The Boring Life-Saving Stuff

In Jesus and Context, John Frye uses the collective experience of pre-flight safety instruction, and applies it to the eternal saving instructions.

Have you ever been bored silly listening once again to the flight attendant rattling off the routine…

…should the cabin pressure actually drop at 30,000 feet and those little yellow masks make their real debut, they will instantly become objects of supreme interest…

John Frye argues that much of the Gospel is lost in our suburban lives (even here in Moscow, Idaho). I would actually argue that, as a general rule, the immediacy and context of the Gospel is lost in the United States, and even in all of “Western” “Civilization”.

I suspect that he has connected, perhaps not even realizing it (but, knowing what I know, I think he does know), with part of the reason why multimedia, the Internet, plays, and dramas, have become a source of dependency…it allows the Gospel (albeit, in my opinion, somewhat shallowly) to connect to a people who cannot understand the immediacy and urgency of Jesus’ ministry.