(4 out of 5)

Romans 12:3 - For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned...For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function...

Seeley Booth is a catholic ex Army Ranger that has faith in God and an ability to accurately analyze interpersonal relationships as he works with the FBI. He works regularly with Temperance Brennan - who is a forensic anthropologist who thinks logically and rationally, does not believe in God, and is socially awkward. Together they help work through murders by observing human remains (bones mostly) and analyzing the facts surrounding the case as well as the social relationships surrounding the person's remains that have been discovered. In every episode there is a cast of characters who fall in to one of two categories: 1) The socially awkward, logical, fact-based thinkers who are sometimes unwittingly insensitive in their comments and the 2) The socially-savvy set who are less able to see the small pertinent facts because they are more focused on the relational aspects of the case - they are often biased by their feelings and emotions. In each case the characters find themselves dependent upon each other in order to find the answer to the reason why certain people have died.

Just as the word tells us we need one another because we each have special and unique gifts - so we see the different characters in this show come together to help solve problems.

This show harkens back to detective shows in the 1980's like Remington Steele, Hart to Hart, and Moonlighting. Sometimes cheesy, sometimes far-fetched - but almost always gentle spirited. The script writing is a little more mature then those older shows, the science a little bit goofier and hard to believe, but the film-production is beautiful in artistic renderings of science labs and in the various locations they find themselves. One unique feature of the show is what I call the "leave it to our imagination," feature. There are often climatic scenes that are truncated so that we are left to guess for ourselves how the character will respond. For instance, we see Temperance at the end of the show opening a present for the first time in her life (she was abandoned by her parents) - and part of us wants to see her actually open it - but instead we see her just about to open it - and then the scene is cut. If we saw all of the resolutions that lay at the scene's climatic moment we would find it to be actually anti-climatic or cliché. They leave the clichés out - so that we have to imagine how the individual character would respond- because our imagination of the resolution of a personal inter-struggle is much richer than what would happen if they just painted the picture for us. Christians could learn a thing or two about this in regards to evangelism. We need to learn to speak the truth with our lives and how we work out our faith - so that we don't need to preach every detail of it - they will see it by our lives.

The characters are all flawed but kind hearted. Half of the logical thinkers are almost autistic-like - and bring a socially awkward innocence that is refreshing in our current age. The show unfortunately (but rarely) gives into the need to occasionally pander to sexual bizarre-behaviors that the show CSI seems to have perfected. These episodes should be passed on for the next one - and if you watch these shows on demand on www.Hulu.com for free you can do just that. Just click on the next episode and skip over those that are offensive to you.

In our Christian faith we have those feelers (the charismatic, social and emotional ones) who tend to place people above facts and truth about God. We also have those thinkers (those evangelicals, logical, defenders of the word of God and fundamentalist-leaning types) who can easily end up bashing you over the head with Truth - killing the patient with the sharp scalpel of what is "right." The fact is this: we need each other and we need to learn to respect the individual skills and talents that we each bring to the table while recognizing that our limitations and awkwardness in one area is what brings us a special gifting in another area. This show gives an example of a family of professionals who are not putting one another down even though each person has a clear weakness. Where other shows use individual weaknesses for cheap laughs - this show used the weaknesses to build empathy and helpful dependence on one another. This is a good model for how we should work as Christians. We should bear with one another, not thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to - but instead work together to help solve the problems of our age. We are working with dead people, bones - and our task is to breathe life into those dry bones - and part of that entails worshipping the Lord in spirit and truth, respecting one another's individual gifts, and showing a unity of love for one another that will help prove we are his disciples.

~Pastor Ben