Amanda,
Thanks for your comments about my Avatar post. I love it when people leave heartfelt comments that ask real questions and address sincere concerns… and they do it respectfully. There is plenty of room for Christians to disagree. We are to be steadfast and unwavering about the ESSENTIALS… and allow vast amounts of liberty where God has allowed liberty.
You are VERY correct with this statement:
But I am so sick and tired of being called a *liberal* by my Christian brothers and sisters because I distrust corporate America and suspect that much of the decisions made my corporate America are greed-driven and do not necessarily have my childrens’ best interests at heart.
It’s the UNFAIR BIAS of Hollywood that I point out… white corporate Christian America is evil and greedy but nature loving altruistic natives and earth worshipers are pure at heart and harmonious. That has been the clear message of Hollywood in countless movies like Dances With Wolves and Avatar.
Baloney…
The corporate food industry IS guilty of egregious greed, evil, abuse and manipulation of our culture (and to be fair, modern farming techniques they have developed have also “fed the world”). That’s more than well documented. Huge corporations and industrialized western cultures ARE guilty of pillaging the earth many times, in many ways. No doubt… but also guilty of greed, evil, abuse, environmental destruction and manipulation of people are natives, Christians, politically motivated environmentalists, organized religion, government, whites, blacks, men, women, gays, straights… see my point?
ALL PEOPLE are sinners… we are to be good stewards and managers of God’s gift of the Earth to us. We are not to worship the creation but worship the Creator who gave it. Hollywood preaches a clear message that whites (specifically European/American Christians) and corporations are evil through and through…everyone else (especially those who vote along socialist & liberal lines or hate Christianity) is good, sincere and pure at heart. The deeper issue at work here is a rejection of the God of the Bible whom the European Protestants brought to America.
You mistake my focus as “political” when it is not, AT ALL. I pointed out only that Cameron unapologetically promotes liberal environmental POLITICS (not to be confused with Christian stewardship of the Earth). He makes no attempt to hide that aspect. My focus is Biblical. Where Avatar, Hollywood or environmental activism conflicts with Scripture, I am against it.
The political message in Avatar is one subject, and the far LESSER of the two major ones. My concern is for the religious deception it clearly preaches. Avatar openly promotes a false religion of “creation worship”, plain and simple. The entire movie in all its symbols, names, language, events and conclusions openly promotes the RELIGION of “earth worship” and Shamanism. To deny that is like denying Schindlers List does not attempt to educate about the Holocaust. For Christians to ignore the religious effort of Avatar, or worse, embrace it’s teachings, is an insult to our own faith. We cannot “mix” pleasing or popular aspects of false religion into the Gospel of Christ. To do so is to deny BOTH.
I have very little to say about Christians who jump on the environmentalist bandwagon, even the politically correct one, except to say I disagree (because environmental results are not the objective; political power is). I agree with being a good steward OF GOD’S CREATION. However, when it crosses over into Earth worship, pantheism and spiritism, I have much to say, and make no apologies. Christians should not only reject it, but boldly denounce it. Earth worship to ANY degree, no matter how seemingly insignificant, is a clear violation of God’s first command to “have no other gods before Me”.
That is where my emphasis and “intolerance” lay as a Christian. Other than occasionally exposing the true motives of American “green” environmentalism (which is political power), I don’t get on a soapbox about Christians who are involved in it.
I get on hundred foot high soap boxes about false religion though, as should all Christians when appropriate.