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Dracula and Martyrdom · Scripture-ish

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, this is Ed Gallagher bringing to you the exciting conclusion to my thoughts on Dracula.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Here I'll be reading an essay called Dracula and Martyrdom.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I was telling you why I love the 1897 novel Dracula so much
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: and what lessons I think a Christian might learn from Bram Stoker.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Last time, I introduced the novel and ended my thoughts with a focus on the Eucharist.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I myself have cited Dracula several times during communion meditations at church,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: and people tell me that those meditations are memorable.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: But there is more to say about this book.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Before getting to the moral qualities of the novel, some scattered thoughts.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: We'll start with money.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Our heroes are all rich, and this is necessary for the story.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is a member of the British nobility,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: and along with his title,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Lord Godalming also has a large fortune made larger during the course of the novel
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: by the Will that Mrs. Westenra insists her solicitor produce.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Jonathan Harker starts the novel as a middle class,
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: as middle class, but inherits a sizable fortune from Mr. Hawkins.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Dr. Seward and Professor Van Helsing seem to live comfortably while the American Mr.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Norris is very well off.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: At one point in the novel,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Mina expresses her gratitude that especially Godelming and Morris have so much money
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: and spend it so generously.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Their wealth allows them the time and resources to mount an effective challenge to the Count.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Dracula does not discriminate.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: He targets rich and poor.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Early in the novel,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: we meet a woman who comes to Castle Dracula to accuse its master
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: of taking her child.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: But she has no means of fighting back.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: She is merely one of the many nameless victims of this evil.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: To oppose such a powerful enemy requires money.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: As Jonathan Harker says in Chapter 25, Judge Moneybag will settle this case, I think.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: But there is also need of knowledge,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: and early in the novel, most of its characters have no understanding of vampires.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: They do not believe in such nonsense.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Jonathan Harker becomes acquainted with vampires during his stay at Castle Dracula,
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: but he doesn't have a name for what it is that he is witnessing.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is with the coming to England of the Dutchman,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham Van Helsing, in Chapter 9, that light begins to dawn.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't save Lucy Westenra's life,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: and he doesn't fully understand the cause of her malady during her illness,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: but he has suspicions.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: after his very first interview with Lucy,
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Van Helsing says to his friend John,
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: this is no jest, but life and death, perhaps more.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Take note.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is Van Helsing,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: the most elderly of the characters of the novel, who is the most open-minded.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: How old is Van Helsing?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think we are never told, but perhaps in his 60s.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: We are told that Dr. Seward is 29 years old and that the other men...
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Are all younger,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: not Van Helsing,
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: but the other ones,
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Morris and Seward, well not Seward, Harker and Gallagher are all younger.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I suppose they are around 23 or 24.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lucy apparently dies just before her 20th birthday.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So Van Helsing is by far the oldest and wisest and his wisdom is tied to To his open mind.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Are we accustomed in the 21st century?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: In our own experience, are we accustomed to the elderly having an open mind?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I'm not sure I'm accustomed to anyone these days having an open mind.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: It is reminiscent to me of the narrative about the blind man in John 9.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And especially the efforts to convince the Pharisees
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: that just maybe they don't know everything about the ways of God.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Less than a month after first meeting most of these people,
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Van Helsing makes this speech to the group as recorded by Mina Harker
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: on September 30th.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And this comes in chapter 18, quote, There are such beings as vampires.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us have evidence that they exist.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Even had we not the proof of our own happy experience,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Even had we not,
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: let me do that again,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience,
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: the teachings of the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I admit that at the first I was skeptic.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Were it not that through long years I have trained myself to keep an open mind,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I could not have believed until such time as that fact thunder on my ear.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: See, see, I prove, I prove.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Alas, had I known at the first what I now know, nay,
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: had I even guessed at him,
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: one so precious life had been spared to many of us who did love her.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: But that is gone, and we must so work that other poor souls perish not, whilst we can save.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's the end of the quote.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the old one has to convince the younger ones to believe.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'll let you read how he goes about doing that,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: except for one comment he makes to his friend, John Seward.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: While trying to convince him that he does not know,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: that Seward does not know everything about the world.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is prior to Van Helsing mentioning the word vampire.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: What does Van Helsing want Seward to do?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Van Helsing answers, quote, to believe in things that you cannot.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let me illustrate.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I heard once of an American who so defined faith,
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: For one, I follow that man.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: He meant that we shall have an open mind and not let a little bit of truth check
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: the rush of a big truth like a small rock does a railway truck.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: We get the small truth first.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: We keep him and we value him.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: But all the same, we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's the end of the quote.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's from chapter 14.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't particularly like the quotation from the American who said that faith was
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: about believing things that you know to be untrue.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how I would put it.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how I would define faith.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I like Van Helsing's explanation,
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: and I think such concepts always relevant both to Christians and non-Christians.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Just because we understand one truth doesn't mean we understand all truth.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: I find this idea to be relevant to biblical interpretation, to politics, to many areas of life.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is a problem with the systematizers, I think.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: They want to press one truth to be the ruling truth,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: the most important truth,
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: maybe the only truth, thereby simplifying things that ought not to be simplified.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Some things are, in fact, complex, and they should not be made easy.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to the second aspect of the novel that I find helpful from a Christian perspective.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Previously, I talked about the Eucharist.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: The second aspect, hate.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Count Dracula is responsible for the death of the young and beautiful
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: and beloved Lucy Westendra, and he attempts to make a vampire out of Mina Harker.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Our heroes have good reason to hate him, but Mina, of all people, won't allow it.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: The scene is described in Dr. Seward's diary entry for October 3rd.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's in chapter 23 when Mina speaks to the five men assembled in her room.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: She refers to the work of destroying Dracula as they destroyed the vampire version of Lucy.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I won't describe how they went about killing the undead Lucy.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've seen enough vampire movies to know how such things are usually done.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: The point that Mina makes is that the death of the undead Lucy released
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: the real Lucy's soul from the vampire curse and gave it rest.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: A point that she doesn't need to drive home because all the men believe it.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, most of them would say that they witnessed it.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: But Mina makes the same point in reference to Dracula,
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: whom no one loves as they had loved Lucy.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the quote from Mina.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Just think what...
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Will be his joy when he too is destroyed in his worser part,
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: that his better part may have spiritual immortality.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: You must be pitiful to him too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: This counsel from Mina that they should not hate Dracula,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Fails to have an immediate effect even on her husband,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jonathan,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: who responds,
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: of him which we are aiming at.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: If beyond it I could send his soul forever and ever to burning hell, I would do it.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Who among us does not feel the hatred inspiring Harker?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Mere death is not good enough for one who intentionally causes pain to others,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: who not only took the life of dear sweet Lucy,
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: but also,
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: and more to the point for Jonathan Harker, took the innocence of Mina Harker.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not death, but suffering.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Dracula deserves.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: How much suffering?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Eternal.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: May he burn in hell forever and ever.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: But here Mina returns.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, hush, oh, hush, in the name of the good God.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don't say such things, Jonathan, my husband, or you will crush me with fear and horror.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Mina's counsel, always wise, reflects the teaching of our Lord.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not only his instructions about loving our enemies,
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: but also refusing to render a judgment that will likely come back to bite you.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember this saying in the New Testament?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: With what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: This idea is partly what animates the mind of Mina Harker, who has been bitten by the vampire.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: What will be her fate?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: She loathes to consider it,
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: but she does hesitate to render too harsh a judgment,
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: to act out of any impulse but love, for she may want love to be extended to her.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: As she goes on to tell her friends, quote,
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: perhaps someday I too may need such pity and that some other like you and
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: with equal cause for anger may deny it to me.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Mina recognizes her own unworthiness to stand before God and so she refuses
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: to condemn even such a one as Count Dracula.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: But demands from her admirers pity for him.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let me go ahead and give away the very end of the novel.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Our heroes do catch up with Dracula and they do destroy his body,
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: which immediately turns to ash.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: With what emotions did the Count meet his end?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Mina had imagined that Count Dracula would experience joy,
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: to be released from his curse of immortality and his need to go on through long ages
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: to feed off the blood of others,
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: to be cut off from human companionship,
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: but always to encounter others only as victims and food victims.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Mina was apparently right.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: She witnessed his death,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: and she saw that, quote,
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: even in that moment of final dissolution,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: there was in the face a look of peace,
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now for an element of the novel that ambiguously reflects Christian ideas,
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: the depiction of a battle between good and evil.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: There is never any doubt in the novel where the sympathies of readers ought to lie,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: who the good guys are and who the bad.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: The separation between good and evil is stark, more or less.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: There is just a little bit of nuance,
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: as we have just seen when Mina Harker tries to blur the lines in regard to
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: the wickedness of Dracula.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: But still, the distinction is pretty stark.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: How ought a Christian reader respond to this depiction?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, that clear distinction is refreshing, comforting.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, we do not live in that world, usually.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe sometimes.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have no doubt about who the villain is in the war in Ukraine right now.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it ain't Ukraine.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that situation presents an unusually clear picture.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what should we do about it?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I won't be traveling to Russia with a crucifix and consecrated wafer.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is the Christian life so stark?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: To be sure,
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: the Bible does occasionally represent the human condition in terms
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: of spiritual warfare, especially in the book of Revelation.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in the Armor of God passage in Ephesians 6,
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: which represent the Christian as battling evil spiritual forces.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: For the most part,
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: the spiritual warfare in the Christian life happens within the individual Christian.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: As we seek to live by the Spirit and not by the flesh.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: The problem in Romans 5 is not Satan or vampires.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's sin.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: That lives in me.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's the normal picture in Scripture, and that picture aligns with my own experience.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm saying is that I wish the moral dilemmas we face in the real world were
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: as clear, as absolute as what we see in Dracula.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: But alas, I'm a Christian, which compels me to acknowledge that the main problem is me.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I am the chief of sinners.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: The final point I want to make concerns the primary reason I
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: so love Bram Stoker's masterpiece, Courage.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is a novel in which people face the prospect of death in the service of
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: a noble cause, and they do not shrink back.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: They have no interest in shrinking back.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: They are glad to put their lives on the line in such a cause.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is most succinctly stated by Arthur Holmwood.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Before he knows what exactly he is facing,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: but only that his dear Lucy is suffering from some mysterious disease,
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: he tells Van Helsing in Chapter 10,
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you only knew how gladly I would die for her, Yes, there it is.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: The prospect of death on behalf of others does not primarily generate fear, but joy.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that Paul tells the Philippians?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: To suffer for Christ is a grace, a precious gift offered by God.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's Philippians 1.29.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: You probably remember how Gandalf responded in the second chapter of the Fellowship
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: of the Ring when Frodo lamented, I wish it need not have happened in my time.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the heroes of the novel Dracula felt the same thing as Frodo,
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: that it would have been We should memorize Gandalf's reply.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So do I, he said, and so do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: The time that is given us.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is the basic error,
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: of that yard sign that my daughter Evelyn recently described to me,
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: which had these words or something like these.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever wondered what you would do during the days of slavery or
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: in Nazi Germany, you're doing it now.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a thought-provoking sign, and it is a thought provoked by more than merely that sign.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the message of the sign is, I think, fundamentally incorrect.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I could cite,
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: as an example,
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: the heroes of Flight 93 or Barton Stone's response to slavery or Volodymyr Zelensky.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I will pick Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And offer a brief statement.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: He was not a hero until he became a hero.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: There was a crisis moment which changed his life.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: For Bonhoeffer, the crisis came in New York in 1939.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: What would I do in his shoes?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: God has not tested me in that way, but I like to read accounts of bravery.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Such as the autobiography of Alexei Navalny, to point me in the right direction.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: The novel Dracula does the same.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite character is Quincy Morris, and not just because he's the only American.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: In chapter 24,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: our heroes are discussing the plan,
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: should they find the resting place of the Count in his coffin on board a ship.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Van Helsing says that they could place a wild rose on top of the box,
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: which would prevent the Count from leaving it.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then later, when no one is around, they could take care of business.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: It would be dangerous to destroy the Count's body in the presence of onlookers
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: because they might be charged with murder.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Best to wait until they can be alone with the box.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Such niceties, such precautions, matter nary a whit to Quincy Morris.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I shall not wait for any opportunity.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: When I see the box,
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: I shall open it and destroy the monster,
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: though there were a thousand men looking on,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: and if I am to be wiped out for it the next moment.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Our heroes,
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: including Mina Harker,
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Routinely display the same bravery,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: the same daring, the same commitment to the cause of right, come what may.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is the main benefit from reading Dracula.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: To see exhibited for our contemplation what courage looks like, what it demands for
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Only be thou strong and very courageous, said the Lord to Joshua.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because,
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: as it is implied in Joshua 1.7,
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: it takes great boldness to follow the instruction of the Lord.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: The life of faith is necessarily a courageous life,
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: a life that must resist conformity to the current world order.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: As Paul says in Romans 12.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And yet,
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: in our own day,
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: when the concept of manliness is prominently represented by,
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: in the recent phrasing of journalist Kevin Williamson,
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: lonely, childless men who insist that they are alpha males,
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of manliness on offer from Quincy Morris,
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: who willingly,
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: joyously sacrifices his own desires and even his own life in service to others,
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: seems unfamiliar.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: The history of our faith is, I am glad to say, stocked with characters like Quincy Morris.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Take, for example, Polycarp.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: The second century bishop of Smyrna,
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: who at age 86,
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: was arrested and told that he would face a painful death unless he offered incense
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: while saying, Curios Caesar, Caesar is Lord.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: This story is told in the ancient document called The Martyrdom of Polycarp.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Polycarp said to this demand, Not a chance.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Quote, I am not about to do what you are suggesting to me.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Upon entering the stadium,
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: our ancient account of these events tells us that Polycarp heard a voice
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: from heaven telling him, Be strong, Polycarp, and courageous.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: The very same words the Lord had spoken to Joshua.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: We should also note that the Greek word translated, Be courageous.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Be courageous.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Could also be rendered act like a man,
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: which gives us another occasion to contrast the manliness of
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: the 86-year-old Polycarp with today's self-proclaimed alpha males.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: At the stadium,
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: the proconsul adjured Polycarp to swear by the genius of Caesar
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And here Polycarp responds, quote,
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you vainly suppose that I will swear by the genius of Caesar as you request
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: and pretend not to know who I am, listen carefully.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: I am a Christian.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you want to learn the doctrine of Christianity, name a day and give me a hearing.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: When he was finally given over to the fire,
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: In the arena,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Polycarp voiced this prayer, quote,
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: I bless you because you have considered me worthy of this day and hour so
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: that I might receive a place among the number of the martyrs in the cup
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: of your Christ.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: The onlookers to Polycarp's death discerned a smell not like flesh burning,
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: but like incense being offered to God.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: In our scriptures,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: we think of some well-known stories in the book of Daniel,
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: people willing to experience great suffering to honor God.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego endured the fiery furnace without backing down.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like Quincy Morris, they were willing to face any penalty in the cause of right.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Old man Daniel,
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: like old Polycarp,
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: disdained his own bodily safety when the alternative was to treat a human being as
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: if he were divine
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then there is Jesus.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: He, of the prayer, take away this cup from me.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Earlier he spoke the following words to his disciples.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: But so shall it not be among you,
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: but whosoever will be great among you shall be your minister and whosoever
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: of you will be the chiefest shall be servant of all.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: For even the son of man came not to be ministered unto,
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's an awful male right there.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Someone without fault, willing to endure great suffering on behalf of others.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I see in Quincy Morris,
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: and in Lord Godalming,
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Jonathan Harker and his wife Mina, in Dr. Seward, and Professor Van Helsing.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: What do I love so much about the novel Dracula?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: In its pages I am confronted with an image of Christ.