THE MOVIE NOAH AND CULTURAL THEOLOGY. I saw it, and there were parts of it I really liked. Obviously no one could correctly say this is a version faithful to Scripture. It is Aronofskys overlaid story of family angst, paternal and religious passion (even stiff necked intolerance) subordinating love and mercy to a mistaken view of Divine fiat. There are too many real family and church stories just like that. What is interesting to me is the inconsistency in the story of a Creator who personally communicates (which Aronofsky allows) and then leaves our hero, Noah, to himself to figure out what God really wants. Thankfully, in the Bible, the Creator (who is personal) is a lot more communicative and consistent in his mercy. It is also interesting to me that the indictment of God upon the human race is pretty well applauded and vindicated in the way the story is set up. Culturally I think the use of environmental damage, (to the planet, to animals, even to the fauna) seems to convince us, yeah, people are bad. There doesnt seem to be any fight here to try to justify or defend God in his anger, but actually an acceptance of justice. I find that extraordinary in a modern film. Whereas popular American cultural would reject Gods anger for our personal morality we might accept it for sins against the planet. I remember rolling into Kuwait in the uncovered back of an Army five-ton. The sky grew darker and darker and I thought it was going to rain. Then we all remembered, Saddam Hussein had begun to burn the oil wells. Later I would take a landing craft out onto the Persian Gulf where you couldnt see the water due to the Iraqi dictator spilling oil from the wells into the sea. It became personal for me then, as I wondered how evil a man could be to try to destroy the ecology of the world in his anger. I became cemented in my conviction about the rightness of our cause from that moment. The effects and ideas in how the creatures came, how they settled into the ark, how monstrous the sea, how very possible world wide catastrophe could be were all interesting to me. I was pleased I felt no blasphemy in the film, but an incomplete communication of how merciful, personal, and communicative God really has been; through saving us all who are alive today through Noah, by giving and keeping his covenant, and saving us again in Jesus Christ.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 18:03:38 +0000
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