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Lights,
Camera, Bombs! We are all familiar with Godzilla, a giant reptile stampeding through the streets of New York or some other town killing and crushing everyone in sight for no apparent reason. Or with spectacular "effects" films like Independence Day and other Hollywood blockbusters that depict mass destruction, packaged for our entertainment. It occurs to me that the news media's constant replay of the Sept. 11 planes crashing into the World Trade Center, the vivid photos and videos that show spectacular explosions, the towers crumbling to the ground and the pile of rubbish that the skyscrapers became are not much different than the Hollywood films. The Media exploited these images to their fullest. What many pay ten dollars to see in a theatre was given for free to every viewer, to sit and watch the entertainment of the day. Of course corporate giants sponsored the whole thing, through their commercials in between crumbling buildings and bodies flying out of the windows. These tragic events have been turned into propaganda and entertainment. We all have a story to become involved in now. Something to make sense of our lives. We can all jump in line behind the flag and scream for blood, while watching images of explosions and mass destruction with transparent flags waving in the background and a full soundtrack. We can sell T-shirts, posters, videos, and postcards all to promote the latest media blockbuster. And the media has wasted no time giving us all logos of "Attack on America" to help advertisement. If Godzilla and Independence Day were nothing but pure filler, nothing but pure technological narcissism, in which the technological industry creates it's own destruction and eats popcorn while doing it, then this latest media blockbuster is nothing less than the whirlwind of our wealth and leisure coming home to give us the real thing. The fact is that Americans needed such an attack. We are starving and dying of boredom. All we can do is sit back and spend our money and time making films about our own destruction. These images were still seen through the eyes of Hollywood. Seen through the eyes of those who spectacularize and profitize death for money. But the films like Godzilla have not produced a story Americans felt they could get behind. The News Media with the help of the Pentagon have created a story that the culture of death has found compelling. "Evildoers" and "terrorists" have invaded America and the whole world must unite to annihilate them. And Americans are jumping in line for tickets to the next show: the bombing of Afghanistan. Christians, should look upon these stories with their renewed sight. We should realize that these stories are attempts by our culture to situate themselves in a world without any stories worth being situated in. For in the end, the stories told by Hollywood, the media and our government are all false. The only story worthy of our full allegiance is that story told so long ago by a few men who followed a man named Jesus around. The only story that is truthful enough to admit, that even these disciples betrayed their leader, the only story honest enough not to spectacularize and profitize itself. Of course their have been profiteers who have distorted the story, and sensationalizers who have also. But they too have proven to be part of the world, trying to make sense out of their scattered and worthless lives by grabbing for a piece of the money god and not the Crucified God. The story
of the life, death and resurrection of that man Jesus of Nazareth...that
story is truth. It is a story told by those who were willing to face their
own failures. A story told by those who were willing to challenge the
popular death culture of their day. It is a story that demands our participation,
and our transformation. We too, can participate in the story of Jesus
Christ.
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