So, I know my church is weird. That is, we are weird compared to those around us. For example, my friend has a ministry where he interacts with culture (books, movies, TV shows, etc.) and compares them with what Scripture says. He is going to be doing this with the movie "Fight Club." And in an attempt to reach out to those around me I invited a guy who I happen to know likes movies a lot. I was upfront with him because I didn't want to tell him it was just a movie and shock him with the Bible portion afterward. He looked at me with the strangest look. It was like I asked if he wanted to join a cult. It was that look that I usually fear so much that I don't share the gospel. He later said he thought it was a "good joke." Another guy in the room had me repeat myself because he couldn't understand how we could put "Fight Club" and the Bible in the same sentence. I later thought, you know the Bible has some pretty gruesome stuff in it. Just this week my pastor mentioned that some portions "were not for public reading." In fact, "Fight Club" seems pretty tame compared to the Bible. In truth, God's history of redemption makes "Fight Club" seem comparatively like a children's story. Think of 1 Kings 18 where Elijah taunts the prophets of Baal as they cut themselves in a frenzy or John the Baptist who has his head cut off and displayed at a banquet or Judges 19 where a woman is raped, left for dead, and eventually cut into 12 pieces and mailed to the tribes of Israel or when the entire world (save 8 people) are drowned to death or the book of Revelation (need I go into specifics) or the death of Jesus, which is the most gruesome by far. So, with all this (and more) in the pages of Holy Scripture, why would people think that "Fight Club" need be kept separate from the Bible? What has caused our culture to think in this way?
1 comment:
Honestly, I probably would have felt the same way before it was explained why a mainstream film and the Bible might be good to compare. I think the key for me was that I realized how important it is to be familiar with the worldviews presented in mainstream Hollywood films, which are notions that create far more long-lasting damage than the vicious content projected. Worldviews are subtly infused, and with such a convincing screenplay, a part of us buys into everything we see. We go for entertainment, and we leave subtly changed by the message, even if it's untentional for us and for the filmmakers. That could also account for the hodge-podge of existential wishy-washiness that we see in America. If a film can envoke extreme emotions of any sort, we tend to give it more credibility to promote truth than it deserves. I will say that there are a lot of issues found in Fight Club that I don't even necessarily disagree with. It really promotes the idea that material things dissolve and asks us what manner of men we ought to be in light of that. I think it's important to find those common grounds in order to explore connections and differences with people.
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