Last weekend my family and I went to go see the latest James Cameron blockbuster: Avatar. With large buckets of popcorn and our 3-D glasses we were ready to be taken away to another world…another reality.
The movie was amazing; filled with special effects that would make George Lucas want to re-re-release the Star Wars franchise.
Yet lying beneath the layers of CGI is a storyline that serves as a sign post to our shifting culture. Avatar tells the story of exploration, discovery, conquest, and the progress that emerges from such conquests. This story is nothing new; it is found all through the history of cinema as well as through our collective American history. This is the story of how Columbus “discovered” America and “how the West was won”. The difference here is that a shift in how the story is being told is taking place.
Both Columbus and the expansion of the West (and the other “stories” like them) have been told through the prevailing worldview of a single perspective…the perspective of the majority (the group that holds the most power and influence). This is what modernity has brought us: a single story.
However the pitfall of modernity is that it claims only one story (the story of the majority) and in effect silences (through violence, oppression, or ignorance) all of the “other” stories that are speaking from different vantage points. Avatar serves as an indicator to the shift from a modern to a postmodern culture as it tells the story from the alternative vantage point (in relation the prevailing story).
One could easily recognize that the alternative story has always been there (Native Americans have always had an alternative story to the expansion of the West) but what points to a cultural shift is that this alternative story is being heard.
Middleton and Walsh write: “It is not just that the ‘Columbus story’ is being questioned or retold; more fundamental is the fact that aboriginal voices now have a significant hearing among us.” (p.12 Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be)
The shift in “story telling” can become unsettling and disorienting for many, particularly those who have ascribed to the prevailing story (more on this in another blog post). However I also can’t help but grow increasingly hopeful that in the midst of this shift there lies the great possibility that the God story might weave itself among us in new and surprising ways.
As the telling and hearing of the alternative stories increases, what is lost and what is gained?
How might the “alternative story” shape the way we think about and communicate the Gospel?
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