MSNBC is running a story on the new Angels and Demons movie by Dan Brown (He wrote that little book about Da Vinci). Well, I guess all this good will that they are given the Christian Faith is doing some good -
It’s one thing for some nerdy fanboy who lives in his parents’ basement to show his enthusiasm for “The Dark Knight” by dressing up as the Joker. But for a pastor to stand before his congregation in full Joker regalia, complete with ratty wig and gruesome makeup, and deliver a sermon on good and evil — that’s something else altogether.
Last summer, in a radical attempt to engage his young congregants at the Christ Chapel Mountaintop Church in Manassas, Va., pastor Rob Seagears did exactly that. Each Sunday, Seagears dressed up as a character from that weekend’s top-grossing film and used the movie — no matter how vulgar, violent, or ungodly it seemed — as the basis for a discussion of Christian morality. One Sunday, he was Indiana Jones. Another, he rode up to the pulpit on a motorcycle in a Batman costume. The weekend “Tropic Thunder” opened, he showed up wearing camouflage and wielding a machete.
The idea, for Seagears, was not to rail against the corrupting virus of Hollywood, as church leaders have in the past, but to transmute that virus into a spiritual vaccine to inoculate his flock. “Pop culture is the language they speak,” he says. “This was about meeting them where they are and trying to build a bridge back to God.”
Really? Can you imagine the Gospel in pop culture? Do you really want Hellywood to build the ‘bridge back to God?’ If the Faith needs movies, which is fine, then maybe they should stay away from Not the Wordywood. (Just not as good as some people are with making puns – Pluralistic Fish and all).
May 17th, 2009 12:37 am
There was a similar story on Entertainment weekly I read earlier this week that inspired a blog post series on my own site.
It’s interesting that Angels & Demons is inspiring this conversation.