5.02.2005

In the world or of the world

Friday night I went and saw a play at Messiah called 'Summertree'. It was about a soldier who dies during the Vietnam War. The play itself was okay, but I had one very big problem with it. It had a good bit of language. It had the 'f' word, the 's' word and many 'G-d's. Is it appropriate for a Messiah college production to contain such things. I would say 'no'. This was a play that was done by Messiah students. Messiah was promoting this content in promoting the play. The college should promote clean productions and not allow such things to be performed and sanctioned by a 'Christian' college. They won't allow students that are of the age of 21 to drink off-campus, but they allow this. Where is the consistency? There was not even a warning that the play would contain this content. One alumni even remarked that an actor got to swear at Messiah and get applauded for it. Isn't that a dangerous line of thinking, yet what is promoted by Messiah. Just some thoughts.

4 comments:

Nathan Hackman said...

I've thought about this for a bit, and believe that you are correct. I've always said that a certain aspect of the Messiah population needs to be pushed beyond their self-imposed Christendom, one of my roomates deleted all of the swear words on his "Cake: Fashion Nugget" CD because he didn't like the language, but loved the songs. My advise for him was "be an adult." Anyway, I don't think that the formal Messiah administration has any place in promoting profanity and vulgarity. Yes, it is a part of life, but I feel that Messiah should be a beacon amidst this storm. So, like I said, I think you're right.

Anonymous said...

Are you a student at Messiah?

matt said...

I am an alumni. I graduated in '99

Lara said...

Ah. I was class of 98.

Your thoughts are interesting.... I guess my question would be about how they could change the "reality" of a time period like Vietnam to make it more appropriate for a Christian College, or if they should just avoid addressing times/stories/issues that contain words that society sees as being "bad"?

It's hard to avoid the world when you're living in it.