A couple of things

by Phil Johnson

his evening Darlene and I went to the Hollywood premiere of Kirk Cameron's movie:






We gave it two thumbs up.

The film was made by Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, GA—the same church that made "Facing the Giants." I'm sure a lot of secular reviewers will complain that "Fireproof" is too preachy, because the gospel is at the heart of the story, and it's not slipped in there subtly or couched in euphemisms. It's very direct.

That's what I liked best about it. Also, (while I'm no movie critic) I thought Kirk Cameron's performance was stellar. I was amazed at the range of emotions he achieved, and how he was able to take the audience (several times) from the rawest kind of anger to instant comic relief—and do it believably.

The movie is story-driven (with a couple of well-executed action scenes) and the writing is superior. Lots of little things in the script impressed me, but particularly the way the dialogue transitioned into the gospel. I won't spoil the plot for anyone, but pay attention to what's going on at that point in the movie, and I think you'll agree that it is a very well-conceived segue and a powerful moment.

It's pretty amazing that a movie such as this appears at a point in our culture's history when religion (especially biblical Christianity) is increasingly being pushed out of the public square. Even most Christians today are convinced that if we want to be heard, we need to dilute and sweeten the gospel and deliver it with the utmost subtlety. "Fireproof" breaks all those rules, and does it with style.

It's a great story, well-told. If you are a guy, take your wife. She'll love it. Big time.

That's all I'm going to say about it, except that I was really amazed by Kirk Cameron's ability (especially early in the movie) to be unlikable. He's a gifted actor and a great guy. In case you haven't seen his Today Show interview from yesterday, I linked it in the sidebar. Check it out.

Photo Credit: Sharon Devol

On another note, we're about to take our longest blog hiatus ever. We need a break. We've shut down for a week or two a couple of times in the past. This time we're going dark for a full month.

I recently had a complicated tooth extraction that requires some follow-up work. (I've already made five visits to the dentist in three weeks' time, with another one scheduled first thing tomorrow, and more to come next week.) I've canceled all my October travel (including a conference in Italy) to make sure I have adequate time to recover some time and energy and get everything else done.

Frank is currently transferring to a whole new city. He might have something to say about that eventually.

And Dan, who assured me he would be perfectly willing to keep the blog afloat on his own for all of October, would almost certainly burn out if we let him attempt that, especially during the run-up to a presidential election.

So we're going to close for all of October, and we will reopen at the end of the month with Dan Phillips's annual Reformation Day post.

Between now and then, Frank has a series he wants to finish; Dan has more to say about the Proverbs; and I'm going to try to make one last follow-up to one of my recent, more-or-less controversial posts (I'm not saying which one). We may be posting on top of one another between now and the end of the month, trying to get every last word in before the blog shuts down.

But be forewarned: October 1, we will close for the whole month. We're not going to have the weekly Doses of Spurgeon, and we'll close all comment threads and everything. It will be a total eclipse of the blog for a full month. If you come here, all you will see is a single .jpg image telling you we are on vacation. Even our archives will disappear for the month.

So brace yourselves, and make your final comments in the next couple of days or so. We'll come back, Lord willing, stronger than ever. But between now and then, I for one am going to be hard to goad out of hiding. In other words, if you've been holding back some really ugly insult you want to lob my way, October 2 would be a good day to post it, because my resolve not to show my face anywhere in the blogosphere for the month of October is pretty strong.

I'll see you one last time on Monday, then adios for a month.

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