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Faith, Film and Philosophy November 28, 2007

Posted by Brent Cunningham in : blog , 2 comments
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faith-film-philosophy

The political writer Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun Scotland, once remarked, “Give me the making of the songs of a nation, and I care not who writes its laws.”  Imagine, a politician claiming not to care about who writes his nation’s laws!  Reason being, Fletcher knew where the real movement of cultural shift comes from—storytellers.  Fletcher was aware of the enormous power behind a nation’s songs. 

Songs are essentially stories.  They tell accounts of love won and lost, of victory and defeat, joy and sorrow, goodness and evil.  That is, they attempt to weave reality together for us and speak into our worldview.  And while many other areas of culture attempt to do the same (e.g., civic laws, moral preaching, etc.) it is the arts (e.g., music, poetry, film, etc.) which has the strongest and most pervasive reach into a culture.  Turn on your radio, flip on your TV, or step into a theater and powerful worldview ideas are being communicated and are vying for your acceptance.  The tricky thing is that we are often completely unaware of this ability of the arts to do this.  Therefore, we stroll into these settings with our guards down. (more…)

What were the criteria for New Testament books? November 20, 2007

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Ruler1

Everything is simpler as a child. Reality seems less complex than it does when you’re older and you’ve investigate it more thoroughly. As a child I remember just assuming that the Bible had more or less “dropped out of Heaven.” Not literally, or course, but I did imagine that the process of receiving God’s revelation in print as recorded in the Bible had been less complex then it really was. Looking back, I guess that I had a view of divine revelation which was much more commensurate with the Islamic or Mormon explanation. After all, wouldn’t it be cleaner if we could just believe that God more or less dictated to a “secretary” or dropped down pages of golden texts? (more…)

A missionary family needing a place to stay November 19, 2007

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monopoly house

As you’ll see this isn’t one of my usual blogs. However, I wanted to let all you local people know about a need for some very dear people who have been actively engaged in an outreach which is close to my heart. A missionary couple, Jon and Anita Hinkson who work in campus ministry (Rivendell Institute) at Yale University with Campus Crusade for Christ have recently come to Fort Collins with their three young daughters in pursuit of medical treatment for the wife and mother Anita. (more…)

Is there any substance to the “New Atheism”? November 13, 2007

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army-man

Back in 1966 (April 8) TIME magazine ran a story outlining the then contemporary movement within American religion to declare the concept of “God” as passé.  In fact the cover of TIME read, “Is God Dead” in large red letters with an all black background.  The philosophical movement called logical positivism, then still popular, asserted that theological assertions (statements about God) were absolutely meaningless because they could not be verified by science, logic, or mathematics (empirical or self-evident truths).  However, it was only a year later (Dec 26, 1969) when TIME ran another cover story with the words, “Is God Coming Back To Life.”  It noted the movement to rediscover theism within the academic disciplines. (more…)

The hero that moral relativism produces November 7, 2007

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Hero Relativism

The problems with holding to some form of moral relativism are nearly endless.  Still, the view that say, “when it comes to making moral decisions it’s really up to the individual (individual relativism) or group (cultural relativism),” seems to practically be the rule of the day.  Modern ‘wisdom’ says that due to the profound influence of our individual or cultural perspectives (our personal take on things), none of us can really claim to know the truth about things (at least those things which are outside of our own minds).  Therefore, we opt for the word “belief” instead of “knowledge.”  And while there are so many places where we can apply critical thinking to the poor reasoning of moral relativism, there’s one particular point that I think makes great headway with those swayed by this moral viewpoint. (more…)