Postmodern Christians and Million Dollar Baby–When Storytelling is Dangerous (Movie spoilers)

Date February 28, 2005 Posted by Amy Hall

We saw tonight the dangers of using stories to pass on your ideas to others.  The Academy Award for Best Picture went to Million Dollar Baby–a movie with the despicable message that if you're handicapped, your life isn't worth living, and it's a noble and brave thing for you to end it (I wonder what Christopher Reeve's widow would have to say about that).  What makes all of this so disturbing is that I've heard several Christians (smart and good people) say they loved the movie, recommending it to others.

 

Now obviously, if you were to ask these same people, “Do you think that assisted suicide is a beautiful thing if a person suddenly becomes handicapped, and would you like to promote that idea?” they would say, “Of course not!”  How, then, were they taken in by this movie?  It's simple.  Stories have a way of getting around our defenses.  They bypass our minds and go straight for our hearts.  Suddenly, the gatekeeper for what we accept is not our minds, but our emotions.  Million Dollar Baby moves us–hooray!  We love it!  We let it in, and the ideas enter into us, sneaking past the part of us that knows better.

 

Storytelling is effective for those promoting ideas and dangerous for those who are taking them in if they're not careful.  This is one of the biggest problems I have with postmodern Christians such as McLaren who promote storytelling as the best way to communicate ideas.  In his book A New Kind of Christian, McLaren avoids having to openly defend his ideas by embedding them in a story.  Not surprisingly, he ends up using emotional–and I would even say manipulative–language and imagery as his main method of persuasion (you can see examples of this in the critique at the end of my summary of his book here).  This is extremely effective for McLaren.  If he doesn't make open arguments, who can refute him?  The reader absorbs the ideas and comes away with a sense that anyone who opposes McLaren's view is going against the Holy Spirit–even though McLaren has not given concrete reasons to believe this is the case.  Further, McLaren denigrates the very idea of analysis and debate, successfully convincing the reader not to analyze McLaren's ideas (lest he be “a Pharisee”).  Once this opposition is removed, the reader easily accepts the ideas.

 

Now, whether or not McLaren is correct in the ideas he is promoting is not at issue here.  I am merely saying that it is not wise to listen to any sort of storytelling without carefully paying attention to and analyzing the ideas you find there.

Related posts:

  1. Movie Review: Star Wars- Revenge of the Sith (NO Spoilers)
  2. Valuing Apologetics in a Postmodern World
  3. Is Religion Dangerous?
  4. Loneliness and the Postmodern View of Language
  5. Engaging the Culture as Christians
  6. Responding as Christians

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Culture, Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.