Friday, October 13, 2006

more on film

Len @ Next Reformation has a link to an interview with Dick Staub at Relevant Magazine.

The whole interview is worth reading, but, along with Fernando this section caught my attention.
“As film becomes our common language and Christian communicators desire to connect with today’s audience, it is understandable that the use of film clips is on the rise. Unfortunately there is a cloud in this silver lining.

1) If the Church was creative instead of imitative, we would be “creating” contemporary media instead of piggybacking on and exploiting media created by others.

2) Because so much of contemporary media is mindless, we see superficial movies being used in churches to communicate truths that are deep and timeless; this can have a trivializing effect on faith.

3) Too often having demonstrated our inability to exegete the Bible, resorting to proof texts, we’ve now expanded our incompetence to incompetent interpretation and applications of filmic texts. The majority of evangelicals are driven by the redemptive mandate not the mandate of creation, so they see film as an evangelistic tool more than an artistic expression. I am encouraged that a remnant of mostly younger Christians are seeing film for the art first … may their numbers multiply.”
How do we use film?
Using film quotes, allusions and clips in sermons, is really no difference than using quotes and allusions from books in sermons - except that with clips there is the added dimension of being visual.

What really is the point of interest in film? What does it achieve?
Film is a, if not, the, major cultural influence of our era, especially in North America. If we are going to speak meaningfully about culture, then we have to speak about film. It is tricky, however, because much of popular (Hollywood) film is not critical or analytical. However, it is what shapes the worldview of many. I'm not sure, however, that a lot of churches are ready to support and fund and effective use Christians who are trying to speak into our cultural through film.

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