Films made great resources to inspire people to act out their faith. Here are a list of my recent viewings.

In recent weeks I have reviewed and promoted a number of films that serve as Christian biographies or inspiring lives,

1. Inn of Sixth Happiness
2. Keys to the Kingdom
3. The Fourth wiseman
4. Facing the Giants
5. Amazing Grace

These came aptly at a time when I am forming my personal faith vision, of how my faith will act out in present life.

Recently, the excellent documentary "Nanking", while showing the cruelty and atrocities that the Japanese Army had commited against the Chinese people, also inspired viewers to see how a few individuals can make a tremendous difference to stand against evil, and saving the lives of thousands, to become unsung heroes.

While watching Freedom Writers, I suddenly realize that, while the contemporary American culture in its post-modernism carries apathy and ignorance (I don't know and I don't care), thus particularly difficult to engage them in evangelism, the key topic that unites humanity is suffering, for we all suffer our own pains, individually, in each marriage and family, (thus the Chinese saying that every family has its own bitter drink). The teacher Erin in the movie was able to unite the hurting and fighting students by showing them the holocaust as an extreme form of suffering that each of them are causing to society.

Action points:

1. Use films to inspire Christians to live out their faith
2. That one individual with faith can make a difference to the world
3. Social injustice and suffering is the new arena for engaging the world to active faith, where people are willing to talk about deep issues in life
4. Christians can affect culture by engaging writers and ideas, for writers appreciate deep thinking and well-thought ideas
5. Teach our children that English and writing classes are in reality the place to learn about human experiences, not just about poetry, but the meaning behind poetry.

All these topics reminded me of the term paper I wrote for Professor Coles's course on Literatures of Social Reflection in my senior year at Harvard, in which I finally "get it", of the shared human experiences in literature. (See NYT article on Dr Coles.)  Furthermore, I owed my interest in social impact after the now world famous Moral Reasoning course "Justice" by Prof Michael Sandel.

Sadly, I have also just learned about my former professor Robert Nozick, who have influenced me in interesting and relevant philosophical musings.