The BioLogos Forum: Brian Godawa
Brian Godawa is the screenwriter of To End All Wars and other feature films. He has written and directed various documentaries on church-state relations, stem cell research and higher education politics. He is the author of Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom and Discernment (InterVarsity Press) and Word Pictures: Knowing God through Story and Imagination (InterVarsity Press). He speaks around the country to churches, high schools and colleges on movies, worldviews and faith. His movie blog can be found at www.hollywoodworldviews.com.
Series by Godawa
Science and Faith at the Movies: Contact (1 Parts)
In this series, Brian Godawa discusses Contact, a movie that portrays a harmony between science and faith in a powerful way. A classic alien encounter story, Contact examines the relationship between science and faith through the story of Ellie and concludes that harmonizing science with faith leads to happiness and balance. Godawa takes the premise of Contact and draws from it a discussion of the interplay between transcendent meaning and an imminent universe. Science and Faith at the Movies: Creation (3 Parts)
In this short series, Brian Godawa reviews Creation, a biographical film about Charles Darwin. He provides an overview and analysis of the film, highlighting various metaphors that reinforce the conflict between science and faith. He further addresses Darwin’s struggle with natural evil and discusses whether or not the presence of evil can align with the existence of a benevolent God. Science and Faith at the Movies: Avatar (3 Parts)
In this three part series, Brian Godawa discusses the popular movie Avatar, delving into its statements about modern culture as well as its religious aspects. He labels it as a “postmodern pagan myth” advocating “nature worship” that condemns the science, military and corporations of the Western world. He then examines how pantheism and the Gaia hypothesis provide a religious framework within the movie. In addition, he discusses ancient and modern myth-making as a means to overthrow dominate political and cultural institutions. Ultimately, he attributes the film’s world-wide success to its appeal to a transcendent reality beyond the material for which all humans long. Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography in the Bible (6 Parts)
In this six part series, Brian Godawa takes a closer look at cosmography and its relationship to the Bible. After defining cosmography as a theory that describes features of the heavens and the earth, he relates how his own views about the universe have shifted. He then continues to talk about the Mesopotamian cosmography that is so consistently reflected in Scripture. This view of the universe includes aspects such as the firmament, the pillars, the underworld, the heavens above, the watery abyss. He then explains how one understands these concepts in terms of modern scientific thought. Reading the Bible Plain and Simple: Biblical Hermeneutics, Culture and Science (2 Parts)
In this short series, Brian Godawa relates his personal journey from faith in instantaneous creation to gradual evolution. He initially held the scientific six-day model of creation after reading The Genesis Flood, thinking this to be the plainest reading one could have. However, he quickly realized that his “simple” reading was biased by his 20th century, westernized culture that thought in scientific terms. Ultimately, the Bible is inerrant on matters of faith, life and God, but there are cultural barriers threaded throughout the text that must be overcome with proper hermeneutics. Science and Faith at the Movies: AI (4 Parts)
In this series filmmaker Brian Godawa looks at the Stephen Spielberg movie A.I.. Godawa begins by summarizing the plot of A.I., explaining that a boy robot, raised in a human family, goes on a quest to find a mythical blue fairy who he believes will convert him into a “real boy.” The author goes on to highlight the philosophical and theological issues raised by the film, such as “the idea that we all live in a materialistic universe” and that meaning does not exist in reality but is rather created by complex machines. The Collapsing Universe in the Bible (6 Parts)
This series written by Brian Godawa delves into eschatological passages with “de-creation language.” He argues that these passages do not foretell literal geophysical events to come, but, put into the context of the Old Testament thinking, actually describe the dethroning of worldly powers and the establishing of God’s kingdom on Earth. This, according to Godawa, happened when Jesus Christ came in the flesh. Posts by Godawa
The Tree of Life: A Movie Review by Brian Godawa
July 25, 2011
Eventually, the movie enters into a 15-minute cinematic panorama of the universe that illustrates a Biblical concept of creation. We are introduced to a myriad of supernovas and condensing star galaxies all the way down to microbial ocean life on earth, up an evolutionary chain of complexity to fish and amphibian, through dinosaurs, including an extinguishing meteoric crash on earth and ultimately to the birth of a human baby.
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Essays by Godawa
The Collapsing Universe in the Bible: Literal Science or Poetic Metaphor?
August 2011
In this essay, Godawa argues that the decreation language of a collapsing universe with falling stars and signs in the heavens was actually symbolic discourse about world-changing events and powers related to the end of the old covenant and the coming of the new covenant as God’s “new world order.” In this interpretation, predictions of the collapsing universe were figuratively fulfilled in the historic past of the first century.
Science and Faith at the Movies: "A.I."
June 2011
This on-going series from filmmaker Brian Godawa looks at how the "moral premise" of story, particularly as presented in movies, can shed light on our own dialogue about the harmony of science and faith. This entry looks at A.I., a science fiction film by Stephen Spielberg which looks at the question of what it means to be human.
Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography in the Bible
May 2011
Brian Godawa looks at several aspects of ancient cosmography (maps of the universe) that also appear in the Bible, and what these aspects of the text mean for our understanding of the Bible as a scientific text.
Biblical Creation and Storytelling: Cosmogony, Combat and Covenant
February 2010
The literary conventions employed in Genesis chapter 1 mark it out, not as a scientific document describing material origins, but as a literary polemic against surrounding ancient Near Eastern pagan religions. This interpretation divests the text from any obligation to communicate “accurate science” to the modern reader. Genesis 1 is a theological-political document that has nothing to do with science as the modern reader understands it. Creation language here and elsewhere in Scripture is not about establishing scientific origins of material substance and structure but about covenantal establishment and worldview.
Science and Faith at the Movies: "Avatar"
April 2011
This on-going series from filmmaker Brian Godawa looks at how the "moral premise" of story, particularly as presented in movies, can shed light on our own dialogue about the harmony of science and faith. This entry looks at the 2010 science-fiction blockbuster by James Cameron, Avatar, and its messages about faith and the environment.
Science and Faith at the Movies: "Contact"
March 2011
This on-going series from filmmaker Brian Godawa looks at how the "moral premise" of story, particularly as presented in movies, can shed light on our own dialogue about the harmony of science and faith. This entry looks at the 1997 science-fiction film Contact, based on the book of the same name by Carl Sagan.
Science and Faith at the Movies: "Creation"
March 2011
This on-going series from filmmaker Brian Godawa looks at how the "moral premise" of story, particularly as presented in movies, can shed light on our own dialogue about the harmony of science and faith. This entry looks at the film Creation, a biographical look at Charles Darwin's life and work on Origin of Species.