Like everyone else, I get these emails now and again - words of wisdom on pretty backgrounds, sometimes even a powerpoint presentation with beautiful music... but are these really words of wisdom? is it just me that picks the nits, that wants to edit before passing it on, and often doesn't pass it on?
is it just me that wonders: would these words seem so wise and profound if they didn't come with beautiful pictures? if this is really true, does it need to be packaged like this?
I'm not saying it's all wrong. Far from it - a lot of it is good and true. But I feel it's presented in a way that is meant to distract us from thinking about whether or not it's true. I feel the pictures and the music are there to lull us into a kind of passive listening and absorbing, unquestioning, unthinking. I feel we're being discouraged from thinking critically about what is on the screen in front of us, from weighing up the words and seeing for ourselves whether we agree with them or not.
And I feel even more strongly about the video being circulated now, titled "The Interview With God" - how dare anyone put words into God's mouth in this way? Yes, some of the words are good. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that most of them are true. But dressing it up as though God himself would say this - sorry, that's unbelievably presumptuous! and to suggest that when God is asked at the end of the interview what else he would like his children to know, that all God says is, "Just know that I am here. Always." - sorry, is that really it? God as our loving, gracious father who just smiles and wants us to know he's always here? Is this why he bothered to give us, for example, the Ten Commandments? Is this why there's all that stuff in the Bible about God's wrath, about the need to repent and turn to Jesus so we can escape God's just punishment? I'm sorry, I don't buy into this. It's nice, it's pretty, but it's not the whole picture. It's a sanitised and heavily-edited version of what the real interview would be like.
Okay, I've got it off my chest now.
is it just me that wonders: would these words seem so wise and profound if they didn't come with beautiful pictures? if this is really true, does it need to be packaged like this?
I'm not saying it's all wrong. Far from it - a lot of it is good and true. But I feel it's presented in a way that is meant to distract us from thinking about whether or not it's true. I feel the pictures and the music are there to lull us into a kind of passive listening and absorbing, unquestioning, unthinking. I feel we're being discouraged from thinking critically about what is on the screen in front of us, from weighing up the words and seeing for ourselves whether we agree with them or not.
And I feel even more strongly about the video being circulated now, titled "The Interview With God" - how dare anyone put words into God's mouth in this way? Yes, some of the words are good. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that most of them are true. But dressing it up as though God himself would say this - sorry, that's unbelievably presumptuous! and to suggest that when God is asked at the end of the interview what else he would like his children to know, that all God says is, "Just know that I am here. Always." - sorry, is that really it? God as our loving, gracious father who just smiles and wants us to know he's always here? Is this why he bothered to give us, for example, the Ten Commandments? Is this why there's all that stuff in the Bible about God's wrath, about the need to repent and turn to Jesus so we can escape God's just punishment? I'm sorry, I don't buy into this. It's nice, it's pretty, but it's not the whole picture. It's a sanitised and heavily-edited version of what the real interview would be like.
Okay, I've got it off my chest now.
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