the past few editions of the baptist standard have been pretty cool. there was the recent cover story of using video games to reach youth and the current cover story entitled “pass the popcorn”. this article is about christians engaging culture; specifically, movies.
there are many good quotes throughout this article. the authors are coming from the point of view saying that as christians we should not by any means neglect film. we should embrace it and look for the spiritual in the film. here are a few quotes from the article.
“…separation from culture wasn’t the model Christ set. ‘He was to be found at the corner pub, surrounded by messed-up people. He was there among them, but he was different. He was compassionate.’”
“‘The more I look at it, in order to have a meaningful influence on society, we need to live fully engaged lives. How do we do that without hearing the stories told? Without listening to the music played?’”
“If Christians aren’t engaged in culture, they will not change the world or impact society. We’re not going to do it. Period.”
“…Christians…tend to live in a bubble. ‘People isolate themselves, there is nothing wrong with isolating ourselves - Jesus did - but if we don’t know how to exist in the larger culture when we emerge, we have failed’”
“…people know when they are being marketed. ‘So much of Christian art is just advertising for Jesus. If we just keep shouting, we shouldn’t be surprised when people react like we are salesmen’”
lets please not get started on church marketing.
“Christians tend to believe that films have the power to single handedly disrupt or uproot a person’s spiritual development if they contain corrupting elements. I do think people should be discerning about what they watch, but throwing out the baby with the bathwater - and sometimes the bathtub - is a flawed method of encountering and dealing with media.”
at the end of the article one of the contributors told a story of a screening they did of Hotel Rwanda. here is his story from the article.
[Greg] Fiebig (associate professor of communication and theater at Indiana Wesleyan University and former theater director at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Mo.) helps lead a film festival at Indiana Weslyan University. Last year, the first year of the festival, they decided to screen Hotel Rwanda, a film depicting the true story of Paul Resesabagina, a hotel manager who helped house over a thousand Tutsi refugees during the Rwandan genocide.
A student from Uganda, who had lost family members during the struggle, attended the screening.
He began the discussion after the film by announcing he could not stay, due to the fresh emotions the film conjured, but he asked the other students to pray for Rwanda and Uganda.
‘It was an amazing moment,’ Fiebig said. ‘In a room of college students, you could hear a pin drop. A Hollywood film became a worship service.’
these are my thoughts. i cannot fathom being a Christ follower and not doing things they way he did. i want to make an impact on this generation. im convinced that i cannot do that unless i am in there with them. in the words of rob bell…”everything is spiritual”.
grace and peace.
