Tuesday 31 July 2007

Random musings on pike-fishing and the sad passing of a director

What to do?

It´s been a long time since I last blogged and I stand before the choice of giving a full account of my summer so far or simply picking up where i left off. I´ll do the latter... primarily.


Yesterday swedish moviemaker/director icon Ingmar Bergman passed away, and the world is a poorer place for it. Allthough his art never became a huge direct influence on me, the indirect influence has surely been noticeable. Not the least the way many of his films reflect the struggles of coming to grips with the morally strict and legalistic upbringing provided by his father Henrik who was a christian minister. This has informed many discussions on faith and the structured chruch that I´ve had. Moreover, Bergmans view of the church and, given by that, the character of God has helped form the debate and cultural climate in an increasingly post-christian sweden more than many may think.


To put it simply - Bergman arrived at the fact that God could not exist because of all the evil, all the moral uptightness and the lack of passion for the creative that he faced in/through his own father and this, allthough far from exclusively due to Bergmans influence, has become a popular image of christians. They are people of lacking and negative responses: No passion, no foul language, no movies, no theatre, no abortions, no, no, no...

This saddens me.

I allways thought that followers of Jesus would mend wounds not cause them! I thought that "church" ment a group of people sharing the mission of being good news in any given community and culture and time. Good news for the poor, the opressed and marginalized, the sick.

I thought "church" reflected Gods love through caring for the poor, the opressed and marginalized by sharing its life with them and speaking on their behalf. I thought that "church" ment spending time with the sick, caring and praying for them and even seeing some healed beyond the expectations of scholastic medicine.


I thought that "church" had to do more with saying yes to God and the work of love he wants to see than no, no, no...


I thought that "church" was passionate about that... saying yes to God!

What if Ingemar Bergmans dad had been like that? Would the world ever have seen a master-director from Sweden portraing the death of God and the dissolution of "church"? Or could the world have seen a man, imitating his dad rather than distancing himself from him, giving his life to be with the poor, the outcasts, the marginalized and the sick? It is likely (but not necessary!) the latter option would have left him without the Oscars and the artistic acclaim, but which is the most beautiful?

You decide.

What about the part of the summer that has not been blogged about then? Does that exist?


The two weeks we spent in Kalix? - They were lovely simply because nothing happened! Nothing? Well, we did some pike-fishing and read some books...











And what about the 10-day concerttour of the american midwest, and the week of meeting other Jesus followers and leading seminars on "The post-christendom church" at the Nordic Vineyard summercamp? - I´ll return to them in future blogs, directly or indirectly. Promise!

2 comments:

Jonas Lundstrom said...

Hi!
Great post. You have a lot of good points. Probably God´s people, post-Constantine, has assumed that everyone should be a christian, and then we have to be very angry when people are questioning the faith. If we had considered ourselves an obscure minority, then we might have been able to see Bergman for what he was. A non-follower of Jesus who where asking a lot of really relevant questions of death, guilt, relationships etc in a very creative way. Definitely something to be challenged by and connect to.

By the way. Be kind to the fishes if you don´t have to kill them. In the coming rule of God that we seek, no harm will be done to the animals. (Isaiah 65:25)
/Jonas Lundström

Andreas W Andersson said...

(Ah,Jag tar detta på svenska/In swedish)

Tack Jonas!

Du har rätt:

Den defensiva "kyrkan" har sina rötter i felaktiga allianser rotad i en själbild där Jesus inte är "Herre" över allt (det stora ja:et). Det orsakar då stor (och onödig) smärta och en upplevelse av undanträngande när världen säger nej.
Hade "kyrkan" existerat för att tjäna underifrån och med första utgångspunkt i Guds nya handlande och radikal lojalitet till Jesus hade perspektivet varit annorlunda. Smärtan skulle väl då komma från att dela världens lidande samtidigt som man förmedlar hopp? Alltså snarare en god smärta
...men vi lever i en kultur som flyr från lidandet eller gör det till något vi måste bli av med för att kunna leva...jag gör det hela tiden. Kanske är lidandet (vårt eget eller det vi frivilligt delar med andra) något som visar oss vad det innebär att följa Jesus i en trasig värld? Kanske finns där t.o.m en skönhet som är större än det smärtfria och stumma liv som många av oss ser som "normalt" och eftersträvansvärt, kristna eller ej?

Där säger Bergman något viktigt i sina skarpskurna människoporträtt där smärtan hela tiden är närvarande.(inte minst prästerna som söker sanning bortom den institutionaliserade religionens värsta avarter.)


Dessutom:

Den alternativkristna bloggen utmanar mig ständigt... Får kanske ge mig in i kommentarströmmen där också!

Och nej, vi var inga rutinerade gäddfiskare så fiskstackarn fick utstå en del onödigt lidande. Den hämtade sig dock en stund efter att vi lagt tillbaks den i vattnet!

/a