Gospel Talk: AVATAR

Room65 - AVATAR

David J. Nixon (August 2010)

AVATAR: focus on creator not creation; not oneness with the universe but RECONCILIATION with God the creator

Creation:
Perhaps you have seen James Cameron’s epic 3d film AVATAR. This film was more than 15 years in the making. The film is set in 2154, when humans mine a precious mineral and treasure called unobtainium on Pandora. The richest deposit of the mineral is beneath the settlement of the native Na’vi race, who would have to be destroyed to get to it. The human hero Jake unites thousands of Na'vi in a bid to repel the humans. Jake prays to Eywa and spiritually connects with her at the Tree of Souls, she is believed to be a nature goddess present in all living things, to intercede on behalf of the Na'vi in the coming battle. During this important battle against the humans, who hope to destroy the Tree of Souls to cripple the Na’vi religion and culture, the Pandoran wildlife suddenly join in to overwhelm the humans, an event we are meant to interpret as goddess Eywa answering Jake's prayer.

Tonight I want to talk about two prominent themes in AVATAR. You see AVATAR is not just a fun film with lots of cool graphics and action, it is a film with a message trying to communicate the writer’s worldview.

1) Focus on the goodness of natural creation: the film portrays nature on Pandora as an exotic natural treasure. This is in contrast to the human corporations who seek to devour the natural treasures of Pandora to fuel their industries which only pollute and corrupt the good creation.

2) Oneness with nature and the spiritual forces of nature: throughout the film, Jake learns about how he can bond with nature and the exotic animals of Pandora, becoming one with them and finding unity with otherwise wild nature and the spiritual force of the goddess Eywa throughout all nature.

Many people today have a worldview with ideas like this, maybe you’ve heard of the New Age movement, which is a repackaged form of the ancient idea of pantheism and promoted by Oprah. Pantheism believes that God is everything and everything is part of God – we need to experience our oneness with the energy of everything and realise that we are God. Until then taking care of nature to preserve its purity and beauty, respecting all life because we are all from the one source with nature. => ourselves and all of creation becomes a false god.

Christ:
BUT I want to take a few minutes to present to you an alternative worldview which is presented to us in the Bible:
AVATAR’s worldview in personifying nature misses the personal God who is the creator. Scientists say that our Universe had a beginning called the big bang, when all the matter and time came into existence – but they cannot tell us what caused it. However logically it’s impossible for something like this universe to just happen out of nothing, so there needed to be an intelligent creator behind it. Science cannot tell us about Him, so it depends on Him to reveal Himself to us which I believe He has done through the Bible and His Son Jesus Christ who He sent to Earth. God created all the wonderful things in nature as pure and good, and to display His beauty and His creativity in all the incredible wonders we can see under the sea, on the land and up in the sky above at night. Rather than His creation being the thing deserving worship (which is idolatry); His creation displays His worthiness of being worshipped by us.

This worldview also misses the fact that while nature was created to be a good thing and should be properly respected, that it should not be our focus or something that we worship because it is cursed. Scientists also agree that this universe has a problem with the energy in it winding down (it’s called entropy) and that this will eventually mean the universe collapses. All the death, deformity, mutation, cancers and decay in this natural world is a sign of the brokenness that penetrates all creation, including ourselves. Both humans and all of nature are dying!

The cause of all this brokenness is because we have chosen to take the gift of this wonderful world, and ignore the giver, God. In a sense we worship the created things, and refuse to worship the creator. We ignore His created order and rules for how it is meant to work: the most important rule is to love God with all of our hearts (something none of us have ever done)… instead we are idolaters. Either we care more about “green issues” than God issues (environmentalism) or we worship the creation as a god and seek to become one with it (pantheism), rather than worshipping the one who created all things and know Him. The outcome for this idolatry can only be judgement and death, as God punishes us for our idolatrous sin.

However, the good news is that there is a way for us to come back to God, and to be RECONCILED to Him. Jesus came not for us to worship a cursed creation and to become one with it, rather He took the punishment for our idolatry when He died on the Cross. Jesus has made it possible for us to be forgiven, so we can be RECONCILED to God and so the creation can be RESTORED from its brokenness.

Choice:
The film’s treasure was unobtainium, but the gospel treasure is obtainable through believing in Jesus the restorer of creation and reconciler of humanity to God.

I would love you to take away with you tonight a copy of Matthew’s gospel, where you can learn more about Jesus and his plan for reconciling you to God and restoring creation.