old ramblings
Americans want to live inside movies or TV shows. They want to fit their lives inside the narratives the see on the screen and have the glamour that they perceive these privileged few to be enjoying off screen. When the lights go down at the theater and a hush descends the average American is experiencing his or her version of a transcendent experience, movies are the American religion and the theater is the church. The individual is drawn inside the plot being played out before his eyes and will go from the theater playing out scenes from the film just watched in their own life whether it is using a line of dialogue, dressing in a certain manner, adopting a hairstyle or listening to a certain kind of music. The movies shape the culture. Along with TV and music they are the shaping influence on most people in the mass culture.
In the past, before the advent of mass communication and the global phenomenon of movies, common cultural heritage, community values, and literary narratives shaped people. All of the above still have an influence some greater and some less in the current age. Ethnic communities have shared norms and traditions that mold individuals, and in some communities of faith a narrative text has great shaping effects on the lives of the individuals within a community. The Quran in Islamic lands and amongst Muslims in the west is a powerful example of this and of course the Bible continues to have primary impact on Christian life and practice amongst Christian churches of all types as well as being a common foundation for much of what might be called western “culture” in the twenty-first century (movies, TV, music). The fact that western culture is exported to the entire world in modes of dress, music and movies means that a sort of overarching global superstructure of influence is everywhere prevalent while local cultures continue to function alongside and in competition with the new global super-culture. The Christian teenager growing up in suburban America for example will face the competing interests of values absorbed from her favorite bands, actor/idols, TV shows, magazines read, and friends who likewise are to great degrees inundated with such global influences. The strength of the local church and love of its members alongside the family structure are massive pillar influences to such a teenager but still, the pervading super-culture leaves no one untouched.
In times past the provincial and local values of communities could stay relatively stable and intact over lifetimes as outside influences did not easily penetrate local communities but not so in our day. The flick of a switch or touch of a button opens an individual almost anywhere on the planet to a host of alien value-sources from all other corners of the planet.
The sacramental nature of the American religion of movies is on display every night as local flock to video stores to rent the latest offering from the studios and on the weekends when the mega-theater is swamped with cars of the thousands watching new releases. The stories we fit our lives into are increasingly not the novel or myth contained in a book but the worldview contained in a song or movie.
The Word of God has always survived the ravages and tempests of cultural upheaval around it and I expect the same to be true in our age. Though the narratives contained in the text of Scripture have competition in the super-culture that spans nations and cultures, it is at work transforming lives and smashing idols, and will produce the desired effects that God has purposed for it to accomplish. We must continue to fit our lives inside the narrative world of the Scripture and not inside the competing and false reality proffered to us in the form of mass entertainment. Come out from amongst her and be separate.
