catapult magazine

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discussion

Movies, and their effect on our perceptions of the world.

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BBC
Apr 06 2002
10:15 am

Well said, Kirstin! I have committed most of my life to the notion that stories are important. I read, I watch movies, I listen to songs and I love the moment when something hits me as true in a way that I can’t express. I think that is one of the greatest gifts God gave us. But, I think for stories to touch us we also need to be able to see them as stories. I think this is part of what Sam is getting at. We can live so deeply within the artiface that we can’t see it as such. Bravo to the call to arms of more and better stories, yet I think we should also be calling ourselves to a more authentic life at the same time. There is a difference.
This really hit me about a year ago when I read something (I think in a book by Jaques Elul, but that might be wrong) that made me realize that when I was in high school, I defined much of my emotional experience through pop songs that I thought summarized it. In fact, I was trading my chance to grapple with the mysteries frustrations and joys of defining a relationship, and instead letting pop mucisians do it for me. I gave up some stories and art that I could have created to listen to their well-worn descriptions of love and believe that they were mine. When I discovered literature in college i found that some of the poets had gotten a bit closer to what I was feeling, but I also discovered that the poetry I read allowed me to reflect on my experience much more than a three minute song did. Likewise I would argue that you can certainly get more reflection out of a novel or a movie than a half-hour of television interspersed with absurd commercials.
Part of the problem, I suppose, is that so much of North American culture is so empty. I guess that makes me love the rare moments of truth and beauty in that culture so much more.

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grant
Apr 07 2002
05:10 pm

Wow, I need to keep closer tabs on these threads. There is much much much to respond to here.

I’m going to go back to Kirstin’s response.

You’re right in saying that it’s not good to watch movies and TV every spare moment of our lives. We need the hours, days or weeks of meditation (sometimes quiet and sometimes loud) after a film to explore the implications, to test the spirit(s) of what we have just seen. We Christians would not be good discerners if we went ceaselessly from one movie to the next with our stamps of approval or disapproval.

We need vacations, occasional trips across the lake to escape the crowds. What I’m really reacting against, both here and in the fasting thread, is the idea that detaching ourselves from “real” life or “the world” necessarily constitutes a strengthening of our relationship with God. The living God DOES come to us in quiet, restful places. He also shows up in a downpour of frogs in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia”. My relationship with God is strengthened, even if it is challenged, after watching something like “Last Temptation of Christ” or Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors”. It might do me some good to separate myself after such film experiences, but not because that’s the best way for me to hear God’s still, small voice.

Since we have been given ears to hear that voice in all areas of life, we are often able to point to truth when we see it on the big screen. Obedient movie-watching is itself a testimony to a strong relationship with God. Seeking out God in film is as much an act of worship as when we take notice of his grace in the sunset, as when we fast, allowing our tummies to growl as a reminder of the care God takes in nourishing us.

Taking care to craft our language for a discussion thread on CINO is also just as much an act of worship. Obedience to God in this task IS relationship with God. We don’t need to stop writing to get closer to Him. When we seek to obey God with our writing, we love God with our writing, we have a close relationship with Him. Too much time spent editing and re-editing this response need not be off-set by a bath in “the best that reality has to offer”. Our very writing (that still bears the mark of sin and occasional grammatical errors) must be an offering of our best, because this is what God asks of our relationship with Him.

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kirstin
Apr 08 2002
07:01 am

i agree with everything you’re saying, grant. i’m just pointing out something that our culture (however we may define that) tends to neglect and something i’m feeling the effects of recently in my own life.

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grant
Apr 08 2002
08:51 pm

I hear you. I think you’re pointing also to the neglect of the Reformed tradition when it comes to issues of personal piety. With our stress on God’s sovereignty and worship in all areas of life, things like disciplined prayer and daily devotions don’t seem to fit very well.

By trying to correct those inadequacies, though, I’m afraid we’ll start slipping back into some version of escapism, religious masochism, or mysticism. Because things like boycotting film and distrusting television, fasting and daily devotions have been justified moralistically or legalistically in the past, it’s hard to imagine how to engage in some of these areas as reforming Christians now and in the future. I still feel like a legalist at Sunday dinner devotions and a self-righteous fundamentalist when praying in restaurants before a meal. Participating in these activities seems to be a justification of a wrong way of doing those things. Hopefully, this won’t continue to be the case for much longer.

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BBC
Apr 10 2002
11:38 am

I agree with what you say Grant, and agree that trying to ban our participation in culture is not only not a solution, it is wrong. I guess the only thing I could add to that is that i think my understanding of cultural experiences is deapened b the chance to think and reflect on them. For that, some distance is necessary sometimes. I like movies more than tv because movies have a clearly defined end to them, afterwhich I have to leave the theater, get in my car, talk with the people that I am with and think about what that movie is saying. Television bugs me because when you finish one show, there is an immediate commerial transition into another one and, given a chance, I would dribble over. Movies encourage me to think in a way that television does not. And not incidentally, camping and hiking encourage me to think in a way that movies do not. All of the above seems to me to be not at all at odds with my firm belief in the notion that everything is God’s.