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A Moral Multiverse

A Moral Multiverse
Photo by Sigmund / Unsplash

Longer emails and longer meetings aren't always better. (But they aren't *always* worse either.) Our Japan team is in the process of revising our meeting and project management rhythms.

Thanks for all your support in advancing Jesus's Kingdom in Kawasaki! Sometimes, missions looks like talking about the effectiveness of our process and programs as a cross-cultural team. We believe God is honored by excellence in serving Him and others.

Japan's favorite grouping of National Holidays is in the first week of May.
This mega-break gets a shiny, English-friendly name: "Golden Week." 🏅

Some Golden Week conversations with our young adults were about:

  • Dr. Strange and the alarming number of false ideas in Marvel's new movie
  • Franz Jägerstätter's moral courage and sacrificial faith presented in "A Hidden Life."

You can put as many multiverses in movies as you like. But, ultimately, a good judge will never resolve all the tragic messes that drive the infinite, million-dollar drama of the Marvel cinematic universe.

Fortunately, God graciously provides perfect, rectifying justice for our own world.

It's alarming when major movies intentionally exist in a separate moral universe from our own. After all, we interpret characters as good guys (or not) based on our actual moral compass.

Morality is tied to making meaning of the world. Of course, good writers play with expectations and values to create suspense and drama.

Global blockbuster films subtly change or reinforce the moral values of society over time. It's hard to say the media we consume is strictly a thermometer when directors with agendas use media as a thermostat for culture.

This is not to say that media cannot be used correctly. It can be. "A Hidden Life" is an excellent example of films asking probing and relevant questions concerning the moral make-up of men and women.

But, it's dangerous when moral universes are not grounded in reality. When fiction starts to drift away from hardcoded XX and XY reality, it is a problem.

At the end of the day, fictional lands are leaky proofs of an author's soul. "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks."

What are some movies that you've found to be difficult to watch recently?