David Zahl, College and Young Adult Minister and Licensed Lay Preacher at Christ Episcopal Church in Charlottesville VA, believes the Muppets™ and Pixar™ movies can be vehicles for preaching the Gospel.
According to the report in the Deseret News, Salt Lake City UT.
… Zahl, … published a Nov. 21 op-ed piece in Christianity Today titled “The Gospel According to Jim Henson.” The article looks at how the Muppets franchise reinforces basic tenets of Christian belief via humor and affirmation.
Earlier this year Zahl and Todd Brewer co-authored The Gospel According to Pixar, a 76-page study guide for families and church groups. …
On Nov. 11-12, Zahl headlined a conference at the Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas. The Baptist Standard covered the event.
Zahl writes in Christianity Today:
… Henson’s was not an angry or nihilistic kind of absurdity; it was the sweet and, dare I say, loving kind. A life-affirming poking of fun that puts people on equal footing, not expecting them to be anything other than flawed. You might even call it a gracious absurdism. His faith in humanity began from an acknowledgement of limitation, not an illusion about perfectibility. He knew that joy flowed from honesty, rather than around it—sound familiar? In a similar way, Christians, whose identity is found apart from our ever-changing and often hopeless abilities and attributes, are free to laugh at ourselves. This is part and parcel of Christian joy.
How have you used movies and other cultural artifacts to preach THE Good News?