The Next Generation of Christian Storytellers: Problems and Possibilities

(Session 2 of 2)

Monica Ganas, Ph.D., Theater Arts and Cinematic Arts

Julianne Dalrymple, Undergraduate, Theater Arts/Acting for the Stage and Screen

Nicolette Fundora, Undergraduate, Theater Arts/Acting for the Stage and Screen

Zachary Poole, Undergraduate, Theater Arts/Acting for the Stage and Screen

Shaquira Robinson, Undergraduate, Theater Arts/Acting for the Stage and Screen

Sarah O’Brien, Undergraduate, Theater Arts

Eric Hanson, Undergraduate, Communication Studies

It’s no secret that the millennial generation is faced with many troubling issues, including reliance on technology (most particularly the internet), difficulty in making commitments, the elusive quality of truth, well-deserved cynicism, and much more. Yet within this environment there is great vibrancy and perceptivity among theater and cinematic arts students at APU, and the possibilities laid forth for them by a purely evangelical Christian community and an entirely secularized commercial industry are being negotiated in order to create a more artistic and meaningful form of storytelling that resides in the tension between the two. This symposium unpacks these phenomena, and also argues that, as the country’s stories go, so goes the country, suggesting a way forward for which the current moment calls. How do stories help us create loving communities in an age of commodification and spectacle? How do they help us escape consumerism and entitlement, and instead pursue courage and even valor? How do we regain a truthful, earnest, hopeful, and substantive form of storytelling?