It's a human love, conditioned into our minds, used to spellbind children and pass along cultural messages and eternal truths since the beginning of time. Jesus was the master storyteller in his day, often using well-crafted parables to teach important lessons. In the first century world, the dominating stories were those told verbally. As time wore on, the stories got transcribed to paper and bound in books. For hundreds of years after that, the written word was the working medium.
Then television came along. Suddenly the stories we told were translated into images and projected onto a silver screen. And this medium today is what dominates our culture.
It's with this premise that Mike Cosper enters the scene with his book The Stories We Tell: How TV and Movies Long For and Echo the Truth.
Themes of the Screen and the Bible
This was a fascinating book, examining how the narratives of popular movies and television shows all echo the grander, greater narrative of the Bible. There were chapters on the search for love, frustration, darkness and horror, redemptive violence, heroes and messiahs, reality television and eternity, fallenness, and paradise.
The subject of the book was one that deeply captured my interest (I actually requested from Crossway that it become available for review). Cosper did not disappoint. He is a rich storyteller himself and covered each theme with a probing, biblical lens. I don't want to be a passive story-watcher, an unengaged entertainment consumer, and Cosper gave me tangible ways to think about the deeper meaning behind what I watch in connection with the gospel.
"I believe that the motivation for our stories is deeply connected with the gospel, and by thinking about that connection, we can more deeply appreciate both" (p. 24).
A Light Hesitation
The only hesitation I had with this book was that I would not be comfortable recommending many of the films or shows that Cosper highlights. That being said, he makes clear that he is not endorsing each program he mentions in the book. I appreciated that.
But by detailing the disturbing stories of some programs (I'm thinking especially of the show Dexter), it was difficult for me to reconcile in my mind how the theme of "blood-bought redemption" justifies soaking our minds and eyes in all the uglier themes of that same show.
A Happy Recommendation
Still, that wouldn't stop me from happily recommending The Stories We Tell. Cosper is funny and articulate and writes with depth and grace. Each chapter comes back to the truest narrative of the gospel and sends you away a more conscious and critically-thinking Christian.
And that's what I was looking for.
Buy The Stories We Tell here.
*I received this book from Crossway as part of their Beyond the Page review system. I was not required to give a positive review.
Photo courtesy of Christianity Today