39 - Elvis the Theologian

B-RAD with Brad Toews

When I was ten years old, I fell in love with the movie "The Princess Bride. After seeing it in the theatre, I must have watched it almost a dozen times in the years that followed.

If you also enjoyed that movie the wedding scene may be etched in your memory as it is in mine.

You’ll have to listen to the podcast for my rendition of the priest officiating the ceremony. Or you can watch the clip in the shownotes.

Mawwiage… mawwiage is wot bwings us togeder tooday…

So classic.

While this farce of a wedding is taking place, Princess Buttercup’s true love, Westley, is storming the gates of the chapel to rescue her from the dark, evil Prince.

Like all great story telling devices, movies have some really memorable wedding scenes. This is one of them. Another is from the much more recent movie "Crazy Rich Asians"".

During the wedding scene in that movie the musicians perform the iconic love song “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, originally recorded by Elvis Presley in 1961. Sung by many performers over the years since, it’s a song deeply embedded in our popular culture.

This scene in "Crazy Rich Asians" is a spectacle to be sure but the artistic message of the water flowing up the aisle to the lyrics of “like a river flows surely to a sea” speaks to more than just ingenious set design and theatrics.

That flowing water, a symbol for human love journeying from one heart to another, is a visual cue for a deeper truth about Divine love, and the true nature of reality.

Is there something we can learn about Divine love, which is to say God, from "Crazy Rich Asians""? Or from the lyrics of an Elvis Presley song?

And is it possible that Elvis was a kind of theologian?

Join me for this episode where we talk about great movie wedding scenes, expand our ideas about the nature of Divine love with an Elvis song, and critique the notion that God withholds love until we “believe”, acknowledge, or even recognize God’s existence.

Show notes, videos, links and other resources at http://bradtoews.com/podcast/elvis-the-theologian/