Some preachers like to talk about the satanic influence that Hollywood has on our culture. The usual gang of suspects brought before their congregations include the Harry Potter films with their glamorization of magic and/or the latest horror film with occult premises as proof that Satan is spinning webs in Tinseltown. And here, I must ask a question: if these examples are Lucifer's best efforts to deceive mortals, isn't it a bit obvious? Does the devil really operate by sneaking around in horns and hooves, pricking us with a pitchfork while shrieking, "Aha! I, the Devil, tempt you with evil!"? No, that's the Disney version. The real devil is much subtler than that -- and much more dangerous. He undermines the truth with leading questions, calculated distortions, and false depictions that portray good as bad and bad as good. If we wish to find a movie with truly satanic inspiration, we can hop in the car, drive down to a Red Box, and rent a movie called The Adjustment Bureau.
I do not mean to imply that the movie makers intended to make a movie with a satanic message; the world, after all, cannot help being the world. Nor do I use the term satanic flippantly. However, this movie has an intentional and powerful message that you can -- and should -- write your own master plan, that God is inspired by our determined free will, even if it is stark contradiction to His own, and if you show enough courage and dedication to your own agenda, He will rewrite His own plan to accomodate yours.
Enter David Norris, (Matt Damon) a straight-shooting young Congressman with grassroots appeal. After losing a bid for the Senate to a mudslinging character assassin, he finds himself in a hotel men's room, depressed, rehearsing his concession speech. Unexpectedly, he meets Elise, (Emily Blunt) the plucky and beautiful girl of his dreams, who is hiding from hotel security because she crashed a wedding. As the story unfolds, we discover that God's plan is to put him in the Senate and ultimately the White House and her in the public eye as a world-class dancer and choreographer. She is only meant to inspire him; instead, he falls in love with her. You see, the catch is that, according to the Master Plan, they can only achieve these things if they are not together, so a secret army of "Men in Hats" must herd them apart by manipulating circumstances and minds so that "the Plan" can come to fruition. In the end, true love wins out over the Almighty.
God is depicted as a faceless, cynical "Chairman" who has been micromanaging humans throughout history, using His bureaucratic minions to work His purposes. He is not above killing your father, your brother, or true love to get His way. If your thinking conflicts with "the Plan," it is forcibly changed. If you discover the truth of how He operates in the world and tell others about it, you are lobotomized. He is a classic, cold-hearted Master Manipulator, robbing you of ultimate personal joy in order to make you a better U.S. President or choreographer, instead of merely a devoted husband or teacher of children. Implied is the notion that the "greater good" values the socio-political over the interpersonal, that policy is more important than behavior. Also clearly implied is that God isn't very good at His job. The climax of the movie suggests that truly great people defy God and get away with it; only the mediocre go with the heavenly flow.
Now doesn't this sound suspiciously like what the serpent told Eve in the garden of Eden? "God is a cosmic Ogre who's holding out on you; He knows that you have the potential to be great in and of yourselves, but He's robbing you of your chance to rise to greater heights. He's a control freak who wants to turn you into His animatronic lap-dog. He doesn't really love you; only you know the depths of what love is all about."
This film does not depict God as the Author of love. It does not cast Him as the Creator of free will who offers us the ability to choose good or evil, life or death. It does not portray Him as a Physician who offers healing to a fallen world. Instead, it caricaturizes God as a corporate Manager, minimizing losses and maximizing benefits as best He can with the resources under His control.
People ask, "Why does God allow evil?" This film suggests that He is trying to prevent evil; He just doesn't have the manpower.
The hard truth is that we brought evil when we abdicated the earth to Satan. We rebelled against God, and even though He is a just God and cannot ignore our rebellion, He will never violate our free will. He does not rape His children. We are the ones who corrupted this world, not God, and we have the audacity to blame God for what we do and demand that He rush in and fix our mess. If He provides a remedy to our predicament, we scream that He's too controlling! What a lot of spoiled brats we are; we are the ones trying to control God, not the other way around.
Those of us who live our lives at the feet of God and allow our Master to work through us experience joy, fulfillment, adventure, and true love that outlasts and outshines anything that this world has to offer. It is when we follow our own dreams at the expense of His will that we crash and burn; our history gives ample proof of this. So where do we get off sitting in judgment on God?
The message of The Adjustment Bureau is hypocritical to the core, because it uses the very mudslinging character assassination on God that Norris's opponent used on him. Of course, America winks at it, because we all know that you can take potshots at those in power and get away with it. Right?
See this article on the website at: http://the-reality-check.com/articles/Adjustment_Bureau/Adjustment.htm
