Religion, Story, and Truth

When I grow up, I want to be a writer.  That is why indulge in this blog.  I enjoy it, and it’s good practice.  And though I am currently focusing on nonfiction, my goal is to be a novelist as well.  Regardless of whether I ever attain this goal, I love story, and I have a certain passion for defending it against all attackers, be they family, friends, acquaintances, or people I do not know.  Unfortunately, I often find myself defending story from fellow Christians.  This week, I find the need to do so once more.

Before I saw Avatar, a number of Christians told me that they enjoyed the movie…but the religion was weird and distasteful; in fact, it was downright evil.  This is not the first time I have heard a similar argument.  Most recently, there was all the hubbub about witchcraft in Harry Potter, which continues to this day in some circles.  Similarly, even works by Christians, such as A Wrinkle in Time, Lord of the Rings, and even The Chronicles of Narnia have come under fire for their elements of magic, which many conservative Christians view as inherently evil.  Some of you may be surprised to hear this, and if that is the case, I am very glad.  But I assure you these groups exist and in larger numbers than you might expect.

So I was not really surprised by the backlash against Avatar, which went as far as to include the Pope.  But the Christians who bash Avatar for its religion are just being ridiculous. Regardless of any political, religious, environmental or other motives, Avatar was first and foremost a story.  Stories must keep your attention; they must be believable and cohesive.  If they do not accomplish these tasks, they fail in any other more complex motives.  And James Cameron is a master of making a story cohesive.  In fact, for every plant seen in the movie, Cameron and company developed a full description of history, ecology, manner of reproduction, relationship to the Na’vi, and names in Latin, English, and Na’vi.  Na’vi itself is also a completely functional language, created just for this movie.  And the way in which the Na’vi learn English, while perhaps sped up to prevent the audience from becoming annoyed with their errors, is representative of the process we all go through when learning a foreign tongue.  So why did Cameron include religion in the first place?  He did so probably because we humans are historically religious, and we are thus able to identify with the religious tendency in the Na’vi.  It is another detail that reinforces the story, making it more cohesive. 

So if there was going to be religion, why isn’t it something closer to Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism, the three largest human religions?  Pantheism was the earliest of human religions.  It was the natural first perspective for the primitive man who was so mystified by the forces of nature.  The Na’vi obviously have some basis in early man (bows and arrows, loincloths, face paint), so it would be appropriate to use a primitive religion in the story.  Given the other aspect of the Na’vi biological connection to nature, pantheism seems not only reasonable, but almost required for credibility. 

One may retort that Cameron could well have written the screenplay any way he wanted to prevent this particular form of religion from being appropriate.  But who knows what struck Cameron first in the development of this story?  Perhaps he developed many of the themes about nature first and then realized that pantheism fit well in that scheme.  Regardless of the process, though, I think if we were to consider it, we would all realize how absurd it would have been to throw any sort of complicated theology into that story.  The Na’vi are simple, living in harmony with nature.  Christian theology would have been extremely awkward, if not terribly destructive, on the story as a whole. 

The backlash against Avatar reveals a common trend.  All stories are capable of revealing truth, regardless of their religious affiliations.  But conservative Christian groups are often unwilling to accept truth unless it is explicitly stated in the Bible (even if out of context) or unless it comes direct from the mouths of certain far-right editorialists (who often call themselves newscasters).  These same groups then bring their dogmatic ideas into the realms of science and politics.  Evolution can’t be true because it’s unbiblical, so is global warming, and, in case you had forgotten, so are democrats.  Their mindset of a Christian exclusivity of truth permeates all they do.

Once when I was travelling in Scotland, I met a young man in a hostel in Edinburgh.  We had both been separately to see the display of Rembrandt etchings at the National Art Gallery earlier that day, and we found ourselves discussing it that evening.  After only a few minutes, he brought up the fact that while he loved Rembrandt, he wasn’t terribly keen on many of the etchings in this display.  I asked him why, and he replied that most of them were on religious themes, and as an agnostic, he just couldn’t relate.  I found this odd because most of the etchings were not obviously religious.  If there had been no descriptions, I would have only guessed one or two of them were on religious themes.  I told him this, and he agreed, but somehow when he found out they were religious, they lost all relevance.  I tried to persuade him of how illogical that was, but he would not be won.

I found this incident to be terribly sad, for the etchings were beautiful, and this man could not enjoy their beauty because of an unfortunate association.  But I realized later that this is exactly what Christians are doing when we spurn truth because it lies beyond the familiar language of Christianity.  In both cases, the viewer of truth or beauty does not just maintain the status quo after his experience.  Rather, he is worse off than he was before, for he has seen something good and rejected it.