Sunday, February 01, 2009

Speaking in Code


Lest I be "speared", I have no wish to disrespect Huorini / Waodoni culture.
The Huaorani believe that when someone dies, the soul starts a journey towards heaven. On the way, in the middle of the path, a big anaconda is obstructing the way. Only brave souls can jump the boa and reach heaven. Whoever fails, returns to earth as a termite, and leads a miserable existence.
However, if your first exposure to the term is the discussion in a pretty, but clumsily made movie (The End of the Spear), glorifying missionary work, over when particular characters "jumped the great boa"... similar expressions come to mind. I thus propose "Jumped the Boa" as a term to describe when Christian-themed entertainment goes way off mark.

5 comments:

  1. I'll go with "jumped the boa". Some girlfriends and I had a bad movie night last night and we watched something called "Time Changer". It was horrible, horrible, awful, just plain bad Christian entertainment. That thing sucked the boa's balls it was so bad.

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  2. It certainly makes more sense than "jumped the shark".

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  3. I thought the term used to describe "Christian-themed entertainment" that goes way off the mark was "Christian-themed entertainment. (Can you provide any examples of it that are "on" as opposed to "off" the mark?

    I submit that since "Christian-themed" entertainment is "way off mark" more often than not, you should stop worrying about what to call it when it goes wrong and instead develop a term to use to differentiate the few exceptions to the rule that go right.

    CWD

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  4. Handel's Messiah doesn't "Jump the Boa". Mozart's Requiem doesn't "Jump the Boa". Granted, I'm going back a few years.

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  5. I'd say that you are going back more than "a few years," but I can't argue with the quality of your selections. So instead I'll pick nits.

    I think both your examples, and most others we could come-up with are "Christian" as in "telling the story of Christ" not "Christian themed" as in, "badly done knock-off of an ABC after school special with just enough "Christ" tacked in to help sell it to a certain demographic group . . .

    CWD

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