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You've reached the shared blog of Michael Mckay and Todd Frederick. Two friends who have worked together in ministry and labored in similar educational endeavors. Please join us as we consider the interaction of Christianity with modern culture...

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Last night, I watched The Book of Eli, a post-apocalyptic quest movie. The lead character, played by Denzel Washington has a command from God to take the last remaining Bible to a safe place in 'the West.' To make a long story short, through many trials, he delivers the content of the Bible from his memory to the printing press of a colony dedicated to preserving books (a.k.a. my people). The movie ends with shots of the printing press making copies of the Bible. Commentators are divided as to whether or not the movie is explicitly, implicitly or incidentally Christian... I suppose a lot depends on your perspective.

The greater question, in my humble opinion, concerns how I, as a Christian, should respond to this movie and to movies in general? I think my response should be this: whenever Hollywood creates a cultural nexus to Christianity, I should have enough knowledge, ability and experience to influence another person toward faith in Christ, or to deeper faith in Christ. I should clarify where Hollywood's caricature of Christianity fails to match reality and where Christians objectively fail to measure up to a Biblical understanding of Christianity.

Eli
creates an opportunity to talk about how God actually did preserve His Word in the past and will preserve it in the future. I'm sure there are many inside and outside of Christianity who remain uninformed of the early church's struggle to preserve, copy and disseminate what we take for granted today, a complete Old and New Testament in our choice of translation.

The most disturbing element of the movie was the main character's hatred toward cats. The movie opens with the demise of a hairless cat, later consumed as food and shared with a mouse (sick irony!). Another scene shows the graphic shoving of a cat from a bar. What's up with that? If you love a tasty barbecued cat, no worries. But if you are the other kind of cat lover, be warned.

4 comments:

  1. Good response to the movie.

    I think it is a lot like The Passion in that it could be a useful tool to point people to God and start conversations; hopefully giving Christians the opportunity to do corrective teaching when necessary.

    Its also kinda sad that Hollywood had to step up to the plate to teach America about the death of Christ (in the Passion) and the importance of God's word (In Eli)

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  2. Great way to get us started Todd! I haven't seen the movie yet, but it is in the Netflix queue. I think the average "Joe" Christian on the street took a hit when the DaVinci Code book came out. We realized that we could not explain the origins of the NT and thus missed an opportunity to explain the merits of the historicity of the NT (particularly the Gospels). Thankfully the DaVinci Code movie made the book seem really humpty-dumpty and the movement lost steam on the popular level. I have been doing some research for a Life of Christ course I am teaching and have found a helpful, bulleted source which gives great reasons to view the Gospels as historically reliable. Many of them have to do with the ability and motivations of the 12 Disciples and Early Church to keep a message accurate. It seems very comparable to what Eli is trying to do in the movie (although I haven't seen it yet). Here is the site for anyone interested (http://www.4truth.net/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=hiKXLbPNLrF&b=784441&ct=981289) It is written by Dr. Craig Blomberg who is an evangelical and teaches at Denver Seminary. His area of expertise is the Gospels.

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  3. Thanks for the feedback. Dennis: I think I would make some distinctions between The Passion and Eli. The Passion portrays history while Eli is clearly fictional. (Although, I'm sure Denzel is an awesome sword-fighter in real life.) Both, and perhaps many, movies provide an opportunity to connect with the general movie-going public over the crucial person and work of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible.

    I'm not advocating the random consumption of entertainment, but the careful evaluation and use of current media to spark conversations about the 'forbidden' topics of worldview and Christianity.

    The current rash of apocalyptic movies presents an opportunity to connect with people on that worldview level. Whether 'the end' comes as a result of war, famine or disease it presents an opportunity to intersect your hypothetical response with your Christian worldview. Let's just not get too preachy about it. If the zombies actually do invade, will you seek a cure (Legend), or seek to 'bust a cap' in some zombie backsides (every other zombie movie). Personally, I'm torn on the zombie issue.

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  4. I agree Todd. I think I would be a lot like the nerdy kid on Zombieland...living my life by a bunch of ridiculous rules whereby I evade and defeat the attacking Zombies

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