Here is my revised reply to Jonathan Metzger's lengthy reply to my piece against movies.

You rightly note that my real argument against movies in general does not come until the end of the piece. The rest of the it is fairly standard stuff objecting to bad movies. Hence, your refutation of those with examples of good movies work perfectly well. My extremism is intended--the sweeping generalizations are included for shock value in hopes of provoking thought. Myself, I have numerous favorite movies which have helped to mold me into who I am today. I think their effect has been positive.
Incidentally, I should say that my objection to so-called Christian film is opposed precisely to the mere moralizing to which they stoop, indoctrinating instead of inspiring. Very few people need to hear the 10 Commandments rehashed yet again--most of us know them fairly well by now, and they don't much speak to the heart. The law never does. But enough of that. Suffice to say, I think we at least agree on this point.

Your final refutations, however, don't work so well. I don't deny that one could be said to converse with a movie's director and actors while viewing said film--but it is a faceless conversation, in which you see only as much of those people as they put into the movie. As I said earlier in my piece, a movie communicates a man's worldview divorced from the man. There may be a conversation, but it goes on only in your own head--the director has no further part in it once the final cut of the movie is complete. As viewers, we are affected by the movie, but give nothing in return. It's a one-way relationship, or rather, it is no relationship at all, for it does not result in a deeper communion between two human persons.

As far as your charge that hearing a sermon is just as impersonal as watching a movie, I completely disagree. In the course of listening to a priest, or a professor, or anyone for that matter, one does not merely hear facts (or opinions), but sees the whole man, his expressions, his eyes, his mannerisms, and so forth. In such a situation, two psychosomatic persons are present, talking, listening and communicating. All the prerequisites for a human relationship are present, as they are most certainly not in the viewing of movies. I'm certain you agree that there is a fundamental difference even between a live lecture and one recorded on video--it is precisely this potential for relationship.

Your implication that Scripture is not absolutely true is, at least in my case, beside the point. My beef with fiction is not with the absence of historicity, but with the false perspectives and philosophies that creep into most fictional work--the false understandings of the fiction's author that taint the worldview presented. Whether or not Scripture is historically factual, the faith of a Christian trusts that, as its creator is God, it is at least a true myth, accurately representing truths through story. The claim, at least as it would be made by a typical enlightened Protestant, is that the story told in Scripture, whether factually true or not, is true in a loftier sense in that it corresponds perfectly with the higher reality that is God in his relation to His creation. I would have made this point in the piece itself, but it was already a bit long for the Collegian.

For the other matters in which you charged me with inconsistency (or hypocrisy), I might grant you working for the Collegian (though I think an argument could probably be made that such work is not necessarily anti-personal), and will certainly grant you Kipling, but all the rest are the stuff of authentic human life, interaction and relationship. The attending of the Divine Liturgy in particular does not apply in the least, being by its very definition the ultimate experience of communion with others AND with God. Whether or not you accept that definition is beside the point.

Judging from the final portion of your retort, I guess I failed to communicate that, to my mind, true communion with one's fellow man and true communion with God go together...you cannot have one without the other. As Christ said himself, "If you did it not to the least of these my brothers, you did it not to me." (paraphrased from memory) That and that the sum of the law and the prophets is to love God with all one's heart, soul, mind and strength and to love one's neighbor as one's self. I do not deny that I should spend more of my time in caring for the orphans and widows, bandaging the wounded, and in meditation and prayer--all I can say in defense is that there are more ways of caring for those in need than those obvious ones to which you refer, including simple presence and conversation with those whom I encounter in my daily life. Beyond that, I point my plans for the future--the priesthood is nothing if not a life of just such ministry as that to which you refer.

Which is to say, I admit with sorrow that I AM in fact hypocritical, still playing the occasional video game, still watching the rare five minutes of the Simpsons or the not-so-infrequent movie with my housemates--but I utterly deny that my daily interaction with my close friends and girlfriend are a contradiction.

And, for myself, while I can accept your statement that movies do more to encourage you to love of others than any sermon you have ever heard, my own experience with them has been quite the opposite. Which is why I undertook to write what I did in the first place.