Preface: It was Easter Sunday.....April 15, 2001....my wife and son and I were on a portico of some sort overlooking Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. We had walked all day through Elephant And Castle....on the south side of the River Thames....and London proper....and were on our last leg....having earlier in the day attended a Lord's Day service at Charles Spurgeon's church....The Metropolitan Tabernacle....or what was left of the original church after being bombed in World War II. I had to strain but could hear a gospel hymn.....looked closer and saw some banners at the base of the monument....and a few dozen people evangelizing. There is always a remnant....and it is barely a remnant in England today....but that remnant is always wonderful in glorifying our Savior! A remnant is also in America....but it is confusing because that remnant is within a large political evangelicalism....where one does not have to be born again....indeed we do not know what that is anymore....but one does have to vote Republican. We defend the 2nd Amendment.....but pay little to no attention to the 2nd Commandment.
Downton Abbey....I thought it was Downtown Abbey.....for all of the six years it was on television....having never watched the PBS broadcast of the British television series. The new movie based on television....Downton Abbey, A New Era....had only two showings at our local movie theater.....and my wife and I caught the 6 PM.
There may have been fifteen others in the theater.....and it seemed as if they were already familiar with the same cast that had had their attention on television for six years. I thought about this.....being the only ones in the audience that were not already familiar with the aritstocrat family....and the servants.....and the cast....and I think that my wife and I were in the better position....for it was all new to us....as opposed to the others who were as if watching season number seven....or eight....or whatever it would have been.
So how was the movie.....as I only have about 65 years of watching the silver screen? First of all....sometimes I think that I'm half British and half American....I love rain....but dry humor....I like dark beer....I love Shepherd's Pie....(ground beef and mashed potatoes and a vegetable and gravy....the real four elements of the universe)....and if you ever visit the Tower Of London you would see my surname plastered on one of the towers.....and if you would read....My Favorite Films....from my profile.....you would see that half of them are British.....including three of my top four. Bunyan is my favorite author....Spurgeon my favorite preacher....Harry my favorite royal.
It was Ok.....no.....it was good.....real good I guess....(no wonder I never became a film reviewer) There were a lot of little plots....all the acting was terrific....but then Americans think that all British actors are great.....and if anyone has a British accent.....we automatically assume that they are real smart.
Unfortunately.....and I mean this from the bottom of my heart....it probably was an accurate representation of a large part of British society a hundred years ago. Charles Spurgeon and J. C. Ryle warned their home country right up to their dying days.....the former in 1892 and the latter in 1900. Martyn Lloyd-Jones picked up the fallen banner from these men and proclaimed Christ in London right up to 1980!
There was no God in this Downton Abbey....film....not even in the drawn-out death of a main character....and even though there were a dozen sub-plots in the film that God is very clear on in His Word....not only is He not even vaguely alluded to....His Word is ridiculed in one of the scenes near the end....it revolving around the Lady of the manor.....and a departing servant.
How then might a preacher....a redeemed and born again preacher....how would he evangelize if he were somehow one of the characters in the film? Well....I imagine that he would have to do what John Wesley and George Whitefield andd John Bunyan did....and preach out in the open air....and pray that God would bring the called within earshot.
From what I read about Downton Abbey....the depiction of the sinking of the American owned but British registered Titanic was instrumental at the beginning of the series. I've always felt that the sinking of that "unsinkable" luxury liner was a message from God....to rebellious or unfaithful man....that he may build....but God will tear down. Look at history since the beginning of the twentieth century....the wars....the plagues....the economic collapse....the violence....the sacrificing of our youth....the fast decline of leadership....since Reagan and Thatcher....and the collapse of evangelicalism here in America since it choose a false prophet as a leader. The loss of the Titanic was a distress signal....but just as the wireless operator on the SS Californian was not listening....neither were we.
