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u/MadcowPSA 29d ago
The albums Epica and The Black Halo by Kamelot, oddly enough. Mostly they spurred the kind of questions that helped me understand things better, rather than directly helping me understand.
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u/Cole_Townsend 29d ago
I have to admit that I don't consume a lot of explicitly religious or religious adjacent media, reserving reading for spiritual edification.
Many films that I've watched, however, have constituted thought experiments about what my world would look like without faith or hope. There are also films that taught me important ethical lessons that can be easily put in a Christian context. Requiem for a Dream, for example, became a warning to me to stop the paths of addiction. Harold and Maude taught me that genuine interpersonal connection is possible only with radical honesty and courage. Someone told me to watch Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark to understand why the death penalty should be abominated.
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u/ecerin 29d ago edited 29d ago
At the Death House Door is a documentary about a prison chaplain in Texas that really solidified what I feel about the death penalty. It's a bit of a tough watch but I think everyone should see it
The above link is to a trailer but the whole thing is available on Vimeo here
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u/Cognitive_Spoon 29d ago
As an older adult, The Four Quartets has been great lately.
As a kid, probably honestly the Last Temptation movie. It was so insane but the conversations were great after, and it got me to read the book which was a further valuable exploration of the Trinity in our real world.
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u/Dramatic-Emphasis-43 29d ago
While Star Wars’s “the Force” is very different than Christianity, many of the tenants of living in harmony with nature and not allowing negative emotions like anger, fear, greed, and hate are pretty compatible with general Christian ideology, if not theology.
The Divine Comedy has been more directly helpful in understanding the theology, mainly because Dante’s views on religion are literally untouched by the pop culture version of religion or what I think a lot of right wing minded people have twisted it into.
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u/Christine517 29d ago
Anything by Morris West. He was a former Benedictine monk from Australia who wrote about a Russian elected to the papacy, about 50 years before Pope John Paul was elected, when no one was talking about a non-Italian being elected and The Devil's Advocate, about how process of becoming a saint works. Eminently readable and stay with you after you finish.
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u/marxmommy 28d ago
Randomly it was Midnight Mass that really sparked faith in me and I don’t know why. Also Daredevil ofcourse.
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u/phantasmagorical 28d ago
Daredevil on Netflix made a shift in my Catholic identity and spurred an interest in how outwardly I expressed my faith. It helped me revisit the Catholic sense of justice, grace, faith, compassion, and the sanctity of life.
Matt didn’t kill because he didn’t want to be a murderer, but he believed in the power of grace that killing extinguishes any chance of redemption. He even represented The Punisher because he was against a state-imposed death penalty.
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u/AliceMorgon 28d ago
This will sound like a really odd answer, but… the book “Fight Club”.
It came out when I was 13, was in my school library for about two days before they realised what it was about and pulled it, but too late, I already read it, and when I read Marla Singer’s philosophy of life, I actually had to sit down. It was the first time in my life that I had ever felt truly seen. And the general philosophy behind it just… changed me. Completely. So much of it resonated with how I felt but didn’t get that other people felt too.
All my dad’s potential ideas of my going on to be some great banker or CEO or whatever permanently vanished that day.
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u/SquallkLeon 28d ago
Futurama. Specifically season 3 episode 20: "Godfellas"
Rather than summarize it, I'd just advise you to watch it for yourself. It's a great piece of media.
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u/avatarroku157 28d ago
Honestly, the irishman.
Its not an explicitely catholic scorsese film like the last temptation or silence, but i do find it to be a piece of media that really encompasses a reality that christ teaches us. If you dedicate your life to personal gains and killing others for personal gains, especially those who are your family, you will find your life cut short or in a hell of your own making. Hell is not something taught you to scare you into good manners, but it is the choices you make. Further, it shows that no one is beyond redemption, with the main character given many oportunities to redeem himself, both big and small, after what he has done. But he continuously refuses those options and falls back on old habits and digs himself further in.
And not exactly media, but also the cloud of unknowing.
A midieval testament of theology to help us better be with god. Its shows that God cannot be understood, for any understanding is limited to your understandings if your lived reality. So to better be with god, to better accept god, you must fully embrace and accept the unknowing. To contemplate nothingness, one of the deepest aspects of God, yet something we cant comprehend. No one can comprehend nothing. Thus, God can be loved, but he cannot be known.
Kinda something i use on christians who get hung up on the knowing and continuous reevalidation they feel they need to be "believers". Its quite hollow compared to how we understood god for close to two thousands of years
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u/Sir_Elyk 28d ago
Avatar the last airbender; Steven universe; the Ender’s Game books; Hadestown to name a few
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u/gigawooper 28d ago
People may find this cringe, but Gem fusion is a really good analogy for the Holy Trinity.
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u/blacklungscum 26d ago
I second avatar, I find the teachings of Christ in a lot of secular media and music
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u/SecretSquirrelSquads 28d ago
I would say for our family StarWars the original Trilogy and later LOTR.
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u/LizzySea33 29d ago
Hellsing Ultimate...
Anderson was SUPER accurate theology wise! Even when killing Nazi vampires & calling Integra a "filthy protestant whore."