by Gary David Stratton, PhD

“The disciples had been with Christ, and seen Him pray.  They had learnt to understand something of the connection between His wondrous life in public, and His secret life of prayer.  They had learnt to believe in Him as a Master in the art of prayer—none could pray like Him.  And so they came to Him with the request, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.” -Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer, 1895 [1]

Jesus formed strong bonds of friendship with his students, even his problem ones (Confronting Judas, 'The Passion of the Christ,' 2005)

While Jesus of Nazareth never established a brick and mortar school in the modern sense of the word, the discipleship movement he founded was a collegial learning community consistent with the “best-practices” of first-century education. In many ways the “School of Christ” was indistinguishable from the  Greco-Roman Liberal Arts Tradition and Jewish Rabbinic Higher Education. [2]

Like the Greek philosophical tradition, Jesus sought to lead his disciples into liberating truth. He told his students, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).

Like the Roman oratorical tradition, Jesus reserved his most intimate apprenticeship for leaders in training. Matthew, another key student, relates his highly personalized experience as a student-leader in the school of Christ: “He appointed twelve—designating them apostles–that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach” (Mark 3:14).

The Study and Interpretation of Torah was central to the School of Christ (Jesus in the Synagogue at Capernaum, 'The Greatest Story Ever Told,' 1969)

Like Rabbinic higher education, Rabbi Yeshua’s “curriculum” centered on the discipline of studying his teachings and interpretations of Torah. John, one of his closest friends, records that he taught his students, “If you hold to my teaching, then you are truly my disciples” (John 8:31).

Like all first-century higher education models, Jesus’ pedagogy was highly relational and centered on the creation of a learning community where master and disciples lived in close proximity to one another and forged a friendship. Like Socrates, he told his students, “I have called you friends” (John 15:13-15).

The Distinctive Practice of Prayer 

What distinguished the School of Christ from other first-century higher education was Jesus’ unique emphasis on the discipline of prayer. While prayer was part of all Rabbinic education, Jesus modeled a commitment to prayer far beyond the educational practices of his day.[3] Luke records no less that nine specific occasions when Jesus prayed with and/or modeled prayer for his students (3:21; 5:16; 6:12; 9:18,28; 10:17-21; 11:1; 22:39-46; 23:34,36). At least twenty-percent of Jesus’ parables and a significant portion of the “Sermon on the Mount” (Matt 6:5-15) centered on prayer. Jesus devoted nearly half of his “last lecture” (John 13-17) either praying with his students (John 17:1-26), or teaching his students about prayer (John 14:13-14; 15:7,16; 16:23-26).

Jesus invested over half of his "Last Lecture" praying with his disciples and/or teaching on prayer (The Last Supper in The Gospel of John, 2003)

For Jesus prayer and education were inseparable, because education and the knowledge of God are inseparable. Jesus taught his students that true spiritual life is found in knowing God (John 17:3). This emphasis was consistent with the Hebraic concept that to know is to experience. Whereas the object of the Greek education was to ‘know thyself,’ the desired outcome of Hebrew education was the knowledge of God.[4] Jesus’ learning outcomes demanded that his students encounter God not merely intellectually, but experientially as well. This experiential knowledge of God was to be sought not only through the discipline of study (as important as this might be), but in prayer as well. Through prayer, Jesus’ students experienced God both as Father and as King.

The Educational Purposes of Experiential Prayer: Abba Intimacy

The Lord’s Prayer grew directly out of Jesus’ practice of regularly praying together as a learning community, and illustrates at least two elements of Jesus’ “experiential” approach to knowing God. After years of teaching and modeling prayer, Jesus’ students finally ask their Rabbi, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus’ responds with a teaching we have come to know as “The Lord’s Prayer.” Like Jesus’ other educational practices, the Lord’s Prayer builds upon the the Rabbinic prayer tradition in order to recast it in bold new directions. The core components of the Lord’s Prayer would be very familiar to Jesus’ students. On one level, “The prayer is thoroughly Jewish”[6] and “could easily have appeared without change in Rabbinic literature.”[7] However, another level, the Lord’s Prayer highlights at least two unique aspects of prayer in the school of Christ.[8]

Some Rabbinic leaders thought Jesus went to far in extending the love of God the Father to 'sinners' (Franco Zeffirelli's 'Jesus of Nazareth,' 1977)

First, in teaching his disciples to address God as Abba, Jesus’ rooted the practice of prayer in his desire for his students to know the extravagant love of God the Father. While the fatherhood of God is absent from the Torah, it is clearly evident in the Prophets and Writings (Psalms 2:7; 89:26; Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah 63:16; 64:8; Jeremiah 3:4,19; Malachi 3:10) and later Rabbinic writings.[9] However, Jesus drew upon this Rabbinic tradition and deepened it in a manner that would have been nearly unthinkable for most Rabbis of his day. This emphasis runs throughout his teachings, (seeThe Parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-32), and is particularly evident in his approach to prayer.[10]

In this brief prayer, Jesus initiates his students into an intimate address of God as Father that must have been as breathtaking as it was formative. Renowned Near Eastern Studies scholar Joachim Jeremias discovered that “In the literature of Palestinian Judaism no evidence has yet been found of ‘My father,’ being used by an individual as an address to God… We do not have a single example of God being addressed as Abba in Judaism, but Jesus always addressed God in this way in his prayers.”[11]

It is an astonishing choice of words. Abba implies a close, personal and familial relationship. To “address God in such a colloquial way, with such intimacy, is hardly known in the Judaism of Jesus’ time… What others thought too intimate in praying to God, Jesus used because of its intimacy.”[12] What’s more, he taught his disciples to do the same. As New Testament scholar Joel Green asserts, Jesus’ teaching on prayer “begins and ends with references to God as the Father of his disciples.”[13]

Prayer was a critical educational practice, because in prayer students encountered genuine knowledge of God the Father. After the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, this experiential intimacy with the Father became even more pronounced for Jesus’ students (Romans 8:15; Galations 4:6). As Singaporean theologian Simon Chan  affirms, “Intimacy with God is what characterizes a life of prayer.”[24]

The Educational Purposes of Answered Prayer: Kingdom Inbreaking 

Jesus prays in public for the demonstration of kingdom power he has already obtained in private prayer (The Raising of Lazarus, 'The Gospel of John,' 2003)

Second, Jesus’ educational emphasis on prayer was intricately connected to his students experiencing the kingdom of God breaking into the world. Jesus’ central public teaching was his pronouncement that the much anticipated kingdom of God—“God’s reign redemptively at work among men”—was at hand, [17] so it is not surprising that the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer carry tremendous eschatological weight.

To ask that the Father’s name be hallowed, that his kingdom come, and that his will be done on earth as it is heaven are three different ways of asking the same thing.[14] “The God whom the disciples are taught to address with the name ‘my own dear Father’ (abba) is besought to reveal himself as Father once and for all at the end of time. The eschatological thrust of the petition is clear.”[15] “By addressing God as Father, and instructing his disciples to do likewise, Jesus renews and reframes the prophetic vision” for his students.[16] They were to repent and trust the Father who had created and sustained Israel as his kingdom was breaking into the this present evil age, in such a way that God’s name would be hallowed, and his will done on the earth as it is in heaven

Jesus taught his students how to enter into the coming of the kingdom, not only through faith, repentance, and prayer for “private” experiential knowledge of God, but also to pray for the “public” manifestation of the compassion and power of the Father God of the kingdom. Jesus’ Spirit-empowered ministry was a sign that the Messianic kingdom of God was breaking in upon the world (cf. Matthew 12:28).[19] He rarely proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom without also demonstrating the kingdom rule of God through miraculous answers to prayer (cf. Matthew 9:35-10:1).[18] Jesus believed that in fulfillment to the prophet Isaiah’ prophecies, the Spirit of the Lord was upon him not only to preach the gospel to the poor, but also “to proclaim release for the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind” (Is 61:1-2; Luke 4:18-19). Through the Spirit who was “upon” Jesus, God was exerting his “authority to rule” in order to bring about the will of God upon the earth that the Father intended in the heavens.[20]

“Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (The calming the sea, 'Jesus,' 1979)

Through answered prayer Jesus’ students experienced God as alive and active in the physical world. He modeled, mentored and coached his students into an increasing participation in supernatural answers to prayer. Jesus used answered prayer both to build the faith of his students (Luke 7:11; John 14:11); and to test their level of faith (Matthew 14:16).  He pressed his students to grow into a confidence that no prayer was too big for God (John 14:13-14; 15:7,16; 16:23-26).  He taught them that certain kinds of spiritual resistance could be overcome only through prayer (Mark 9:29). He assured them that miraculous answers to prayer they experienced in his earthly ministry would continue in the new era of the Spirit (John 14:12).

After their remarkable “graduation” ceremony from the School of Christ at Pentecost, Jesus’ students continued to advance the kingdom of God by praying for power of the Spirit to be released in supernatural answers to prayer (Acts 4:30-31); and built others’ faith in the kingdom of God by answers to prayer that demonstrated that the kingdom (rulership) of God was indeed breaking into the world. (Romans 15:9; 1 Corinthians 2:4).

Through both the intimacy of “Abba Prayer” and the supernatural power of “Kingdom prayer” the distinctive outcome of the graduates of the school of Christ was their experiential knowledge of God. Even in the midst of tremendous pressures of leadership, nothing could distract Jesus’ alumni from devoting themselves to the two key disciplines he had carefully cultivated within them: a very Rabbinic commitment to the ministry of the word, and a profoundly experiential life of prayer (Acts 6:4).  [21] His graduates not only knew about God and his word, they had experienced the Father God of the kingdom.

 The Oxymoron of Prayerless Christian Colleges

"My house shall be called a house of prayer!” (The cleansing of the temple, 'The Gospel of John,' 2003)

What would Jesus make of the experiential prayer practices of twenty-first century colleges and universities, especially those espousing to be “Christian”? I can’t say for sure, but it is difficult to escape the persistent image of a certain carpenter’s willingness to use a whip of cords to overturn (tuition) tables. Is it really that far fetched to imagine Jesus charging contemporary Christian higher education with the indictment, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ den.”

If we’re honest, the thought of re-integrating prayer into our learning communities sounds almost as impossible as it does absurd. There are countless historical factors (the East-West Schism, the Enlightenment, the German university model, etc.) and practical considerations (accreditation, curriculum, measurement, etc.) for how and why prayer is not currently part and parcel with higher education in the tradition of Jesus.  But are they good enough reasons not to try? Like us, Jesus could have settled for contemporary educational models relying solely upon the study of the Scriptures and Liberal Arts. He didn’t. Will we? If we are truly seeking to develop two-handed warriors distinguished by a commitment to both the life of the mind and the life of the Spirit, the issue could be life or death.

The Desperate Need for a More Experiential Faith

Jesus modeled a lifestyle of prayer right up to the end (The Garden of Gethsemane, 'The Passion of the Christ,' 2005)

It has been forty years since J.I. Packer warned the church, “One can know a great deal about God without much knowledge of him.” [22] Today, we may be danger of producing students who possess neither. If Christian Smith and Kenda Creasy Dean’s sobering research on the sorry spiritual state of today’s youth is to be believed, we are facing a generation of students who know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. (Matthew 22:9): students who are bored out of their minds with a Christian faith. And who can blame them.

We have managed to take a spiritually intimate and supernaturally powerful approach to education and made it as compelling as “whatever!” [23] Contemporary Christianity offers little of the “personal relationship with Jesus” students were promised in their youth groups and virtually no power whatsoever.  In a generation hungering for intimacy (especially parental intimacy) at an unprecedented level, can Christian higher education offer students pathways to encounter the Father’s transforming love? In a generation flocking to supernatural movies, television shows, and video games, can Christian higher education help students experience the kingdom of God breaking into the world in ways that defy all natural explanation?

Jesus would say that we can, but only if we summon the courage to cultivate educational communities of prayer. A recommitment to biblical literacy alone will never be enough to rescue a generation from “moralistic, therapeutic, deism.” [23] They need the experiential knowledge of God. We need to be able to offer students the power of answered prayer to break through the insipid deism of a materialistic worldview. We need to be able to offer students the intimacy of reflective prayer to encounter the love of the Father and evoke genuine love of God in return.  Half measures won’t cut it.

What on earth does prayer have to do with higher education? Nothing?  Everything?  You decide.

As for me, I can only cry out, “Lord, teach us to pray!”

.

Next post in series: Saint Patrick and the Liberal Arts: The Missional Future of Christian Higher Education.

Notes

[1] Murray, Andrew. 2007. With Christ in the School of Prayer. (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007).  Originally published in 1895, Murray’s work is a classic text for those seeking to grasp Jesus’ educational emphasis upon prayer.

[2] I am deeply indebted to Michael J. Wilkins for much of my understanding of the similarity between discipleship in the schools of Jesus, the Rabbis, and the Greeks., The concept of disciple in Matthew’s Gospel as reflected in the use of the term mathetes. (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1988); Following the master: a biblical theology of discipleship. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 1992); Discipleship in the Ancient World and Matthew’s Gospel. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker, 1995).

[3] George W. E. Nickelsburg, Ancient Judaism and Christian origins: diversity, continuity and transformation. (Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress, 2003).

[4] Marvin R. Wilson, Our father Abraham: Jewish roots of the Christian faith. (Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans, 1989), p. 288.

[5] The Lord’s Prayer is most likely a shortened version of the Shemoneh Esreh, eighteen benedictions every post-exilic Jew prayed nearly every day (also known as the Amidah.) Shortened forms like the one Jesus offers his disciples were normally used when there wasn’t time to recite all eighteen stanzas. For instance, Rabbi Eliezer, a contemporary of Jesus, taught an abbreviated version of the Shemoneh Esreh very similar to Rabbi Jesus: “May your will be done in heaven above, grant peace of mind to those who fear you [on earth] below, and do what seems best to you. Blessed are you, O LORD, who answers prayer.” David Bivin, “Prayers for Emergencies,” Jerusalem Perspective 37 (Mar./Apr. 1992), 1-17.

[6] Wilson, Our Father Abraham, p. 118.

[7] Samuel Sandmel, Judaism and Christian Beginnings (Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 358.

[8] Bradford H. Young, The Jewish Background of the Lord’s Prayer (Austin, TX: Center for Judaic-Christian Studies, 1984).

[9] N. T. Wright, Jesus and the victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 265. See also, Scot McKnight, A new vision for Israel: the teachings of Jesus in national context (Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999), p. 62-63.

[10] Darrell L. Bock, Luke 9:51-24:53. Baker exegetical commentary on the New Testament, 3B (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Books, 2007), p. 1062.

[11] Joachim Jeremias, The prayers of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), p. 57. The assertion is as true today as it was when when Jeremias first made it.

[12] James D.G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus (Philadelphia, Penn: Westminster, 1985), p. 21. See also Dunn, The partings of the ways: between Christianity and Judaism and their significance for the character of Christianity. (London: SCM Press, 1991), p. 170ff.

[13] Joel B. Green, The theology of the gospel of Luke. New Testament theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 111.

[14] James D. G. Dunn, The Christ and the spirit: collected essays of James D. G. Dunn. 2, Pneumatology. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans. 1998), p. 137-8; R. P. Menzies, The development of early Christian pneumatology (Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic, 1991), p. 184n

[15] John P. Meier, A marginal Jew: rethinking the historical Jesus. Anchor Bible reference library (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 2009), p. 297. See also, Scot McKnight, A new vision for Israel: the teachings of Jesus in national context (Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999), p. 62-64.

[16] Marianne Meye Thompson, The promise of the Father: Jesus and God in the New Testament (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 73-75.

[17] George Eldon Ladd, A theology of the New Testament. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1974), p. 108.

[18] Wilkins, Following the Master, p. 114-117.

[19] Colin Brown, Spirit, The Holy Spirit. In C. Brown, (Ed.), The New international dictionary of New Testament theology, 3 (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 1978),p. 696; Edward J. Woods, The ‘finger of God’ and pneumatology in Luke-Acts. Journal for the study of the New Testament, 205. (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), p. 153-4.

[20] Ladd, Theology of NT, p. 18

[21] David Michael Crump, Jesus the intercessor: Prayer and Christology in Luke-Acts (PhD Dissertation: University of Aberdeen, 1988).

[22] Knowing God (London: Evangelical Press, 1970), p. 16.

[23] Christian Smith, and Melinda Lundquist Denton. Soul searching: the religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Kenda Creasy Dean, Almost Christian: what the faith of our teenagers is telling the American church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

[24] Simon Chan, Spiritual theology: a systematic study of the Christian life. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 132.

Part 15 in series How Millennials Who Gave up on Church are Redefining Faith and Re-engaging Community

“Basileia Hollywood may be the only church in America where a celebrity can get up to visit the restroom and have his seat stolen by a homeless guy.”

-Overheard one Sunday

Basileia Community from ROCKHARBOR on Vimeo.

The Basileia Vision

by David Ruis

The vision for Basileia Hollywood is best summed up in two sentences: ”Friends sharing life, faith, and resources.” And, “We come together, because we can’t make it alone.”

“Friends sharing life, faith, and resources.” Basileia’s posture is that of “sharing.” This is quite different from that of simply “giving.” One can give of time, money and talent, and be quite disengaged in the ensuing transaction. Distant even.

To share is to be involved. To share redefines the way we handle our possessions. To share redefines the way we live out our faith in all contexts. Sharing life, faith and resource together requires a vulnerability and transparency that is only born of the fruit of the Spirit at work in community.  Sharing demands of us a meekness as we engage in cultural and systemic change in the society around us. We have set our compass here. It most certainly challenges us to swim upstream in the cultural milieu of LA/Hollywood, but we must turn our hearts towards this type of journey. (Acts 4:32-35; Galatians 5:19 – 6:10)

“We come together, because we can’t make it alone.” For the Basileia Community it impossible to flesh out these realities without building missional community. Relationships are central. One thing we love to say is, “We come together, because we can’t make it alone.”  Our resident theologian, Dr. Don Williams says it this way in his commentary on Galatians, Celebrate Your Freedom: “the truth of the gospel will be manifested in the quality of our relationships.” (p. 130)

Friendship is at the heart of it all. Jesus was known as the “friend of sinners” (Matthew 11:19) and makes the stunning declaration that He does not relate to us as “servants” but as “friends.” (John 15) He also states that there is “no greater love” than the love of one laying down their life for that of a “friend”. As we engage in our worship and step into the missional call of Christ upon us, we want to be a people marked by friendship, both with God and with each other.

Life. Faith. Resource. We want to bring it all to the table in surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit. Growing in our security that God is a good Father, and “our” Father, Jesus invites us to lay it all down, only to see it all resurrected again for His glory and the establishment of His kingdom. This really get’s us excited at Basileia.

We are all part of a bigger dream. God’s dream for LA and the world. A dream that involves us through the power of God’s Spirit going to “proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near” and to “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy” and to “drive our demons.” As freely we have received, we are to freely give. (Matthew 10:7-8)

Our whole lives are surrendered here. Our faith finds it’s fullest vibrancy and expression here, for a faith that is not in motion is a dead faith. Our resources of time, money and talent are well spent in embracing the call to seek first His kingdom and it’s justice, no matter what our lives end up being in His hands. (Matthew 6:33)

So, as we like to say around Basileia, “Welcome to the journey.”

See also: Can Anything Good Come from Hollywood? Acton Institute Interview with Gary David Stratton

by Billy Roberts

by Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., CEO and Founder, Public Religion Research Institute

Pastors and priests seeking to fill their pews with young churchgoers have a tough task ahead. According to a newly released survey, even before they move out of their childhood homes, many younger Millennials have already moved away from the religion in which they were raised, mostly joining the growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated.

The 2012 Millennial Values Survey, conducted jointly by Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, shows that college-age Millennials (ages 18-24) are more likely than the general population to be religiously unaffiliated (25 percent vs. 19 percent in the general population). Moreover, they report significant movement from the religious affiliation of their childhood: Only 11 percent of Millennials were raised religiously unaffiliated, but one-quarter (25 percent) identify as religiously unaffiliated today, an increase of 14 points.

These findings have profound implications for the future of religious denominations that have, in the past, dominated American religious life. Of those who are currently unaffiliated, around 1-in-5 were raised white mainline Protestant (21 percent) or Catholic (23 percent), the two denominations that saw the largest net losses due to Millennials’ shifts in religious identity. Among Millennials who were raised white mainline Protestant, only 59 percent continue to identify with their childhood faith, while nearly 3-in-10 (29 percent) identify as unaffiliated. Similarly, only two-thirds (64 percent) of Millennials who were raised Catholic remain within the fold, while one-quarter (25 percent) now identify as unaffiliated.

In addition to the increase in religious disaffiliation, younger Millennials report low levels of religious engagement across the board. Only one-quarter (25 percent) of Millennials say they attend religious services at least once a week, while 3-in-10 (30 percent) say they attend occasionally. More than 4-in-10 say they seldom (16 percent) or never (27 percent) attend. Similarly, while one-third (33 percent) of Millennials say that they pray at least daily, nearly 4-in-10 (37 percent) say they seldom or never pray. Notably, despite the fact that nearly half (48 percent) of younger Millennials report that they are living at home with their parents, Millennials who live at home are not more likely to attend religious services than Millennials overall.

The survey also offers some clues to why many Millennials are breaking away from their childhood faith, at least if they come from a Christian tradition. Younger Millennials’ feelings about Christianity are decidedly mixed. Three-quarters (76 percent) agree that present-day Christianity has “good values and principles,” and 63 percent believe that Christianity “consistently shows love for other people.” On the other hand, strong majorities also agree that modern-day Christianity is “hypocritical” (58 percent), “judgmental” (62 percent) and “anti-gay” (64 percent).

Notably, the perception that Christianity is “anti-gay” — an attribute that strong majorities of both Christian Millennials (58 percent) and religiously unaffiliated Millennials (79 percent) agree describes present-day Christianity well — may be driving some of Millennials’ estrangement from organized religion. Last fall, for example, a PRRI survey found that nearly 7-in-10 (69 percent) 18-29-year-old Millennials agree that religious groups are alienating young people by being too judgmental about gay and lesbian issues.

This early adult drift away from Millennials’ childhood religion highlights a particular challenge for religious leaders, and not just in the short term. In some ways, this is not a new problem; it’s not uncommon for younger American adults to be less religiously affiliated than older Americans. However, the Millennial generation’s rate of disaffiliation is higher than previous generations at comparable points in their life cycle. It’s probable that fewer Millennials than previous generations will reliably return to congregations when they are older, settled and raising children.

If religious leaders — particularly in Catholic and white mainline Protestant churches — aren’t content to wait for the return of this generation’s prodigals, they are faced with a challenging task. The balancing act of whether and how to reshape present-day congregations to connect with a generation that remains receptive to — but also highly critical of — traditional forms of religiosity.

This article was originally published at “Figuring Faith,” Dr. Jones’ blog at the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section.

Next post in series: Millennials Receptive to but Highly Critical of Christianity, by Billy Roberts

“Fiddler on the Roof (1971) [1] provides a beautiful illustration of both the adaptability of worldview in its upper levels—(1) Behavioral Decisions, and (2) Cultural Rules, Roles and Strategies—as well as the resiliency of worldview at its deepest levels—(3) Presuppositional Principles and Values, and especially (4) Foundational Stories and “Scriptures.”  (See, Casablanca and the Four Levels of Worldview.)

Fiddler is one of the most beloved dramas of the stage and screen. On Broadway (1964), Fiddler was the first musical to surpass 3,000 performances. It won nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical.  The Hollywood version (1971) lost the Best Picture nod to the more cutting-edge The French Connection, but managed a box office of over 365 million dollars (adjusted for inflation), making it the 9^th highest grossing musical of all time.[2] After four Broadway revivals, three London runs, and thousands of high school and community theatre performances, Fiddler became one of the more influential cultural works of the late twentieth-century.

Fiddler chronicles the life of a small Jewish community seeking to maintain their cultural balance (like a fiddler on the roof) in the Gentile-dominated Czarist Russian village of Anatevka. The story’s protagonist, Tevye, is a poor dairy farmer seeking to scratch out a meager existence with his wife Golde. It is a task made all the more difficult by the fact that God has blessed them, not with economically viable and socially valuable sons, but five daughters.

Tevye and Golde’s three oldest daughters—Tzeitel, Hodel, and Chava—provide the storyline that so clearly illustrates all four levels of worldview. From the four-level construct perspective, Tevye’s worldview is a set of stories from The Torah, or “Holy Book” or “Good book” of how God has revealed himself and his law to his people Israel (Level 4), from which generations of Rabbinic scholarship have drawn key theological doctrines and ethical principles (Level 3), from which synagogue and societal leaders have constructed cultural conventions and rules for daily life (Level 2), from which the residents of Anatevka live out their faith in their daily behaviors and moral judgments (Level 1).

Some of Anatevka’s strongest cultural conventions surround the institution of marriage. Over the course of the film, Tevye’s three daughter’s confront him with more and more counter-cultural views of marriage, which in turn drives Tevye to explore his worldview at deeper and deeper levels. When using Fiddler to teach worldview, I use six scenes to trace the transformation of the upper levels of Tevye’s worldview, and his ultimate resistance to change at his worldview’s deepest level (Scene times in parenthesis are from the downloadable ITunes version.)

Tradition! Tevye and the cultural rules/conventions (Level 2), theological principles (Level 3), and authoritative story, Torah (Level 4), that undergird his life (Level 1).

Scene One: Tradition! The first scene (1:40–12:00 on ITunes version of Fiddler) introduces the protagonist, Tevye, and the cultural conventions that govern his daily decisions through the song, Tradition. I ask the class to use the four-level worldview construct to organize the elements of Tevye’s worldview described in the film. Students easily pick out see the rules, conventions and role conformity that govern the social relationships of his culture (Level 2), and that this culture is based upon the authoritative story of the Torah (Level 4). It normally takes them a little longer to flesh out the principles (theology and philosophy) that undergird the conventions. They also quickly see that many of Tevye’s assumptions are unexamined.

Tevye: Because of our traditions, we’ve kept our balance for many, many years. Here in Anatevka, we have traditions for everything… You may ask, “How did this tradition get started?” I’ll tell you! [pause] I don’t know. But it’s a tradition… and because of our traditions… Every one of us knows who he is and what God expects him to do.

Golde and Yentil the matchmaker arrange the marriage, before Tevye seals the deal with Lazar Wolf

Scene Two: Tevye and Golde’s Worldview Construct of Marriage. In the second scene (1:04:09–1:07:30) Tevye informs Golde that he has successfully arranged a marriage for their oldest daughter, Tzeitel. What’s more, the groom is the richest widower in the village, Lazar Wolf. I ask students to watch the clip and to use the four-level construct to flesh out Tevye and Golda’s worldview in regards to marriage. It normally takes a little bit of prodding to help them see that what they view Tevye’s actions in arranging the marriage (Level 1) as virtuous and in the best interest of Tzeitel, because the father is in the best position to arrange a marriage (Level 2), because marriage is essentially a business/social contract (Level 3), based upon the village’s “story” that happiness is tied to increasing one’s prosperity and social standing (Level 4).

Tzeitel and Motel make a counter-cultural pledge, but reason for permission from solid business logic

Scene Three: Tzeitel and Motel’s Conflicting Worldview Construct of Marriage. In scene 3 (1:07:30 –1:14:42), Tzeitel & Motel object to Tevye’s decision (Level 1), precisely because they disagree with Tevye’s belief that marriage is primarily a business arrangement. They believe that marriage is best based upon romantic love (Level 3), and therefore propose a different convention for arranging a marriage—a pledge between lovers (Level 2). After all, while the father is in the best position to make a successful business arrangement, the couple is in a better position to arrange a marriage based on love. For Tevye, a pledge is well outside the plausibility structures of his worldview.

Tevye: They gave each other a pledge? Unheard of... absurd! 

They gave each other a pledge?  Unthinkable!

However, Model is a good negotiator, while his own worldview provides romantic love as the basis for his pledge to Tzeitel, he ultimately appeals to the Anatevka’s prosperity/happiness myth (Level 4) to try to convince his would-be father-in-law:

Tevye: You are just a poor tailor!

Motel: That's true, Reb Tevye, but even a poor tailor 

is entitled to some happiness! [He places his arm around 

Tzeitel.] I promise you, Tevye, your daughter will not starve.

While it takes awhile, students are normally able parse out the these worldview levels (although I often have to point out level four.)  What is really interesting is helping them examine Tevye’s reasoning in allowing Tzeitel & Motel to wed. Students are normally able to discern that Tevye’s worldview has not actually changed as much as it appears. “Papa” is still making the decision based on his daughter happiness (Level 1). While he is breaking with convention to allow the couple’s pledge to stand (Level 2), he is not really buying their notion of romantic love (Level 3) as its basis. To him marriage is still a business arrangement (Level 3), and he approves only once he is convinced that Motel is capable of giving his daughter enough financial security to satisfy the village prosperity myth (Level 4).

Hodel and Perchik ask only for Tevye's blessing of their love-based engagement forcing Papa to delve into the story level Torah of his worldview

Scene Four: Hodel and Perchik’s Conflicting Worldview Construct of Marriage: In scene four (1:57:23 – 2:03:53), Tevye’s second daughter, Hodel, and her love interest, Perchik, escalate the worldview conflict. Hodel and Perchik also believe that marriage should be based primarily on the principle of romantic love (Level 3). However they further break with village conventions by choosing to become engaged without consulting their parents (Level 2). They ask only for Tevye’s blessing (not permission)—a blessing Tevye is not anxious to grant.

From a worldview perspective, the scene is absolutely fascinating. Tevye’s reason for allowing their engagement to stand reaches well beyond the village’s prosperity/happiness myth and into the authoritative worldview stories of the Torah (Level 4).

Tevye:  On the other hand, our old ways were once new, 

weren't they? ... On the other hand, they decided without 

parents, without a matchmaker!... On the other hand, 

did Adam and Eve have a matchmaker ?... Well, yes, they did.

 And it seems these two have the same Matchmaker!

By reorienting his worldview around a new principle (Level 3) derived from an authoritative story (Level 4), he is able to embrace a counter-cultural convention for marriage. He is undergoing a significant paradigm shift. Students can nearly always connect with this transformation and “get” the worldview transformation issues.[2]

Their daughters' counter-cultural challenge causes Tevye and Golda to reinterpret their own marriage around the principle of love

Scene Five: Tevye and Golde’s Paradigm Shift: Scene five (2:03:53—2:09:05) is a touching portrayal of Tevye seeking to apply (Level 1) his new understanding of love (Levels 2-4) to his own marriage. He asks Golde a question made possible now only by the new probability structures of his transformed worldview: “Do you love me?”

This revolutionary question evokes a wonderful interchange on the true meaning of marriage, complete with a back and forth exchange between Golde’s conventional understanding and Tevye’s deeper counter-conventional challenge inspired by their daughters. It concludes with a paradigm shift on Golde’s part as well.

Tevye: Then you love me?

Golde: I suppose I do

Tevye: And I suppose I love you too

Both: It change a thing, but even so, after 25 years 

it's nice to know.

I normally need only ask students to watch the clip and tell me what is going on, to evoke a spirited conversation. They nearly always get the point. It DOES change a thing. It changes everything. Their new worldview of marriage changes the plausibility structure of their of their daily decisions. Ultimately, it will transform their marriage.

There is no other hand! Tevye's worldview bends at the upper levels, but does not break at the root.

Scene Six: Tevye and Golde’s Rejection of Chava and Fyedka’s Marriage. The final scene in Tevye’s worldview journey is not nearly as heartening.[4] The scene details Tevye and Golde’s rejection of their youngest daughter, Chava, due to her marriage to a Gentile, Fyedka. I normally show the first part of the scene (2:22:00 – 2:25:33)—Chava’s love for Fyedka and Tevye’s disapproval and stop the film. I then ask the class to use the four-level construct to try to predict how Tevye will respond.

Once they have made their prediction(s), I show the rest of the scene (2:25:34 – 2:35:35). It is a gut wrenching depiction of a man who has come to the foundations of his worldview and found (much to his dismay) that there is no room for further reinterpretation. There is no story that will save his relationship with his daughter. She is dead to him.

Chava: Papa, I beg you to accept us.

Tevye: Accept them? How can I accept them? 

Can I deny everything I believe in? ON the other hand, 

can I deny my own daughter?  On the other hand, 

how can I turn my back on my faith, my people. 

If I try to bend that far... I’ll break. 

On the other hand... NO... there is no other hand! 

NO, CHAVA!! NO! NO!! NO!!!

I let the scene play all the way through Chava’s desolate tears. When I turn up the lights, the room is very quiet. I normally need only ask, “What do you think?” in order to evoke a highly emotional conversation. I try to force them to think through why Tevye reached the limits of accommodation possible in his worldview. (With adult learners this often brings up some of their own painful experiences with interfaith marriage in their own families.)

Tradition helps us keep our balance, but it is Story that points the way forward

In the end, most students reject Tevye’s rejection of Chava. I push them hard to discern what it is in their worldview (romantic, sentimental, relativistic, Western, democratic, pluralistic, postmodern, individualism) that reacts so negatively to Tevye’s moral judgment. When I am feeling particularly antagonistic, I often ask them, “Would it make any difference if the story was set in Israel around 1000 BC and Fyedka was a Canaanite?”  (That really gets things going.) After a spirited discussion I ask students if they know the limits of accommodation in their own worldview? How do we know when cross from accommodation to assimilation?  I suspect the only way is to be certain of the foundational stories of our own worldview.

Like Tevye, the stories of Scripture provide not only fertile soil for nurturing reinterpretations of our philosophy and culture for a new generation, but also irresistible bedrock for grounding the story of our own life in the mind of God.

.

Next Post in the Series: Crash goes the Worldview: Why Worldview Transformation Requires Changing Scripts.

..

Ongoing Series on Teaching Worldview Through Film:

Teaching Worldview Through Academy Award-winning Films

Worldview and the Power of Story

Casablanca and the Four Levels of Worldview (2010 Post of the Year)

Fiddler on the Roof: Worldview Change and the Journey to Life-Interpreting Story

Crash goes the Worldview: Why Worldview Transformation Requires Changing Scripts

It’s a Wonderful Worldview: Frank Capra’s Theistic Masterpiece

Ricky Gervais, the Golden Globes, Atheism and Sentimental Hogwash: It’s a Wonderful Life, Part 1

Capra’s Tale of a Depressed Idealist, It’s a Wonderful Life, Part 2

The Courage to Live Idealistically: It’s a Wonderful Life, Part 3

Bungee-Jumping to Eternity: The Existential Angst of Dead Poets Society

Carpe Diem and and the Escape from Physicalism: Dead Poets Society, Part 1

Ideas have Consequences, The Power and the Limits of Existentialism, Dead Poets Society, Part 2

Let Keating Fry! The Hidden Dangers of Existentialism, Dead Poets Society, Part 3

Related Posts:

Using Zombie Movies to Teach Politics, by Daniel W. Drezner

Using Worldview to Create Academy Award-winning Films

Deep Culture: Is Winning an Oscar a Reliable Indicator of a Truly Great Film?

High Culture, Pop Culture: What about FIlms with ‘Deep Culture’?

Why Making Films with ‘Deep Culture’ Impact is so Elusive.

My All-Time Favorite ‘Deep Culture’ Films

Tis the Movie Season to Be Jolly: Thirty Favorite Christmas Films

If you Live it, They Will Come (to the Theatre): Better Faith-Based Filmmaking through Better Stories

Screwtape Letters, Blue Like Jazz Coming to Theater Near You: Future of Christian Filmmaking May Hang in Balance

Tis the Movie Season to Be Jolly: Thirty Favorite Christmas Films

Sony Edits Bible Out of Screening of Faith-Based Film ‘Soul Surfer’, by Paul Bond

.

Notes

[1] Norman Jewison, Topol, Norma Crane and Leonard Frey, Fiddler on the Roof (MGM Home Entertainment, 2004.

[2] http://www.the-numbers.com/market/Genres/Musical.php

[3] This conversation is even more interesting when the class includes at least one student from a culture of arranged marriages.

[4] In fact, it is so troubling to some students that I sometimes I skip it and end with the Do You Love Me discussion.

It’s natural in a dysfunctional system to respond to negative emotions with anger and frustration. This leads to a counter-productive focus on the negatives. Insecure leaders often don’t see the horizon of possible solutions because they are too caught up in the negative emotion of the system. It takes a conscious effort, but secure leaders absorb the negative emotion in the system, metabolize it, and respond positively instead of responding in kind. They avoid getting into the negative fray, and instead focus on positive solutions for the good of the organization. Emotional security is the foundation for this broader focus on the good of the organization.

Neuroscience has taught us that we catch each other’s emotion. It’s like a Wi-Fi connection for emotions. It happens mostly through the nonverbal channels of communication that are processed very rapidly and outside of our conscious awareness by the right brain and the subcortex, or the lower part of the brain. So if there is negative emotion in the system, you’re going to catch it automatically. How, then, do you absorb it and not just spew it back into the system? Here are four practices that can help.

First, develop the habit of regularly tuning into your emotions. When you notice you have some sort of bad gut level feeling, try to name it-do you feel sad, angry, overwhelmed, helpless, irked, betrayed, bitter, shocked, confused, etc.? To be an effective leader in any sphere, you have to discipline yourself to regularly create space to tune into your emotional state. This is especially difficult for Type-A, driven personalities. But you have to do it nonetheless. If you can’t do it on your own, find someone who can help you do this.

Second, try to name the sources of the negative emotions. Spend some time reflecting on where the bad feelings come from. Don’t worry about trying to solve anything at this point. The goal is to take an accepting and compassionate stance toward yourself. You’re just trying to describe your feelings with an attitude that says, “whatever you are feeling is understandable and OK.” There are reasons for your emotions. Some of the reasons will be due to the current situation, and some of the reasons will inevitably be due to your connection filters (see the first entry in this series on connection strategies). The very act of naming the negative emotions and source events begins to transform them.

What you are doing here is integrating two ways of knowing: gut level knowledge and head knowledge. When you translate gut level knowledge into words, it transforms the gut level knowledge.

Third, talk to someone outside the system who will listen and not try to fix the problem. Often times it helps to solidify this translation process by talking through your feelings and experiences with someone you trust. They can help you see things you can’t see, and validate your experiences. Even if they see where your filters are operating, if they point this out to you in a compassionate way, this can be tremendously helpful. It can sting, to be sure, but if you can handle the sting, you will learn things about yourself that you wouldn’t otherwise.

Fourth, don’t respond until you no longer feel anxiously compelled to respond. What do I mean by “anxiously compelled?” Well, there’s a negative sense of being compelled and a positive sense, and they feel different internally. You may be compelled by love, or gratitude or generativity to help someone, or to move the dysfunctional system toward health. But you also may feel compelled to respond out of anger, frustration, bitterness, anxiety, and the list could go on. If you feel compelled to act based on negative emotions, don’t do it. Put it on the shelf and don’t respond for awhile. If you don’t have the space internally to respond in a positive manner, then you have to create the space externally first.

Give yourself enough time and space until your negative emotions decrease and then start to focus on positive solutions. How can you model the health you want to create in the system by the way you respond? And it’s important to remember it’s not just the content of your response that matters; it’s also the emotional tone with which you respond. In fact, your emotional tone is more important, because that is what others in the system will catch.

Stay tuned for practical strategy #3: Move toward your strengths and create value.

Reflection: What are ways that work for you to create space to tune in to your emotions?

by Christopher Riley

Follow up to Chris’s post: Why Story Structure Matters, Even If You Don’t Want It To

Back in the late 1970s when documentary filmmaker Errol Morris was struggling to finish his first film, Gates of Heaven, legendary German actor-producer-director Werner Herzog promised to eat his shoe if and when Morris ever completed the film. Why Morris required such an inducement and how Herzog fulfilled his promise tell us nearly everything we need to know about the why and how of completing a feature screenplay.

Why did Morris, a young artist bursting with curiosity, ambition, and creative energy, need one of Europe’s most important directors to push him to finish his work on a film he already yearned to finish? I think the answer is simple enough. Telling cinematic stories well is crushingly hard work. In the face of a task so difficult – and so enormous – we procrastinate. We cower. We despair. We do almost anything but finish our work. If you’ve tried to write a feature screenplay, you know this. How do we overcome such a challenge?

Screenwriters must tackle our impossible work step by step

When he ate his shoe, Werner Herzog showed us how. He stuffed the shoe with garlic cloves, boiled it in duck fat, separated it from its melted cheese-like sole, then took a pair of poultry shears and – here’s the key – cut the impossibly tough leather upper into tiny pieces which he chewed and swallowed one by one. He did this after Morris had finished his film in the same way: bit by bit until the difficult and enormous task was done.

Anne Lamott’s insightful book on writing, Bird by Bird, points to the same simple and powerful truth. We screenwriters must tackle our impossible work step by step, little by little, wren by wren, until we’ve conceived, developed, structured, written, rewritten, and polished a wise and wrenching, heart-thumping, gut-busting film, pinned to the page one shiny word at a time.

But what exactly are those steps? How does a screenwriter pull together all the know-how from all the books and classes and blogs and podcasts and move in some rational way through the seemingly endless process of writing a movie?

A Process is a Process

The good news is there is a process. The bad news: the process doesn’t make the shoe easier to chew. It does make it possible. Your emotions will still yo-yo between despair and euphoria. You’ll still exhaust yourself. But if you stick with the process, step by step, bite by bite, bird by bird, you’ll end up after three or six or twelve months with a feature screenplay that begins with fade in and concludes 100 or so pages later with fade out, one that stands a good chance of engaging a reader early and holding him to the end, one that may help readers feel something real and see something new, one that demonstrates the best screenwriting of which you are currently capable.

My writing partner – my wife Kathy – and I have used this process to devour a closetful of shoes. We’ve used this process to write spec scripts in hours we scraped together while working other jobs and caring for a family. At other times we’ve used this process to craft feature screenplays as fulltime WGA-member screenwriters under contract to Hollywood studios. We’ve taught this process to scores of aspiring scribes and seen the vast majority of them finish their scripts. Some of those scripts have won major contests and fellowships. Others have become feature films.

Kathy and I did not invent the method I describe. We learned it on the job, from the veteran writers and producers who mentored and employed us, and from our students who helped us see more clearly what we were doing. I do not claim this is the only way to eat a shoe. I do assert, on the basis of many years of experience as a professional writer and a longtime teacher of writers, that this is one way that regularly works. Each step deserves a chapter but for now I can give each a scant paragraph because I’m on deadline and I’m jonesing to get back to writing movies.

Steps to Writing a Great Screenplay

It is possible to finish your screenplay... IF you don't try to do it all at once

Step 1: Generate many, many, many, many, many ideas. Writing a screenplay, you’ll pour yourself for weeks or months or years into one of the most difficult of all human endeavors. Don’t waste all that sweat on a mediocre idea. Brainstorm by writing down every idea that occurs to you, without editing. Every what-if that intrigues you. Every deep question you can’t answer. Every fascinating character you meet on the job or at your wacky family reunion or in your dreams. Every news story. Every rumor. Every fear. Collect these ideas somewhere you won’t lose them: a file folder, a shoe box, a shiny iPad app. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. (If you ever get the chance to hear Déjà Vu screenwriter Bill Marsilii talk about this topic, jump at it.)

Step 2: Sharpen your best ideas. Sift through your mound of hare-brained ideas. A few will set off little explosions in your imagination. Some might stick together, this audacious what-if with that strange uncle in that haunting place. Pull these ideas from the pile. Ponder how far you might take them. Knead them, stretch them, twist them. Try your small-town idea in space. Set your sci-fi epic in a dusty Nebraska town. What if that love story were a thriller? How would your dark tale of heartbreak play as a comedy? Where could this idea take us that we’ve never gone before? Don’t do this for one idea. Do it for several of your best brainchildren. Work them into loglines. (For the best discussion of loglines I’ve encountered, see Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat!)

Step 3: Select The One. Time to commit. The cold-blooded, calculating side of your brain needs to ask which of your best ideas looks most like mass entertainment. Which suggests the best movie poster? Which would you buy if you were a studio exec who needed to satisfy his marketing and international distribution departments? Then stop. Because now the sentimental, movie-loving side of your brain needs to ask which of your best ideas appeals to you personally. Which movie do you want to grow old with? Which will you look back on with pride? Which one do you love? Bill Marsilii urges writers to hold out for what he calls a “soul mate” of an idea, one that will draw you again and again to your keyboard with a force that overwhelms a writer’s natural procrastination, doubt, and despair. Then, having indulged both sides of your movie-making brain, put the Michael Bay part of you and the Ethan and Joel Coen part of you in a room together and make them talk to one another. Hear them both out, art and commerce. Then make a decision (writing is all about making definite, bold decisions in the face of infinite possibilities). Choose the movie you will write…

Next Week: The Steps Continue

Christopher Riley is best known as the author of The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style. Chris spent 14 years in the script department at Warner Bros. as well as writing for Paramount, Mandalay, and Touchstone Pictures. More recently he produced the thriller Red Line, directed by Robert Kirbyson and starring Nicole Gale Anderson and John Billingsley, and taught in Pepperdine University’s MFA program in Screen and Television Writing. Chris and his wife Kathy wrote the psychological thriller Crawlspace, currently in development at Yellow Line Studio with Amardeep Kaleeka to direct. This article originally appeared as a three installments written for www.blakesnyder.com. Used by permission.

A Conversation with Randy Elrod’s: Why Christians Are Creating More “Edgy” Art, and Jeff Goin’s, Are Christians Writing “Edgy” for the Wrong Reasons?

by CJ Darlington

In the last couple of years I’ve noticed a trend in Christian fiction. More and more aspiring authors desire to write edgy fiction. And by edgy I mean pushing the envelope of what has generally been considered acceptable in novels regarding violence, sex, language, etc.

Now I’m all for writing real. I want my characters and situations to be true to life. I don’t want to write about saints. But somewhere there’s a line, and I admit, it’s a gray one. Personally, I think it comes down to motives. Why do we want to write edgy? Is it to shock? To do it because we can?

Don’t get me wrong. I know full well there are different books to reach different people. Someone who might not be inclined to pick up Beverly Lewis might love Ted Dekker. That’s the beauty of this ever increasing market. There’s so much great material! Twenty years ago this wasn’t the case. I’m very thankful to be writing Christian fiction in today’s world.

But in some Christian novels I’ve read recently I’m hard pressed to find anything (besides a lack of swearing) that sets them apart from their secular counterparts. And again, that may be exactly what the author and publisher want—to write clean fiction. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I sometimes wonder if the author shied away from the Christian aspects because he/she didn’t want to offend.

A couple years ago I noticed this in my own writing. I kept hearing I wasn’t supposed to preach in my fiction. The message needed to come organically from the story. Sounded great in principle, but I found myself (and this is just me) actually shying away ever so slightly from what I most wanted to include in my novels—good news. The gospel. Hope. God’s love.

I started evaluating my motives and realized I was indeed acting, in so many words, ashamed of the gospel. Something I never ever wanted to be ashamed of. I looked up the Scripture in Romans 1:16 ”I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”

As I pondered it, something stuck out to me: the gospel is the power of God. And what is the gospel? The good news of Jesus! If I want to write a powerful novel, then I need to include the good news. If I want to reach people for the Lord, I need to share the good news.

Of course, the gospel comes in various forms, and I still don’t want to write preachy, but I also don’t want to be ashamed.

In my debut novel Thicker than Blood (January 2010, Tyndale House) there’s a strong evangelical message. In all my fiction my goal is to show that no one is ever too far gone for God to love. I’m now proud of that.

I’d like to encourage you today not to be ashamed of the gospel. It holds the power of God to transform lives.

Now let me just add here that I’m not saying clean, moral fiction (like one of my favorite authors James Scott Bell’s Ty Buchanan series) are not valuable. They are very much needed, and I love reading them too. Mainly I’m talking about motives here. You may be called to write moral fiction. We write different books to reach different people. I totally support that. Some won’t be ready for my novels, but they may receive from someone else.

So please don’t take this post wrong. This is just what I’ve been thinking about lately in my own personal writing life.

Telling (and more importantly, living) stories that leave a beautiful feeling even as the credits role is the heart of genuinely Christian Filmmaking

Part 3 in series The Future of Faith-Based Filmmaking

by Gary David Stratton, PhD

“I wondered about the story we were writing and wanted even more to write a better story for my life, something that leaves a beautiful feeling even as the credits role.”

— Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story

$255 Million and an Academy Award for Sandra Bullock was enough to convince Hollywood that at least some Christians lived stories worth telling

In the aftermath of the runaway success of The Blind Side, Hollywood has become more open to Christians’ stories. I don’t mean “Christian” stories, but rather human stories about Christians whose faith has been an element in their facing universal human struggles.

The Blind Side was unlike anything normally accepted by the Church as a “Christian Film.” It is neither an evangelistic message about Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) witnessing about her faith, nor Michael Oher  (Quinton Aaron) coming to faith, nor a missionary appeal for how Christian families should adopt disadvantaged youth, nor a white-washed tale about perfect Christians, living perfect lives, with perfect motives, and everything turning out perfectly..

O, the Humanity!

Instead, it is a very human story about a very human woman whose Christian faith informed and motivated a series of radical decisions that transformed her life, her family, and the young man they adopted.  The story is not about her faith, but her faith is clearly part of the story.

Writer-director John Lee Hancock's choice to tell the story of the Tuohy family and Michael Oher had nothing to do with their faith. It was simply an amazing story.

This approach works only because The Blind Side wasn’t made like a typical “Christian film.” Although director John Lee Hancock describes himself as a Christian and there are a number of other talented Christians working at Alcon Entertainment who helped guide the project, Hancock made The Blind Side because he thought the story the Tuohys lived was so compelling. Period!

“The fact that the Tuohys are Christians played absolutely no part in me doing it or not doing it…. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s an incredibly charitable act that yields rewards for this family. It would have been an also amazingly charitable act had the Tuohys been atheists. A good deed is a good deed… I thought it was a great story.”

Hancock goes on to explain: “I think that if I set out to do stories based on that (Christianity or even inspiration) then it will probably be like the cart leading the horse… You set out to tell a good story. You don’t do it because there is a deep message involved because the movie is almost always bad when you do that…”[1]

The Future of “Christian” Filmmaking

It is the very humanness of the film that makes it so approachable. Leigh Anne Tuohy is a flawed individual. She is a stubborn control freak, still struggling to stay in control even in the very last scene of the movie.  Yet when motivated by her Christian faith Leigh Anne’s  flaws propel her to make decisions that few other women would even consider.  Her character is complicated (which is why Sandra Bullock won an Academy Award for portraying her), and therefore very compelling. We like her precisely because she represents our highest aspirations and our worst self-sabotaging realities.

It is Leigh Anne Tuohy's (Sandra Bullock) control freak humanity that makes her faith in Christ so approachable

In making the film this way, Hancock helped point the way toward the future of “Christian” filmmaking in Hollywood: If you live it, they will come (to the theater, that is). Audiences don’t want to watch “Christian” films. They want to see good films about good stories. Compelling stories about real life human beings who overcome tremendous obstacles and who are transformed into better human beings in the process.  (See, Casablanca and the Four Levels of Worldview. Crash Goes the Worldview.)

If the story happens to be about someone whose faith informed and motivated their journey then who’s to argue? Their story earned them the right to let their faith be part of the film. (And opened up the “plausibility structure” for audiences accepting that not all Christians are the preachy, bigoted hypocrites so often portrayed by the media.)

In the end, The Blind Side is not the story of a Christian family who changed the life of a homeless high schooler, it is the story of how one woman’s choice led to the transformation of her entire family into the image of Christ.

In other words, if Christians actually live better stories than most people (and if our faith actually informs and motivates our lives we should), then we might have a litany of heroic stories to draw upon. Stories about men and women (and teenagers) whose faith motivated and informed their choices to live remarkable lives by making remarkable decisions and overcome remarkable obstacles.

A Lesson for All Believers

In the end, The Blind Side is the story of how the choice of one woman transformed the life of a homeless young man, who in turn, incited the transformation Leigh Anne Tuohy and her entire family into genuine Christlikeness.

Every believer (and not just filmmakers) ought to be asking themselves ‘Am I living the kind of story that, in Donald Miller’s words, “leaves a beautiful feeling even as the credits role”? As Miller discovered in writing his book subtitled How I Learned to Live a Better Story, the story most Christians live doesn’t come close to living out the full implications of their faith.

What story are we writing with our lives? Leigh Anne Tuohy’s story is deeply heroic precisely because her faith motivated her to take action toward the will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven. Will we?

Heaven is looking for heroic stories even more than Hollywood. Will this generation overwhelm the world with stories of very human Christ followers whose faith motivates and informs the heroic lives they live?  The world is watching…

If you live it, they will come!

Next Post in Series: TBA

See Also:

Christian Movie Establishment vs. “Blue Like Jazz”?

Why Story Structure Matters: Even if you don’t want it to

Christians in Hollywood: A Treatment, by Mission Impossible Writer

Opening Doors for Others: An Interview with Writer-Director Brian Bird

Notes:

[1] Interview: ‘The Blind Side’ Director John Lee Hancock, Michelle A. Vu, Christian Post Reporter

Part 2 in series The Future of Faith-Based Filmmaking

by Brennan Mark Smith

Try to keep an open mind…

You’ve already read the title and more than likely by now the sphincter clenched, pupils contracted, jaw set, and all guards flew up because you already know the unwritten rule: never badmouth Christian movies in mixed company.

You see, there are many who see Christian movies as a strange and largely inscrutable subgenre of drama that pushes aesthetically inferior, preachy, simplistic stories for the Christian ghetto.  Thus, they dismiss every Christian movie by association. (See What is a Christian Movie?)

On the other hand, many Christians see these movies as a safe alternative to Hollywood’s immorality, and the only reason they do not receive more critical acclaim is bigotry.  If you don’t agree, well then, you “love the world” or have backslidden into Hollywood’s lure of sex, violence, profanity, and hedonism…

The resulting argument always generates more heat than light, largely because both sides fail to recognize that Christian movies “suffer” under a different paradigm.

The Hollywood Way

Hollywood storytelling burgeoned over 100 years ago, born out of the theories of Aristotle and the Greek theater, rising through the medieval minstrel shows, through William Shakespeare and other Elizabethans, and into vaudeville.  At each stage they refined a craft according to technology, culture and audience response.

The result is a storytelling template that emphasizes, generally speaking, a single protagonist who must go through an inner journey of transformation in order to overcome an external problem.  We refer to that external conflict as “A plot” and the inner struggle as “B plot.”

Critiquing Hollywood movies, which takes graduate-level courses to explain, involves Aristotle’s principles as well as modern aesthetics.  While this analysis may still seem like a popularity contest, most of the time the questions are:  how unified is the story?  How true to our human experience is it?  How deep is the protagonist and how fulfilling is his arc?  How well does the movie connect emotionally with its audience?

So a “bad movie” by Hollywood standards lacks aesthetic value (bad sound, bad lighting, bad acting, bad editing, etc) or it lacks unity (see: Aristotle’s Poetics) or is false, meaning we don’t accept the reality of the plot, character or theme.

The Christian Alternative

Christian movies, however, are part of a history of Biblical storytelling…

Continue reading

Next Post in Series: If You Live It, They Will Come! Better Faith-Based Filmmaking through Better Stories

See Also:

Christian Movie Establishment vs. “Blue Like Jazz”?

Why Story Structure Matters: Even if you don’t want it to

Christians in Hollywood: A Treatment, by Mission Impossible Writer

Opening Doors for Others: An Interview with Writer-Director Brian Bird