Flipped is about two eighth graders who start to have feelings for each other despite being total opposites. The movie is based on the novel “Flipped” by Wendelin Van Draanen.  Flipped demonstrates how Juli and Bryce pursue “awkward” teenage love and explore how it works.  It is a must see for those that work with youth.

As a youth worker, I would highly recommend not only seeing Flipped, but use clips and scenes to teach to your youth group.

To download Flipped movie clips and youth study guide questions please click below:

Movie Clips

Youth Study Guide

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The Joker is a Nietzschean who lives in a immoral and chaotic and complicated world. The Joker is all about himself and his monstrous rebellion. He is very self-absorbed and very arrogant, and narcissistic. Although at times in the movie he does have the right to say he is quick, witty, and good at starting mayhem.

The Joker deeply believes in confronting the systems, namely the social, ethics, and morality systems. He feels that these systems only amount to nothing more than artificiality that only weak people operate under. He exists to expose the joke of our pseudo-systematic world.

Thus, the Joker’s goal is to kill, seek, and destroy the superficial ways of this world. Sound familar? The Joker is essentially an anarchist trying to expose that being civil, righteous, and moral is a joke.

The Joker: See, I’m a man of simple tastes. I like gunpowder…and dynamite…and gasoline! Do you know what all of these things have in common? They’re cheap!

Continuously, throughout the movie the Joker creates anarchy to reveal the evil that is just below the surface in our ordinary lives.

The Joker also is manipulative and forceful. He makes people make impossible choices where they either become barbarians like himself or face defeat or death. He is usually (but not quite always) proven right.

Eventually and ultimately good overcomes evil.

So the ultimate question that is underlying in this film is: Do we live in an anarchistic, immoral, dog-eat-dog world, or do we live in a world where goodness exists and ultimately triumphs?

Unfortunately the ultimate joke is on the Joker. suggests that the ultimate joke is on the Joker. The Joker is showing truth, but he is using evil to show it. Batman is for the ultimate good, which means he uses the ultimate good to make Gotham just.

Lastly, it looks like the Joker has some father wounds.

The Joker: [looks directly at Dinner Guest] You know, you remind of my father.
[takes a knife to dinner guest's neck]
The Joker: … I hated my father!

Batman is the hero of the story. He is the lean-fighting machine. I love the Batman clearly states: “I am the Batman.” It is kind of like the Exodus passage when Yahweh states: I am, who I say I am. Without Batman, Gotham City is living in despair. Batman in DARK KNIGHTS illustrates three theological points.

First, Batman is all about justice. God is the God of justice. We forget that God is just and that Christ paid the penalty for our sins while destroying the evil ways of this world. Because of this we no longer have to earn our way into heaven. Batman bring justice to Gotham by going out of his way to make things right, even when the city thinks he is wrong. The people of Gotham attempt to make Gotham right, but they cannot possibly do the job Batman does. Batman is determine to fight for the greater cause even if he is viewed negatively. I love the scene where Lt. James Gordon states to Batman: “We’ll have to hunt you.” Batman states: “You’ll hunt me. You’ll condemn me, you’ll set the dogs on me. But that’s what has to happen.” YES!! Exactly. The world and their powers will hunt Him or maybe even kill Him, but that is what needs to be done. Batman and Jesus have to fight for what is right to make a justice and fair world!

Batman: Why do you want to kill me?

The Joker: (laughs) Kill you? I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, you… you complete me.

Second, Batman is the only hope for Gotham. Having hope in Batman eliminates fear and despair. Batman is dark, but he is a light to Gotham. Think about the implications associated with the Batman spot light that appears in the night time sky. I admire how dedicated Batman is to protecting the people. We as followers of Christ know He is coming back, but we are not sure about the details. We live in view of hope because we know one day we will be rescued from the evil corruptions of this world. The people of Gotham can go to bed at night, feeling a sense of peace that their rescuer will come when chaos comes.

NIV Titus 2:13 while we wait for the blessed hope– the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,

ESV 1 Timothy 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,

Thirdly, no one can be THE BATMAN. No one else can be Jesus, unless you are Mormon. Jesus not only claimed to be the Son of God, but is pursuing each one of us, intensively. There are fakes out there or wanna bes, but nobody can bring the goods like Jesus did. How funny was it to see the fake Batmans?

[Batman has just fought off Scarecrow and a group of Batman wannabes]
Batman: Don’t let me find you out here again.
Brian: We’re trying to help you!
Batman: I don’t need help.
Brian: What gives you the right? What’s the difference between you and me?
[Batman lowers himself into the Batmobile]
Batman: I’m not wearing hockey pads!

Like everyone else this past weekend, I saw Batman The Dark Knight.

Simply amazing! Wow. Heath Ledger needs to get an Oscar! Two thumbs up.

Batman was deeply loaded with theological content everywhere. I decided to blog about my theological interpretations of THE BATMAN. Weird? I know.

The three part BATMAN theological reflection goes something like this:

Part 1// BATMAN as The Atoner of Gotham.

Part 2// BATMAN as the Blessed Hope.

Part 3// The Joker as Lucifer.

THE BATMAN AS THE ATONER OF GOTHAM.

Atonement means an amends. Someone is repairing what is wrong and making it right. Batman is exactly this in Gotham City. I am arguing that Batman best depicts the theological atonement theory of Christus Victor and that Harvey Dent best illustrates the Penal Substitution theory. In order to understand how the atonement theories operate in Gotham City, one must see Gotham City as our Earth/Humanity, Batman as the victorious Jesus, Harvey Dent as the Legal Jesus, and the Joker as Satan.

In the land of theology, Jesus is the One who fixed earth and humanity. He brought the world back in balance. Jesus destroyed the evil ways of this world (Heb 2.14, 1 Jn 3.8), reconciled all things, including humans, to Himself (2 Cor 5.18-19; Col 1.20-22); died as our substitute, bore our sin and guilt, was punished by the Father in our place (Is 53.4-5, 10, Rom 3.23-25, 2 Cor 5.21, Heb 2.17, 9.26, 1 Jn 2.2) forgave us of our sins (Acts 13.38; Eph 1.7); healed us from our sin-diseased nature (1 Peter 2.24); poured his Spirit on us and empowered us to live in relation to Himself (Roman 8.2-16); and gave us an example to follow (Eph 5.1-2; 1 Pet 2.21). This is why Calvary is so central to Christianity. Calvary communicated redemption, sacrifice, salvation, comfort, hope, and victory through Christ and the cross. The act on the cross is the reconstruction of the world’s corruption.

Batman and Dent are trying to reconstruct Gotham’s corruption.

In the land of Gotham city, Batman is the serving justice. Batman is in conflict with his arch-nemesis the Joker and with his awkward relationship with district attorney Harvey Dent. Dent is the awesome attorney who sentences the criminals of Gotham. Since Dent is so good at closing court cases, Batman believes his time is done. Batman is convinced that he can delegate his atonement duties to Harvey Dent. Although Dent cannot handle the warfare of the Joker and his entourage. It is too intense, forceful, and stragetic.

Batman is the hero of Gotham. Batman is overcoming evil by doing good. Batman is resisting the ways of the Joker. The Joker does not care about the money, but ONLY cares about sending a message. The Joker is full of lies and diversion. Batman knows that the Joker has entered Gotham and he needs to find him and destroy him. Everything Batman is about is for one purpose: Establishing a peaceful and democratic reign in Gotham city by destroying the regime of the Joker.

In my opionon, I rather see the Batman be the victor. Why? Because Batman is so deeply in love with Gotham, which motivates him to enter into a deep and violent battle with the Joker. Batman wants justice! Dent wants fairness. To me, the Christus victor model is indebted with an outrageious act of love in entering into complete soldiartiy with fallen, cursed, oppressed humanity (Gotham city). The victor model aims at entering into real warfare activity against the powers of this fallen and suppressed world. The victor model views Batman in the warfare role rather than in a legal role. The warfare model calls for action.  I think that is why Dent cannot handle the intense responsibility and warfare activity that Batman can handle. Dent is not use to the hands on type of action.  Dent can handle the legality issues of Gotham really well (as we saw), but cannot handle the fighting and destroying the villians.

In conclusion, I saw Dent’s atonement role more as the legal role and I saw The BATMAN’s atonement role more as the victor/fighter role. To be honest, I like the Christus victor atonement role a lot more because it motivates us to take a serious part in destroying the evils and wrong ways of the world and to resist the powers and to imitate Christ. Yes it is essential to reflect on what Christ did for us, but it is just as essential to reflect what Christ is doing in us and through us.

The problem with the Christus victor model means that we as followers need to get our hands dirty and actually part take in fighting for the Kingdom. The Victor model encourages us to move in participation while the Penal model encourages us to spew out information and talk about what has already been done, not what Christ is doing.