JUXTAPOSING GOSPEL ACCOUNTS AND FIREFLY STORYLINES

There's some great comments on a Study Series on Firefly on http://blog.digitalorthodoxy.com/ The entry for 13th May focuses on Episode One. As well as commenting on the effects of Mal's experience at the Valley of Serenity and Book's doubts about whether he is in the right place, this study material also draws attention to ...

• The similarities between the crew/passengers of Firefly and the disciples that Jesus called - ' How did Jesus choose the people who followed him? Would we be hard pressed to not find people like the characters in Firefly in Jesus’s followers? The prostitute, the criminal, the priest, the lover, the husband, the mechanic, the doctor, the sick, the abused…'
• Book's response to Kaylee's perceptive comment (made during their first encounter) - Kaylee: 'how come you don't care where you're going?' Book: 'Cause how you get there is the worthier part.'
• The way in which, if we want to be truly missional, we need to make an effort to really pay attention to those around us - to be as observant and as interested in others as Kaylee is - as was demonstrated in the conversation quoted above.
• Also based on that conversation is the question: ' How open are we to people who are on a journey to a non-specified destination? '
• The importance of the table fellowship that the characters share.
• A comparison of Joss Whedon's storytelling technique with the way in which we do, or don't, engage with the stories of the characters that we come across in the Bible.

Some great ideas there. The first and last points make me want to imaginatively explore/juxtapose Gospel stories and Firefly storylines - i.e. putting Firefly characters into Biblical stories and seeing how they react - and vice versa, introducing Biblical characters to the crew of Serenity.

There are four of these study guides online so far - I'll comment each of them over the next few days.