The Religious Possibilities of the Motion Picture, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Religious Possibilities of the Motion Picture, Vol. 1When Jesus desired to set forth the essential meaning of Christianity in a universal language that should speak to men of every age and all races, he chose a dramatic story. He told the parable of the Good Samaritan, and therein gave an example of ideal preaching which many preachers of the present day, alas! Seem to have completely overlooked.Note some of the details of that sermon-story. It was not taken from the Bible - the Old Testament used as a Bible by Jesus' auditors - but from contemporary experience. It was the sort of thing that might have happened any day and to any one in his audience. Secondly, it was an exciting story. Robber-tales always thrill the emotions, and much more in the ancient world perhaps than today, because then the risk and the likelihood of such deeds of violence were immeasurably greater than now. Thirdly, this narrative-sermon frankly introduces morally negative elements and leaves them negative to the end of the chapter. Was it not dangerous to the church establishment of that day to have its priest and Levite pictured as failing so utterly in the grace of compassion, held up to ridicule as hypocrites and poseurs? And as for the robbers themselves, not only did the story give a most realistic description of precisely how they perpetrated the cowardly crime of violence, but it leaves them victorious in their wickedness, scurrying off with their booty, unrepentant of their sins, probably chuckling at the folly of the traveller for venturing upon the notorious jerusalem-jericho road without a caravan to protect him from the highwaymen. And yet, despite these three dubious characteristics of not being Scriptural to the people who heard it, of being exciting, and of having realistic and morallynegative features in it, who dare assert that the story of the Good Samaritan has wrought harm in the world? Rather, has it not earned for itself recognition as being the central parable of all the Master's teachings? Has it not exhibited in complete and convincing fashion the very heart of the Gospel? Has it not urged more men into lives of ministry and helpfulness than any piece of literature of equal length which the race. Has ever known?About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.