Mark’s comment at the end of this article.

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Friday, February 26, 2010

mark driscoll hates avatar (REALLY HATES IT!)

I found this video of Pastor Mark Driscoll at his YouTube.com account. Apparently, Mark HATED Avatar. And he wanted everybody to know how much he hated it, so he posted this little video of him telling his church how much he hated it.

In this sermon clip he pretty much calls Avatar a Philistine, an enemy of God! His exact words are “[Avatar is the] most demonic, satanic film I’ve ever seen.”

Wow. He must have seen it in 3D.

Mark goes on to tell us that Avatar contains a “false Jesus, false savior, a false resurrection, a false Heaven…”

And Sigourney Weaver smokes!! But he doesn’t mention that.

I wonder if Mark knows the movie is fiction. I mean, it’s just a hunch, but I’m not convinced that he realizes James Cameron knows the movie is false.

I mean, did Mark see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Does he know the Lion isn’t real?! And that Frodo is make-believe, too? How about The Fonz? He seems to definitely believe in The Fonz.

Eventually, Mark says… “People are just stunned by the visuals. Well, the visuals are amazing because Satan wants you to emotionally connect with a lie.”

I will admit, when I watched the Smurfs as a kid, I did want to live in a mushroom house.

Mark goes on to say that “Nobody has ever accused him of being a fundamentalist!”

Really?! I find that really hard to believe.

But if that’s the case, let me be the first: Pastor Mark Driscoll, you’re a fundamentalist. You’re like the late Jerry Falwell with tattoos, a faux-hawk, and a tendency toward belittling women.

But you know, at least Jerry knew he was a fundamentalist. He owned up to it. He didn’t try to trick anybody into thinking otherwise.

Toward the end of the video, as a way to prove he loves creativity and the arts, Mark tells us how rich he is by listing off how many home theaters and Tivos he owns, and then adds, “Our film crew was just down in LA at Universal Studios shooting on the Spartacus set… getting footage for our Good Friday service…” (There’s a punch line somewhere in all of that, but I won’t go there…)

Anyway, to be fair, I didn’t like Avatar, either. But not because I thought it was Satanic. But because the story and dialogue was awful.

If Mark is right about Satan playing a role in making Avatar, then it would have been a better movie, I think.

What do you think? Is there really that much difference between the world views of Avatar and that of movies like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?

from http://jesusneedsnewpr.blogspot.com/2010/02/mark-driscoll-hates-avatar-really-hates.html

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I’ve seen Avatar 3D. It is one of the best art films in a long time and deserves a viewing by every Christian.

I note there is NOTHING from Christians that comes anywhere near it as a work of film art. The closest is the secular adaption of J R Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” (which itself is far superior to the adaption of C S Lewis’ Narnia. Though Protestant Lewis was brought to Christianity by Catholic Tokien – and they remained friends for a while – in later life they had a falling out and Tolkien despised the preachiness and shabbiness of art in the Narnia tales. Over time, Tolikien has been proven to be correct. Tolkien’s art speaks more powerfully than Lewis’ kitsch.)

Avatar is parable of modern times confronting the major problem of our fear of the Other which is dominant in USA style Fundamentalism. It tells a truth without preaching. It is a fairy tale where truth wins in the end.

The Na’vi are representative of the Other that Fundamentalists seek to demonise and destroy. The Na’vi and those who Fundamentalists wish to evangelise with their “good news”. The Na’vi don’t think that the “good news” is very good at all. (See comments further on.)

Pandora is how Earth could be if the “Pandora’s box” of unthinking Fundamentalism had not ruined the past 200 years.

Jake Sully is us – crippled by unthinking Fundamentalism that has destroyed our legs – the mind that God gave us. He was a “jarhead dropout” but becomes enlightened by interacting with the Other. In his interaction with the Other he can walk. Bound to the “sky people”(aka Fundamentalists) he is a cripple.

The military on Pandora may think that they are “not in Kansas anymore” yet their rationale is very much Kansas Fundamentalism opposed to science, culture and art.

The “Hometree” in Avatar is a symbol of THE tree in the garden of Eden. We are now living in exile from Eden. Eden has been destroyed by greed, technology, financial markets, war mongering and the USA war machine with their “In Oil We Trust” … and Fundamentalism. The Luddites were correct. Technology destroys some very basic principles of humanity, truth and compassion ( “grace” in Christianese).

More importantly Eden has been destroyed by the unthinking USA brand Fundamentalism which ignores the cultures of other civilisations and which tries to force their man-made dogmas upon those who have far more wisdom than in the whole of fundamentalist history since the 1800s. Evangelicals have preached a “good news” that was “bad news” for the majority of civilisation. It has excluded the Other – like the Na’vi – the women, gays, lesbians, those who are not Anglo-Saxon, the artists, the intellectuals … many of whom have fled the church to preserve their sanity and integrity. Those who are better educated are less likely to be members of their local church. The blame for the destruction of contemporary Eden can be squarely placed at the feet of unthinking anti-art Fundamentalists.

Eywa is God but not a “Jesus type” God – human and able to do tricks with wine, bread and fish – more like the God that Paul Tillich derscribed as the Ground of all Being. It is this type of God that Fundamentalists cannot fathom yet is the basis of conrtemporary thought in such books as Karen Armstrong’s “The Case For God (What Religion Really Means)” (The Bodley Head: 2009)

The Hallelujah Mountains are like “pie in the sky”.

Toruk is the tamed Dragon of Revelation who is no longer a “boogey man”.

The “tree of voices” is the collected wisdom of the ages in the sense of Jung. It more like the real “logos” envisaged by Philo.

Jake’s partner is Grace – grace is something that Fundamentalists do not understand. She is thus made an enemy of the more powerful forces of the “sky people” (aka Fundamentalists).

“pasta” Mark Driscoll is a Jesus Jingle writer – not an artist – just a Christianese Kitsch robotic producer. His diatribe against Avatar shows in his inablility to appreciate good art. He would have made a good right hand man for Savonarola and the Bonfire of Vanities which burnt Botticelli’s art amongst many others.

The above is only one possible reading of this magnificient film … but it is one that Fundamentalists ignore to their own peril.

Read a synopsis of the movie at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/synopsis