Jessica and I just saw The Invention of Lying. If you been holding your breath waiting for it to come out and the slightest spoiler would crush you… you may want to read this later. Otherwise, the movie is based on a fictional world where no one has the ability to lie. One man figures out how to do it, and changes the world because of it. The film deals with issues of morality, as you might expect, but goes quite a bit further into the realm of religion. In the film, the main character finds himself sitting next to his dying mother’s hospital bed, listening as she tells him how afraid she is of entering an eternity of nothingness. It is at this moment that the main character, Mark, tells yet another lie. He tells his mother that when she dies, she will go to the greatest place she can imagine, be given her own mansion, and will see everyone she’s ever loved. The news spreads quickly and Mark winds up inventing a fantastic story of a Man in The Sky who controls everything, causes all good and bad things to happen, gives an eternity of happiness (complete with mansions) to all who do three or less bad things in their life. Mark doesn’t have all the answers, but tells everyone that he is hearing directly from the Man In The Sky, so they don’t worry too much about the details. Later, Mark is seen answering his door with long hair and a beard with his bed sheet wrapped around him, looking conspicuously like a pudgy Jesus impersonator. One of the final scenes is a wedding in small country church with a monstrous steeple. The sign out front reads, “A quiet place to think about the Man in the Sky.” Basically, the movie mocks what some consider Christianity. It will make any believer feel uncomfortable. Religion in general is not being mocked. One specific religion is. Honestly, my first reaction was to respond defensively, blasting the movie and its ignorant stance. That, however, is not why I’m writing this. I’m writing this because I’ve been fixed on the reason why such errant views of Christianity exist.
If all you knew about Christianity is that it teaches that there is an invisible guy somewhere in the sky controlling everything, arbitrarily sending some people to heaven and some to a place called hell, and that there was a guy named Jesus who fits in there somewhere… well you’d probably mock it too. Christianity would seem juvenile, inane, and manipulative. You would compare it to social ideas of the day and matters of scientific investigation and find it woefully inadequate. Christianity like that is not worth your time. It is stupid.
In fact, it isn’t even remotely Christian. Not even close. That idea of religion is just as ridiculous to me as it is to those who wrote the movie. It doesn’t make any sense.
Christianity is valid. Really. Those who think otherwise are uninformed. They do not have adequate information to decide for themselves whether or not it is worth believing. They’ve heard a whisper distorted by the wind. That is what the world rejects as intellectually irrelevant.
We have created this situation ourselves. Christians have withdrawn from the arena of viable ideas for fear of being disagreed with. The world, your classmates and co-workers, have no idea what Christianity really means. They’ve been fed a parody and spit it out. Movies, pop-stars, and sitcoms have propogated a mutilation of the truth, and no one has corrected them. This is the view that has been rejected, not Christianity.
Watching this movie has reminded me of the importance of deep Biblical teaching and study. The junior high and high school students that I work with every day are largely unprepared to explain, let alone defend, what they believe in a logically consistent way. Can you explain the Gospel clearly? Could you tell someone why they need a savior, how Jesus is that savior, and what they should do about it? For those unbelievers out there, can you explain that? If you can’t explain my view, how can you be so ready to reject it? I know your position. I lived it.
We have a responsibility to think critically about our faith. The world mocks Christianity because it believes it is nonsense. The problem is that too many of us are unprepared to show them otherwise.
Mark did lie. Be able and willing to explain why.
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