The most recent Ang Lee film, Life of Pi, is easily the most
beautiful film of 2012. I really enjoyed
my time with it, as did my two daughters who watched it with me (since you
asked, 12 and 16). It is a simple tale,
but wonderfully told and engaging. I
encourage you to see it. 4/5
There. Now the review
portion of this post is done.
But I have been asked a few times concerning my opinion
about the religious themes of the film.
This makes sense, since the point of the film is a religious one and I
am a pastor. So I ought to have an
opinion, right? Well, I do. I’ll try to be unpastorlike and keep it
brief.
I have found five theological statements this movie
makes. Let me summarize them:
1. God, as a powerful being, exists
2. God has something to say
3. God speaks through stories
4. God speaks through a variety of stories, sometimes
contradictory
5. God is less concerned about truth than communication
The first three points are in full agreement with
Christianity, as well as Judaism, Islam and Hinduism. Other religions, such as Buddhism, thinks
that what a god might say isn’t as important as enlightened humans. But few religious people should have a
problem with these first three.
The fourth principle is a problem with certain orthodox
believers and certainly fundamentalists.
They hold that God is completely contradiction-free and there is a logic
and consistency in God’s communication.
If God gives us a narrative, it a cohesive narrative. And if there is contradiction, it must mean
that part of the narrative is not of God.
The final principle speaks directly against the
fundamentalist point of view, because that point is all about the one truth.
What I want to point out is that the movie doesn’t disagree
that there could very well be one truth.
What it actually questions is whether the direct communication of that
truth is the best way to create a world.
People don't always handle truth well.
Jesus spoke truth, and it wasn’t received well at all, and so he spoke
in parables which were not understood, but people then just scratched their
heads or came to Jesus and asked. Indirect
truth seems to have done work equally well.
If God’s perspective is to bring people to a certain place—let’s
say to train people to love, or to prepare them for eternal life—and truth isn’t
the best way to bring people to that place, would God be so restrictive as to
not give a narrative that might be more flexible with statistics? Must every jot and tittle be historically,
scientifically, measurably accurate? Or
can the details be fudged in order to bring people to the place where He wants
them to be?
I am not saying God has done that. Nor is the film. It is just a question, a thought, to put us
in the mindset of God and to possibly not be so narrow minded about our “truths”
we hold dear. After all, it could be
that we have a stranglehold on a “truth” that has been colored, let’s say. And that would be very embarrassing when we
found out the real truth.
For me, it is more important to find out the direction God wants us to move than to find out the details of all that He has done in the past. The stories are clues and the principles we are given are directions. But it is up to our relationship with God here and now to determine what it means.
Important visual commentary by Kilgore and his daughters:
Important visual commentary by Kilgore and his daughters:
I think this film is wonderful in the way it raises questions without forcing down the answers in our throats. Even if you're a die-hard atheist you can get a better understanding of why others aren't and how they benefit from it. But in the end, it's really a case of "to each one his own". If I read your post correctly you don't have a fundamentalist approach, for which I'm very grateful.
ReplyDeleteJust for full disclosure, I am a fundamentalist about Jesus, but not about the Bible. However, I am not one to drown or limit another point of view. No matter how wrong they are ;)
DeleteThank you for elaborating on this. The reason why I asked you was that I was very perplexed by the book when I first read it, because I interpreted the ending as endorsing total relativism, and even as someone who is certainly not a Bible-thumper, that's something that's hard for me to stomach.
ReplyDeleteBut now I'm beginning to see your point. Evangelism is a good parallel. Many traditional types of evangelism are ineffective for most people in our culture. Much of the time, the tenets of religion are presented in a way that is hard for people to imaginatively enter into. It's all reduced to a logical proof, something people can hold at arm's length and choose whether or not to intellectually accept, rather than a story that, although incomplete, gets under our skin and makes us dream and question.
Thanks for your thoughtful analysis. :)
Thanks, Rachel.
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