Rent

電影名:Rent (吉屋出租)

Post reference: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ea/Rentpostera.jpg

上映年份:2005

導演:Chris Columbus

適合人群:18+,慕道友,基督徒

標籤:接納

分級:中級 

今天來聊大名鼎鼎的音樂劇改編的電影Rent

我第一次看Rent05電影版的)是在大約06年的時候,當時我被裡面的內容完全地震驚到:異裝癖,同性戀,雙性戀,大麻,毒品,愛滋,一群看起來沒有未來的年輕人聚集在骯髒破舊的紐約街道。一時好奇我就查了一下broadway首秀Rent1996年。也就是說,我們現在看來都非常所謂邊緣化的問題在早在1996年的百老匯就被如此廣泛討論, 這些人的聲音無法通過日常被真正聽到,因為他們被他們自己和他們周圍的人都邊緣化了,所以Rent的編劇Jonathan Larson就用了近乎癲狂的波希米亞人式的藝術表現手法說出來了。這位編劇在Rent首秀前去世了,Rent裡面的幾個故事是根據Larson自己住在紐約時候看到聽到的改編的。

 

藝術家們往往感情細膩,並常常有敏銳的察覺力和共情。他們並不都認識神,所以當他們把自己看到的,或者他們自己就有這樣的掙扎真實表現在一個作品裡的時候,他們只能為這種現象做出一個解釋:這群人抱團取暖如同一種白夜裡昏暗卻不消失的愛的光。然而你我都知道,這種沒有盼望的告白只是自欺欺人,沒有真正的光射到他們的心裡面。為什麼Rent裡大家會喜歡變裝癖的Angela?因為他就是那個劇裡讓人感到唯一接納了每一個人的小天使,因為他在乎和他有關係的每一個人。他是那個劇本裡如同白夜裡昏暗的光芒,然而最終他也死去了。

這讓我反思在編劇Larson的心裡對於這種波希米亞式生活的態度:明知道沒有未來,那就活在當下吧。燃燒自己直到燃燒殆盡。我忽然覺得非常的悲涼。過了20多年,在這個世界上仍然是找不到對於這種生活態度的答案的。

 

真正的接納不是一紙所謂婚姻平權或者教育LGBTQ正常的課本,首先這是違背神心意的,其次那是虛假的。真正的接納乃是福音,因為沒有人像耶穌基督那樣接納了我們。

世人都犯了罪,虧缺了神的榮耀。

我必須要承認我因信稱義,身體和靈魂都一起得著救贖。我的身體因為耶穌基督成為聖潔。既然如此,就自然戳破世界上的一個謊言:身體是骯髒的,墮落的。靈魂和身體分開,身體想如何就如何。愛惜自己的身體和靈魂,因為他們都已經被耶穌基督買贖。這樣想來,福音的光可以真的照進這些人的心裡。因為他們有未來,他們的未來在耶穌基督裡,他們的一切都被買贖。神沒有在聖經任何一處經文說你們要成為異性戀,神也沒有說你們不可以吸大麻,但神說你們要聖潔,因為我是聖潔的。這是我們所有人的出路,所有人的光。 

Rent裡最有名的一首歌叫做seasons of love。歌詞裡說“Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure a year in a life. How about love?” 你我都知道愛是永恆的,它無法用時間空間衡量,無始無終,永遠和我們同在。願這樣的愛可以真正進入我們的心,也進入藝術家的心裡,也如同光一樣可以進入這群過了20多年仍然是邊緣人的心裡。

 

開放討論

1 你如何看待Rent中Jonathan Larson表達的生活狀態?

2 你如何看待“被邊緣化的人”?你認為當下如何做可以幫助“被邊緣化的人”?

3 你覺得自己在生活中有被他人邊緣化的時刻嗎?

4 Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure a year in a life. How about love?

Prayer Letter 2021 Winter

Dear brothers and sisters, 

At the beginning of 2021, God has filled my heart with gratefulness  and new hope because the second draft of the script, which I think is  the most difficult part of the script development process, is almost  complete. The plot, characters, the number and content of scene  breakdowns in each episode have been determined. The next step is to  write the dialogue. We pray for wisdom to write a dialogue that can  truly reflect the character’s heart and build up dramatic tension. 

In the new year, facing the aftermath of the US presidential election and the still growing epidemic, I see the importance of this  project more than ever because: 

  1. When we cannot gather or meet face-to-face, churches and  Christians should not stop evangelizing. In this isolated state, high quality visual resources to reach people are constantly being  searched for. 
  2. In a social atmosphere where divisions are intensified and hatred  is prone to be provoked, Christians should always take the  initiative to love and care for the LGBTQ+ community, try our best  to understand them, rather than labeling them with stereotypes  and resisting engaging with them due to fear. 

These two evangelical goals are never easy, but they are even  more difficult in today’s environment where the LGBTQ+ issues are  politically polarizing and controversial. In this past election, different  positions towards this issue even determined who people voted for.  Although we want to minister to LGBTQ+ people, Christians are now  facing much more hostility than we did before. Furthermore, the  LGBTQ+ activists have a great influence in education, media, and

cultural areas that impact our children on the daily basis. Nonetheless, LGBTQ+ community is an unreached people group who are cut off from  the true Gospel. They rarely accept invitations into church (except gay affirming church). Their view towards Christianity is often distorted and  misled (i.e., “God hates homosexuals”; “homosexuality is the greatest  sin”; “the Bible is outdated when claiming that homosexuality is a sin”; “God made me this way, so I have the right to act on it”; “God is cruel  and cold,” etc.). No matter how much the media and popular culture  validates their desires, people in the LGBTQ+ community still have many struggles, feel isolated, and endure trauma and pain on their own. Their real needs are the same as ours: Jesus Christ’s freeing Gospel. In order to  effectively share the Gospel with them, churches need to be equipped  with the right tools and knowledge on how to extend our welcoming  arms and start the conversation, so the broken hearts will meet God’s  love and truth. 

These few observations have pushed us to continue our efforts to  complete this script despite all kinds of difficulties. Aside from our own  job (for me, I am a homemaker), we dedicate our free time to this  project, responding to God’s grand calling to make something much  bolder and bigger on a scale that is well beyond our own abilities.  Despite knowing how limited we are, I look forward to achieving several  milestones by completing this project:  

– This will be the first fictional film and television work in the Chinese  Christian community that focuses on caring for the LGBTQ+  community. 

– This will be the first original TV series in the Chinese Christian  community. 

– This will be the first Gospel-oriented TV series product designed to  be used in small group setting to engage conversations in the  Chinese Christian community. 

Storytelling in film and video is a less common platform to share  Gospel within Chinese Christian communities. I slowly saw the vision God  wanted to show me when I studied psychological counseling in college.  It became clearer after I came to the United States to study filmmaking.  In 2013, witnessing the uproars during Taiwan’s gay marriage legislation, I  saw the spiritual needs of the LGBTQ+ group and the powerful influences of the media on steering public opinion. Later, when my husband and I served oversea Chinese students in Pittsburgh’s university campuses, it  became evident to me that we needed to find the entry points to

engage with this postmodern generation who grew up in the soil of  virtual spaces on the Internet, connects with people through social  media, and surrounds themselves with bright screens of excessive videos  and gaming. We need a different platform to effectively communicate  with this generation. Our strategies for evangelization need to evolve. We need to understand the power of stories that can touch people’s  hearts in a non-traditional way because this is a generation who tends to experience the truth through appealing aesthetics rather than  reasoning. By combining both powerful stories and visual appeal, this  new form of evangelism will be like a spring of water that will quench a thirsty and lost heart that seeks Christ. Through years of praying and  exploring, God led me here, to a mission I am devoted to fulfill. I believe missional art is one of the missing pieces of our Gospel work, and now is  the time to seize it. 

In 2016, after continuous thinking, investigating, and research, this  product was positioned as original TV series for an audience of small  group gatherings. In 2017, Taiwanese film missionary Mina Cheng joined  this project, so we entered the preparatory period for writing. In 2018,  Two Springs Media was officially established as a 503(c)-non-profit organization in the United States. In Spring 2020, I returned to Taiwan and started the script writing process. This year, this development process has  marked its fifth year since its conception (2016-2021). 

The threshold to enter the media industry is always high. The  reasons are (1) a successful film script often takes years or even more  than ten years to develop; and (2) the production cost is high. A quality  film/TV product requires trained professionals and equipment to  produce. Trained filmmakers are not abundant resources because of long working hours and a working environment with high risks. However,  the return of investment still provides strong incentives. On one hand, the  visible return of a high monetary profit in this business is possible. However, from the missional point of view, what we really care is the  invisible return of sharing the Gospel in an innovative way: by tapping into the power of discourse, we could influence the next generation’s values and shape our future culture. 

From the very beginning, our organization decided that we are a  non-profit, and we do not want to attract investors who seek profit  returns in producing film and television programs. Instead, we depend  on God’s lead and take every step with faith, supported by the  dedication of our brothers and sisters. We are also convinced that God

will affirm what we do by providing enough funding for the production.  Therefore, we decided to take the necessary steps in the next few  months to enter the fundraising stage. By request, the interested party  will be able to access the story outline, role description, and production  budget in detail. By providing an insight to the project, we look for  similarly minded individuals/churches to commit to helping us finish this  project. 

Before then, I want to give you a quick glance of our finance. We  received donation of USD $17,327.23 last year and spent USD $1,027.03.  The surplus was moved to the saving reserved for our movie production fund. The organization’s budget in 2021 is USD $17,174. This number  includes the cost to produce a short promotional video in order to  publicize this project, pre-production cost (crew and cast search…etc.),  other fundraising and administrative costs.  

We are also in need of your prayer in these areas: 

  1. Website production: Please pray for our website production and  logo design co-workers. This is an important step for us because  after the website is launched, we will be able to connect to our  supporters and other resources more effectively and timely.  
  2. Book translation: Please pray for our translators who are translating  resources for parents on the topic of gender education. We  consider this is another aspect we can do to equip brothers and  sisters on this issue in this fast-changing cultural landscape. 
  3. Please pray for our board directors, who have been faithfully  supervising the operation of our organization on every revenue and expenditure. They have provided many good inputs to  advance the ministry. Please pray that God will continue to give  them wisdom and walk closely with God. 
  4. Please continue to pray for me and Mina’s creative work. I know  from heart that this is not a task that we can accomplish with our own ability, but we have been constantly experiencing the power  from above and know that we can continue to trust in Him to  finish the work He has started.  

If you are led to contribute financially to the goal of finishing this  project, please mail check to us. All donations will be provided with tax deductible receipts. You can write a check to Two Springs Media, and  mail to: 

Two Springs Media  

P.O. Box 81518, Pittsburgh, PA 15217 

At the time of writing this letter, Chinese New Year is less than in a  week. I wish you all a happy Chinese New Year, and may God bless you  abundantly!