Contemporary cinema is asking five key questions, a speaker at Catalyst Live said. Questions that, if we are willing to engage, Christians can help society answer.
What do “Sherlock Holmes,” “Planet of the Apes,” “Tangled,” “Inception,” “Batman” and “Love Actually” have to do with Christianity?
At Catalyst Live, Tom Price, tutor at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and associate tutor at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, England, explored this question. Engaging with films like these is a contemporary application of Jesus’ and Paul’s ministries, Price said.
Films ask questions, Price said, and Jesus asked hundreds of questions when he walked on the Earth: “Do you love me?” and “Who do you say I am?” and “What were you doing when you walked along?”
For his part, Paul quoted and dialogued with philosophers and artists – the ‘”filmmakers” of his time.
For Price, engaging with films can be part of our Christian mission on this earth, and he believes films ask five fundamental questions:
1. How can we know the truth?
2. What should we do in a world of complicated ethical choices?
3. How do we find love?
4. What is wrong with us? Why do we do these horrible things to each other?
5. What will help us find purpose and hope in our lives?
These are questions that everyone, Christian or not, asks at some point in their lives.
Becoming a Christian himself in part through questions arising from films he watched, Price explored how Christians can use film to open up discussions about God.
At Catalyst Live in Sheffield and Reading, he took the film “Inception” as an example and looked at the way the theme of regret runs throughout the film – even in its soundtrack, scored around Edith Piaf’s “Non, Je Ne Regretted Rien” (“No, I Regret Nothing”).
Price concluded his address by urging attendees to “connect with art, deploy apologetics, open Scripture and invite people into relationship with Christ.”
Sarah Stone is a writer for BMS World Mission. A version of this news article first appeared on the BMS World Mission website. It is used with permission. You can follow Stone on Twitter @Sarah_Stone and BMS @BMSWorldMission.
Editor’s note: A photo news story from Catalyst Live 2014 is available here. Previous articles about Catalyst Live include:
Martin Accad: The Silent Majority in the Middle East Seeks Peace
Walter Brueggemann: Churches Should Be Source of Greater Honesty
Tanya Walker: Morality Without God Is No More Than a Feeling
Sir John Houghton: Awe-Inspiring Science Can Convict Us to Save Our World
