I almost made the Guinness Book of World Records for shortest sermon ever..

Posting this article  here, since Salt Fresno website went offline.
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Kultur and Quixotism; epistemology and esthetic, comic and cosmic

I can't  even explain it,

 and don't have the right and rapt metaphor for it,

but reading Unamuno in English

                       --as rewarding as it is--

                              

pales compared to reading the original Spanish.

(I've been that way ever since I was in the Spanish Musical at Liverpool High School, and wrote my first Poe-ish limerick en espanol ..It's  St. Bobbi's fault).

Es una menita como una catedral...
                                                                         .ese.


I must agree that all translation is largely messianic, betrayal...
                           and AT WORST is actual  messianic betrayal.

Translation is inevitably una mentira  como una catedral, ese.

(for fun, see these links on my misadventures in  bilingual life:

Eye See Two Gringos, 

Mary Rocks! and 

"this is only a test")

See this section below, for example..


I love Unamuno's insights on Quixote
 (BTW, how ironic...quixotic, rather... that after 17 years of false strarts and endings, the famous/infamous Quixote film is finally finished),

 So here it is, a loaded section in Unamuno, From "The Tragic Sense of Life, pp 288-87 (or better yet,  en espanol at the click:"Del Sentamiento Tragico de La Vida" pp, 265-66):

Don Quixote journeyed alone, alone with Sancho, alone with his solitude.  And shall we not also journey alone, we his lovers, creating for ourselves a Quixotesque Spain which only exists in our imagination?

And again we shall be asked:  What has Don Quixote bequeathed to Kultur?  I answer:  Quixotism, and that is no little thing!  It is a whole method, a whole epistemology, a whole esthetic, a whole logic, a whole ethic—­above all, a whole religion—­that is to say, a whole economy of things eternal and things divine, a whole hope in what is rationally absurd.

For what did Don Quixote fight?  For Dulcinea, for glory, for life, for survival.  Not for Iseult, who is the eternal flesh; not for Beatrice, who is theology; not for Margaret, who is the people; not for Helen, who is culture.  He fought for Dulcinea, and he won her, for he lives.

And the greatest thing about him was his having been mocked and vanquished, for it was in being overcome that he overcame; he overcame the world by giving the world cause to laugh at him.

And today? Today he feels his own comicness and the vanity of his endeavours so far as their temporal results are concerned; he sees himself from without—culture has taught him to objectify himself, to alienate himself from himself instead of entering into himself—and in seeing himself from without he laughs at himself, but with a bitter laughter. Perhaps the most tragic character would be that of a Margutte of the inner man, who, like the Margutte of Pulci, should die of laughter, but of laughter at himself. E ridera in eterno, he will laugh for all eternity, said the Angel Gabriel of Margutte. Do you not hear the laughter of God?

The mortal Don Quixote, in dying, realized his own comicness and bewept his sins; but the immortal Quixote, realizing his own comicness, superimposes himself upon it and triumphs over it without renouncing it.

And Don Quixote does not surrender, because he is not a pessimist, and he fights on. He is not a pessimist, because pessimism is begotten by vanity, it is a matter of fashion, pure intellectual snobbism, and Don Quixote is neither vain nor modern with any sort of modernity (still less is he a modernist), and he does not understand the meaning of the word "snob" unless it be explained to him in old Christian Spanish. Don Quixote is not a pessimist, for since he does not understand what is meant by the joie de vivre he does not understand its opposite. Neither does he understand futurist fooleries. In spite of Clavileno,[68] he has not got as far as the aeroplane, which seems to tend to put not a few fools at a still greater distance from heaven. Don Quixote has not arrived at the age of the tedium of life, a condition that not infrequently takes the form of that topophobia so characteristic of many modern spirits, who pass their lives running at top speed from one place to another, not from any love of the place to which they are going, but from hatred of the place they are leaving behind, and so flying from all places: which is one of the forms of despair.

But Don Quixote hears his own laughter, he hears the divine laughter, and since he is not a pessimist, since he believes in life eternal, he has to fight, attacking the modern, scientific, inquisitorial orthodoxy in order to bring in a new and impossible Middle Age, dualistic, contradictory, passionate. Like a new Savonarola, an Italian Quixote of the end of the fifteenth century, he fights against this Modern Age that began with Machiavelli and that will end comically. He fights against the rationalism inherited from the eighteenth century. Peace of mind, reconciliation between reason and faith—this, thanks to the providence of God, is no longer possible. The world must be as Don Quixote wishes it to be, and inns must be castles, and he will fight with it and will, to all appearances, be vanquished, but he will triumph by making himself ridiculous. And he will triumph by laughing at himself and making himself the object of his own laughter.  Unamuno

The real heresy of "The Shack"movie revealed!

Photo credit

Yes, I have  actually seen the movie...and read the book.

I try to follow Bell's Theorem of reviewing, and "only review books and films I've actually seen."

And so many are Tweeting, blogging and Spacebooking to call out alleged heresy in one or both.

I enjoyed both book and film, but I do feel compelled to expose the real and horrific heresy of the film.

  It's not the items most bloggers are highlighting.  

It's actually a heresy that wasn't in the book, but the film changed two words of a sentence that was pretty much infallible gospel and wasn't to be tampered with.  With two words, the filmmakers introduced an unholy heterodoxy.... and as the Holy Heteroclite, it is core to my calling and blogdom to publicly expose such skubala.

Of course, it's always risky to bring a book to film, and it is inevitable that changes will be made.

BUT this one may be almost the unpardonable sin...

Ready?

In the book, God the Father  (Papa) sings a bit of a Bruce Cockburn song while serving breakfast, and  confesses: "I love that child's songs!  I am especially fond of Bruce."  (pp. 122-123).

This was such a huge win for the book, and a great plug  for Bruce, who (unlike in his native Canada), is not well-enough known in the US. etc. Of all people, followers of Christ should be aware of this prophetic troubador.  Heck, you can even ask (British) N.T. Wright!

 If you're reading this blog, you are among the select and elect, and you likely know about him, and have noted he  deservedly has his own listing under blog topics (Bruce even sent us ..me...some autographed product).

William Paul Young, author of The Shack, if you'll pardon the inappropriate but accurate reference, is man of wealth and taste.  Not only does he insert St Bruce Cockburn  ("What can I say…  [I am a] huge fan of Bruce Cockburn. As far as I am concerned, one of the greatest lyricists alive..and an incredible guitarist to boot." ... link) into the book (on the lips of God, no less), but in the acknowledgements section gives credit to the following for inspiration:  "U2, Dylan, Moby, Paul Colman,  Mark Knopfler, James Taylor, Bebo Norman, Matt Wertz (you are something special), Nichole Nordeman, Amos Lee, Kirk Franklin, David Wilcox, Sarah McLachlan, Jackson Browne, Indigo Girls, the Dixie Chicks, Larry Norman and a whole lot of Bruce Cockburn." (link)

But the movie version?

I was wondering if the Cockburn reference would make the cut.  I knew I would be thrilled if it did, but assumed it would be fodder for the  cutting room floor.

When I recognized the breakfast scene, I held my breath..

...and heard Papa singing a tune by...


wait for it...

 Neil Young!!!

She followed up with the familiar line:

"I love that child's songs!  I am especially fond of Neil Young."


Boom!  The heresy duck should have dropped right then.

Now, I love Neil Young as much as you; and he even has merited several posts on this here blog.
But he doesn't need the Holy Spirited PR that Bruce does.

Somebody  made a bottom line decision that was about the  film's economic bottom line.
It was bad decision  about a good observation : "Hey, not many people will recognize Bruce Cockburn; let's change it to someone already famous." Non-sequitur city; this would've been great reason and vehicle to introduce a lot of people to a little-known singer who could change their lives.

Okay, I'm kidding about this being a real heresy....I think. (:
And  when I lamented about this to Michael Bells , he had a point : "At least they are both Canadian.:-)"   Kudos and touché, we USAmericans really need to learn about the musical treasures God has embedded  in Canada.

But since I trust that this lil ol' blog has at least some influence, please check out the Bruce.

God loves him..
and as He (She) said in The Shack book:

"I have no favorite?  Bruce, I mean?"
"I have no favorites." I am just especially fond of him."
"You seem to be  especially fond of a lot of people.  Are there any you are not especially fond of?"
"Nope, I haven't been able to find anybody."  (p. 123).

Fair enough..
but one last dig..
Compare the spiritual depth of the Neil Young song Papa sang in the movie to that of the song of Bruce's that  she sang in the book version.  I could've nominated 50 better Godhanunted numbers from the Young canon/catalog/hymnal.  Gee, how about this?  .Or these?  Or the two (here and here, the second one I filmed here in Fresno) that Bono has taken it upon himself to call our prayer/attention to?

Get back to me..

"Examined Life"--the "Moving Head" film and the backtracking booktrack which "calls philosphy down from the heavens" Cornel West and Slavoj Žižek

I love that Astra Taylor assembled the "Examined Life" film, which interviews
public and ethical philosophers as they walk  (usually in a city or context that connects to their theme)..

I love that this surely turned out differently as a  somewhat spontaneous lab (not a scripted talking head flick, even though there are talking heads, they and their bodies are in motion) and a peripatetic exercise, and thus a "geography of place."  (see

sideways city-texts )

I love that I found the book version (the "booktrack" to a movie?) first, which features complete transcripts of each interview, including scenes edited out of the film.

Of course, I love that Cornel West and  Slajov Žižek were featured, and that their venues or vehicles were slightly different than the other stars.

West is interviewed in a car moving through Manhattan.  At one point, this is eerily similar to the Matrix scene when Neo realizes his greenview  out the car window is of a world that is

not "real"  and people who are not "really" alive (What is the opposite of simulacra? )
 West, who is  well aware of the Matrix hyperlink (He was even in the second Matrix film!) quips that someone studying in a  library is "more alive than the folks walking by us"...

Žižek's vignette...of course..set in a  garbage dump. (:
--

I'm sure you have trainspotted the title to Socrates' maxim about the "unexamined life is not worth living, butTaylor adds that also draws from Socrates' way of (per Cicero)"calling philosophy down from heaven."  Bring it on...er, down.

Here's the Cornel West "chapter":  Truth below.
Some takeaways: centrality of music, why he's a "Chekhovian Christian," Jesus' anger (better yet, righteous indignation) in the temple, the "kairotic dimension of being in love,"  Charlie Parker riding on dissonance, "blues sensibility," "natural piety," As Christians, "nothing human ought to be alien to us", a "Kierkegaardian leap in Beckett's universe,"
-
- Here's Žižek's chapter: Ecology (in two languages no less):  Just watch(:
---
Most of the rest:
 -- Avita Ronell: Meaning:
 
Peter Singer: Ethics:
 
Appiah: Cosmopolitanism (Sadly, this is the only section not online, so here is a more traditional talk of his on the same topic):
 
 Martha Nussbaum: Justice:
Michael Hardt: Revolution:
Judith Butler & Sunaura Taylor: Interdependence:

"The answer to 'Why?' is...."

cl

Maybe the answer to everything is 42.
But more than once a week at my house, I ask

                "Do you know why  [fill in the blank]?"

                                       The answer is always..well..
                                                        Watch  this  classic "Dream Team" clip.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155737010988245&id=669508244&ref=bookmarks

A Seder connection in Matrix Reloaded?

 A Passover connection in Matrix Reloaded?:


Morpheus: All of our lives we have fought this war. Tonight I believe we can end it. Tonight is not an accident. There are no accidents. We have not come here by chance. I do not believe in chance... I do not see coincidence, I see providence, I see purpose. I believe it is our fate to be here. It is our destiny. I believe this night holds for each and every one of us the very meaning of our lives... 

Niobe: What if you..and the prophecy.. are wrong?
 
Morpheus:Then tomorrow we may all be dead, but how would that be different from any other day? This is a war, and we are soldiers. Death can come for us at any time, in any place... Now consider the alternative. What if I am right? What if the prophecy is true? What if tomorrow the war could be over. Isn't that worth fighting for? Isn't that worth dying for?  link

--

the best-known quote from the Pesach Haggadah is, "why is this night different from all other nights?" This line is usually recited by the youngest person at the table (or at least, the youngest person capable of reciting it). It is meant to express the child's confusion at the difference between a typical every-day or holiday meal and the unusual features of the seder.    link

You are not your clothes....or your armor

Here below is  a great article by my friend Mike Spinelli, accompanied by a pic of him projecting a pic of me as he teaches a Bible class.    I have returned the favor; the love is mutual (:   Mike is a wonderful colleague.  Be sure to click the link at the end so Dr. Mike gets full royalties:

You are not your clothes
Saturday, Feb 1, 2014
   
You might be surprised at how Paul identifies followers of Christ

By Mike Spinelli 

I don’t often remember words spoken at a graduation, even my own. In order for me to remember, the words have to be special. Like those of the valedictorian at a friend’s high school graduation who began and ended her speech with a revised quote from a popular movie: “You are not your job; you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are so not your khakis.”

What makes these words extraordinary after all these years is that they remind me that what I have does not define or classify me. How often do we define ourselves by what we have in the bank or the garage? Even if we eschew possessions, our hard work or even just the title of our job becomes a major identifier. And how many of us accept the notion that the clothes do make the man or the woman?

Okay, maybe you don’t need these things to define you. But do other things identify you—family, service to God or even striving for Christ-like character?

The apostle Paul devoted many words to how we should live as imitators of Christ. In Colossians 3:12-14 we find a list of characteristics that Paul imagines as clothing, something we should put on and wear. They are wonderful character values that reflect Christ’s nature—compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and forgiveness.
Yet it is not these attributes that caught my attention during a men’s retreat a couple of years back. I could have read the whole passage, soaking in the “to do” list Paul is presenting. But it was the words with which Paul launches his list that made me  link, continued

P.S .Here's the movie scene he quoted.  It's from Fight Club (profanity alert)

--------------------------------------
Mike's  article reminded me of the truth that I might now call "You are not your armor."  Christians have made  (too?) much of the spiritual armor Paul describes in Ephesians 6: the shield of faith, etc.  But the armor is so exciting and attention-getting that we often focus more on the ("mundane")  individual pieces than what they represent; focusing more on the  sign than the sign-ified.  It might help to translate "take up faith like a shield..." instead of "take up the shield of faith."  I love how Eugene Peterson solves this in The Message Bible.  Strikingly, for most of the items of armor, he doesn't even mention the item at all, drawing attention back to to what are actually supposed to be/do:

Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open 

And don't get me started on an even more fundamental  problem with the way we read Ephesians.



No..don't even read this link!
.




Okay, you didn't click, so I'll repost that article below:
--

Friday, April 12, 2013

mundane yet dramatic spiritual warfare: running signs (and demons) off significant cliffs via random acts of kindness

Mistook signs for signified

And so since I’ve often tried
To run them off a cliff like Gadarene swine
-mewithoutYou, "Fox's Dream Of The Log Flume"
---

How many times have you seen doll-size (or life-size)individual Christian soldiers in full armor (per Ephesians 6, of course)  on the shelves or in the window of a Christian bookstore?

Well meaning............
                      ...but well off the mark.

Not as creepy as the John Haggai teddy  bear.....
                           ....but (ironically) dangerous, exegetically. 


For several reasons.

One has been dealt with in a previous post (misundertaking spiritual warfare: reading in context and in (anabaptist) communitas):

 The letter is to a church community, not an individual.  It's not the letter to theEphesian.

 The "you"s are plural throughout.  Read passages you thought you had all figured out in that light, especially 2:8-10, 3:16....and the passage at hand.

How exactly  to imagine the armor on a group calls for...well, imagination.
(imagine that!  Imagination...in church?  This calls for spirituality that is   actually Ignatian and SpongeBob-ian).

Guy Chevrau, in a helpful book, offers one possibility:

In fact, we do not stand alone.  The entire armor passage is addressed not to an individual believer but to the Church. The pronouns are all plural.  In Texas they would say correctly, "Y'all stand."  The whole metaphor is a corporate calling..  This especially casts the "shield of faith in a new light/.  The shield Paul names is not the small, round, garbage can lid.of a  shield  but literally the thyreos...a Roman soldier would hold this shield in his left hand and the right two thirds of the shield would cover his left side.  The left third of the shield covered his fellow soldier's exposed right.  When the troops were in position, they created a defensive position called the 'tortoise,'  When the legionaires held their shields overhead and the front rows interlocked their shields, they created a kind of shell-like armor.  link, p.  138

Even though Chevrau gathers his  historical info from a trusted historical source (Rome at War), we still don't know for sure if this is the picture Paul means to evoke.  Thus the same problem on the other side of the ditch: the image will definitely  preach! And the powerful image (sign) may well stick in our minds more than actually using our faith (the sign-ified)....and other elements of armor)


It's the inevitable risk of a visual metaphor/parable/sign...

a risk God takes all over Scripture, 
           Jesus takes every time he opens his mouth (Matthew 13:34-35)
                        and Paul takes head on in the Ephesians text.

We in the West have focused on, obsexxed on the individual...thus individual armor.

I would  venture many USAmerican  fundagelicals  go through the motions  of "Putting on the shield of faith"....without the faith..

Like the character in the mewithoutYou song, "mistook signs for signified."

It's faith like a shield, not a "shield like faith."

Sometimes, after the metaphor has done its work and subverted us ( see Eugene Peterson's delightful...and still metaphorical.... definition of metaphor: "a loud fart in the salon of spirituality"), we can then in the (metaphorical!) language of the song, drive all said signs/demons of a cliff, so that  only the signified signified remains.

Peterson's  Message Bible is amazing on this passage.  .  It's not as sassy and sexy as most translations, which encourage us ti get jazzed up and armored up for some war games... but it is a necessary correction.  Note it completely refuses to even mentionthe signs (pieces of armor).   The emphasis and onus  is thus off the armor, and all  attention on the real reality.

0-12 And that about wraps it up. God is strong, and he wants you strong. So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.13-18 Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

The most helpful commentator I know on Ephesians is Tim Gombis:

 Ts

In Ephesians 6:10-18, then, Paul is not merely addressing individuals but the entire gathered church...

Okay, we's heard that already.  But keep reading!  Gombis maintains that

.
.....Paul does not derive the armor of God from his pondering of the armor of a Roman soldier, therefore, but from a consideration of the Scriptures....
....The church engages in warfare in ways that defy and overturn our expectation

The clincher:

Our warfare against the powers takes place on a mundane level....Strategic acts of love and self-sacrificial service to others are cosmically significant.  ---all quotes fromhis book

Drat!  To "do spiritual warfare,"  I might just have to (get to) do something as non-dramatic as..

drum roll, please..

Love my neighbor.


But in fact, as mundane as that is, Gombis holds that it IS dramatic..in the biblical sense.
And that is the whole point (His book is "The Drama of Ephesians," buy it yesterday).

And start some mundane, messianic,  dramatic...and  sign-ificantly subversive warfare to beat the devil.

------

Note:   on the group emphasis of Ephesians 6,

I was blown away last summer by a class I was teaching.  I split the class into groups and gave them projects; one group was assigned "Draw a picture of the Ephesians 6 imagery"  They gave me this:

Finally, enjoy these related items;

• misundertaking spiritual warfare: reading in context and in (anabaptist) communitas
• 
  
• Eugene Peterson on axios and calling
• 
  
• Ephesians 6:10-18 at St Paul's Cathedral

epistemology of film/history

Visions of the Past

The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History

by Robert A. Rosenstone

Official promo:

“If you’re in search of a thoughtful overview of film and history as rival routes to the past, check out the essays collected in Visions of the Past...Rosenstone nicely reverses the assumption that history exists only on paper, approved and stamped by historians.”—Carlin Romano, Chicago Tribune

“[A] fascinating analysis of the traditional and nontraditional historical film...This is solid scholarship written in a manner that makes it accessible for a wide range of readers.”—Choice

“The pieces represent work over a wide time span and demonstrate Rosenstone’s evolving attitude toward the historical movie...The author knows of his subject from various perspectives...[and] presents his arguments simply and clearly, without drowning the reader in jargon or obtuse references. Well recommended.”—Library Journal

“In these essays, Rosenstone writes with the fervor of the convert...urging historians to admit that film can often do what books can’t...Rosenstone is really rooting for modernist or post-modern cinema--the likes of Alex Cox, Chris Marker and Trinh T. Minh-ha--as the only adequate chroniclers of our fractured sense of the past.”—Sight and Sound

Can filmed history measure up to written history? What happens to history when it is recorded in images, rather than words? Can images convey ideas and information that lie beyond words? Taking on these timely questions, Robert Rosenstone pioneers a new direction in the relationship between history and film. Rosenstone moves beyond traditional approaches, which examine the history of film as art and industry, or view films as texts reflecting their specific cultural contexts. This essay collection makes a radical venture into the investigation of a new concern: how a visual medium, subject to the conventions of drama and fiction, might be used as a serious vehicle for thinking about our relationship with the past.

Rosenstone looks at history films in a way that forces us to reconceptualize what we mean by "history." He explores the innovative strategies of films made in Africa, Latin America, Germany, and other parts of the world. He journeys into the history of film in a wide range of cultures, and expertly traces the contours of the postmodern historical film. In essays on specific films, including Reds, JFK, and Sans Soleil, he considers such issues as the relationship between fact and film and the documentary as visionary truth.

Theorists have for some time been calling our attention to the epistemological and literary limitations of traditional history. The first sustained defense of film as a way of thinking historically, this book takes us beyond those limitations.  link

"Christ Can't Be Pictured"

I was stunned to see this title at the used book store.
I shouldn't have been.

It's a classic Reformation principle .. for some.. that words are more important than images;

even that any images/imaginations of Jesus..therefore art..are forbidden as they are idolatry.

Note the picture (image!) on the cover consists of words about Jesus. 

The well-meaning, but misguided premise, according to the author's blog:

Pictures "de-present" Christ—much more than they "re-present" him. The purpose of this book is to call Christians back to the Bible for their revelation of who Christ is.

The pictures everybody uses to represent Christ are not pictures of Christ at all. They are forbidden by Scripture. They are rooted in a non-biblical monistic idea of God—akin to pantheism. They become idolatrous, not just when they are "worshiped," but at the moment they are given the name of Christ.   link

The whole book can be read on the right-hand bar of the author's blog.

An ironic quote:
"This book is necessary to bring Christians to their senses."— Richard Bennett

Hmm, primacy of senses and primacy of word..

The author comments:

"'The Passion of the Christ' movie  by Mel Gibson...That is perhaps the deadliest influence of the movie is its subliminal denial of the Deity of Christ. Those who made the movie can insist that this man on the screen images Christ. Promoters of the movie may claim that the movie proclaims the Deity of Christ. But the movie makes us call Jim Caviezel “Christ”. This is idolatry.  link

What would Mark DeRaud say?

Ignatius of Loyola directs mimetic and histrionic kittens to play religiously on stage: copy-catechism

pic credit

From The Idea of a Theater by  Fergusson
 
The Histrionic Sensibility: The Mimetic Perception of Action

The trained ear perceives and discriminates sounds; the histrionic sensibility(which may also be trained) perceives and discriminates actions.Neither form of perception can be defined apart from experience but only indicated in various forms of its use...

Kittens in their play seem to be using something like our histrionic sensibility. They

directly perceive each other’s actions: stalking an imagined quarry; the bluff and formal

defiance which precedes a fight; flight in terror; the sudden indifference that ends the

play. Their perception of each other’s actions is itself mimetic, a sympathetic response of

the whole psyche, and may be expressed more or less completely and immediately in

bodily changes, postures, and movements.  The soul of the cat is the form of its body; but to some degree the soul is actual in different ways in different moments, depending upon what the cat believes, or make-believes the situation to be...When kittens perceive and imitate the actions of grown cats, the histrionic sensibility is being used for educational, moral (or by analogy) religious purposes: to explore the potentialities of the cat nature and the dimensions of the world in which the cat finds itself...

The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola  would seem to be far removed from the play of kittens; yet their purpose is to reveal, through the techniques of make-believe, the potentialities of human nature and the realities of the human situation, as Loyola understood them.   When he explains to the devout how to make present to their feelings and imaginations as well as their reason, scenes from the life of Christ, he  sketches a technique like that which the Moscow Art Theater used to train actors. His immediate purpose is similar: to reveal a scene significant on many levels, and a mode of action capable of evoking a mimetic response of the whole being pp 236-238, The Idea of a Theater, Fergusson

"Reception exegesis": biblical studies conference of "Jesus and the Life of Brian"

Fr Burridge:“If you had been told 35 years ago that some of the world’s top biblical scholars and experts would fly around the world to discuss your work, what would you have said?” 
John Cleese of Monty Python:“Well it’s just as silly as everything else."

See  Sarah Prime's post on the "Jesus and Brian"  academic conference:

And now for something completely different: Brianology Comes of Age; or, What Have the Pythons Done for Us? – By Sarah Prime

What the Christian Church Can Learn from The Church of Satan (by Christianity Today)

read it here

"Princess Bride" will preach

Resources on "The Matrix"

Websites:
 Matrix Explained 

Matrix Decoded: Symbolism

  The Matrix as Christian Allegory

The Messiah and The Matrix by Debra McCaw

Matrix as Messiah Movie

Forget sci-fi and guns - The Matrix is really about religion 

Christian symbolism in The Matrix part 1 of 3:

Books:

• The Gospel reloaded: exploring spirituality and faith in The matrix

• The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real (Popular Culture and Philosophy

•  The Reality Within The Matrix

• Taking the red pill: science, philosophy and religion in The Matrix

 DVD: The Roots of The Matrix (philosophical and religious)

 

 License Plates in the Matrix

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christian Symbolism in The Matrix, part 1 of 3:

More:

Neo Christus Victor and the "literal Deus ex machina"

 "I believed that it was all about me... that all I had to do was point my finger and anoint whoever I chose"

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" I love seeing you non-believers. It's really a relief.."):

 

ceremonial cleansing in The Matrix

 15 Mind-Altering Facts About ‘The Matrix’ To Make You Say Whoa On Its 15th Anniversary

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