I read a review on relevantmagaizne.com the other day about the movie 300. The review was written from a “Christian” perspective. The reviewer was positive about the movie. And although he did mention the extreme amount of violence, he failed to mention the sexuality/nudity also in the movie.
I haven’t seen it, and I probably won’t, but all of this made me wonder, how should a follower of Christ respond to movies like this? Or to take the question one step further, how should a Christian respond to culture?
I recently heard an interview with Andy Crouch the director of the Christian Vision Project. He says that over the last century Christians have had a series of postures for culture. Typically we either condemn, critique, copy or consume culture.
For a while we thought the best thing we could do with culture is to just condemn it. Sort of stand outside it and resist it and be suspicious of it and try to avoid it. Of course this posture is appropriate when you are living in a place like Germany during the Holocaust. But culture doesn’t usually change when people condemn it. How many boycotts really work? Say there are eight screens at that movie theater and they are all showing movies that Christians would object to. If all we do is stay away from the movie theater, then that theater is still going to show the movies.
Christians also respond as critics, which has its place as well. Artists want people to critique their work (rather than condemn) and ask questions like “what was the artist meaning when he created this.” But when we simply critique and tell people we shouldn’t be doing this or that, people want to ask, “Well, what should we be doing?”
But I think it’s equally wrong to simply copy or consume culture. I think very often Christians are known as people who merely imitate culture but never have anything creative of our own. It's wrong when you ask people about culture and all they can discuss is what they consume, not what they create or cultivate themselves.
According to Crouch the best overall posture toward culture is that of an artist or gardener, we should cultivate and create.
The only way to change what is shown on the movie screens is to make a different kind of movie that can compete effectively with the ones that are currently showing. Merely staying home isn’t going to leave a screen blank. On the other hand, if all we do is just go to whatever movies are being shown, that isn’t going to change what’s being shown either. It’s only when you make something different that the culture of the movie theater or the movie industry will change.
The antidote to being a mere consumer is to become a creator. Life is not about waiting for Hollywood to offer you thrilling experiences, but to actually be someone who jumps into the work of making something beautiful and true and good for the world. When you become creative, when you become someone whose life is about what you’re doing with other people to shape the culture, the appeal of just consuming diminishes.
Crouch says this can start in the workplace. People are typically paid to cultivate or create something for a living. We often talk about the workplace as a very negative thing, or the best we can do is "witness" in the workplace. But most people are engaged in work that God meant for us to do. Whether you’re a filmmaker, a carpenter, an accountant or a lawyer we can all cultivate and preserve what is good and create new ways to do God’s work in the world.
Crouch says, “Christians are called to carry out their work in a way that moves the horizons of the world around them closer to what God intended the world to be like.”
