Look at the audience and go blah..

From reading jonny baker's blog i was aware of some kind of discussion forum called Blah... It seemed to be the place trendy christians go to discuss spirituality in contemporary society. They just started one in sheffield and ad reminded me it was on this week. We decided to go and see if we could blend in with the 'trendyness' despite not having any daft sculptured facial hair or howie t shirts, or even an i-book. Thankfully we did. The event was held at the showroom and discussions were around god in contemporary film and tv. In particular films surrounding the paranormal, stories that traditionally draw on christian imagery in the good/evil fight eg crucifixes etc. We watched clips from constantine (which looks diabolically bad) and buffy the vampire slayer (yay). To be honest the clips were overlong, but the discussions were interesting. The clips seemed to portray a sense of evil that had to be overcome by the strength and action of the 'hero' usually human. A physical action, rather than a spiritual one. There was not any explicit reference to god, rather an implicit being, creator, force of good that is older than all religions. This 'god' was portrayed as present, but in the background, inactive and passive. Whereas the christian faith is about an active and caring god, present and acting through the holy spirit now. There was quite a lot of theology babble around though - metanarrative and nietzsche. Some guy raised a point about the metanarative of buffy, which i thought was nonsense. He was clearly using the term to encompass the whole of the buffy story, failing to take into account the metanarrative that it was written by educated westerners brought up in an, although nominal, christian tradition, steeped in spiritual folklore also risen from a christendom perspective. I'd be interested to hear equivalent stories from india and compare. There was plenty of time to chat with people afterwards, and i had a somewhat awkward conversation with some girl who i clearly had little in common with. It was quite a struggle, then her husband arrived and she introduced us. He asked what kind of construction work i did, and i explained the LIFT schemes which led to an interesting conversation on the privatisation of buildings for public services. During which I noticed his wife's eyes glazing over, then he started asking about my phd, which was clearly more than she could take, leaving, as I began discussing the regulation of cholesterol - lol