Pray for Hollywood

(February 26, 1:53 p.m. CST) – In the Hollywood culture
wars, Barbara Nicolosi is an army of one, a former nun turned screenwriter who
constantly urges angry believers to love the artists who so frequently mock
them.

"How many of you have complained – or been enraged
even – in the last month by something you have seen on television or in a movie
theater?" she asked a recent audience in Los Angeles.

Hundreds of hands went up.

Nicolosi gently pounced: "Now, how many of you,
when you saw that something on the screen that offended you, paused and said
a prayer for the filmmakers or producers behind that production?" Two or
three hands were raised – slowly.

This is part of the problem, she said. The entertainment
industry needs diversity. It needs new talent, viewpoints, passion and stories.
But a creative sea change will not occur until churches grasp Hollywood’s importance
in American and global culture and – yes – even begin praying about it.

Most of the time, Nicolosi speaks to flocks of evangelicals
on behalf of a national educational project she leads called Act One: Writing
for Hollywood. But on this day she was facing members of Legatus, a network
of Catholic CEOs and philanthropists.

This allowed Nicolosi to do something she said she had
long wanted to do, but lacked the right forum. Bowing her head, she asked the
Catholics gathered before her to focus on the Hollywood community and then join
her as she said: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed
art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. …"
[Full
Story]

I also highly recommend her blog Church
of the Masses, even with her being a Lord of the Rings Movie heretic. I
enthusiastically support her ideas of Christians being involved in the culture
and the arts by contributing high quality ideas and material. There is too much
smarmy Christian dreck out there that is not high quality and only make us look
like uneducated fools. I think there is too much self inflicted segregation
in the Christian community with Christian music, books, etc. where we are copying
the secular world but with less artistic ability. The word Pharisee means separate
and we have also become Pharisees by separating ourselves from the culture instead
of being the yeast that would make the whole lump rise.