Tag: dystopia

04May

Jesus Is The Death Cure

“The hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives” (Ecclesiastes 9:3)

"Death Cure" Poster

Our most recent family movie night at home culminated with a viewing of “The Death Cure”, which is the conclusion of James Dashner’s apocalyptic dystopian vision launched by the “Maze Runner.” One particular feature of the stories sticks out for me as a metaphor of the human condition.

The “flare virus”, and the desperate search for a cure for it, constitutes the dominant backstory upon which all of the action, and all of the emotional moments among the young friends, is plastered. I will limit the remainder of my comments to a further discussion of this issue.

The premise of the “Maze Runner” movies (and the books upon which they were based) is that a terrifying engineered virus has been unleashed upon humanity. It is an aberration of nature, created by a lab in secret, and released with the intent of destroying part of humanity. The Mazerunner wikia describes the effects of the infection:

It is a virus that slowly eats away at the brain, eventually turning its victims into bloodthirsty and irrational humans who consider cannibalism an everyday objective. People who have the Flare are commonly called Cranks.

The “Flare” darkens the minds of those who contract it. They exhibit rage and act irrationally and violently. They experience physical and psychic pain. Eventually they succumb to the effects of their affliction and die.

Most of humanity has become infected by the “Flare”. Even the powerful government agency, WCKD, the elite remnant of humanity living and working in the “Last City” in gleaming high-rises, barricaded behind heavily defended walls, has discovered that their defensive measures are futile. The virus is now airborne and residents of the “Last City” are becoming infected.

Sin is like the “Flare”. We are all affected by it. Sin is an aberration from God’s intended order. Sin robs us of our happiness, our dignity, and our wits. Sin puts us out of our right minds, causing us to commit acts of evil and violence.

St. Paul opened his letter to the Romans with a catalog of the devastating effects of sin. People have suppressed the truth about God, and God in turn has “given people over” to their debased thinking and behaviors:

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Much has been written about the “noetic effects” of sin–the consequent darkening of the human mind. Echoing Aquinas and Calvin, philosopher Alvin Plantinga states:

we human beings have indeed fallen from a pristine state into sin, a condition that involves both intellect and will. It is an affective malaise, a malfunction or madness of the will. But it is also a cognitive condition

Tim Keller, using the example of King Nebuchadnezzar, speaks of pride–one form of sin. What caught my ear was the following turn of phrase, in describing what pride does to us: “In seeking to become more than human, he became less than human.”

We all find ourselves in a state of having become less than human by the deleterious effect of sin. We are all “Cranks”. And the affliction is universal.

What is the cure for the “Flare”? The movie hints that the blood of the main character, Thomas, possesses something that can reverse the effects of the virus. This has been used successfully on his friend, Brenda. His friend (and traitor) Theresa, takes some blood and pipettes it into a batch of virus, and the virus is killed. The cure is in the blood. At one point, Thomas decides to give himself up self-sacrificially to WCKD, so that they may extract it (painfully and at great cost to himself).

Likewise, our cure is in someone’s blood. In Christian theology, Jesus gave himself up, to his enemies, at great pain and cost to himself, in order to provide a cure for the virus of our sin. His blood is our death cure.

For more information:
“The Noetic Effect of Sin” is an essay by Christian writer/educator Steven Cook, available on his website.

Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief. Oxford University Press, 2000.

Timothy Keller, “Pride: The Case of Nebuchadnezzar”, sermon audio file available for free at Gospelinlife.

31Jul

Wayward Pines

I caught the finale of the Fox Miniseries “Wayward Pines”, another entry in the interesting genre of the dystopian future.  The series began with solid characters and an air of mystery–FBI agent Ethan Burke wakes up after a car accident, to find himself in the hospital of a small Idaho town.  He wanders around this sleepy locale which has the veneer of a lovely community, but something sinister lurks just beneath the surface.  He quickly finds that he can’t seem to leave–all roads circle back toward town.  A heavily fortified fence surrounds the valley, beyond which are heard unearthly howls, and we see glimpses of menacing creatures.  What is going on with this creepy town and its fearful residents?

Spoilers here: Stop reading now if you plan to watch the series!

Flash forward 10 episodes, and we have our answers.  We have learned that the town is really the brain child of a visionary scientist, who foresaw the end of humanity and created the town as a fortress and humanity’s last refuge.  The town’s residents were all cryo-frozen in 2015 and then reawakened 2000 years into the future.  The rest of humanity has meanwhile evolved into cannibalistic monsters (referred to as “aberrants” or “abbies”) that hunt and kill anything on feet.

In the final episode, the scientist, David Pilcher, reveals that he isn’t done playing God.  He doesn’t like it that Ethan Burke has “outed” him and his operation to the rest of the townspeople.  He has decided that it is time to pull the plug on this “batch” of humans by turning off the power to the protective fence.  Like many a screen villain before him, he listens to opera music in his opulent mountain lair and watches the progress of the cleansings.  His own henchmen turn on him and he is killed, but not soon enough to end the destruction he has unleashed. The mutants swarm in and kill most of the town fairly quickly in a set of fast paced scenes that seem reminiscent of zombie apocalypse movies like “World War Z”.  Ethan Burke rescues some of the townspeople, who make it into the fortified complex that overlooks the city.  Ethan blows himself up in an elevator shaft to kill many of the “Abbies” and saves the others.  His son is conked on the head by debris, and awakens from a coma three years later.

Ethan’s son finds that things have come full circle to where they were at the beginning of the series.  The town seems to be back to normal, but this is illusory. In fact, a cadre of cold-blooded fanatical youth have also survived, and managed to overpower the adults.  Everyone who survived the mutant apocalypse has been put back into cryo-freeze and a new batch of humans is living in terror under the malignant reign of these fanatical youth.  A statue to David Pilcher stands in a park where the bodies of three people dangle, hanged for trying to leave Wayward Pines.

I have to admit that I was left a bit crestfallen by the final twist at the end.  Did Ethan really sacrifice himself only to have the “Hitler Youth” take over?  If this is the fate of humanity, is it worth saving?  These are the interesting questions that have theological implications as well.  Even as we humans show brilliance in the face of hostile natural forces, using all of our cleverness and ingenuity to survive and thrive, we nonetheless remain our own worst enemies.  Despite the spark of divinity–that “image of God”–that is imprinted upon us, we are fallen creatures.  “Wayward Pines”, like Holy Scripture, doesn’t give an optimistic appraisal of our fortunes, when we are left to our own devices.   The final questions for humanity remain open: Will we destroy ourselves? Will we play God, or rather seek the real one?