Literary Ales

The Bible is God’s story and it begins with these big words: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” — The Big Picture Story Bible

The Big Picture Story Bible (by David Helm, illustrated by Gail Schoonmaker) is the story of the Bible retold in simpler language for children, not unlike The Jesus Story Book Bible, about which I’ve also written a review. The Big Picture Story Bible is written for a younger age than The Jesus Story Book Bible.

A friend recommended The Big Picture Story Bible while were discussing the appropriateness of images of Jesus in children’s book. He commented one of his other children’s book depicted every character, even God’s enemies, as smiling and ‘happy to defy God’. He mentioned to me that The Big Picture Story Bible illustrated emotion more realistically by showing a wider range of expressions in characters, including sadness and anger.

Grandpa and Grandma bought the book for Charlie’s first birthday. One of the first things one notices about the book is the artwork: the book’s style is simple with superbly saturated colours. The pictures convey a sense of wonder and show the expanse of the described scenes. Often the pictures show additional details the text of the story omits.

The acknowledgements section thanks Graeme Goldsworthy ‘who first helped [the authors] grasp the Bible along the lines of “God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule.”’ The book certainly is true to form and references this motif several times. The story narrative does a good job connecting the individual stories with the meta-story of redemption. Our child is shown that sin is rebellion, and God is working to redeem to himself a people out of rebellious sinful humanity. Old Testament stories are not told as morality tales, but in connexion to Jesus and the overarching story of the Bible.

It is refreshing to see books of this calibre: simplifying the story of the Bible for children and yet not compromising the message. These books encourage our covenant children to think of the whole history and covenant of redemption.

I must admit, I sometimes listen to talk radio, mostly in the morning when all the music stations have talk anyway. The local FM Talk Radio station is named ‘The Truth’, which is quite a pretentious name for news and politics radio. Recently, (well I only started listening a few months ago, but probably since forever, since that seems to be the nature of the hosts; every one of them will pontificate and wax eloquent for 30-40 min on 30-40 seconds of content [Or twice as long with half the content if the host is Rush Limbaugh.] with probably no more than 5 or 6 topics in the host’s répertoire.) the topic has been illegal immigration.

Now, I’m as much for immigration reform as the next guy, but I find it outré how much the discussion is disparaging toward the immigrants themselves. All sorts of deprecatory labels are given to them. The most common is criminal, which although technically true, in that they have broken a law, takes into no account the difference between malum in se [wrong in itself], and malum prohibitum [wrong due to prohibition]. For example, murder is a malum in se, but travelling 209,664 fpf in a 201,600 furlong per fortnight zone. (78 mph in a 75 mph zone or 125 km/h in 120 km/h zone) is malum prohibitum. Crossing borders into a different territory is an example of malum prohibitum.

The real crime rests with the governments. Consider the subpar conditions in Mexico, whose people flee their oppressive situation to come a land of opportunity, many of which send a substantial money back home to enrich their families’ lives. Many of these immigrants are honest labourers, simply trying to improve their situation. Now I agree, they should go through customs and attempt to enter the USA legally. Unfortunately our government has failed us by making the illegal entry into this country easier than legal entry. Does the Statue of Liberty no longer beckon the world’s disenfranchised? What I propose is an immigration reform that secures our borders making illegal entry difficult, but to remove the quotas imposed on non-European countries; more Mexican seasonal workers should be given work vistas. This way we can screen applicants and we'd be better able to prevent true criminals or terrorists from coming into our land.

But of course the animosity goes deeper than that; these hosts and presumably their listeners, so value ‘American’ culture, that they are afraid of any foreign influences. I have heard such ludicrous ideas as forbidding the use of Spanish (or other foreign language) in homes and minority community stores and churches. Although I do believe that the most preposterous thing said was that ‘they’ are bastardizing our language. I really did want someone to call in and say something in Old English, and accuse the host of speaking bastardized English for not understanding me.

Yet, all people contain the image of God (imago Dei); broken and shattered though it be by the Fall. We are called to treat each other with honour and respect. To disparage another human is to disparage God in effigy. We are all descended from Adam, and all bruised and broken in his Fall. Therefore, no basis for discrimination remains; we are all beggars. Yet though the imago Dei is defaced, it is not effaced; broken and shattered but not annihilated nor destroyed. Hope remains still, and let us seek thus: that people of every culture, language, and nation have the image of God restored. This power belongs only to Christ, the Second Adam; where Adam failed, he succeeded, while the first cast all his progeny into darkness, the latter restores his to light. The Apostle Paul writes that Christ forms the new humanity, in which there is no free or slave, Greek or Barbarian, Scythian or Jew, male or female. I close with the words of Charles Wesley, from the hymn Hark, How All the Welkin Rings (usually Hark! the Herald Angels Sing):

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface, Stamp Thine image in its place: Second Adam from above, Reinstate us in Thy love.

Literary Ales

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30 Oct 2009

The Big Picture Story Bible: A Review

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21 Nov 2007

Xenophobia and Talk Radio

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