Christians LOVE to say a book, movie or song has Christianity in it. You could probably pick out a lot of songs and find some sort of spiritual correlation. Watch different movies and you can start to see how the on-screen relationships may mirror that of ours with God. Read books and see how the different characters represent the trinity. We look so hard to find some sort of symbolism or meaning. Why do we do this? It's almost embarrassing to surf the Internet and see all the reviews of different songs and movies. Most people say there are Christian themes in certain books or songs. While others may rant and rave the themes are as close to satanic as it can get.
Can you really say something has a Christian theme if the authors had no intentions of portraying that? Sure, we can say there are parallels but that doesn't seem to make it a Christian song or movie. It's like comparing apples and oranges, they're both fruit and they both grow in trees. Those similarities don't make them the same thing.
I bring this up as we are going through the Harry Potter movie series (enter groan here for all you haters). It's actually one of the best movies series I've watched as each movie has done a great job keeping the quality of the story line and development of characters interesting. I'm ashamed to say I haven't read the books...yet. Back on topic. I know most Christians despise this series saying the magic and witches are satanic.
There are several viewers who have likened many plot lines and characters from Harry Potter to things in The Bible. This was also true with The Lord of the Ring series. Now I know J.R.R. Tolkien was a Catholic and friend of C.S. Lewis and he supposedly included Christian themes in his writings. I wonder though, were those his intentions? It would seem so. If he was fashioning plot lines, characters and stories after his life experiences and imagination wouldn't that incorporate his belief system?
After wondering why so many Christians work so hard to make things "Christian-themed" I had a thought, "What if that's just the result of God being who he is?" God is everywhere, he designed this giant rock we live on. He created humans who have relationships and function in certain ways. He has set up life to have certain norms and consistencies, society and human nature follow a somewhat cyclical pattern.
Now I can't say God created evil, that's a discussion for another time. So to say evil things in books are of God is not what I'm implying, evil is reality however. The battle between good and evil will always exist until Jesus comes for the encore presentation. So why is that bad to see in a movie or read about in a book? There are limitations, grey areas, blurred lines for certain things. I've wondered off topic a bit here.
Do Christians work too hard to put Christ into everything or is that just the nature of who God is, he can just show up anywhere?
1 comment:
Great topic! I think that you are right there are Christian themes everywhere because we live in a world drenched in God. He can't help but be present in our music and literature. However, I love looking for these Christian themes inwhat I read, see and listen to because I find it an amazing way to engage with non-believers in conversations about God. Christian symbolism is often intentionally imbedded even my non-Christian writers because Christianity is so prevalent in our society and provides such powerful imagery. If writers try to employ the symbolism to evoke a certain emotion and imagery, then we as readers should draw on that same quality to engage in meaningful conversations with others about who our God is!
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