catapult magazine

*Please note: my post excludes catapult magazine articles. I think they do a fabulous job incorporating a Christian perspective. The rest of us …. uh, another story.

Does anyone else feel that while the threads here are intellectually stimulating, we tend to ignore the Christian perspective? I’m not saying that there haven’t been such discussions, but, for example, most political discussions are liberal-vs-conservative, save for the “terror and freedom” thread which has turned an eye to what the Bible has to say about terror.

Or the discussion about “Kill Bill Vol. I” … it’s discussed as though we’re ordinary movie critics. But we’re not movie critics. And we’re not ordinary, as Christians. Is it really a movie that glorifies God? In a thread about what makes good art (or something like that), I posed the question that, as Christians, isn’t good art only that which glorifies God? … and what, exactly, glorifies God then? To my recollection, that went nowhere.

Hey, I understand the fear of dismissing and reducing everything to “What Would Jesus Do?” and sounding like a bunch of fundamentalists who take everything literally, but sometimes, folks, life isn’t that complicated.

Isn’t that the point of Christianity? To free us, not only in the life everlasting, but in the here and now?

Sometimes I think we over-argue issues in order to justify our own opinions. We so desperately don’t want to sound like “spoon-fed Christians,” so we attempt to blind eachother with our intellectual brilliance and levels of reasoning, ignoring the rather simple message of Christ in the process.

So, does ANYONE share my opinion that we could all be taking a more Christian perspective around here?

Amen. We’re better than that, coach! Ok. Hands in the middle. On three—let’s go!!! One…Two…Three…L-e-t-s G-o-!

And the cheerleaders go: “Doo doo doo. Doo, doo doo doo doo, doo, doo doo, doo doo, doo doo doo doo dooooo.”

And the little kids say “T-e-e-n T-i-t-a-n-s. Teen Titans!”

I’m with you, mrsanniep. It would be nice if we could all take a Christian worldview for granted and just debate about HOW we should get the job done (like those who have taken American democracy for granted seem to be able to do), but we’re not quite there yet. My question, though, is how welcoming *cino ought to be to those who might not share, or want to share, this one worldview. Like you said, we don’t want this to be a homogenous zone where all us white folk are creating our ideal WWJD world free of dissenters and other riff-raff. That would be boring and unChristlike.

What’s wrong with offending people who don’t share a Christian worldview? What’s wrong with wanting to talk about practical application? I’d rather live out Christianity than sit around and debate it. I’m not looking for us to create a checklist of what a Christian does and doesn’t do (aside from the stuff explicitly set out in the Bible), but for more discussion about what we each think is acceptable and not acceptable from a Christian perspective. To explain ourselves and perhaps share insight and wisdom into how we can “up” our walk with Christ.

My point was that we don’t talk enough about what a radical Christian perspective is on many topics where it’s obvious a Christian perspective would be relevant – and that perhaps means NOT finding good in something, in the case of Kill Bill. In the case of that movie, I’d argue that anyone promoting it as a bout of senseless, harmless fun is too convinced of their own rightness and ability to intellectually separate themselves from whatever they’re watching to actually examine what choices they made and what priorities they actually demonstrated by paying to see it, sit through it and talk about it at length. GASP!

But like you said, that might offend some people. And a fear of offending people is what’s weakening Christianity today.

part of what we’re struggling with as a community, i think, is what Daniel DeRoulet talks about in his article that we posted a while back:

http://www.catapultmagazine.com/issues/article.cfm?issue=18&article=172

he talks about (in a Christian university context) finding a defined middle between being fearing questions and finding answers “distasteful.” his example of how we can be discerning about the film American Beauty is a good model for what our discussions ought to look like—a model i agree we often fall short of, especially in our discussion of film.

there’s an inherent tension in trying to find that defined middle—somewhere between hiding our faces as we dodge into church and wearing Precious Moment sweatshirts with Bible verses every day.

on the one hand, i don’t think conversation always becomes more Christian because it makes specific references to Christ or Christianity. what we are searching for is a way of being and breathing the Gospel so that even (was it Calvin Seerveld who used this example?) when performing such a simple task as cooking an egg, we do so as followers of Christ. our identity is so transformed by Christ that no act takes place outside of that identiy. this means, potentially, that even in a film discussion that doesn’t reference Christianity, our conversation is transformed by the Spirit.

on the other hand, there’s an unfortunate sense of shame that many of us carry as sins of our fathers are visited on subsequent generations. we cannot ignore the negative reputations Christians have gained while perpetrating violence and hate in the name of Christ. we cannot ignore the healing that needs to take place in this respect—and there’s a fine line between fear of offending people and the humility necessary to healing.

and i’m not only referring to healing taking place between Christians and non-Christians, but between parts of our humanly distorted identities as Christians as well. we desire knowledge of the truth and a means to convey that truth, but we also recognize the limitations of our fallenness. we need to be both bold and humble, praying unceasingly, searching our hearts constantly, and making no excuses for the truth we claim.

so how do we find this place, this defined middle? i agree with mrsanniep that we haven’t completely arrived yet, but i feel—sometimes—that we’re close.

I understand the concern. I do.
But I dread the thought of having to talk or review movies on the basis of whether or not the film’s “worldview” or whatever the H that means, is Christian or not. If I play critic, is that my sole duty to decided whether or not the film is moral? I pray it’s not.
Can I talk about Kill Bill in a historical or genre context without specifically proclaiming it’s good or bad. Or is *cino the place to for a discussion such as this: where does Kill Bill fit into the history of film? Obviously this is not a question devoid of moral questions, but if we should take Tarntino seriously as a filmmater (I think we should) then this is an important, although not specifically moral, question.
Perhaps this is not a relevant question for *cino members.

And I’m sorry, I don’t think fear of offending people is ruining Christianity. Fear is. And fear of loving people.

You’re losing sight of my point. Kill Bill was an example of a movie begging for discussion from a more Christian perspective. I didn’t say ALL discussions had to include a Christian element, but I thought we could have MORE than what we do. Again, Kill Bill was merely an example.

You’re right. It’s a tangent. I basically agree with you.
How specialized is this place, though? Does my question make sense? If I/we decide that Kill Bill is not God glorifying, should we drop it and then move along to something else? Can we talk about what it’s doing besides not glorifying God?
This isn’t a retort; it’s just a question. I’m wondering what kind of place *cino is or should be….

You make a good point about Kill Bill, mrsanniep. It would be stupid for us not to make comments about a film that is racist just because we figure everyone can see that it’s racist (I’m not saying Kill Bill is racist; I’m just using an example).

I do want to distinguish my earlier comments about how welcome we ought to be from the idea of offending people. I’m not saying we should be afraid to offend people. I’m asking how we can be a community of people who can argue about such things in a way that welcomes Christians and non-Christians alike. Or should we not really think about the way non-Christians will see what we’re doing?

i think there’s definitely room for the type of discussion Dave is talking about (ex. Kill Bill in the history of film) because excellence in craft and vocation are God-glorifying. visually, Kill Bill might be a beautiful film, but ideologically, it may be very ugly. the believing critic’s job is not to judge a film solely on its morality, but to view the film as a whole and discern which elements are excellent (God-glorifying) and which aren’t.

i think maybe what mrsanniep is saying (and correct me if i’m wrong) is that there’s too much “I like this” and “I don’t like this” and not enough critical discernment in some of our discussions.

Yes! That’s a very good way of putting it. Thank you for that precise interpretation.