Welcome to 2nd semester, and thanks for such a great discussion group yesterday! I really enjoyed our time together. Personally, I find that it always makes for good conversation to dig into the news and entertainment headlines, and James Cameron's new blockbuster movie, Avatar, has certainly stirred up some interesting responses. In an online article entitled Avatar Blues, CNN.com reports that some who enjoyed the movie tremendously, nevertheless "say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora." Online forums and chat rooms have developed to help these fans "cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible." This may seem unbelievable to us. After all, it's only a movie! Right? Well, yes, but the response of those who are longing for Pandora brings something, and someone else, to mind for me as well. That someone is C. S. Lewis.
At some point in his spiritual journey, Lewis came to believe that he was "created for another world." Why would he believe such a thing? It was because he recognized desires within himself that could not be fulfilled in this present world. He felt that he was allowed glimpses of this other world at times and that created in him a sensation that he called "joy." This longing for another world is not unique to Lewis; it is common to all men. Please don't get me wrong. I am not, in any way, comparing Cameron's Pandora to our heavenly home! In this instance, 'heaven' is more of a pantheistic oneness with nature, but like Lewis, these moviegoers feel a stirring for something more than this world can offer.
In our textbook, Kenneth Samples puts it like this: "Because the Creator made human beings in his image, they are "networked" to think and speak the same language. God accommodates himself to the finite limitations of human beings whenever he reveals truth in a way they can understand. Because of truth's objectivity, availability, and knowability--the failure to seek it dooms an individual to live an inauthentic life that has monumental consequences now and forevermore." Because we are "networked" by our Creator, "he has put eternity into man's heart."
Imagine feeling this desire for another world and longing for something as "inauthentic" as a fictional planet. On the Albert Mohler Radio Program recently, guest host Dr. Russell Moore and columnist Ross Douthout "analyze the message behind the movie and what it reveals about American culture. As they point out, people are hungry to believe the pantheistic worldview, as they seek for something to fill their heart's desire for worship, which has been left empty by the fall and sin. Christians should learn from movies like Avatar that culture is not moving towards secularism. As this movie indicates, running from the truth only leaves people hungry to find cheap substitutes for the worship they were created to give."
Ecclesiastes 3:11.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html
Kenneth Richard Samples, A World of Difference: Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test (
The Albert Mohler Program Notes, "Avatar: Rambo in Reverse
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