www.scatteredchristians.org
M Paulson
March
14, 2010
Audio
sermon
No
Video available
March
14, 2010
Audio
sermon
No
Video available
|
|
(from a.m. sermon)
Is it POSSIBLE to deal with moving images today? Sure
thing!
Is it PRACTICAL to deal with moving images today? Nope!
Is it PERMISSIBLE from others for us to deal with images properly
today? Ya, right! NOPE!
Thou shall not...!
They are profitable for nothing!
Nebuchadnezar made people bow to his image - Daniel 3 - and it was started by MUSIC! All kinds - not just the 'bad stuff.'
Three guys would not do it! Daniel
3:18
Will you?
Images snare folks!
Romans 14:14 - nothing is unclean of itself, but still...
Folks have no clue to the strings attached to their liberty!
The movie world...
None of the films competing for an Oscar in Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony are as overtly religious as “The Ten Commandments” or “The Passion of the Christ,” but many of them have universal spiritual themes, say area ministers who are also self-described movie buffs.This year’s bumper crop of Best Picture nominees — for the first time there are 10 of them instead of the usual five — are widely perceived in religious communities to contain significant lessons about faith or questions about God. Films such as “Avatar,” “The Hurt Locker,” “Up” and “The Blind Side” all contain spiritual messages that resonate with audiences, even when moviegoers may not realize it, the pastors agree.
Movies are powerful vehicles to show the ability to save, to redeem and to heal the spiritually broken, said the Rev. Bruce Herrboldt, pastor at South Park United Church of Christ in Rapid City. “The power of the story does the work of good theology,” he said.
The Rev. Jeff Otterman, pastor at St. James Lutheran Church in Belle Fourche, is a longtime movie fan who has seen several of this year’s nominated films and doesn’t hesitate to incorporate movies into his ministry. “Sometimes, movies preach better than we do,” he said. “I love movies,” Otterman admits. Last year, he especially loved “Avatar,” the special-effects extravaganza that has been described as “Dances with Wolves” on another planet. “‘Avatar’ — of all the movies — has so much religious activity in it, so many faith pieces to it,” he said. He liked it so much, he’s seen it three times already, once when he took his church youth group to see it. “I could watch it again because it has so many things in it that would be valuable to see again,” Otterman said.
Director James Cameron’s epic about another planet is criticized in some religious circles as promoting pantheism and nature worship instead of the traditional monotheism of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but it also sends a universal spiritual message about respect for the environment and seeing God in nature.
The Rev. Brian Carpenter, pastor of Foothills Community Church in Sturgis, loved the movie as an artistic and technological triumph, despite some objections to its underlying theological messages. “Pandora, the world of the Na’vi, is the Garden of Eden filtered through some of our favorite contemporary myths: evolutionism, feminism and Gaiaism,” he said. He said the movie’s popularity is related to the innate longing that people have for heaven and a relationship with their creator.
“The Blind Side,” with its much more obvious take on the religious message to care for the poor and vulnerable, resonated with the Rev. Lin Jennewein, a United Methodist minister. “I’ve only seen that about five times,” Jennewein said. “It really spoke to me.”
The film’s message is about putting your faith into action, she said. “She’s wealthy ... but in the midst of having it all, she cares about others. She lives the Gospel message that we are to take care of other people, that we put ourselves out for the poor,” Jennewein said of the movie’s heroine, a wealthy white woman from Mississippi who welcomes a poor, black teenager into her family.
Otterman is also a big fan of the Oscar-nominated “District 9,” with all its gruesome violence. “There is so much blood in that movie, but its messages — both political and spiritual — are so important,” he said.
“District 9” asks questions about welcoming the alien among us. “In the movie, the aliens become more human, more spiritual, than the human beings, who have become so inhumane,” he said. “It raises questions like: How Christian are you, really?” As a human character in the movie slowly becomes more alien, it also brought to mind theological questions about the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ, Otterman said. “Jesus was fully human and fully divine … and the movie almost has a Markan quality to it,” he said, referring to the Gospel of Mark.
The animated movie “Up” is also a fun, yet emotionally moving movie with great spiritual messages about life, the pastors said.
“It’s a fun movie that had lots of deeper pieces to it than most would imagine,” Otterman said.
Herrboldt hasn’t seen many of the nominated films this year, but he doubts many of them could top “The Hurt Locker,” with its important message about the real costs of war, or “Invictus,” a movie about the power of forgiveness and love that earned Morgan Freeman a Best Actor nod for his role as Nelson Mandela.
“‘Invictus’ was super to me,” Herrboldt said, “telling a story that many of us have forgotten ... about the power of forgiveness, the power of love and how they are much more powerful than revenge.”
The KJB is warning us - God is warning us! Take heed...
Is it possible? YES
Is it practical? NO
Is it permissible? NO
So what!
Do right!
I Timothy 4:1 - Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;I Timothy 4:16 - Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.
