Tue 27 Feb 2007
I recently watched two movies, which in and of itself is a big deal! My schedule rarely allows the time to watch an entire movie uninterrupted (although we did schedule time to go see Amazing Grace the other day), but that’s not the point. The point is that I was particularly struck by the fact that these two movies both presented rather interesting concepts of God, though neither is primarily known for such content.
The first movie was Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray and the second was The Truman Show with Jim Carrey. Both movies, in their own way, demonstrate how quickly, if given the chance, we will re-cast God into our own images, trying to make Him understandable and ultimately, less than He is.
Bill Murray’s character wakes up to an ever-repeating day until he “gets it right (which in and of itself presents an interesting take on the works-based system).” At one point, he is with the love interest played by Andie MacDowell in a diner Murray has frequented quite a bit during his purgatory. He tries explaining what’s happening to MacDowell’s character by predicting things that are going to happen. At one point, he
claims that he is “a god,” not “the God” but a god. He then offers the rhetorical question that maybe (the) God really isn’t all-powerful, He’s just been around so long that He knows everything that’s going to happen.
In the Truman Show, the God characterizations are a bit more blatant. Jim Carrey plays a character who was legally adopted by a corporation and then placed in a television show without his knowledge. Everyone he meets is an actor and he lives in the largest studio ever built, which, along with the Great Wall of China, according to the movie, is one of only two man-made structures visible from space. Truman’s life is structured by Christof, the creator and director of the “show.”
At one point, Christof is being interviewed and the remark is made about how thankful the interviewer is because he knows how well Christof guards his privacy, an obvious affront to what he has done to Truman and an implicit charge that God is hypocritical. 
As the movie progresses, it becomes obvious that Christof only has Truman’s best interests in mind as long as they serve his own best interests, another implicit attack on God (at least from my perspective).
Though neither of these movies overtly claim to be about God, they both offer insights from the fallen world about how quick we are to want to redefine and re-make God. Without the guide of Scripture, we will automatically re-cast God in our own fashion, reading our own limitations and weaknesses onto Him until He is little more than a little bigger than us.
The god of the movies is certainly not omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient. The god of culture is self-serving and limited, not to mention lacking in goodness, much less holiness. It’s telling that when given the opportunity, we will immediately begin stripping God of all that sets Him apart.
But the God of the Bible will not be contained by our limitations and will not bow to our expecations. Exodus 15:11 asks the rhetorical question:
Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
The answer, of course is that no one, nothing is like God and no one can do what He does. I’ve often wondered how much of our thinking about God is influenced more by society than by Scripture and I worry that the answer is probably that more of our thinking about God is influenced by culture than we might like to think. God is not like us only bigger or better, He is wholly other and we must remember that any attempt to understand God is the creature trying to explain the Creator, the finite explaining the infinite or the clay the potter, we simply cannot.
These two movies are simple but powerful reminders that we simply don’t want God to be God because it means that we are not. Believers must always be diligent in shaping our thoughts of God from Scripture rather than ourselves because, most of the time, we don’t even realize how prone we are to look away from God and into the mirror.
- Read Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue by Robert K. Johnston
- Read No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God by John Feinberg
- Read Eyes Wide Open: Looking For God in Popular Culture by William Romanowski
- Watch Groundhog Day
- Watch The Truman Show
on 27 Feb 2007 at 9:38 am 1.Josh said …
Groundhog day. Wow. That put a whole new spin on Jeopardy.
Doesn’t Bill Murray’s character, at one point in the movie, proclaim that he is, in fact, god?
Anyway, yeah, I am always amazed at the pale, feeble God presented by Hollywood.
Josh
“…the word of God is not bound.”
–2 Timothy 2:9
on 27 Feb 2007 at 10:44 am 2.Brent said …
He says that he’s “a god, not THE God, but a god.”
on 27 Feb 2007 at 12:34 pm 3.Bryan Riley said …
I enjoy how movies often reflect our humanity so well, in a way that we can understand and see it, and thus grow in our understanding of who we are before Him. You can see more of Who He Is when we see the caricature of HIm portrayed by movies.
on 27 Feb 2007 at 2:33 pm 4.proverbs31 said …
Hmm, I never thought about Groundhog Day that way, but then it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it (my honeymoon, no kidding) and I don’t think I was as perceptive eight years ago as I am now. However, Truman show - which we own because my husband is a Jim Carrey fan - has always been obvious to me in Christof’s god-like status. I mean, when he calls Truman’s name at the end and Truman replies, “God?”…yeah that was kinda obvious. :) I’m curious though: I can’t think of Truman show without thinking of Bruce Almighty for some reason–have you seen that one? Now THERE’S an example of the world-view of God and wanting to be God.
on 27 Feb 2007 at 3:21 pm 5.GUNNY HARTMAN said …
What? No love for George Burns, the first I can recall to play deity?
Now, that was a two-bit deity. He tried, but human freewill thwarted his plans.
If you’ve not seen it, it gives some VERY interesting “slooge” (as Brent would say) on one’s conception of a/the higher power.
on 27 Feb 2007 at 4:33 pm 6.Josh said …
I thought Morgan Freeman made a much more interesting God than George…in sort of a disinterested semi-deist sort of a way.
Josh
“…the word of God is not bound.”
–2 Timothy 2:9
on 27 Feb 2007 at 9:25 pm 7.Mark said …
Go, Brent. You are a regular Phil Ryken. Thanks for helping us think Christianly!
on 27 Feb 2007 at 11:10 pm 8.Rhett Smith said …
off topic, but thought this might interest you.
http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2007/02/pr-disaster-for-christian-music.html
on 12 Mar 2007 at 8:40 pm 9.Jake T said …
Of course, the alternate reading, so to speak, for the Truman Show is not as a critique of God, per se, but rather as a critique of man trying to set him/ourselves up as god…..