"If you burn, we burn with you..."

[HammerStone]

Came across this link during some quick morning reading. The premise is that Christianity is not found in works like The Hunger Games yet this popular book is influencing real world situations like Ferguson and Thailand. I tend to agree that popular level books in the Christian sphere do no tend (there are always exceptions) to wrestle with things like this. We'd have to reach back to Tolkien or Lewis, pretty much like we do on everything else. Obviously we all ultimately reach back to God and his son, but art is a medium where you reach non-Christians.

As these protestors in Ferguson and Thailand draw inspiration from The Hunger Games, it is worth noting that the Church is completely absent from that fictional world.

That echoes a much broader real world reality. Christians have removed themselves from Hollywood and Hollywood has returned the favor.

http://thewardrobedoor.com/2014/12/ferguson-hunger-games-art-important.html

Thoughts?

 

[lforrest]

How is the Christian supposed to compete in an industry dominated by Godless Liberals? Discrimination by those who hold the purse strings would limit the acceptable content.

There may be some christian book publishers, but these are vastly outnumbered by secular ones.

 

[Born_Again]

I have never read "The Hunger Games" nor do I intend to. I recommend "Battle-cry for a Nation". It came about 10 years ago. I have it in hard back and I started reading it again recently and it speaks directly to this topic. It is a great tool to show exactly what we can do as Christians to help shape the youth of the nation in a growing liberal country. I fight daily to protect my children from the liberal media and show them where these things are wrong and do not bring glory to God. Unfortunately, the go to public schools and bring home something new everyday that I have to explain to them that it is wrong and urge them to tell their friends about the right path.

I have to correct them when they come home from some relatives home that expose them to the impurities of the world. (Non-stop TV marathons as an acting babysitter). My kids have seen movies I wont watch. We have to work hard as parents to guide our children because we are not with them 24/7. We need the time we have with them to be the most influential time and not let others raise our kids and lead them down the path of darkness.

 

[Angelina]

“There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

 

[HammerStone]

How is the Christian supposed to compete in an industry dominated by Godless Liberals? Discrimination by those who hold the purse strings would limit the acceptable content.

Matthew 10:16 HCSB
Look, I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves.

I think our Savior said it best here, as he tends to do. With that said, what the article is saying is instead of creating a "Christian" novel or "Christian" film, the Christian should engage the culture by creating a film or novel that has Christian elements or a Christian theme without advertising it. The greatest examples of these that come to mind are the master works of fiction for J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the Narnia series are not explicitly Christian books, and they connect with an audience that is often not Christian or marginally so. The point is not to deceive, but the point is to get at the longings we all have.

Compare this to the aisle of Christian fantasy (or whatever) at a bookstore where you get a lot of second class work that folks buy because they're labeled Christian or a worthy work gets ignored precisely because it's labeled Christian. As a whole, we've kinda retreated into a subculture where we have the Christianized version of things that often doesn't engage wider culture.

I have to correct them when they come home from some relatives home that expose them to the impurities of the world. (Non-stop TV marathons as an acting babysitter). My kids have seen movies I wont watch. We have to work hard as parents to guide our children because we are not with them 24/7. We need the time we have with them to be the most influential time and not let others raise our kids and lead them down the path of darkness.

Agreed. I think some of this could be helped by creating good art or entertainment that edifies God but doesn't necessarily have a Christian label attached to it. The premise of this article and many others is we have essentially vacated the land to secular creators and let them overrun what's piped into our homes regardless of medium.

There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

Love these quotes. O'Connor would be one of those Christian authors who practiced this. The point is to get the mind working and thinking in a path that hopefully precipitates Christ.

 

[Angelina]

My brother [who has a BFA degree] once said that there is no new art, only old art reformulated. Ecclesiastes 1:10, 11. Whitney pointed out “A good book isn't written, it's rewritten.”― Phyllis A. Whitney, Guide to Fiction Writing.

I think that it would be extremely difficult for the story of Christ for instance, to be recreated into a fictional format without losing a portion of what Christians consider to be the truth...fiction is not truth however...this quote from Orson S. Card gives me a glimmer of hope in the idea that "as a purest," moral instruction in fiction does not have to be acquired from biblical stories and fictional writing can be an expression of a writer's underlying beliefs without deliberate moral interpolation. This type of artistic workmanship has surely got to be a gift from God. :)

“There's always moral instruction whether the writer inserts it deliberately or not. The least effective moral instruction in fiction is that which is consciously inserted. Partly because it won't reflect the storyteller's true beliefs, it will only reflect what he BELIEVES he believes, or what he thinks he should believe or what he's been persuaded of.

But when you write without deliberately expressing moral teachings, the morals that show up are the ones you actually live by. The beliefs that you don't even think to question, that you don't even notice-- those will show up. And that tells much more truth about what you believe than your deliberate moral machinations.”
― Orson Scott Card

PS: Frank E Peretti books are an awesome example of good Christian Fiction. All we need now is someone brave enough to turn them into movies... ;)

 

[Born_Again]

Interesting, Angelina. I have a non-fiction Christian book coming out in March and I'm start a Fiction Christian book after that one is done. The fiction book is based on my beliefs or they are inserted rather. It has to do with Christ's healing power of Love, so to speak. Spiritual healing more or less.

 

[HammerStone]

Angelina, I see what you're saying and I agree that attempting to convey the full depth of the gospel of Christ will always be wanting without being specifically about Christ himself. I don't think the job of a Christian author would be to settle every aspect of perfected doctrine and explain the whole message of Christ in an allegory or analogous tale. Instead, I think Christian authors would be best served by addressing Christian themes that point towards Christ perhaps explicitly or implicitly.

For example, if the author lives a life that is devoted to Christ and then writes what's deemed a secular book, fans of the book would look at the themes in the book as they eventually make it to the author herself or himself. I think the purpose of the author would be to lay the foundation for getting there - plant the seed as the Bible says - and then let other Christians or the Church take over from there working in Christ.

As an example of this, take Aslan in Lewis. He's more than a symbol for Christ. Aslan carries a message (and I'm oversimplifying) of self sacrifice and then returning in a greater capacity. A Christian reading this book and knowing the background knows it's Christ, but someone without faith might not make the immediate connection. Yet, clearly here is an example of something more to life.

It's the same with Tolkien. An aspect of Lord of the Rings is the mechanization of the Orcs and dark forces. They create weapons of war meant to hurt and destroy. This theme points to the existence of absolute evil and gives you figures who cannot be rehabilitated or can be found at all likeable. Through this, you understand that we lose our connections, and see the result of men falling prey to greed and darkness.

Again, this does not immediately full construct the Christian narrative, but if you begin to ponder the nature and existence of evil and get beyond believing that it can be redeemed every time, you're already fashioning the existence of something converse - something good and true and right for which to judge it by.

 

[Axehead]

Do we live by morals, or do we live by the Life of Christ? There were many times that Jesus could have been accused in his day by the Pharisees of not being "moral". Morality is relative and many Atheists will say it is not moral that Jesus had the power to heal everyone but did not. Same can be said of you and me today in other ways regarding our lives as Christians. Do we follow the Father's voice or are we entrapped by the moral relativism of man's peer pressure, today?

Jesus did not mourn when they played a dirge or dance when they played a song. He would not be anyone's puppet and we should not be either. The Life of Christ is conveyed in many thousands and millions of lives living faithfully for Him. This is where you find many stories of encouragement and inspiration. When you find true witnesses willing to let the life of Christ be lived through them.

The Bible is not a book of morals nor do we live a life of moral rules. We live by a higher life, much higher than morals. We live by a revealed word to our hearts.

"Morality is part of the condition of the fall. Now endowed with the power to define good and evil, to elaborate it, to know it and to pretend to obey it, man can no longer renounce this power which he has purchased so dearly. He must exercise it. He (fallen man) cannot live without morality." (Jacques Ellul - To Will and To Do. Pilgrim Press. 1969. pg. 71)

I would say that if we are trying to write good books about great morals we will completely miss the boat and may end up birthing misguided converts. The challenge as I see it is conveying what the life of Christ within man looks like.

2Co_4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
2Co_4:8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
2Co_4:9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
2Co_4:10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

Axehead

 

[HammerStone]

We, of course, live by Christ so that question is non sequitar.

This is not about being moral. This is about fostering the kind of questions, moral dilemmas, and other thinking that can lead a nonbeliever to Jesus. A prime example of this in the Bible would be Esther. God's not clearly mentioned anywhere in the book, yet it was canonized as divinely inspired aside from the subtle references contained therein. If you gave someone the book of Esther say on an island that had never encountered a Christian, the book would likely make the reader ponder the meaning and message. This is hardly directing anyone to a life of moralism, but is instead sowing the seeds that may germinate at a later time. Esther asks some deep questions, that's the beauty of the book.

The rub is that Christians don't generally produce good art. We slap the name Jesus on the work 10-20 times and then call it Christian where it's sold on a certain aisle in the bookstore. The thesis advanced here is that we merely produce good art, which cannot help but be permeated by our Christian ideals. It doesn't need the name of Christ slapped on it to be explicitly Christian or to point Christwards, when the message pointing to Christ is born in the very nature of it.

Even though many would argue music as a whole is going downhill with the advent of digital techniques, it's like when you turn on the local CCM station. The lyrics are poor, the chords simple, and the complexity of the message is a crappy rendition of what I can hear on the local top 40. There are some very good bands in various genres that are not explicitly Christian, but their songs run over with Christian themes, analogies and struggles.

 

[Axehead]

We, of course, live by Christ so that question is non sequitar.

This is not about being moral. This is about fostering the kind of questions, moral dilemmas, and other thinking that can lead a nonbeliever to Jesus. A prime example of this in the Bible would be Esther. God's not clearly mentioned anywhere in the book, yet it was canonized as divinely inspired aside from the subtle references contained therein. If you gave someone the book of Esther say on an island that had never encountered a Christian, the book would likely make the reader ponder the meaning and message. This is hardly directing anyone to a life of moralism, but is instead sowing the seeds that may germinate at a later time. Esther asks some deep questions, that's the beauty of the book.

The rub is that Christians don't generally produce good art. We slap the name Jesus on the work 10-20 times and then call it Christian where it's sold on a certain aisle in the bookstore. The thesis advanced here is that we merely produce good art, which cannot help but be permeated by our Christian ideals. It doesn't need the name of Christ slapped on it to be explicitly Christian or to point Christwards, when the message pointing to Christ is born in the very nature of it.

Even though many would argue music as a whole is going downhill with the advent of digital techniques, it's like when you turn on the local CCM station. The lyrics are poor, the chords simple, and the complexity of the message is a crappy rendition of what I can hear on the local top 40. There are some very good bands in various genres that are not explicitly Christian, but their songs run over with Christian themes, analogies and struggles.

True, music pales in comparison to ages, ago. Architecture also pales in comparison. Art does, too. Look at some of the great Christian artists and musicians from long ago that seemed to be divinely inspired. Maybe that is what is missing today. Divine inspiration which comes from a nearness and fierce loyalty to God. Maybe, deep spirituality is missing.

Some composers that had a sincere faith, many coping with difficult circumstances and had their share of human failings. Among them is a surprising level of agreement on the basic Christian beliefs.

Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederic Handel, Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Peter Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Charles Gounod, Cesar Franck, Anton Bruckner, Johannes Brahms, Antonin Dvorak, Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles Ives, Igor Stravinsky, Olivier Messiaen.

Have we artists like these today? Who inspire faith and belief with their music?

For another kind of artist: Rembrandt for instance. Good read: http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1174&context=sor_fac_pubs

Of course there are many, many writers of yesterday that had a deep spirituality. Is this what is missing, today?