224. Why Does ‘Church Back Home Syndrome’ Distort Christian Imagination? by @Zack Russell

0 Plays3 months ago

You are being haunted.[1. Photo by grayom on Unsplash.] Specters from your past, or someone else’s past, lurk in your world. They twist meaning and distort symbols. They make you jump in the night, recoil from stories others find wonderful, and make the upright seem downright wicked. There is a cure that helps us imagine better, but first we must recognize the problem. What on earth is Church Back Home Syndrome? And why does this matter for Christian fantastical fans?

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Quotes and notes

French culture and artists have been prone to clear anti-religious bias over the years. It’s a country whose faith has been waning despite the beauty and faithful tradition of the past. Do you want to do something about it?

Makoto Fujimura, Aug. 1, 2024 Twitter post

This defense—“you failed to interpret my art properly”—doesn’t absolve an artist. That kind of response is lazy and pretentious. It comes from an ego that assumes the artist’s perspective is the only proper reading of what has been communicated.

By blaming the viewer’s faulty interpretation, the artist asserts that their intent supersedes what their work has communicated. It denies the objective reality of how their art sits in time and space, its context in history and culture.

Jared Boggess, “The Lessons of the Paris Olympics Tableau,” Aug. 1, 2024 at ChristianityToday.com

The organizers claimed they wanted to promote a French culture that welcomed all people to the table and celebrated feasting and peace over war and conflict. They claimed it was centered around Dionysus, the Olympian God of wine and festivity. They have since said it wasn’t meant to depict the Last Supper at all but rather The Feast of the Gods; however, many performers continue to claim it was a reference to The Last supper. Either way, the table stretched over the Seine Friday night was not designed to offend Christians; it was designed to offend the exclusivity of the Christian god. It was designed to honor the new god of the self.

Chase Replogle, “The Last King Strangled with the Entrails of the Last Priest,” undated post, 2024

I was in France watching the opening ceremony live on TV with family and friends. The everyday French people I talked with (none of them believers) are by and large flabbergasted at the bad taste of it all. I also pray, therefore, tha