It's the biggest assault on God in cinematic history....in my opinion that is. My wife and I went to see Darren Aronofsky's Noah starring Russell Crowe this afternoon. I thought I knew what to expect from the film as reports indicated that liberties were taken with the Bible's account of Noah and the ark but the word "liberties" never entered my mind while watching the film, for it was not liberties taken with the Old Testament but more of an entirely different testament given on screen more akin to pagan writings of antiquity.
It had been my hope that, liberties or not, the public might at least be reminded that God had once brought judgement upon the world and that His Word tells of another judgement at the time of the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The following is a synopsis of what I saw this afternoon. I'll mention only a few specifics and concentrate on the message.
God was very mad at mankind for they had destroyed his garden.....the earth. The terrain that Noah and his family lived on resembled what we might think of as an uninhabitable planet, or if we have to apply it to the earth, the devastation left by the asteroid exploding over the Tunguska region of Russia in 1908 would serve; this image we have from the photographs taken at the time. This is the message of the movie....man was destroying the earth and must be destroyed! The film thus limits evil to violence and rape of the earth, with no color, beauty or outward normalcy permitted to be associated with man. Once evil mankind is eliminated, the earth miraculously turns green with beautiful blue seas. Sin, if there is sin, is against a holy earth, not a Holy God.
Noah never actually speaks with God, rather he channels the thoughts of a "Creator." He looks to the sky and receives a mental impulse, or he has a dream and interprets it himself. He knows that he has to build an ark and will need protection and help. That protection and help comes in the form of the Watchers who were fallen angels cast down to the earth and who God turned into creatures made of giant rocks. They are heroes in the film......fallen angels......who return to God and His good graces at the end! This concept alone took my breath away.....the fallen angels......are the good guys!!! That my friends...is not just taking liberties and should cause us to wonder just who inspired this script, why now and to what intended purpose?
In Darren Aronofsky's ark there were only six on board of Noah and his family, not eight, and there was another passenger who was a stowaway! I could give a long list of changes to the Bible in the film's script that were not mere additions or alterations to the Bible but direct challenges to the veracity of God's Word itself but the real offense is in the message that millions of Americans will subliminally receive.....the earth is the prize...man is the booby, the Bible was just a script subject to continual rewrite and the future depends on whether the new 'Watchers' can control every impulse of man. A rainbow appears at the end of the film but my impression was it being more of a political logo than a sign of a covenant.
I found myself praying for the film to end about forty minutes before it did .....enough is enough. I fail to see how a non-believer could see God's judgement for sin in the film for there is no 'sin' here. There is no atonement necessary, only legislation....come hell or high water.... for our 'sin' today comes in the form of the brick and mortar of a coal-fired power plant and not the abstract, debatable and elusive concept of idolatry in rebellion to a "Holy" God.
But lo, what light from yonder window breaks? There may be a redeeming quality in the production of the film Noah.....'may be'....for its abusive presentation of the Genesis account of Noah may reveal to us a director beyond Darren Aronofsky and the Scriptural imperatives of 1 Peter 5:8 may be clearer to us than it ever has, those words being "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."
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Political Thought and the Christian
