bell have disintigrated for the precisely the reason that : Why believe Christ's death and resurrection at all, if it's not relevant to Social Justice causes? The core belief of the Christian faith is tossed aside. 

Bell is no Christian. I was once hooked by the seemingly "nicer" picture of God Bell presented, and wanting to believe in a God who is ethical and fair. 

The hell doctrine, much as I have a distaste for it, is NOT about ethics or justice. It is about maintaining the faith, which, it should obvious, is now in deadly peril. 

This is where Hamm and I see eye to eye. Hamm may have fingered the wrong culprit, but he's fighting for our very civilization. 

And here's the thing about natural history.

The people who are defending and generally share my own enthusiasm for natural history appear to be almost universially secular progressives. Atheistic evolution really does serve as base for all of their secular humanist beliefs and worldview, just as Ken Hamm argues. It is not just that most of them are atheists. They are very deliberately chipping away at one of the pillars holding up Western Civilization, namely the Christian faith. And their using natural history as one of their major tools. 

The very existence of so-called Darwin Fish is proof enough of this. 

Don't think for one minute that any of this about defending science education, as I once believed, and I do believe it is foolish for Christian theistic evolutionists to join with them on that ground. Most don't even want our help, still calling us irrational for believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

The battle for evolution to be taught in public school was won long ago. All that ended with Scopes Trial, despite failed attempts to smuggle creationist ideas in the back door. Homeschooling has now replaced those ill-fated efforts. 

Why, oh why, are supposed defenders of science education protesting Ken Ham's Ark Encounter, then? They are already the victors, and creationists don't stand the faintest chance of promoting their beliefs mainstream?

The Ark Encounter is an apologetics museum, designed to instruct youngsters in the literal truth of the Bible. So what? Don't Christians have the right to instruct their own children how they see fit? 

Apparently not, according to leading atheist activists. It appears that the true goal really is to get rid of Christianity and Christian tradition, mostly in the name of civil liberties. You can't have any more proof of this than the protest held outside the Ark Encounter, by the Tri-State Freethinkers, who should more accurately be called the Tri-State Social Justice Warriors. If you watch this, take note there is virtually nothing said in actual defense of the fossil record, and plenty about civil right and social justice issues, their true goals. We see now what this whole creation/evolution thing has been about from the start. 

Here is the proof of the true face of anti-creationism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIdd1SzmJE4&t=540s

If it were really about science, why would Donald Trump's name even come up? 

Aronra, the leader of the freethinkers, BTW, is very well versed in natural history, and I've actually learned things by watching his videos, like how pterosaur wings are actually composed of muscle rather than skin. 

The Problem of Kevin

 

                        The Problem of Kevin

 

The movie Warlock is not for me.

    I finally thought I would write down my feelings—and yes, they are “feelings” about that movie.

   So be warned. This is not going to be a glowing review.

   The movie HAS been a major influence on my life, since way back when I saw it in the early nineties. It's why I saw Julian Sands at the recent Days of the Dead  horror convention, and had one of my drawings autographed by him.

   As many fans can attest, Warlock is a generally underappreciated horror movie, and often I have trouble finding info on it mainstream horror mags and sites. 

   When I first saw it, it was a rousing adventure, though I thought it could have been scarier. Save for one scene on the plane where Kassandra sees this man coming down a staircase dressed all in black. But it turns out its not the Warlock after all (Whew!)

   At the time I saw it, I was really into monsters and special effects in horror. It turned out that writer Twohy intended to have some (a scene where Redfern confronts a succubus in the form of his murdered wife, and one in which the Warlock morphs into a black hellhound), but the budget wouldn't permit it. 

 It is definitely been a major influence on my outlook on life, and especially my opinion of religious faith. I can’t really talk about the movie Warlock (1989), staring Julian sands as the title character without discussing religion, since it is so integrated into the plot.

    Well, you know the story: A diabolically evil warlock is captured by witchhunter Giles Redfern (Richard E. Grant), and is sentenced to death when Satan whisks his disciple into the late 1989s, and across the country to LA. Redfern fallows, gets caught in the time storm with him, and they both end up in the modern world. Redfern winds up teaming with Kassandra, a young diabetic woman who’s had an aging spell placed on her by the warlock. The villain travels across the country, the heroes in pursuit, as he leaves a trail of blood across America as he searches for the Grand Grimoire, which contains the secret name of God that will undo creation when spelled backward.

   That’s a pretty imaginative concept. Screenwriter David Twohy based his story solidly on Puritan folklore, and even made a trip to Salem to do research. It is a little-known fact that Twohy had originally intended this extremely evil character to be good and for the witch-hunter to be the bad guy. That, one would think, would make sense, as many innocent people were infamously accused of witchcraft, not only in America, but even more so in Britain and across Europe. Historically witch-hunters included some very monstrous people indeed, including the notorious witchfinder Mathew Hopkins.

    So just what’s up here? Twohy found out that his original concept for the film just didn’t work. Why didn’t? There is something intrinsic about the horror genre itself, and it got especially blatant during the 80s era, that is ruthlessly pro-tradition. E. Michael Jones, author of the book Monsters of the Id (Formerly titled Horror: A Biography), argues that the horror genre serves as an outlet for deep-seated fears that “liberal” Enlightenment values are bankrupt, and supposed liberation from traditional values (especially in the form of the sex revolution of the 60s and 70s), really brings death and destruction, epitomized in the movies in the form of the monster. The monster in horror, is in fact, what we get for abandoning tradition. We’ve all heard the rules:

    Never have sex

    Don’t wander off alone

    Don’t drink or use drugs

    Don’t party

   And especially, don’t be a jerk

    While the last rule is more neutral, the rest are hardly liberal or progressive. I’ve been surprised over the years to find so many involved in the horror genre are secular and politically left of center. The most likely reason for this is that the genre is famous for breaking taboos and exploring taboo areas. Unless the film in question is deliberately liberal (intended to promote a progressive agenda), the plots of horror extremely conservative. The conservative mindset, as has often been observed is a cautionary one, often fearful (too large a topic in itself to explore further right now), so it is natural at a fear that tradition might be right all along would express itself in the one genre devoted to fear.

   As E. Michael Jones observes, many writers of horror do not appear to understand what their own movies are about.

   David Twohy very clearly doesn’t know what his movie is about. I was certain when I saw it that whoever wrote must be a Fundamentalist Christian. He isn’t. He has even said that though he isn’t religious himself, he’s very interested in religion and what drives people to it. Conservative Catholic columnist John Zmirak, however, gets Warlock exactly right:

 

Starring two terrific British actors, Julian Sands and Richard E. Grant, this film is refreshing in part because it shows a preacher as the enemy of the Devil — albeit a witch-hunter from Puritan Massachusetts (Grant). He is pulled through time to 1980s Los Angeles in pursuit of a deadly warlock (Sands), who seeks to complete a book of satanic spells with enormous destructive power. The film takes the conflict of good and evil with absolute deadly seriousness, and shows the connection of modern, New Age mysticism with genuine black magic. Leave aside a little goofball dualism (required to make the plot make sense), and you’ve got a gripping, old-fashioned thriller whose moral compass points to true north. Such a movie probably couldn’t be made in Hollywood now — unless it cast the warlock as the hero and the pastor as the villain.

  

   As already mentioned, that last idea, was in fact, Twohy’s original concept for the film! What is surprising though, is that the secular world has no problem with the movie Warlock. Very few people, I’ve noticed, comment on what I first saw as the elephant standing in the living room. The entire (though seemingly unintended) message of Warlock is this:

    We secular, enlightened humans of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, are wrong fatally wrong in our world view. The conservative “superstitious” Puritans of the 17^th century were right all along.

    When the Warlock winds up in our own time, he finds a population of sitting ducks who don’t even believe in magic or witches, and certainly don’t take the Bible or God as having any kind of real authority.

   The main victim I’m talking about though, is, of course, is little Kevin Donaldson (whose name I discovered from a single photographed page from Ray Garton’s novelization. I haven't read the entire book). The eight-year-old unbaptized child. This is why I walked out of the movie during this very brief scene, because I was really terrified they were going to let the Warlock kill the child. The fact that the kid was getting snotty with the Warlock made me certain the child was doomed, because that’s what horror movies do, when they want to make viewers NOT sympathize with the victim.  I didn’t get far enough though, before I heard the gas station attendent tell Kassandra and Redfern that a child’s flayed corpse had been found. I wanted to wretch.

    What was worse, the manner in which the child was killed, or the injustice of the death itself?

    And, though I’m admittedly biased against child deaths in books and movies, this one is possibly the worst.

   Why? It’s very important to emphasize this: I’m not disturbed by this ONLY because it was a kid who died. It was a fact that they killed a kid because he wasn’t in church like a good little Christian.

      Why on earth do secularists have no problem with that? I think of Kevin often when I hear atheists talk smugly about how enlightened they are, and especially how they think children should be raised without God or religious dogma, so they can “think for themselves.” Yeah, right.

    I doubt seriously it’s even possible to concoct a more devastating critique of atheist parenting than this scene.

    Kevin is like the child in that Little Orphant Annie poem, by James Whitcomb Riley:

    Once there was a little boy who wouldn't say his prayers, and when he went to bed at night away up stairs, his mammy heard him holler and his daddy heard him bawl, and when they turned the covers down, he wasn't there at all!

   Which would frighten the daylights out of any poor kid already afraid of the dark who had to sleep in an upstairs bedroom. But that’s a whole other topic.

    The thing with Kevin is that he isn’t being willful or disobedient about church. He’s not out on that playground playing hokey. He makes it clear that’s his father who hates “that stuff about Jesus” and forbids him to go.

    How is Kevin, at eight years old, supposed to know that Christianity is one true faith? The only reason I know myself is that the Holy Spirit spoke to me. How is he supposed to understand the importance of churchgoing or baptism? He’s just soaked up the atheism his father has poured in his ear, and the movie punishes him with death!

   Children aren’t ready to yet understand these things, which is why children were forbidden to take communion at the church I grew up in. It is also why the Mennonites do not practice child baptism. And anyone who has seen Warlock remembers that Redfern also saves a Mennonite family from the Warlock a bit later. Though, according to the movie, the Mennonites are wrong in this particular belief, it’s very significant to note that the elder Mennonite has stuck strictly to tradition, is able to recognize the witch-signs was well as Redfern, and the two of them team up against the villain.

   It’s likely then that what is really punishing here is ANY rejection of tradition. Horror does this all the him. Ancient Indian burial grounds may be pagan, not Christian, but woe to any who do not take heed of superstitions surrounding them!

   Another thing is, of course, how Kevin is portrayed right before his death. He gets sassy with the Warlock about being a real witch, which looks very like a typical horror-film “justification” for a victim’s death. It’s this conversation that makes Kevin’s death an ironic one. The same is true for Warlock’s other victims as well, all of whom are basically boiled in their own pudding.

    And that leads to what Julian Sands has often said in regard to his character, and what drew him to this movie: that the Warlock is similar to Shakespearean villains like Macbeth and Richard the III. There’s certainly merit in that comparison, given that Warlock seeks ultimate power, and is willing to kill anyone to achieve that goal, but ultimately works his own destruction.

    But while both those wicked Shakespearean villains are even willing to murder children, those children, like Macduff’s young son in Macbeth, who gets murdered by Macbeth’s hired killers, aren’t portrayed as arrogant little snots like Kevin is.

   Just think: The movie has a villain is nothing less than the most extreme diabolic evil. According to the Palladium role-playing game system, which I often cite when discussing morality, diabolic is lowest alignment, and such character will use, harm or kill an innocent without a second thought or for pleasure. That fits the Warlock perfectly. I remember someone told me when I brought this up that the main purpose of this scene is to show how evil the Warlock is, and that he’s capable of anything.

  Well, the scene does make that clear. But why make the child victim an annoying little twat, and give him an ironic death, if that were the purpose?

    It’s perfectly obvious why if you’ve seen horror. The Warlock is “pure evil”, but in a twisted sense he is also punishing vice, or at least niavety, in Kevin’s case.

   And Kevin IS very niave, even for a child. Personally, I’d have run at very sight of the Warlock, and the reason Kevin doesn’t do so can only be explained by horror movie victim mentality According to Warlock fan and expert Brian Ladoceur, whom have had conversations about this movie, in Ray Garton’s novelization, he fleshes Kevin’s character out a bit, and makes it clear that Kevin has been warned against talking to strangers (though seemingly more fore snobbish reasons than safety ones). Garton appears to be trying to shifting the focus away from the family’s lack of faith, by emphasizing Kevin’s foolishness by putting himself in danger. Yes, Garton makes it plain that in talking to the Warlock Kevin is being DISOBEDIANT. Though Kevin is obviously being very silly and naïve, I’ve really pretty much hated cautionary tales, where a character is punished by losing his life for this reason. And the reason for that is simple—one’s foolishness or naivety are not moral qualities don’t really make one “not innocent” as Garton may be trying portray Kevin, and even make all the more worthy of being saved from harm.  

   And does Kevin’s death encourage viewers to despise the Warlock, as it shows just how far he will go?

   Hardly. Most viewers seem more amused by this scene than anything else. And yes, some actively root for the Warlock during this and his other killings.

  Not all, though. There are some viewers who see the warlock as nothing more than a villain, and the movie is about the clash of good and evil, with good ultimately triumphing. Brian Ladoceur, aforementioned, is one.

   But aside from those who actually root for the villain, most don’t really care about Kevin because he’s not a main character. Which brings me to one last thing.

     And that is the fact that I have often seen posts defending this scene or cheering it on, not because a child died per se, but because the filmmakers were supposedly so brave for offing a kid. They don’t seem to notice the religious thing regarding Kevin’s death at all, only that kid was killed, and they think it took guts to do that.

    That’s poppycock.

     The novel that established horror as a genre, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, has the monster murder a child after the kid acted snotty to him. And the movie with Boris Karloff has the monster kill another child by accidently drowning her. Then there is death a young child who foolishly went swimming in the very famous movie Jaws. I could go on and on about the kids offed on screen or on page. And let’s not forget Halloween III.

   Certainly, there are certain child deaths that have provoked outrage. Like the death of Theodore “Tad” Trenton in Stephen King’s Cujo (book version). But the Tadder was not only intentionally adorable, he was the central child in the story, whom readers were enticed in caring very much about, before King delivered the devastating blow at the end. And he received truckloads of letters protesting Tad’s death. Then there is Frank Darabont, who gave the film version of King’s The Mist a very deliberately crafted tragic ending, after getting his audience to empathize for his main character and his young son, the latter of whom dies, of course. And just he actually wanted, many people were outraged.

    Where are the letters for Kevin? They don’t exist because Kevin was just a one-note that was introduced only to be killed (though in the Garton novel, we get to know him a bit better). And they don’t see the injustice involved with his being coached to believe a worldview.

   On that note, I’ll end by briefly by showing a passage from conservative Protestant reviewer Ted Baehr of Warlock:

    Although the writing in WARLOCK contains some blasphemous ideas about God, it is not the type of film that seeks to blatantly promote the cause of evil. In fact, considering their context, statements made by unchurched characters against baptism and Christianity actually come out on the side of Christianity and baptism, when one considers what befalls them.

On the other hand, totally anathema to and forbidden by God, the Warlock goes to a spiritist and says, “Channel me a spirit.” The demonic, ghoulish apparition that results is one reason why WARLOCK is not a film for Christians, but for the unsaved it may at least start them thinking on things like the evils of witchcraft, church going and baptism–and, lead them to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

 

   Baehr seems to have totally missed the significance of the Channeler’s death scene, which is obvious repudiation of the occult! But there is only one “unchurched character’ who makes a statement against Christianity here. Strange that Baehr doesn’t tell his audience he’s talking about a child.

Here's is sample from the Garton novel that reveal's the child's name: