Mind Your Own Business Part 3/3

This post was originally published March 10, 2013.

Good evening,

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

Stories bear great power because they excite and expand the imagination. The quote above, taken from the very first line of The Hobbit, is one of my most favorite lines of all of literature. It tucks me away from this life and puts me into another world, another time.

Stories are the stuff of children. Boys are conquering pirates, girls are princesses in their castles. As people grow older, they lose their ability to think in this way. It may be rightly said that people mature from this infantile state of mind. Life is not a fairy tale, but people never lose interest in a tale that stretches the imagination.

The movie industry deals not merely in films, but imagination-stretchers. A good movie is exciting, fun or funny. A great movie will envelop me into the world of the character, and sad is the moment when I leave.

May it be a shock to you that Tolkien, the author of the great quote above, was a Christian? Or the famous Chronicles of Narnia were also written by one of the greatest Christian layman-theologians of all time — CS Lewis? Can you count the seemingly Christian allegories between Aslan, Gandalf and Jesus?

It is impossible to tell a story without betraying your worldview. Of course Bill O’Reilly is bashing liberals and Chris Matthews is bashing conservatives. However, Tolkein and Lewis actually did not write their books as allegories for Christianity. I really do not think Ke$ha is a nihilist philosopher (she is too busy dying young). Matt Damon probably does not have an anti-business vendetta. Nonetheless, the voices that control our culture today are liberals, relativists, nihilists, hedonists, egoists and humanists.

We as Christians must tell the story of God — the beautiful story of Him proclaiming His love and power to every nation. In order to reclaim the culture, Christians need to start being the story-tellers.

For my business friends, show compassion for your workers and your customers. For those in the media, start telling stories with a Christian worldview. For everyone, start watching movies such as The Incredibles, The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, any movie that has an uplifting message that encourages values such as marriage, family, truth, etc. There would be more of these movies if there was more of a market… wait, how many people claim Christianity?

Make it your business to quit feeding the pop culture machine and to fuel our depraved generation with all that is good.