This last weekend I went to see Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. After reading the classic pagan work earlier this year and then watching a modern rendition at variance with all of the original’s style and themes, I began to dwell on how the Christian worldview goes out and interacts with the world. Do we have a responsibility to only consume entertainment made by Christians? What makes a work worth allowing into our homes and what makes it abominable? This age-old question has been a conscience issue for Christians for a long time and Nolan’s complete rewrite of a seminal work of Western literature just raises the question again.
As Christians, we cannot go out into the world as a blank slate ready to accept anything the culture hands to us. At the same time, since all people are created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26), true and beautiful things break through the cracks and come out in the books and music they make. When watching a movie, there are parts and themes that resonate with us. We experience a sort of physiological synchrony of the soul. Just as when two loving people are around each other and their hearts align to beat as one, when we encounter parts of art which reflect something of the truth of the God we adore, our spirits experience a sympathetic resonance with that reality.
We as Christians have a corner on the market of truth. We not only have the Word of God which the Lord has given to us, but we have the Holy Spirit living within us to discern what His Word says and apply it to our lives (1 Cor. 2:12-13). From it, we know who God is and how He designed the world to be. We resonate with the heroic sacrifice because it echoes of Jesus’ death on the cross to save us. From Scripture we know what a godly man and a godly woman are and how they are to interact with one another. We see good and evil, justice, honoring of those who came before us, and holiness verses debauchery and lack of self-control. When we come into the cultural marketplace, we do not come empty handed, but seeking God’s character and glory. Every movie, book, or piece of music is an expression of the artist’s experience of the world as they see it. These works are only as good as they reflect and communicate to us what is good, true and beautiful.
The affections which we have for literature, art, and movies can be cultivated. Paul tells the Roman church that if they want to be able to discern what is the will of God, this requires not being conformed to the world, but being transformed by renewing their minds (Rom. 12:2). In his letter to the Philippians, he expounds, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8). This doesn’t mean that the only things we can see in the world are those produced by Christians, but that the foundation by which we judge and engage the culture around us is the God who made and saved us. By immersing ourselves in Scripture, we hear from God and pattern our thoughts after His. Beyond that, it is good to think on and consume stories, literature, movies, and music that reflect the world as God created it to be. The works that we celebrate and pass on to future generations should be those which draw upon the good, true and beautiful.
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