Copyright by Shea Oakley<\/p>\n
All rights reserved<\/p>\n
Some say that human beings need to take part in some heroic and genuinely dangerous quest to give their lives any true meaning in the end. Today the unconscious longing for such a mission is probably most obviously manifested in our popular entertainment, often in motion pictures like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the eight films of the Star Wars series, or the three movies derived from the Chronicles of Narnia. In all these films a group of flawed protagonist\u2019s band together on a quest to see ultimate good win out over ultimate evil. As we watch these Hollywood epics we often feel caught up in a sort of primal calling to involve ourselves in some similar but real journey. We feel the obligation to sacrifice our private interests for some greater communal good, and we actually desire it. We desire to play a significant part in a profound moral adventure.<\/p>\n
It is, I submit, no co-incidence that two of the originators of the films mentioned, J.R.R.Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, were Catholic and Protestant Christians respectively. As for the creator of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, George Lucas has admitted that his own personal spiritual journey was the driving force behind his making of the Star Wars pictures. You see, epic quests require the presence of moral conflict and moral conflict requires something larger than Post-Modern Existential meaninglessness. If there is no such thing as right and wrong, then there is nothing to capture the human heart\u2019s longings for ultimate meaning, and nothing to spur us on to pursue the risks involved in \u201csaving the world.\u201d This is true whether we are talking about the world of Middle Earth, Narnia, the Republic of Coruscant or, more importantly, the world outside the theater door.<\/p>\n
The Kingdom of Self which dominates Western Civilization today kills the noblest impulses of a race made in the image of God, a race that is the crown of His creation and one that is also, according to the Judeo-Christian narrative, being fought over in a universal battle between real good and real evil. So much of what passes for culture today deadens our sense of being caught up in a battle worth fighting, a battle that “quest movies” point to through the cinematic use of compelling allegories. These celluloid flights of imagination wrest our hearts from slumber and inspire us to desire to sacrifice for a greater good than our own interests, if only for the 120 minutes we sit in the theater.<\/p>\n
So, yes, we need films like these to help open our eyes to the fact that in \u201creal life\u201d we are serving either good or evil, life or death, God or the Devil. But beyond that we also must become willing to embrace our own very real and personal role in the actual ongoing cosmic battle, a non-cinematic conflict in which the price of cowardice and self-centeredness is our very souls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved Some say that human beings need to take part in some heroic and genuinely dangerous quest to give their lives any true meaning in the end. Today the unconscious longing for such a mission is probably most obviously manifested in our popular entertainment, often in motion pictures like… <\/p>\n