A hermeneutic of wonder

This is the phrase that has been buzzing round my head since Saturday when Maggi Dawn came to Chelmsford to lead a day based on her book The Writing on the Wall. Through a series of lectures, discussions, a quiz and various reflections, Maggi opened up for us an exploration of the Bible and it’s relationship with high art and popular culture. This was much more than just a dip into her book, as Maggi used worked examples to illustrate her themes and interact with a very engaged and enthused group of over fifty people.

The first session began with an introduction exploring the influence of the Bible on western culture and the importance of knowing the biblical text in understanding art, film and literature. This was followed by a reflection and discussion on the way in which artists have interpreted the stories and illuminated them in different and often contrasting ways. An exercise comparing depictions of Jesus’ resurrection appearance to Thomas by Caravaggio and Granville Gregory provoked a lively discussion.

Maggi then took us into an exploration of The Annunciation. We began with the text from Luke 1:26-38, with people sharing their images and understanding of the story, before looking at how various artists have explored and interpreted the story. Reflections on the paintings by Fra Angelico and Millet, Igor Mitoraj’s wonderful sculpture The Doors of the Annunciation and the poetry of Muir and Rowe helped us to look at the story in different ways and to question our own presuppositions. The session was a carefully crafted and illuminating example of the question:

What if we allow art to be a lens through which we revisit our theology?

I found myself reflecting on the cycle of interpretation that we are drawn into as Christians and how important it is to surface this process not only to examine what we impose on the text but to open ourselves to glimpse fresh insights through the eyes of the artist. So the story of The Annunciation inspires great works of art and those works of art influence how we interpret the story; a classic simple example is the image of Gabriel with wings depicted in Renaissance portrayals of the story. Other artists then challenge that image and take us back to the text. A good contemporary example would be the portrayal of Gabriel as an ordinary man in the BBC production The Nativity. Other themes we looked at in the story included the responses of Mary and the passage of time.

After lunch we kicked off with a quiz that served to further illustrate the influence of the Bible on our culture and language (and highlighted my ignorance). The main session in the afternoon was a sustained reflection on the way that art can change how we see the world and in the Christian context illumine the way in which we engage with scripture. At the heart of this session was a fascinating case study on the life of Abraham. This was rich material for a sermon series or set of Bible studies as we considered depictions of key moments in the story and works on the theme. Maggi drew on insights from Coleridge, T.S Elliot, Kierkegaard, Phyllis Trible, Rublev, Caravaggio, Segal, Rembrandt amongst others. The afternoon concluded with responses to interpretations of The Crucifixion and Jacob Wrestling the Angel from a wide range of artists. The quality of the contributions from the discussions reflected the high level of engagement with Maggi’s themes.

Having let a couple of days pass before recording my responses to the event, I am left with the phrase ‘the hermeneutic of wonder’ (Wordsworth?). As we allow a conversation to develop between the Bible, the artist and ourselves so we are opened up to new possibilities, to creative and challenging insights. Familiar stories and texts from scripture come alive as we learn to sit with layers of meaning and wrestle with questions and ambiguities raised and explored by the artist. The Arts, as Maggi so ably demonstrated, are not there just to decorate, make pretty or illustrate, but to communicate and reveal things that otherwise might remain unseen or constrained.

There is another opportunity to explore The Writing on the Wall with Maggi in Barking on May 7th. Places are still available and details can be found here.

5 soundtrack songs meme

I thought this one up while walking the dog in the rain. List 5 songs used to great effect in a soundtrack for T.V. or film.

1. The West Wing - Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits: This track is used at the end of The Two Cathedrals (The West Wing series two finale) and underscores the poignancy and tension of the whole episode.
2. American Gigolo – Call Me by Blondie: The song and accompanying opening shot of Richard Greer driving sets the film up perfectly.
3. American Beauty – Don’t Let It bring You Down by Annie Lennox: Well judged use of a gorgeous rendition of Neil Young’s classic.
4. To Live and Die in L.A. – Dance Hall Days by Wang Chung: Don’t know why but this just works with Friedkin’s underrated thriller capturing the 1980s West Coast zeitgeist. Wang Chung were also commissioned to write the score.
5. The Wire – Way Down in the Hole by The Blind Boys of Alabama: Each series of The Wire uses a different version of Tom Waits’ classic for the opening credits and this is my favourite.

You are tagged if you want to have a go.

Right diagnosis, wrong prescription

There is an interesting article in Christianity Today suggesting that it is time for Christians to reassess their perpetual outrage. The author, Christopher Hays, argues that many artists court attention by producing offensive material in the hope that people will respond and therefore generate valuable publicity. Hays rightly argues that Christians are too quick to react with outraged comment and this simply serves the purposes of those they attack:

To rise above the billowing waves of culture, the latter-day Voltaire need only to offend a small-but-vocal subset of Christians. But unlike Jonathan Edwards's angry God, the Christian culture rages ineffectually, merely providing sound bites for the familiar stories in the mainstream media.

By overreacting when some hack misrepresents the biblical story, however, we send the message that the misrepresentation is more surprising and controversial than the genuine article.

Though I think Hays’ gets the diagnosis right, that Christians too readily take offence and then take to the blog, Facebook page or tweet, I believe his prescription for the problem misses the mark. Hays’ argues that Christians should simply ignore the controversial:

A thought experiment: Imagine if every Christian leader who was invited to comment on the next Dan Brown book simply said, "Why are you calling about this? You know his books are fictional, they're boring to anyone informed, and they're kind of poorly written." No facts, no offense taken—no story.

While many Christians crave the catharsis of rebuttal, a passage from Proverbs balances this sentiment against the wisdom of stoical restraint: "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes" (26:4-5).

While this might be a good response for some attention seekers, I want to argue for a more creative response. Not to protest and condemn, nor to ignore, but to positively engage with the controversy. Take Philip Pullman whose novel The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ Hays specifically cites. When the book was published Christians reacted creatively by reviewing the book and noting it’s strengths and weaknesses. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s review of the book is a good example of this more positive approach and is more powerful for its measured tone. ++Rowan has been happy to discuss Pullman’s Dark Materials work with the author, taking the opportunity to respectfully challenge the caricature of Christianity presented by Pullman. In fact, it was in response to ++Rowan’s observation that the church in Pullman’s trilogy had no Jesus and cross that Pullman wrote The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.

For several years I have been involved with colleagues in running a series of courses reflecting on how Christians engage with controversial portrayals of Christianity and Jesus. We have sought to explore the opportunities afforded by engagement rather than protest. Partly this is because many Christians in their swiftness to react have missed the point; the Life of Brian and The Last Temptation of Christ are a couple of notable examples we examine. Primarily we are keen to show how the more controversial works raise issues and questions that give the church a tremendous opportunity to engage and witness. When Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code came to the screen many churches used it as an opportunity to invite people to explore the claims made by the film and to present an alternative understanding of the issues, including the nature of the gospels, the formation of the canon of scripture and early church history.

So yes, Christians should be slower to react with predictable outrage. But rather than ignore the controversies, I would encourage Christians to engage with the issues raised and explore creatively alternative responses.

Stuck in the middle

Sad to hear the news that Gerry Rafferty has died. He is probably best known for Baker Street with its iconic saxophone riff but my favourite song is Stuck in the Middle with You which he recorded with Stealers Wheel. The song returned to prominence thanks to its use as a backing track to the torture scene in Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. I remember listening to the song on the radio while doing my paper round in the early 1970s. Reports suggest Rafferty died of acute liver failure, a fate shared by too many of his contemporaries.

Prime Time (rant alert)

I’m fairly relaxed about programme and film content on T.V. but there are limits. On Saturday night those limits were tested during the prime time family viewing slot on ITV 1 and to a lesser extent earlier on BBC 1.

First up Strictly Come Dancing: BBC1 6.30pm. Over recent years we’ve enjoyed watching Strictly as a family, confident in some genuine light entertainment as well as some heavy stomping entertainment. True, one has to cope with Bruce Forsyth’s decline and the producers keep messing about with the format. However, it’s great fun watching the likes of Anne Widdecombe and John Sargeant staggering round the stage, desperately pursued by professional partners trying to discover some semblance of rhythm or poise. Then there’s the pleasure in seeing someone emerge who discloses genuine hidden talent. This year has been no exception and we are looking forward to the final with, as Dr. Frank-N-Furter would say, anticipation.

Yet, I’m becoming uneasy with certain aspects of Strictly and I don’t just mean the sexism and ageism that led to the dumping of Arlene Phillips as a judge. There is a slight desperation about the way some of the male celebrities are encouraged to reveal their muscular spray tanned torsos before you can say the word Fleckerl. Certain female professional dancers appear to be in a competition to see who can wear the least without suffering a ‘wardrobe malfunction’. Then there are the dance moves that go beyond the subtly suggestive to the down and dirty. That’s fine in a film like Dirty Dancing (I think it was shown later in the evening) where it does what it says on the tin, but I’m not so keen on watching Matt Baker making sexual grinding motions towards his dance partner as she lies splayed on the dance floor at 7pm. Interestingly, the judges criticised Matt and Aliona for this particular contribution to their choreography, suggesting it was rather gratuitous.

Then it was over the channel for The X Factor: ITV1 7.30pm. This show is hard to watch and even harder to listen to at the best of times. It’s made more bearable by following the Twitter stream and full marks to a certain bishop from Liverpool who left the Twitterati in no doubt about his views on the qualities of the finalists. The kids enjoy X Factor and I’d rather watch it with them and discuss the merits of the latest victims of Simon Cowell’s bid for pop world domination, than abandon them to his machinations. What I hadn’t anticipated was just how far Cowell and chums were prepared to push the boundaries when it came to the performances of the guest singers.

Take That were O.K., though I nearly had a coronary when my wife declared that she wished she had tickets for their latest tour. Rumour has it Cowell stopped them singing a number called Kidz accompanied by dancers dressed as riot police. A spokesman for the band is quoted as saying: ‘It was decided after (the) afternoon's rehearsals that the timing and content of the performance was not appropriate so soon after the violence that erupted at protests in London’. Probably a wise move.

Rihanna and Christina Aguilera were a different story. I really don’t understand how anyone can say that this was suitable prime time viewing for the family. I can do without my young son being exposed to the joys of lap dancing clubs and burlesque shows at 8.30pm on a Saturday evening. I can do without my young daughter being encouraged to think that the only way for a female singer to get on in the music industry is to take off her clothes and bump and grind her way across the stage pressed between the bodies of other scantily clad women. And don’t give me the argument that Ms Aguilera was promoting a film; if she’d provided the soundtrack for the Exorcist I wouldn’t expect to see her covered in sores, strapped to a bed, head spinning and spewing all over the stage. All that was missing were the interminable adverts promoting Babestation and dodgy phone chat lines.

If broadcasters are going to schedule and promote these shows as prime time family viewing then they need to exercise some judgement and restraint when it comes to content. Both these shows were heavily trailed in the preceding days, attracted massive publicity and were likely to draw huge audiences given that one was a semi-final and the other the final. I don’t care if this is how these artists perform on tour, or if this is a taste of what their videos are like, I don’t expect it to be shoved in my children’s faces on early Saturday evening television.

Saturday evening was a good reminder that as a parent I shouldn’t delegate responsibility for my children’s television viewing and I can’t trust programme producers to observe mainstream broadcasting standards. It’s no surprise that the X Factor has attracted over 5000 complaints making it the most complained about show in ITV history.

I left blogging about this for a couple of days in order to avoid a rant. Sorry, I failed.

Warning: religious symbolism!

When Claudia Winkleman captured the Film 2010 gig on the BBC I was non too impressed and doubted she was really up to occupying a chair once graced by Barry Norman and then sullied by Jonathan Ross. Winkleman has cornered the ditzy and sometimes wry presenter market with her role on Strictly Come Dancing. To be fair she does it very well in a format that suits her gifts. Having seen her in film reviewer mode I felt that the jury was out, until last night.

Ms Winkleman and her side kick Danny Leigh were reviewing the latest offering in the Narnia series Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Everything was going fine, some interesting insights into the making of the film and the direction Michael Apted had chosen to take the series. Part way through the segment Liam Neeson, who provides the voice of Aslan, mentions C S Lewis’s conversion from atheism to Christianity and a short clip of Reepicheep, the valiant mouse, saying ‘We have nothing if not belief’ underlines the point. Back to the studio and Winkleman and Leigh make some straightforward comments about the plot and the action sequences.

Then comes this comment from Ms Winkleman:

‘We ought to warn people… there’s a lot of religious symbolism…’

I had to watch the clip back a couple of times to make sure I’d heard correctly and that Ms Winkleman wasn’t being arch and I honestly don’t think she was. (Episode 9 26mins in on iPlayer) Ironically, Ms Winkleman goes on to admit her son didn’t get the allusions.

So this is the stage we’ve now reached. A presenter feels it necessary to issue a warning to people that a children’s film might contain religious symbolism. In times gone by parents feared their children attending the cinema because of the danger they might be corrupted by the loose morals of Hollywood. Today parents have to be warned that their children might be in some way infected by Christianity.

Body matters

The BBC had to apologise to British tennis player Laura Robson after their commentator David Mercer referred to her ‘puppy fat’. The sixteen year old was playing in the second round juniors match at  Wimbledon when Mercer made the comment. Having seen Robson play and the pictures of her I can’t work out what Mercer is on about. However, even if she was slightly heavier, so what? She is a teenager growing up and her body is changing and developing all the time; the last thing Laura needs is some sixty year old man going on about her body weight. Robson is now through to the semi finals, so she can’t be that unfit!

Why did this comment rile me so much? During my time as a parish priest I ministered to a family whose teenage daughter became anorexic following a hurtful remark about her body weight. She was a perfectly healthy young girl who transformed before our eyes into little more than a skeleton looking much older than her age. Eventually she was admitted to hospital where I visited her regularly and after an extensive period of treatment she overcame the illness and returned to being a healthy normal teenager. The pain and anguish she, her family and the wider church family experienced was terrible.

My father-in-law Professor David Mattingly, who died last year, was a brilliant physician and a leading contributor to research on Anorexia. The focus of his work was on the physiological aspects of the illness rather than the psychological and he published a very influential work titled The Diagnosis of Anorexia Nervosa with S. Bhanji in 1982. David worked with and treated many young women who were starving themselves to death because of their perceptions about their bodies.

I have a young daughter who will soon be entering her teens and I am very aware of all the pressures she faces in a society which places so much emphasis on appearance. She and her friends are continually bombarded with images, often digitally or surgically altered images, of what a young woman should look like. The sexualisation of childhood, the forensic analysis of female celebrities’ weight by the gossip magazines, the physiologically absurd shape of Barbie dolls and certain models, are just part of the context in which girls are growing up. They will be naturally self conscious enough about their bodies as they change without ill informed and potentially damaging comments about how they should look.

I realise that there are challenging issues around obesity facing our society, with potentially serious consequences for individuals and for the wider community. However, I can’t help feeling that there is a certain amount of body fascism around which would decree that women like Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe were seriously overweight in their prime. Our young people need to hear words of affirmation and love at a time of uncertainty, self consciousness and change during puberty, that they might join with the psalmist in declaring:
‘I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.’ Psalm 139:14

xfactor nightmare

I’m reading Ben Elton’s Chart Throb; it is to Xfactor what The Thick Of It is to Government. The book is a vicious satire on the Reality T.V. industry; mapping out the cynical manipulation of contestants and viewing public to powerful effect in Elton’s typically over the top pastiche. Best bits so far are the Prince of Wales as a contestant singing Jerusalem as his audition piece and Beryl as one of the judges; a former satanic rocker who has had a sex change and stars in her own T.V. series about her family life. Chart Throb makes watching Xfactor great fun as we spot all the ploys, gimmicks and pre-planned shenanigans of what must be the epitome of debased popular culture. Oh, hang on a minute, I got that last bit wrong, here comes I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

But could this be the real Xfactor nightmare?

h/t @JohnPrescott

guitar praise

I thought this had to be a wind up but it looks like there really is a Christian version of Guitar Hero being marketed called Guitar Praise. Check out the video and then check out Peter Banks’s superb devastating critique of the product entitled ‘The Devil Inside…’ You may also be interested in David Keen’s observations on these 'Christian' products entitled Markets need Morals 2.

Every time I think Christian sub culture marketing gurus can’t get any worse they prove me wrong.

h/t Memorybanks

goodbye Chas & Dave

A cultural body blow delivered today with the news that Chas & Dave are finally splitting up after four decades together. I saw Chas & Dave open for Led Zeppelin at Knebworth in 1979 when they led the rather damp punters in a lunch time cockney sing a long featuring many of their hits. Can't say it was the highlight of the event but it certainly warmed up the crowd. Following the death of his wife, Sue Peacock, Dave has decided to lay down his bass and give it a rest. As Pete Broadbent, the Bishop of Willesden, tweeted this morning:
'With Chas and Dave splitting up, there's only one word with which to start the day - Gertcha!'

United 93

There has been a plethora of programmes and films on T.V. over the last few days to mark the anniversary of 9/11. By far the best I have seen so far is United 93, a powerful film about the flight of the United Airlines plane that crashed before reaching its designated target. The film was shown on ITV and to their credit they showed the film without the interruption of adverts.

United 93 is a docudrama by British film maker Paul Greengrass and based on recordings, interviews and testimonies from many of those involved in the unfolding horror of 9/11. Several of the participants in the events play themselves in the film, giving the unfolding narrative authenticity and avoiding the melodrama of offerings like Oliver Stone’s World Trade Centre. The story begins with the hijackers preparing to depart for the airport and passengers going through the mundane process of checking in for an everyday internal flight. Knowing what is to come, there is genuine tension from the start in watching as late passengers check in and people make routine phone calls before take off. The flight is backed up due to heavy air traffic and there is a real possibility that it won’t take off before news comes in of the other terrorist attacks. The short glimpses of passengers reactions when the plane finally takes to the air are truly poignant because the viewer knows what is to come.

The film depicts the reactions to the unfolding horror from several perspectives; the passengers and crew of the plane, air traffic controllers and the military . What emerges is the chaos and confusion as well as the inability to comprehend what is happening and how to respond. Some of the most effective scenes are the reaction shots as controllers watch the second plane crashing into the World Trade Centre; no one can quite believe what they are watching and all are struck dumb as the fireball envelopes the top of the tower.

The later half of the film focuses on the events inside United 93 during its last few minutes in the air. There is a certain amount of speculation as to exactly what happened but much of the story is pieced together from the phone calls to loved ones made by the passengers. It gradually dawns on the captive passengers that this is not a straightforward hijacking as they hear news of the Trade Centre attacks and the explosion at the Pentagon. The decision to try and retake the plane is no gung-ho act of bravado typical of Hollywood blockbusters, but the hesitant conclusion drawn by terrified men and women who see no alternative course of action. The last few moments are truly harrowing as the passengers almost succeed in over powering the hijackers before the all too familiar final event.

From start to finish United 93 maintains an almost unbearable tension, remarkable for a film in which the ending is so well known. The routine of the flight, the ordinariness of the passengers, the disbelief and confusion of those responding to the unthinkable, the breakdown of communication between the authorities and uncertainty about how to react, all effect a realism seldom achieved on the big or small screen. United 93 comes as close as any film can in creating a fitting tribute to those caught up directly in the tragedy of 9/11.

iPhone application – a moral compass?

Over the past few days it can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that Apple have launched a new iPhone packed, as the blurb says, with new features. One of the new applications is a compass, so I trekked into the local O2 store to have a look and was quite impressed with the overall package. However, the charges for an iPhone + tariff are still extortionate so I think I’ll hold off for a while.

One of the secrets of the iPhone’s success has been identified as the massive market that has developed in applications for the device. Now I’ve spotted a gap in the market. What we really need is not a compass but, to use Gordon Brown’s phrase, a ‘moral compass’. The news in recent months has been full of stories that point to moral ambiguities and uncertainties not only at the heart of society but also in our hearts as citizens of that society; we seem to lack a framework for how we should live in relation to one another and the wider world around us.

Habitat, the trendy high street store, has been attracting a great deal of opprobrium for its use of Twitter. The story is that some bright spark at Habitat thought it would be a good idea to attach Twitter hash tags connected with the situation in Iran to Tweets (twitter messages). When anyone entered #iran on Twitter to get an update on Iran the list of tweets would include those from Habitat directing people to particular products. It was a cheap marketing gimmick, in the poorest taste, exploiting the political turmoil in Iran. The ‘cunning plan’ has backfired in typical Baldrick manner and angered and alienated many users of Twitter and potential Habitat customers.

The chastened company has apologised profusely and sought to explain the situation and you can read more about the sorry tale here Habitat twits. Whether it was an individual’s mistake or a company decision to follow this marketing strategy, one has to ask why no one thought this was a bad idea. Bad, in the sense of it not going to work and also in the moral sense that it was wrong to exploit the Iranian turmoil to try and sell products. Would they ever have dreamed of using the deaths of British soldiers in Afghanistan to sell bed linen or cutlery? What moral framework do these companies and their employees operate within?

There are plenty of other examples. The politicians who racked up huge expenses on the most bizarre items because they could get away with it and ‘it was within the rules’. Did no alarm bell start ringing in their brains to suggest the rules were wrong? Wealthy financiers, employing armies of accountants to exploit the loopholes to ensure that they and their companies avoid paying tax on their astronomical earnings and profits. The same financiers who throw a hissy fit and threaten to leave the country as soon as a government minister threatens to close the loopholes. What ethical values inform their decisions and behaviour?

I feel uncomfortable when I read these stories and I feel uneasy commenting on them. Why? Because I wonder what I would do placed in the same situation. If I was an MP in parliament would I be caught up in the ‘everyone’s doing it’ (no they’re not) and ‘it is within the rules’ culture? When I fill in my tax return I know the temptation is there to pad the deductible allowances. One of the most sickening aspects of the moral outrage directed first at the bankers, then at MPs and now at BBC executives over salaries and expenses, is that many of those hurling the stones are not so very different.

Michael Gove, the Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, has had to pay back several thousand pounds of expenses. Before becoming an MP the same Michael Gove was a journalist. Now did Mr Gove experience an ontological change when he became an MP, so that he suddenly thought it was OK to do things he wouldn’t have done as a journo? The idea that journalists are some how a different moral breed is laughable and I’ve heard more than the odd comment from journalists admitting that they are hardly pure when it comes to claiming expenses. Let us not forget that many of those who own and dictate the editorial policies of our media are not averse to ensuring the most favourable tax positions for themselves and very anxious to keep their finances away from public scrutiny. The Barclay brothers who own the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, which has led the MPs’ expenses campaign, dictate operations from their private fiefdom in the Channel Islands.

The simple truth is that all of us are flawed and in need of a moral compass. Just think about how many of us will vote at the next general election; can we honestly say that our voting intentions will be based on what will ensure the common good rather than what will favour our own personal circumstances?

Actually, now I come to think about it I already have a moral compass on my smart phone; it’s called The Bible. My problem is not that I don’t have a moral compass but that I don’t look at it enough and act on what it says.

ours is a seduced world

God of all truth, we give thanks for your faithful utterance of reality.

In your truthfulness, you have called the world ‘very good.’

In your truthfulness, you have promised,

‘I have loved you with an everlasting love.’

In your truthfulness, you have assured,

‘This is my beloved Son.’

In your truthfulness, you have voiced, ‘Fear not, I am with you.’

In your truthfulness, you have guaranteed that

‘Nothing shall separate us from your love

in Jesus Christ.’

It is your truthfulness that we love.

And yet, we live in a world phoney down deep

in which we participate at a slant.

Ours is a seduced world,

where we call evil good and good evil,

where we put darkness for light and light for darkness,

where we call bitter sweet and sweet bitter (Isa 5:20),

where we call war peace and peace war,

so that we rarely see the truth of the matter.

Give us courage to depart the pretend world of euphemism,

to call things by their right name,

to use things for their right use,

to love our neighbour as you love us.

Overwhelm our fearful need to distort,

that we may fall back into your truth-telling about us,

that we may be tellers of truth and practitioners of truth.

We pray in the name of the One whom you have filled

with ‘grace and truth.’ Amen.

Walter Brueggemann: On reading Jeremiah 23 / October 29, 2001

In The Prophetic Imagination Walter Brueggemann declares:

‘the task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us’.

Brueggemann explores the patterns of prophecy in the Old Testament in order to inspire and challenge the church to engage in such ministry today. The teacher is also the practitioner and this prayer from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth is a powerful example of Brueggemann’s prophetic sensitivity to contemporary culture. There is beauty and goodness in our culture, though one would be hard pressed to recognise this from the picture mediated to us through the press and broadcast industry. Yet, there is also a sense that we live in an age where we no longer know what is true and what is false and where public policy and private judgement are dictated by what is perceived to be popular and what we can get away with.

Brueggemann calls us to re-orientate ourselves and our society around the One who is truth, the One who can be trusted. The prayer suggests that our flight to the ‘pretend world of euphemism’ is driven by fear and fear does seem to be a dominant feature of our culture. Politicians react to the agenda set by the media, guided by the Daily Mail test rather than by conviction and increasingly terrified of rejection. The press, pandering to the cynicism of a public which they have engendered, publish what they think sells; driven by the need to maintain or increase circulation figures in an era of diminishing returns. Broadcasters abandon the calling to produce what informs, educates and entertains, for fear that viewers and listeners will abandon what does not offer instant gratification.

Ours is a Seduced World is a prophetic call to hear the truth about ourselves and so be released to speak and embody truth, not in a spirit of judgementalism but in the conviction that ‘the truth shall set you free’.

son of rambow

In the midst of all the cynicism swirling around it was refreshing to spend a couple of hours watching a highly amusing story about the developing friendship of two misfits. Son of Rambow was a birthday present I hadn’t got round to watching but it was well worth the wait.

Will is a young boy separated from the surrounding culture by his family’s commitment to the Plymouth Brethren. Whenever his school class watches a T.V. programme Will has to leave the room and he has no experience of popular entertainment. Lee, the school trouble maker, starts out seeking to manipulate Will into helping him make a film and they end up forming a close friendship.

Son of Rambow revolves around the making of a sequel to the 80s adventure Rambo: First Blood. Lee wants to enter his masterpiece for a Screen Test competition and after showing Will a pirate copy of Rambo, convinces him to act as his central character and stunt man. There are some wonderful moments including Eric Sykes as an old man in a home, dressed up as Rambo and filmed while completely oblivious to what is going on. My wife’s favourite scenes feature a French exchange student, Didier Revol, who exudes a cool sophistication and is hero worshipped by many of the young boys at school. Didier, weighed down by existential boredom, finds out about the film project and insists on joining in and using his followers as the production crew.

The soundtrack of 1980s hits reminds me just how bad so much of the music from that period was. Themes explored include the nature of friendship and the relationship between religion and culture. The film is heart-warming, nostalgic and fun; a good antidote to the jaundiced world view offered by so much entertainment around at the moment.

I'm mad as hell......

In the film Network T.V. presenter Howard Beale (Peter Finch) breaks down live on air. He rails against all the problems of society and finishes with the cry ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore’. Beale then invites his viewers to go to their windows and shout the same response and many do. The UBS T.V. network give Beale his own show which becomes a ratings winner as he pours out his invective and the ‘mad as hell’ line becomes his catchphrase.

Network is an excoriating satire on the ills of the broadcasting media. The T.V. network isn’t interested in the message or the effect it has on viewers and on society, they are only interested in ratings. Eventually Beale begins to lose viewers as his message becomes more depressing and he calls for the public to oppose a UBS merger. In the search for even higher ratings producer Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) arranges with a terrorist group to have Beale assassinated. The film ends with Beale being shot to death live on air and as the narrator states that Beale was the first man ever murdered because of bad ratings, an array of televisions play newscasts reporting the incident matter-of-factly, intermixed with the noise of commercials.

Network won four Oscars including a posthumous award for Peter Finch and its message seems as relevant today as it did back in 1976. I couldn't help thinking about the film as I reflected on the frustrations many people are feeling and expressing over the issues facing our society. The film also seems relevant with the questions it raises about the way the media handle coverage of those issues. Anyway, check out Finch's brilliant performance.