This Christian Life

Lord, Lord of the Rings

I have been teaching in adult sunday school lately with a fellow church-goer and ponderer of the “emerging church” movement on that very subject. There’s a fairly good curriculum by IVPress called Emerging Culture by Jimmy Long that we’ve been using as a framework (curriculum here and here).

Last week was kind of fun because the topic at hand was “communcation.” It was my turn to lead.

The curriculum had incorporated the Lord of the Rings as an example of how an already famous literary work was “translated” into today’s preferred and expected medium—film. There is an idea that today’s emerging culture is more comfortable and familiar with “images” than it is with the “word.” In fact, Leonard Sweet submits that the brain of a child today actually develops differently than the brain of their grand parents—and even their parents—because of the amount of video they consume.

In sunday school, I tried a fun excercise knowing most of the people in the class are over the age of 40 and the average age is probably more like 45. I took a passage from the Fellowship of the Rings (about the book, about the movie) and read it aloud. Immediately after reading a short two pages from the book, I showed that same segment from the movie by Peter Jackson.

After doing the excercise, I contended that the technology of today allows for a good and fair translation of these books that wasn’t possible even 5 years ago. The book is incredible at painting pictures and sparking the imagination, and the movie has successfully become its own telling of the story. The “word” reached millions of people (and will continue to do so) and the movies have done the same in their own right.

Is one better than the other? Depends on the audience. Will the “image” always be implemented in a way that is pleasing to the author? No. But is is worth purusing the “image” as a way to convey a message in today’s society? Completely.

I just hope we havn’e lost too much ground in the film arena as Christians.