'This frying pan is a great reminder of the Christian story.' Yes, that's a phrase I genuinely uttered at a youth camp once. My friend Emma had challenged me to see if I could turn random inanimate objects into gospel presentations; the phrase 'object lesson' being taken to weird and unlikely extremes. I managed to share the gospel with a frying pan, it was then her turn with a brussels sprout, then I had a go with a toy car. So it went on. Quite coincidentally, many young people became Christians on that camp.
More recently, I've found that the same thing happens when I engage with popular culture. If you've read any of the movie reviews I've written for this site over the past few years, you might be aware of my irritating habit of finding Jesus lurking around every cinematic corner. The same is often true in the yearning lyrics of popular music, and even the narratives of many novels. It always seems, to me at least, that the people writing our art are repeatedly bumping into the Christian story, in both theme and allegory.
So what's happening there? Am I simply bringing my own lens – a strong and developed worldview – to everything I observe, or is there actually something about story itself which means God keeps showing up whenever someone tells one?
In the case of those camp gospel illustrations, it's certainly true that I'm forcing my own story onto something which doesn't really have one. For example, the frying pan: the circular bottom represented the spherical earth, and the heat that it was destined to face on the stovetop was the flames of hell. I think from memory Jesus came and substituted the pan for a microwave meal, or something equally silly. It wasn't the most elegant or theologically-perfect illustration, but it passed the low threshold of the game. I think we can safely say that frying pans are not one of the ways through which God seeks to communicate his message of love to the world.
Story however is different. So often Christian metaphor and themes show up in art and culture, even in the most unlikely places. Horror movies that so immerse us in the darkness that they make us thirsty for the light; song lyrics that grasp at hope, love and peace at a time when all three seem in short supply. These aren't forced connections, they're a natural expression of the writer's sense of what's wrong with the world, and of what might just make it better. At their heart, most of our culture's stories are about good beating out evil, hope crushing despair and love ultimately conquering hate. And not at all coincidentally, these are also the core elements of the Christian story.
Of course, these are also the core elements of many other worldviews beside Christianity. The links dig deeper though. It's incredible how often great stories have a 'Christ' figure, who in some way dies to save his friends, and is then resurrected spectacularly. The Harry Potter series does it, as does the recent Justice League movie and several of the Marvel films. Sometimes the parallels are intentional, but quite often it's simply as if the true nature of the universe is revealing itself through art. The writers and creators are participant in that process, but as many artists will attest, some of the creative process seems to come from somewhere outside of them.
The Bible talks about exactly this. In Acts 17, Paul is meeting with the cultural heavyweights of his day in the Athenian Areopagus – a modern equivalent might have him at a gathering of Hollywood studio executives. He acknowledges and engages with their various statues and monuments, but then he points out one in particular: an empty plinth with the inscription 'to an unknown God.' He uses it to point out their natural yearning for something greater – a bigger story beyond any of those they know – and even quotes one of their own philosophers, Epimenedes, back at them. Paul reminds them that about this 'unknown God', Epimenedes wrote: 'For in him we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28).
This is the bigger story that the Athenians are desperately grasping for through their culture, and I'd argue that so often our culture today builds altars in film, music, books and other arts to exactly that same 'god.' And when as followers of Jesus we experience those altars of story, we recognise that this god, is God.
I'm quite aware that toy cars, sprouts and frying pans aren't altars 'to an unknown God'. But stories often are. Not only should we get used to recognising how they echo the Christian story, but like Paul I believe we can use them to help others to recognise their own connection with a bigger narrative of love, peace and hope.
Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. Follow him on Twitter @martinsaunders.
