Avatar vs. Jesus
12:52 pm Feb. 10, 2010 | Posted by dl; filed under Culture
Avatar is now the highest grossing movie of all time at close to $1.9B worldwide. CNN.com recently posted an article titled: Audiences Experience “Avatar” Blues. (http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html). The article sheds light on the deeper impacts of the blockbuster movie on some viewers, including depression and suicidal thoughts. To be honest, I too felt an emotional low when the movie ended. In the hours and days that followed however, I sensed a need to provide a thoughtful response to the diverse reactions that the movie going masses have had to Avatar. The following is a summary of those reflections.
One of the reasons for Avatar’s success has been people’s attraction to the world of Pandora:
James Cameron has undeniably struck a chord with peoples’ desire for utopia by bringing to screen his vision of Pandora. However, I will contend that Pandora is still a far cry from the beauty of planet earth
While there is a political tree hugging message in Disney’s Earth, I will watch it over and over with my children because it gives me a glimpse into the incredible, fantastic, beautiful, awe-inspiring creative mind of the God who created everything just by speaking.
After watching Avatar, Genesis 1 helps me celebrate the fact that James Cameron is only a creative genius on a human scale because he was created by a creative wizard on a God-scale, whom I address reverently as Yahweh. And while I respect James Cameron’s creativity, the rest of his life leaves very little to be desired. Cameron is a man who has been married five times, divorced four times, all an indication of his inability, or perhaps, unwillingness to lay down his life for the benefit of any of his ex-spouses. Cameron is also widely known in Hollywood to be a hyper ego-maniac. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lights-cameras-blockbuster-the-return-of-james-cameron-431615.html) Here’s one of the reasons I got excited after watching Avatar: If James Cameron, in all his broken, sinful, unloving, selfish creativity, can imagine and bring to the screen something as beautiful as Avatar, what do you suppose can come out of the mind and heart of a God who is infinitely creative, loving, and unselfish?
A major theme that is woven throughout Avatar is the theme of the Messiah. As a human, Jake Sully is paralysed from the waist down. But with his Avatar body, Jake is more than human. He is ten feet tall, he can run, jump, hunt, wrestle flying banshees to make the “bond” – he can save Pandora from greedy, materialistic human hands. But if Jake was going to save Pandora, he couldn’t do it as a man in a wheelchair. That’s what the whole movie is about – a broken, paralyzed man gets an enormous second chance to be the hero of ALL heroes, but he can’t remain a man, he HAS to do it as an Avatar. No wonder we have people leaving the movie depressed.
On a fundamental level, some people come out of Avatar not just depressed about their lives, they come out depressed about being human. After all, the movie starts out with humans having already devastated earth, and were about to devastate Pandora. The humans in the movie come across as self-indulgent, morally and ethically weak, emotionally shallow, and spiritually bankrupt. The Na’vi, on the other hand, are perfectly balanced in their minds, bodies, and spirit, and are in tune with the rest of creation.
You see, the messiah in Avatar abandons his broken human body to take on a strong Na’vi body. The Messiah known as Jesus leaves behind infinite, glorious, unimaginable power, to take on a broken body in order to redeem broken humanity (ref. Phil. 2). While Jake Sully abandons human brokenness, Jesus Christ TAKES ON human brokenness and rescues it. In fact, when you start going through the Gospels in detail, it almost seems that God celebrates the brokenness of people. The last shall become first; whatever we do for the poor, the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned, we do for God; Christ came not to be served, but to serve. Avatar denounces and rejects humanity for the extent of evil it is capable of. The Gospel celebrates and elevates humanity for the extent of good it has been created for. You see the difference? Avatar can make us feel terrible about being human. The Gospel on the other hand, gives us tremendous hope about our humanity. (ref. Rom. 8:31-39)
This leads me to the final theme: a deep spiritual connection to a higher power and the rest of creation. Movie goers loved the message that the Na’vi were all connected to each other and the rest of nature. Remember that scene in the movie? Jake passes his final test, his initiation, he becomes part of the Omaticaya, and the Na’vi started laying hands on him in a circle, and that circle got bigger and bigger as they laid hand on each other’s shoulders to create a network? At some point in that process, they proclaimed that “we are all one?” The only problem is: the movie seems to suggest that that kind of deep spiritual connection and unity is only possible if you were a Na’vi.
The Gospel, on the other hand, CELEBRATES human connection to each other and to God (ref. Eph. 4:2-6). Do you see the significance of our existence? As human beings, we have ALL been designed to be connected to God and to each other. And how is that connection possible? Through Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:11-26). This is why being human is better than being Na’vi. The Na’vi were connected to their god Eywa. Eywa, however, didn’t live in them. But God lives in us. The unfortunate thing is that there are people more willing to belief in the spirituality of Avatar than they are in the spirituality of Christianity. Why? Probably because they can now tangibly see what is possible in Avatar, but they haven’t yet seen what is possible through the Gospel. Perhaps it’s about time that people started sensing that we’re connected to God and to each other. I think it’s about time that the world started witnessing the community of God’s people as the wise ones, the peaceful ones, the generous ones. I contend that our future is greater than that of the Na’vi because the Gospel assures me that this world and the people living in it are worth fighting and laying our lives down for.
One response so far
Thank you for putting the movie in the right perspective. We tend to want to discard humanity when in reality we are all we have. Thank God He loved us enough to die to restore us to Himself.