格雷姆·伍德在《 的 大西洋 last summer, tells of his trip to Disney World as COVID restrictions first began to ease. 的re, happy, spell-bound visitors eagerly obeyed all restrictions.

Disney provided the backdrop for Wood’s commentary on life in a pandemic.

Still, his take on why fans rushed to return is interesting. People came back with almost a religious fervor, 伍德解释说, believing it offered “something worth risking their life for.”[i]

“Disney is a religion and going to Disney World a pilgrimage,” he decided.

Wood mistook religion with what more aptly is called 世界观, but his definition of “religion” is important to note: “It is the base layer of our imagination and consists of stories and ideas so deeply imprinted on our minds that we do not realize that our realities are formed by them.”[ii]

James 陛下, philosopher and authority on 世界观, explains 世界观 this way:

世界观是一种承诺, 心脏的基本方向, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions … about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.[3]

不过伍德有一点是对的. Imagination and life-directing beliefs are intertwined because, 正如另一位作者所说, imagination is the human “capacity to apprehend meaning.”[iv]

想象是值得理解的.

“饥荒”时期的面包

Wood met a couple with “crucifix tattoos” at Disney on a Sunday he believed were Christians and -- perhaps with some poetic license and assumption -- wrote this:

… if you ask them about love, they will tell you about 美女与野兽. If you ask them about growing old, they will tell you about Up. If you want to know about overcoming adversity, they will ask if you have heard the good news about 阿拉丁. If enough of your imagination consists of stories like these, authored by (or filtered through) the Disney corporation, then what else is Disney World—where these narratives are ubiquitous and glorified—but a place to nourish your soul in a time of famine?[v]

“Famine” is an interesting choice of word. 我读的时候, 伍德指的是COVID, but famine could describe today’s culture, 沉浸在世俗主义和饥饿之中.

What if that connection we feel to Disney is how its stories tap into the human heart’s longing for beauty, 选C. S. 路易斯致基督? What if imagination is key to leading today’s culture to Living Water and the Bread of Life?

Justin Ariel 贝利 theologian and author, said this:

… imagination is one of the most basic (and best!) things about being human … For when we engage the imagination in apologetics, 我们只是在娱乐 美丽的，扩展了“是什么”的界限 可以想象，并探索什么是真实的 可能的. [vi]

Imagination allows one to consider a new way and discover the beauty of Christ.

一个“如果……怎么办”的邀请?’

Bailey writes of an incident his wife experienced at work. A coworker questioned her as to why the couple would “indoctrinate” their children with their religious views. 的 question exposed the woman’s secular understanding of faith as restrictive and confining.

事情是这样的:

“That's not really the way faith works for us,” [Bailey’s wife] said. “For us, faith is the most liberating thing we have ever experienced. We feel like it is this amazing gift that we get to pass on to our children.” (七)

多么美妙的回应啊. She offered a “What if …” type of response that invited the coworker to consider faith differently: “What if faith can actually set you free? What if the open space that you are looking for can actually be found in living with faith?”(八)

这对信徒来说是很重要的一课. “的 Christian faith does not simply, or even mainly, propose a few additional facts about the world. Rather, belief in the Christian God invites a new way to understand everything.”[ix]

换句话说，一种新的世界观.[x]

魔幻王国拥有无数粉丝. But God gave us the gift of imagination to help us show others a “deeper magic,” as C. S. Lewis put it, where joy is real and everlasting.  

玛丽莲•斯图尔特 is assistant director of news and information, NOBTS Communications.

[i] 格雷姆·伍德的《我去了迪斯尼》 大西洋. http://www.Atlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/disney-world-during-pandemic-extremely-weird/614617/  2020年5月6日发布.

[ii] 同前.

[3] 詹姆斯·W. 陛下, 隔壁的宇宙:一个基本的世界观 目录 (Downers Grove: IVP Academic，第四版., 2004), 17.

[iv] 安德鲁·戴维森，编辑. Imaginative Apologetics: 的ology, Philosophy and the Catholic Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2011), 59.

[vi] Justin Bailey Ariel, “Exercising the Imagination: Why we need imaginative apologetics,” in 世界观通讯11月. 27, 2020.  http://worldviewbulletin.substack.com/p/exercising-the-imagination-why-we  2020年5月6日发布.

(七) 贝利 工作中的想象力辩护.

(八) 同前.

[ix] 戴维森,第二十五章.

[x] Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.