Books!!!
(Source: undecidedtitle)
Dirty Honesty
In the middle of a conversation last week I came to this realization: People only come to terms with their mortality when they are forced to face it.
I tried watching “Joyful Noise” the other night; I was hoping to experience a story that revealed God through transformation. Instead I got two seconds of Dolly Parton being awesome by singing a little Chris Brown ditty. The movie touched on subjects such as divorce, death, teen love, teen angst and… I think that’s about it but like all Christian films it falls just short of reality of pure exposition, the unraveling of the human condition and the pure power of Divine intervention.
I speak in generalization but I believe my generalizations are valid.
The problem with Christian culture is that it feels it needs to protect itself from skeptics. It needs to look pretty, safe, and pretty safe, but there is nothing about the Bible that is any of these things and so Christianity’s attempt to protect an image of Love has only done the opposite of its basic intention.
Christian art, especially film is an exploration of how God intervenes in our lives. These stories tackle tough issues but they approach them in a way that makes it suitable for a wider audience. Instead these films accomplish nothing except the thickening of the Christian Bubble. When people are getting a divorce, experiencing death, dealing with drugs and alcohol, rape. They don’t carry on polite conversation, words are spit out like jagged glass cutting tongues and hearts. Mistakes are made, prisons are built and people die. These things are real and occur every day. If we as Christians want to share God’s Glory, if we want others to experience the changes we have gone through we can’t hide the dirt, we need to show them every speck from the crumbs in our hair to the grit in our nails.
This is not to say that these so called “adult expositions” should be placed in these stories for the sake of putting in there but more so rather for the audience to see Radical change.
I laugh when I see children’s Bibles… what does that even mean, what purpose do they serve? (I’m aware that children do not need to be exposed to everything) The Bible has nothing to hide, it has spotty moments, moments that shake my core; that cause me to doubt; or drop to the floor in awe! It’s almost terrifying at times. But I compare it to my own life and it has these kinds of moments and it is only God who has brought me through these things. Why do these movies have to be any different? The more honest the plot, the more Glory to God. Don’t put Him in a Sugar Bowl or a box…whatever image you want to use.
The world needs Christians who are not a product of a religious culture but more so a people exposing their dirty honesty.
