{"id":6611,"date":"2010-02-26T16:51:54","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T21:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/26\/friday-night-at-the-movies-2012-review\/"},"modified":"2010-02-26T16:51:54","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T21:51:54","slug":"friday-night-at-the-movies-2012-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/26\/friday-night-at-the-movies-2012-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Night at the Movies: 2012 Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
MOVIE REVEW: THE ESCHATOLOGY OF \u201c2012\u201d<\/div>\n
by Jeremy Berg<\/div>\n
www.jeremyberg.org<\/div>\n
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Anyone up for another gloom-and-doom, apocalyptic global disaster movie? \u00a0Hollywood served up a doozy in \u201c2012.\u201d \u00a0I have heard mostly negative reviews of this film. \u00a0But I think it delivers in what one should expect in a global disaster film: a lot of disaster and precious little acting or plot.\u00a0<\/div>\n
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The special effects were better than ever \u2014 though soon to be dwarfed by \u201cAvatar\u201d which came out soon after. \u00a0Disturbing yet awesome scenes of global upheaval and catastrophe kept coming for the entire 2 hours and 40 minutes of gloom and doom. \u00a0First earthquakes whose \u201ccracks\u201d (if you can call them cracks) chased John Cusack and family to one side of the city to the other like heat-seeking missiles. Then came the explosive volcanoes in Yellowstone National Park and everywhere and the resulting ash showers.<\/div>\n

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But the volcanoes and earthquakes set in motion the shifting of the earth\u2019s continental plates causing the most deadly and decisive cataclysmic force of all: worldwide tsunamis. \u00a0The ferocious tsunamis eventually drowned the entire planet just as our friends find refuge on ginormous, 21st century style \u201carks\u201d secretly hidden high on the mountains adjacent Mount Everest reserved for the political leaders of the nations and those who could afford to buy their salvation ticket for 2 billion a seat.<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s a fun movie and worth seeing \u2014 especially on the big screen with surround sound.<\/div>\n
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But what messages does this film send about the \u201cend of times\u201d? \u00a0You can\u2019t watch a movie like this and not ask, How will it eventually end? \u00a0(And who says it\u2019s going to \u201cend\u201d anyways?) How would human beings behave if the end of the world was imminent? \u00a0Would we all join together with people of all faiths and none to celebrate our common humanity and make peace for our last moments? \u00a0Would religious fanatics grow more divisive and spend the final hours of earth shouting at each other and debating whose faith offers the sure hope? \u00a0Would people give up their faith in despair and hopelessness, concluding that God must not exist after all as they watch the horror unfold? \u00a0Or, would atheists all storm the cathedrals in repentance and newfound faith as they fear meeting their maker?<\/div>\n
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Well, the movie sends a couple popular, predictable yet ultimately hopeless messages. Here are a couple of the messages I saw coming through clearly in this film:<\/div>\n
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1. Science and philanthropy are our two best hopes for the survival of our species and civilizations. At one point in the movie, the main scientist is told by his father that the remnant who survives the flood in order to begin a new civilization will have need of a good scientist and little need for politicians (with no mention at all of spiritual leaders in the new world). \u00a0While I value scientists as much as the next person, it\u2019s interesting that they make them the greatest hero in a situation where they are so impotent to do anything. It\u2019s like saying, \u201cDoctor, please describe in detail exactly how the world is coming to an end so I can take notes.\u201d<\/div>\n
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In reality, I would be money many more people would be flooding the churches, consulting spiritual leaders, attempting to \u201cget right with God\u201d and doing some soul searching in their final minutes than looking for a scientific analysis as the world ends. But our culture (at least the secular, university-influenced sector) has raised science and scientists to the place of influence and authority only religion once held. While the New Atheists have greatly influenced many young secular thinkers (and Hollywood in particular), in reality most Americans still very much believe in God and would definitely be flooding places of worship if the end drew near.<\/div>\n
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2. The movie portrays religious folk in one of two categories: freaks and relativists. First, there are the crazy, wing-nut fanatics (played perfectly by Woody Harrelson) living in their camper full of conspiracy theory files, hiding in their bunkers, chasing black helicopters and marching the streets with picket signs of warning and judgment.<\/div>\n
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On the other extreme, there are the more \u201copen-minded, spiritually sophisticated\u201d religious relativists who believes all religions are equally valid paths to God. \u00a0The message coming through is: If the ship is going down then let\u2019s just put our religious differences aside, hold hands, celebrate our common humanity and sing Kumbaya as it sinks.<\/div>\n
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I\u2019m all for holding hands and singing together, but there seems to be no place in this movie (or Hollywood, for that matter) for the average American Christian believer who is not on the street corners with picket signs or living in a cult compound but nevertheless believes God holds the future in his hands and the Bible reveals a hopeful future for the world and people of faith.<\/div>\n
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When it comes popular culture\u2019s perception of Christian views of the \u201cend times\u201d however we don\u2019t need to blame Hollywood for our reputation as gloom-and-doom preaching, Armageddon-thirsty fanatics awaiting the destruction of the earth and our escape (\u201crapture\u201d) to an otherworldly heavenly bliss in the sky. The \u201cLeft Behind\u201d novels have made a deep impression on Christian views of God\u2019s plans for the end, mistakingly propagating a spirit-matter dualism foreign to the Bible and contributing to a form of anti-creational view of the earth, environment and the ultimate Christian hope.<\/div>\n
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Fortunately, in the past couple decades other prominent biblical scholars have helped us regain a more biblical view of God\u2019s plans for his creation, reminding us of our original human mandate to be wise and caring stewards of God\u2019s good earth and the fact that God ultimately plans to someday lift the curse (cf. Gen. 3; Romans 8) and renew the earth \u2014 not destroy it.<\/div>\n
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We can enjoy wildly speculative science fiction movies like \u201c2012\u201d, ponder what would happen if the sun\u2019s rays began to melt the earth\u2019s core, imagine wild and catastrophic geological phenomena and guess how human beings would react under those circumstances. \u00a0But at the end of the day Christians need be able to articulate a biblical view of the \u201cend times\u201d and offer the hope of the gospel that looks \u201cforward to the new heavens and new earth [God] has promised, a world filled with God\u2019s righteousness\u201d (2 Peter 3:13) when \u201cthe creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay\u201d (Rom 8:21) where \u201cthere will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away\u201d (Rev 21:4).<\/div>\n
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For, He who is faithful has promised, \u201cBehold, I am making all things new\u201d (Rev. 21:3) and \u201cif I am going away to prepare a place for you, I will come back again and welcome you into my presence, so that you may be where I am\u201d (John 14:3). \u201cFor the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever\u201d (1 Thes 4:16-17). \u201cThen the end will come, when Christ hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For Christ must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet\u2026When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all\u201d (1 Cor 15).<\/div>\n
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All of this reminds us that Christians believe the future rests securely in the hands of the Living God. Therefore, let us live as wise stewards of God\u2019s good earth, trusting Him with it\u2019s ultimate destiny and focus our attention here and now first and foremost on \u201cthe Kingdom and His righteousness\u201d (Matt 6:33) and God will take care of all the rest. Grace and peace!<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MOVIE REVEW: THE ESCHATOLOGY OF \u201c2012\u201d by Jeremy Berg www.jeremyberg.org Anyone up for another gloom-and-doom, apocalyptic global disaster movie? \u00a0Hollywood served up a doozy in \u201c2012.\u201d \u00a0I have heard mostly negative reviews of this film. \u00a0But I think it delivers in what one should expect in a global disaster film: a lot of disaster and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies-and-film"],"yoast_head":"\nFriday Night at the Movies: 2012 Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"MOVIE REVEW: THE ESCHATOLOGY OF "2012"by Jeremy Bergwww.jeremyberg.orgAnyone up for another gloom-and-doom, apocalyptic global disaster movie?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/26\/friday-night-at-the-movies-2012-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Friday Night at the Movies: 2012 Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"MOVIE REVEW: THE ESCHATOLOGY OF "2012"by Jeremy Bergwww.jeremyberg.orgAnyone up for another gloom-and-doom, apocalyptic global disaster movie?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/26\/friday-night-at-the-movies-2012-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-02-26T21:51:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/26\/friday-night-at-the-movies-2012-review\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/26\/friday-night-at-the-movies-2012-review\/\",\"name\":\"Friday Night at the Movies: 2012 Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-02-26T21:51:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-02-26T21:51:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"MOVIE REVEW: THE ESCHATOLOGY OF \\\"2012\\\"by Jeremy Bergwww.jeremyberg.orgAnyone up for another gloom-and-doom, apocalyptic global disaster movie?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/26\/friday-night-at-the-movies-2012-review\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/26\/friday-night-at-the-movies-2012-review\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/26\/friday-night-at-the-movies-2012-review\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Friday Night at the Movies: 2012 Review\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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