Entertainment: Narnia-ization of the Church.
I love movies and all kinds of entertainment (in case you haven't noticed). Over the past several months I have been recieving all sorts of emails from the folks at the Chronicles of Narnia promotions department (because Im the youth pastor at my church, Im on some mailing lists). At first I was curious about the upcoming film. Well the emails were getting old and I started doing some critical thinking. If you are really into this whole Narnia thing then you should probably stop reading now. Here are a few articles I found and I was disturbed by:
1.) "The movie is linked to about 80 different brands ranging from Honey Nut Cheerios to Quilted Northern bath tissue to McDonald's Happy Meals." Bath tissue is the nice way to say toilet paper. Yes, Narnia T-P! I wonder if its 2 ply?
2.)" It's been a busy week in the media at First Baptist! CNN featured the church and its Narnia initiative on Showbiz Tonight and other Tuesday programs. New Sunday series for Advent!" These are the headlines from a church website.
3.) "Enter the SermonCentral.com Narnia Sermon Sweepstakes and win a FREE Trip to London, England ? The Land of C.S. Lewis!"
Oh my goodness! Read this article and cry! What happened to good Bible teaching, you know of the verse-by-verse flavor. Get rewarded for the best sermon about the movie....unreal.
All of this to say, I saw the movie today. It wasn't because I bought some toilet paper or a Happy Meal or because I needed an idea for a sermon. I saw it because I wanted to be entertained, and I was. I also was moved and impressed with the effort. But lets not get carried away with the whole Disney-induced Narnia propaganda-fest targeted towards the naive and deep pocketed Evangelical Christian community.
posted by Chris Goeppner @ 7:26 PM
3 Comments:
Good movie. Good message. Too bad the hype isn't about what C.S. Lewis had intended for his story. Lewis wanted to communicate the truth of the Gospel. The Deep Magic. Hopefully, somehow, the following verse will be fulfilled in the season of Commerce over Christ:
Phil 1:17-19
Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me. But whether or not their motives are pure, the fact remains that the message about Christ is being preached, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice. For I know that as you pray for me and as the Spirit of Jesus Christ helps me, this will all turn out for my deliverance.
I saw the movie on Sunday with about 300+ people. Our Church sponsored a private screening. It afforded us an opportunity to invite people that wouldn't regularly go to our church (which meets in the same theater) to gather with us and have a good time. At the end of the movie Bob said a few words, invited our guest to come back next sunday and we gave out a whole bunch of Bibles. It was an awesome time. I think if there would have been movie theaters back when they wrote Act 2 they would have thrown in "and saw a 'flick' together."
Great Movie! Nice Post!
But the movie has a hidden connection to Jesus! And I'm a Christian! Doesn't that mean I should throw my wholehearted and ignorant support behind the movie before I've even seen it?
Your comments were just what I expected from an "emerging" Christian.
I may not blog for a while - I'll be spending all my time covered in full body paint to promote the new Narnia movie.
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