As It Is in Heaven: A Nearly Perfect Film by Joshua Overbay

There’s a baby, you see. A baby who is being subjected to the group’s merciless purging of food and formula and anything else of nutritional value. The baby’s mother (Shannon Kathleen Baker) is willing to fast herself but wants to show mercy to the child. Edward’s son, Eamon, wants to show mercy too. He tries to get the baby food in secret. This cannot end well. It doesn’t.

Jesus would have wept at this kind of religious “devotion.” When the Pharisees sought to put law above human life, Jesus said:

If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’^[a] you would not have condemned the innocent.–Matthew 12:7

Religious observance that does not protect–but destroys–human life and neo-Platonic treatment of the physical as “lower” and the spiritual as “higher” combine in a toxic mix here. This film amplifies these two religious themes that are all too often present in less heightened forms in Christian belief. The two toxic themes stand in stark contrast to the earthy, incarnational Gospel. A Gospel in which the Savior doesn’t ask us to rise higher spiritually to be with Him, but rather takes on flesh and bone and comes down to us. They contradict the New Testament vision that our ultimate destination is not away from earth, but that God’s kingdom will come down to earth and make it new.

This film shows us that such beliefs–even if they are not held to the extreme that this film portrays–do have ultimate consequences for human life and flourishing. Believing that creation is low, evil, or valueless because it is corporal can lead to poor care of creation. It can lead to an impoverished religious life, a joyless one. It can lead to the sense that our God cares nothing about creation but only about eternal souls. It can lead to failure to steward non-human creation because we believe it doesn’t matter. It can lead to failing to care for the suffering because we believe their suffering is “just a speck in the light of eternity” as David says in the film. It can lead to less mercy.

As I’ve been reading N.T. Wright’s glorious Surprised by Hope, I’ve been struck by what glorious good news the Christian has: that God will do for all of creation what He has done in Jesus Christ. As Christ, the firstfruits, was raised, so too shall creation be made new … physically. Wright says:

What has happened in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ … is by no means limited to its effects on those human beings who believe the gospel and thereby find new life here and hereafter. It resonates out, in ways that we can’t fully see or understand, into the vast recesses of the universe.–Surprised by Hope (pg. 97, Kindle edition)

We as Christians are called to be living emblems of this real, physical resurrection and gift of new life to come. We are to give beautiful, joyous hints of new life. This means being closer to and more engaged in caring for creation, rather than further removed from it.

Again, Wright says this:

…a proper grasp of the (surprising) future hope held out to us in Jesus Christ leads directly and, to many people, equally surprisingly, to a vision of the present hope that is the basis of all Christian mission. To hope for a better future in this world–for the poor, the sick, the lonely and depressed, for the slaves, the refugees, the hungry and homeless, for the abused, the paranoid, the downtrodden and despairing, and in fact for the whole wide, wonderful, and wounded world–is not something else, something extra, something tacked on to the gospel as an afterthought. And to work for that intermediate hope, the surprising hope that comes forward from God’s ultimate future into God’s urgent present is a distraction from the task of mission and evangelism in the present. It is a central, essential, vital, and life-giving party of it–Surprised by Hope (pp.191-92, Kindle edition)

I said at the beginning that you can learn everything about this film from the opening and the closing scenes.

(Note: the next paragraph in bold gives some artistic hints on what kind of ending the film has. If that kind of spoiler bothers you, move on below that paragraph.)

The closing scene is about as masterful as closing scenes get. In silence, in facial expression, we see religious disillusionment, despair, alienation. We alienation from creation, from God, from one another. We see what it is to be utterly alone. We are left with an ambiguous ending that suggests and hints several possibilities. Where will the characters emerge into the future? Into a surprising hope? Into further fanaticism? Into rage? Into abandonment of all faith? We don’t know. But all these possibilities are open to the characters. Although the fallout from what has occurred cannot be undone, a brighter future is still possible.

The doomsday cult in As It Is in Heaven lives an impoverished Christianity. It can not end well. It does not. What a stark contrast to the good news of earthy, incarnate Christianity.

And yet … I am left with caution and the need to watch the film again. How easy it is–even in a gracious, beautiful Christianity–to divorce oneself from engaging in the world and from being light and hope and beauty to our little corner of it. Then, how easy it is to let a crisis of faith set us off course. How easy to then lose sight of God’s love for His creation. How easy to become pagan stunt artists, desperate for God’s attention. How easy to let law instead of grace rule.

How easy, indeed. The shift is subtle. Beware, Christian, beware.

For more on this nearly perfect film, check out Wade Bearden and Kevin McLenithan’s interview with Joshua Overbay on their podcast Seeing and Believing. Overbay is a Christian and has a lot to say about making meaningful, quality Christian art.

Also, check out Alissa Wilkinson’s interview with Overbay at Christianity Today.

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