Why Mark Driscoll is wrong about Avatar.

Why Mark Driscoll is (partly) wrong about Avatar

Mark Driscoll, the intense, eloquent, and stand-up-comic-gets-religion-hip pastor of the megachurch Mars Hill Fellowship in Seattle, which I sometimes attend, kicked up a stir last year when he described the even more
 popular Avatar movie as "the most demonic, satanic film I've
 ever seen."

As a world religions scholar, coming to his comments a bit late (I don't go
every week), I think they raise the important question of how Christianity relates to other faiths in a particular interesting way. 

Quite a bit of what Driscoll said (reported in the Seattle P.I.) makes some sense.  But I think he misreads how art relates to Gospel, and how Christianity relates to other religions. His approach is typical of one popular Christian model of religions -- a view that depicts all religions other than Christianity as essentially wrong, immoral, and even demonic. This is opposed to a view that portrays all religions as just happy trails up the same spiritual mountain. I think there's a better and more biblical alternative to both. 

In what follows, (I.) I'll quote Driscoll's comments.  (II.) I'll respond to what he says about art and world religions.  (III.) Finally, I'll offer an alternative model of religions that I think is more bibilical, less obnoxious (or, obnoxious in a more enlightening way), and makes better sense of reality, especially what you find when you look honestly at world religions.

I hope Mark reads these comments: visiting his church many times, I not only find his sermons often profitable, and his jokes (often) funny, but I've also noticed evidence of humility and willingness to learn new stuff under his sometimes blustering demeanor.  Aside from writing two books on how Christianity relates to other religions, this is also the subject of my dissertation.  I'll keep the analytical stuff at the end brief: even a hobby horse needs its rest.   

I. Driscoll's comments

"The world tempts you to sin, to use people, to disobey God, to live for your own glory instead of his own, to be a consumer instead of generous, that’s the world system.

"And if you don’t believe me, go see Avatar, the most demonic, satanic film I’ve ever seen. That any Christian could watch that without seeing the overt demonism is beyond me. I logged on to christianitytoday.com and the review was reflective of Christianity today, very disappointing. See, in that movie, it is a completely false ideology, it’s a sermon preached. It’s the most popular movie ever made, and it tells you that the creation mandate, the cultural mandate is bad, that we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t develop culture, that’s a bad thing.

"(It teaches that) primitive is good and advanced is bad and that we’re not sinners, we’re just disconnected from the divine life force.  (It's) just classic, classic, classic paganism, (saying) that human beings are to connect, literally, with trees and animals and beasts and birds and that there’s this spiritual connection that we’re all a part of, that we’re all a part of the divine.

"It presents a false mediator with a witch. It presents false worship of created things rather than Creator God in absolute antithesis to Romans 1:25, which gives that as the essence of paganism. It has a false incarnation where a man comes in to be among a people group and to assume their identity. It’s a false Jesus. We have a false resurrection. We have a false savior. We have a false heaven. The whole thing is new age, satanic, demonic paganism, and people are just stunned by the visuals. Well, the visuals are amazing because Satan wants you to emotionally connect with a lie."

II. Marshall's Commentary 

I. "The world tempts you to sin, to use people, to disobey God, to live for your own glory instead of his own, to be a consumer instead of generous, that’s the world system."

So it does. But let's be clear what we mean by "the world," here. It's not true that every non-Christian belief system teaches us to be ungenerous. Some Yanomano Indians in Amazonia, a violent tribe among whom murder and gang rape were accepted norms, were afraid to embrace Christianity because they found missionaries so stingy with their goods, and didn't want to be damned for stinginess, a terrible crime in Yanomamo culture. Northwest Indians, likewise, would shame most any Middle Class Presbyterian for generosity at a potlatch.

Neither are the Navi obvious poster-children for self-centered hedonism.

Nor is it true that every non-Christian religion teaches us to disobey God. Most tribes in Africa were aware of the existence of one Supreme God who created all things, and demands justice, even before missionaries arrived. The same was true of many tribes in Asia, the Americas, Australia, and Polynesia. In fact, I would argue that if anything, Avatar misrepresents tribal societies by failing to recognize that many of them were well aware of a just creator God, though they also often recognized their own sin and alienation from Him.

By "the world," Driscoll may mean "Hollywood." If so, again, not even Avatar is that thoroughly debased. Yes, sex outside of marriage is cool in any Hollywood movie. Yes, this movie also glorifies worship of a Mother Nature spirit. Avatar is, I think, both wrong in its theology, and naive in its anthropology. Men and women live in harmony on Pandora -- but among the close-to-nature Yanomamo, men cut off their wives ears if they strayed, or shot them with arrows, and raped other women whenever the opportunity presented itself.  In that sense, Avatar "tempts" viewers to act not worse, but better than savages in a state of Nature usually did.  Can it make both errors at the same time? 

"And if you don’t believe me, go see Avatar, the most demonic, satanic film I’ve ever seen. That any Christian could watch that without seeing the overt demonism is beyond me."

Perhaps this is less a negative commentary on Avatar, than a positive commentary on Mark Driscoll's movie-going habits.  Of all the slasher films, hard-core porn, and sadistic movies out there, (which, yes, I've managed to miss, too), it is beyond me how Avatar could even appear on a very long list of satanic movies. 

What is a demon?  Christians define them as evil spiritual beings. (Though the word in Greek was ambiguous.)  What is Avator?  It is a science fiction movie about an imaginary world. Are any spiritual beings depicted as evil in that movie? On the contrary. The planetary Mother Spirit is depicted as life-giving and protective.  Arguably, there are no beings that fit the Christian definition of "demons" in the film. 

True, Christians have often described the gods and goddesses worshiped in other religions as "demons," by definition.  There are hints of this already in the Bible.  But throughout Christian history, serious believers have created great art in which the gods and goddesses of Paganism were given imaginary positive roles in fiction.  John Adams, no Satan-worshipper, called Abigail "Diana" (after the goddess) in an early letter to her.  Dickens' ghosts are a late example of a long-standing Medieval motif.  One can find many such baptized "gods" in the Chronicles of Narnia.  The difference between (say) the river "god" in Prince Caspian and the Mother Goddess of Pandora (Eywa) is that the former is imminant, limited, and entirely under the control of the Lion, Aslan, while no on in Avatar seems to believe in God. 

But to depict a spirit in fiction is not the same as to worship one. And not every spirit or "daemon" need be Satanic. Socrates believed a "daemon" or personal spirit was guiding him: yet early Christians often recognized him as a kindred spirit, even as a symbol of or preparation for Jesus.

I agree that Avatar does promote a naive paganism.  But to call it "satanic" is to ignore moral distinctions.  What, then, do we call deities that wear garlands of human skulls, to which natives tear out the hearts of their neighbors? 

"It’s the most popular movie ever made, and it tells you that the creation mandate, the cultural mandate is bad, that we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t develop culture, that’s a bad thing."

True, Avatar offers a stark contrast between the real or potential evils of science and technology, and a naive picture of early man in harmony with nature. True, that's not how tribal society really was, most of the time.  It is, however, how Genesis depicts earliest man and woman. 

And who can deny that science is often used to destroy the environment and exploit weaker tribes?  Has Mark never heard of the conquest of the Americas?  The Atlantic Slave Trade?  Mutiny on the Bounty?  The Opium Wars in China?  The Goa Inquisition?  All of these horrors were inflicted on relatively backwards peoples by means of so-called "Christians" with advanced technology. 

But let's get beyond caricatures, and back to biblical realism about both "primitive" and "advanced" tribe.  A more realistic and complex picture of the dynamics when the two meet is given in another beautiful movie, The Mission.  The Mission is the (slightly fictionalized) story of Jesuit missions in South America.  The tribal peoples to whom the missionaries go are no noble savages: they tie visiting missionaries to a cross, and launch them over a waterfall.  Later missionaries teach the tribe Christianity, music, and the arts of civilization -- until Spain and Portugal demand their land, attack the village, and murder and enslave the now civilized inhabitants, and the Jesuits who defend them. 

History is more like The Mission than Avator.  In fact, The Mission is based on the actual history of a Jesuit kingdom in Paraguay that lasted for more than a century. I agree with Pastor Mark that technology has created a lot of good.  During the Cold War, it also almost destroyed the world.  The Mission is, aside from the lush visual invention of Avatar, The Mission is a greater piece of art because it goes beyond propaganda to explore real human complexity.  But Avatar is a good reminder of the dangers of technological arrogance -- one that it doesn't hurt us to keep in mind. 

"Primitive is good and advanced is bad and that we’re not sinners, we’re just disconnected from the divine life force, just classic, classic, classic paganism, that human beings are to connect, literally, with trees and animals and beasts and birds and that there’s this spiritual connection that we’re all a part of, that we’re all a part of the divine.

Again, paganism is not inevitably pantheistic: in fact, hundreds of pagan peoples around the world were aware of the Creator God, though they felt distant from Him.  Lin Yutang, who called himself a pagan, said that Chinese pagans "always believe in God."  Greco-Roman civilization was also recovering an awareness of God when St. Paul and the first Christians arrived (Paul appeals to this awareness in Acts 17).  This is one of the reasons (as Augustine seemed to recognize) that Christianity won the empire. 

"It presents a false mediator with a witch. It presents false worship of created things rather than Creator God in absolute antithesis to Romans 1:25, which gives that as the essence of paganism. It has a false incarnation where a man comes in to be among a people group and to assume their identity. It’s a false Jesus. We have a false resurrection. We have a false savior. We have a false heaven. The whole thing is new age, satanic, demonic paganism, and people are just stunned by the visuals. Well, the visuals are amazing because Satan wants you to emotionally connect with a lie."

No doubt there are some iffy things in Avatar, but let's not get carried away. 

How can a character in a fictional movie be called a "false Jesus?"  Is Aslan also a "false Jesus?" How about the Passover Lamb in the Old Testament? 

Jesus told about a man who was mugged and left for dead, and a "Good Samaritan" who came along to save him.  Is that story a "lie?" Does the fact that the Samaritan "saved" the mugging victim make him a "false Jesus?"  Obviously not: it was a story, told for the purpose of teaching us to treat people kindly. 

Clement of Alexander described Jesus as a fulfillment of Homer's story of Odysseus.  Like Odysseus tied to the mast of his ship, Jesus was tied to the cross, suffering so that we could all come home to Heaven.  Clement knew of course that Odysseus had love affairs with TWO female deities on the return trip.  How could he not know, then, that Odysseus was a "false Jesus?" 

Simple.  Clement understood the distinction between fiction and reality.  One of the functions of fiction is to give us symbols by which to talk about things in the real world. 

The visuals in Avatar are good, not because of Satan, but because of the technology Mark tells us we shouldn't scorn.  (And that he effectively makes use of as a backdrop for his sermons.)  More than anything, the planet Pandora reminds me of C. S. Lewis' Perelandra.  If Lewis had had a computer, he might have made a world that looked something like this. 

What about the "false resurrection?"  Again that comes in many works of fiction: the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, Superman, Neo in one of the Matrix films, Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Odysseus also "comes back to life" by being untied from the mast of his ship.  In fact, something like a resurrection happens in about half our movies.  Does that make them all "satanic?"

This reminds me of Justin Martyr's much-mocked theory that the devil imbedded stories of a god dying and rising in pagan cultures, to trick people away from Christ. 

One might equally-well suggest that the Holy Spirit inspired James Cameron into making a film in which central Christian truths have been planted so that we can explain them to our friends -- pointing out the errors of his iffier beliefs, as well.   

III.  How should Christians understand other religions? 

Speaking of the devil, C. S. Lewis tells us that Satan sends errors into the world in opposite pairs, so we will go from one extreme to the other.  Two extremes in understanding religions are "exclusivism" and "pluralism."  I don't think they are from the devil, exactly -- there is some truth in both, and they may both be sincere mistakes -- but I do think there has to be a better solution. 

A. Exclusivism is the idea that only one religion is true, and the rest are almost entirely in error.  That's what the word "exclude" means: if a fraternity excludes women, it has no women.  An exclusive theology finds no truth in other religions. 

There are three big problems with the "exclusivist" model of religions: (1) it is impossible; (2) it ignores some facts about the Bible; and (3) it ignores a lot of facts about religions. 

Exclusivism is impossible, because it is impossible to keep all truth out of any successful religion, or even out of a good movie.  Mohammed was a murderer, rapist, war-mongerer, and slaver: yet his teaching that there is one God who made all things is, from a Christian point of view, true.  Avator is, Mark tells us, a demonic movie: yet he is also offended that it is full of Christian truths. 

Exclusivism is unbiblical, because the Bible shows that God does sometimes speak through other religious traditions.  God spoke to Pharoah, the kings of Babylon, and Pilate's wife, in dreams.  God spoke to the Wise Men through the stars and apparently their own cultural assumptions.  When Paul arrived in Athens, he preached about the "unknown God" whom the Greeks already worshiped in ignorance, quoted Greek philosopers, and used Greek words for God. 

Christians raised as exclusivists often seem to feel uncomfortable with the good things they find in non-Christian religions.  Is that healthy?  Should we pretend Buddhism doesn't really teach compassion?  That Gandhi was not a great spiritual leader? 

B. Pluralists, by contrast, tend to think all religions are equally true, "paths up the same mountain." 

People who take this position often have a hard time saying what that mountain is, though.  They can't say we all need Christ, or that would exclude non-Christians.  They can't say we all seeking God, or that would exclude Buddhists and secular humanists.  Following a philosopher named John Hick, some say the mountain we climb is "the Real," though we can never know what the Real is.  So apparently the secret to getting along is to agree on being really vague about what we believe! 

In the end, pluralism is just another compromise religion -- like Bahai, Sikhism, Unitarian Universalism -- that grows more dogmatic as time goes by.  Pluralists think they know the truth -- essentially, spiritualized cliches from the European Enlightenment -- and that truth logically excludes orthodox Christianity and Islam.  So there's no getting away from saying, "I think I see the truth more clearly than some other people."   

What's the biblical solution?

Jesus said, "Don't think I've come to abolish the Law and the Prophets.  I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill." 

This is the core intuition of what I call "fulfillment theology."  It is naive to say "All religions are just as true and good as one another."  But natural phenomena are never the same or of the same value as one another.  The world of religions is full of oppression and lies, as well as beauty and truth.  Religious people cut hearts out at the top of an Aztec pyramid, bury charioteers in the tomb of a king, and burn heretics at the stake.  Can all that come from the Real?   

Fulfillment thinkers say all history is part of the redemptive story God is telling of the human race, centered around Jesus of Nazareth.  This unfolding story embraces the history of other tribes -- maybe even planets?  The Holy Spirit has sown truth in cultures around the world (universe?  multiverse?) that prepares us for Christ. Fulfillment thinkers like Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, Mateo Ricci, C. S. Lewis, and Don Richardson have given many examples of this.  But one cannot deny that evil is at work, too. Christians are therefore called to test each tradition, text, and teaching, hold to and redeem what is good, and rebut and reject what is harmful and vile.  We work on the assumption that God got to the host planet long before missionaries arrived.

(A portrait of Perelandra, by James Lewicki.)