Comments on: Composed yesterday, typed up today

By: Angelo

Angelo — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 22:28:10 +0000

Yeah, I think it’d be impossible to say god is speaking in this movie or song, but not in this movie or song. God’s hands are in everything… it’s a matter of if you’re listening or aware of it.

I think churches often get caught up in the marketing of a movie or strictly the subject matter of the story. Movies like Narnia or Passion (neither which I’ve seen yet) are obvious choices as they are simple to tie into a church theme. In fact the rate at which churches were pushing “The Passion” into a pop-culture phenomenon caused me to not want to see that movie, and especially with a church (tainted) audience.

I know there are plenty of movies I’ve seen that after watching them I’ve thought of how much of a better job this movie did than the last sermon I heard… and most of these movies you’ll never hear mentioned in a sermon.

I can understand that subject matter (adult or underwear zone as you put it) will deter a church because of the children / family aspect present (except for The Passion, which was horribly violent and bloody as I’ve been told). Though, in an adult setting there’s nothing wrong with watching an adult themed movie and receiving a surprise biblical message.

Rock ON! Let’s do the movie night thing in our group!

By: amy

amy — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:38:47 +0000

i liked what you said about God not being naive nor squeamish, and hanging with morally shady characters. mainly because i like the words naive, squeamish, and shady. but it reminds me of something one of my professors said a couple years ago. He was talking about us being salt and light. About how if we want to make a difference, we’re going to have to stand out. And that means not being caught up in either extreme. We can’t go hang out with the meat and the darkness and just blend in. the meat and the darkness don’t need more meat or darkness. they need salt and light in order to bring out what is good in them. And in the same way, if we are salt and light, and we’re only immersing ourselves in more salt and light, we may never stand out with the kind of glory that God created in us. I think it’s important for us to be out there, experiencing the culture of the world, but we have to be careful that we are sifting through it, appreciating and praising what is good in culture, and standing against what is bad.

By: MRI Webmaster

MRI Webmaster — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 01:00:26 +0000

Hmm. Sorry for the foray into psychologese. Perhaps it’s better to say “that makes fore sense, both theologically and in terms of the integrated, multi-faceted nature of people, who are composed of biology, their minds and feelings, and their social interactions.” All of those aspects come into the free will/determination discussion in my mind. Or is it my brain. Hmm.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:49:26 +0000

And your fourth question can be….

4. What is biopsychosocially?

By: MRI Webmaster

MRI Webmaster — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:45:50 +0000

I am so tempted to try and address all those questions in a single response, but I’m not going to. Instead, I am going to cover the following issues in subsequent posts:

1. God speaking through culture (I focus on that over/above current events). A restatement of 1st century information? A revelation of what’s relevant? Or perhaps even statements of never before said information?

2. Free will-Is there? Isn’t there? Here’s the teaser…I think there’s something in between free will and determination that makes more sense, both theologically and biopsychosocially….

3. Identifying the “hand of God” or “work of God” in our daily lives. Can we? Why do we? Are there any dangers associated with our tendency to say with certainty what God is and is not doing for someone? (sorry, I’m only good at writing leading questions).

Hmm. Maybe I’ll start writing one of those right now….

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 14:47:39 +0000

I’m curious to hear your opinion on how God speaks to us. With current events, would you say God is actively speaking through them, or that current events are simply relevant to God and our Christian walk? I find the discussion of how God “works” in our daily lives fascinating. From people ascribing every which happening to the hand of God, to naming God’s motives in a certain event. You can get into a discussion of free will really quickly, but I’m curious what your thoughts are.

So to be more clear, will God actively speak through Narnia, or will Narnia simply give good discussion about what God spoke two-thousand years ago?