April 20, 2010

In the movie District 9, an alien spaceship stalls in the skies above Johannesburg. After three months with no communication, South Africans decide to board the ship, only to find a million aliens who need rescuing. They move them to District 9, an area that’s a cross between a township and a refugee camp. But eventually the welcome for the aliens grows thin; the government forcibly relocates them to a remote area and brutally enforces their separation from the rest of the population.

When I arrived as pastor at Beech Grove United Methodist Church, the community was bitterly divided because one member was running against another to be county commissioner. The primary issue in the campaign was whether to zone Beech Grove Road, on which sat Beech Grove Church. Issues of class weren’t far behind. Those in favor of zoning wanted progress, growth, economic opportunity—and viewed their opponents as squirrel-eating backwoods rednecks.

For over 30 years singer-songwriter David Olney has been a fixture in the Nashville music scene. His songs grow out of the storytelling branch of American roots music and include some of a spiritual nature, such as “Jerusalem Tomorrow.” His compositions have been performed by many artists, in cluding Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Johnny Cash and Linda Ronstadt. Olney is a Presbyterian.

As soon as you hear the title, you can probably guess what kind of film The Book of Eli is going to be. Yes, it is the story about a man named Eli (played by Denzel Washington, who is also one of the film’s producers), who has a book; it is also about the Bible, which in this case seems to provide not a set of beliefs but simply the hope that humanity has a future.