2 Simon Smart at Broughton Anglican College
18 Simon speaking at Nowra City Church
19 Simon at Arden Anglican School
21 Simon at Rouse Hill Anglican College
Stanley Hauerwas
The Scream of the 21st Century?
By Peter Corney
Artists, writers, filmmakers and playwrights in the 20th Century often reflected in their work a sense of alienation, of being alone in a hostile and dystopian world. There was a feeling of bleakness about the present and frequently an apocalyptic vision of the future like Orwell’s “1984”. Other examples are Colin Wilson’s “The Outsider”, Graham Green’s fascinating but sad explorations of the dysfunctional interior worlds of his anti-hero’s like the man in “A Burnt Out Case”. James Dean played to perfection the iconic outsider in the film “Rebel without a cause.”
  |
The existentialists like Camus explored the possibilities of finding meaning in decision and moral action but, as in his novel “The Plague”, in the end it all seemed pointless, the plague won. Francis Bacon’s paintings of a screaming Pope captured in disturbing images the angst of his contemporaries. Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot” summed up the feeling of the times: we are alone in an unfriendly world and there is no point in waiting for God to turn up again, he is dead!
Has this sense of alienation continued into the 21st Century, or have we become so used to the absence of God and any greater meaning and purpose to our lives that the mood has significantly changed? Or are we just expressing the absence and aloneness in different ways?
To read the full article click here.
Comment