Christianity, Culture, Vocation
December 31st, 2007 | Movies
This list of The 12 Most Powerful Christians in Hollywood — Beliefnet.com contains some surprises (Denzel Washington, Martin Sheen) and some interesting information (a movie version of “Paradise Lost” is in the works).
HT: Anthony Sacramone
Gene Edward Veith is the Provost and Professor of Literature at Patrick Henry College, the Director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary, a columnist for World Magazine and TableTalk, and the author of 18 books on different facets of Christianity & Culture.
Lucas Cranach was the great artist of the Reformation. He was a close friend of Martin Luther. He was a businessman, who first printed Luther's translation of the Bible; a politician, who served on the Wittenberg town council and served the city as its mayor; a chemist, who operated a pharmacy; a teacher, who trained a host of apprentice artists; a family-man, who helped arrange Luther's marriage with the two men serving as the godfathers of each other's children; and an active layman in his church, who gave his pastors important personal and material support.
As a Christian who lived out his faith in his many different callings, Cranach thus embodies the Reformation doctrine of vocation, using the gifts God had given him in service to Christ and his neighbor in the church, the family, the workplace, and the culture.
In the spirit of Lucas Cranach, this blog will discuss wide-ranging issues of Christianity and culture with a Lutheran twist.
Books by Gene Edward Veith at cph.org! |
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2 comments ↓
I didn’t know much about Denzel Washington being a Christian; that’s great! I love his work in the movie, Fallen. At face value, it’s a scary movie, but when you examine it in depth Denzel’s character moves from being very nominally Christian to trying to learn quite a bit about Christianity in a very short time. Of course, as a Lutheran I find the theology of the movie pretty skewed (needing to outsmart demons, etc) but still very fascinating. The movie also does a fantastic job of being a scary movie with very little bloodshed or unnecessary scenes. I do not recommend the movie for poorly catechized Christians or for anyone younger than about 14-16 (depends on the teen, of course). The reason I bring up this movie is that I’ve been curious about Denzel’s thoughts on the movie and am wondering if anyone has ever come across commentary by him.
Interesting…although with Beliefnet as the source, a grain of salt is required. I also found Martin Sheen’s comments telling. “You know, the essence of the Gospel of Jesus was extremely radical, and that’s why they killed Him,” he told one interviewer. To another he said, “It doesn’t really matter how much of the rules or the dogma we accepted and lived by if we’re not really living by the fundamental creed of the Catholic Church, which is service to others and finding God in ourselves and then seeing God in everyone–including our enemies.” Of course I’m not sure of the whole context of the interview in which he spoke, but to state that Jesus was killed because he was radical isn’t quite the Gospel message. And I’ve always loved the notion of “finding God in ourselves”! Oh well, at least Hollywood acknowledges the existence of a Christian worldview through these individuals.
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