Its amazing what can be communicated through the unlikeliest of sources. I watched the “monster” movie Cloverfield the other night. Flawed as it was, I thought it was ok, some good ideas in there, the suspense and sense of constant peril was well done. However it wasn’t after I had watched it and started delving into the interviews and special features that I was floored with an interesting concept that the film introduces. Cloverfield is shot from a very narrow viewpoint. There is one camera, operated by one character. During the movie, there is a scene where we see thousands of people on the Brooklyn bridge trying to escape Manhattan. For a moment we see someone else filming, and that’s where the question is raised. This is a generation where almost everyone in the western word has some kind of camera with them constantly; we have Youtube, Flickr, Facebook etc. The point was made that in the context of the film, is that there is the possibility of hundreds of thousands of different viewpoints, experiences and “movies” within the movie. If you do a search on 9/11 on Youtube, you’ll see the day’s events from a multitude of different vantage points. The Gospels are like this too. One of the arguments against the authenticity of scripture is that there are differing emphasis’s and details. But for me, that proves its authenticity. If the Gospels were fiction then surely they would be exactly the same, you know the phrase, “getting your story straight”. This worldview also gives us hope for the church, yes we have different vantage points and views, the details differ, but the fundamentals are the same.
Relevant scripture: Mark 7 (Jesus shifts someones paradigm about the law and tradition)
