I didn't watch but a few minutes of the Academy Awards the other night. It really didn't interest me that much. I love movies, but have discovered through the last many years that the Academy doesn't reflect my taste for film. What the Academy finds worthy to award, I rarely give the time of day. Sometimes they do well, at other times it seems it's much more politically motivated.
In one moment that I did turn on the Oscars (toward the end when they give the most important awards) one of the "winners" stated that "art is not a mirror to reflect society, but a hammer to shape it." I am sure that this was a quote from someone else, but it is a telling sign what is really going on in Hollywood, at Sundance, and in independent studios around the world. Writers, producers, actors are shaping society in their own image.
"And they know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care - worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!" (Romans 1:32, The Message)
I've seen it happening through my lifetime. Things that were said on the big screen that used to make us blush have become everyday language. Images that once were left to the imagination are now illustrated on 20' screens. Subjects that were taboo in society have come out of the closet and into the mainstream culture as normal behavior. Has the art of film shaped our society? Not by itself, but it sure has contributed to the culture we have today.
The culture will be shaped. Like the landscape or a river bed that is constantly shifting because of the influences of wind and water, the forces of nature, our culture is being shaped every day. We are being shaped every day by these gentle shifts in morality, in language, in what's acceptable and shameful, in how the culture sees and believes in the Divine.
The greatest danger to this cultural influence is how God is understood. Our world is attempting to create God in its own image, the creation trying to recreate the Creator. Some would argue that this effort is not in recreating God but is simply reinterpreting who God is. Problem is, it ignores the thousands of years of biblical and human history that have shaped our understanding up to this point. It ignores the fact that when God seemed to be the most distant from the world it was human "wisdom" that steered us away.
We have journeyed this week toward finding out who God is. Paul told the Romans, "But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being." (Romans 1:19-20, The Message) God is not hard to find, nor are God's principles for faithful living outdated or meaningless.
God is gracious and gave us the greatest gift ever, the life of His Son, Jesus. God is merciful and receives all those who obediently trust in this Messiah, our Master. God is just and gives us the choice of trusting Him or doing our own thing.
"The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives." (Romans 1:17, The Message)
I'll never win an Oscar. I don't want one. The real prize is the one God gives and it's life.
That's who God is.
Peace ><>
PC
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