Epic Theology

When I was growing up, the future was always bright and full of potential. The year 2000 was going to bring Virtual Reality, completely customizable cars, and video games the likes of which we had never dreamed of. Two of those have come true by 2017.

Maybe it was just childish naiveté, but things seem to have changed. When I watch TV or movies about the future now, it seems we’ve lost the dream that tomorrow can be better than today. We are obsessed with apocalypses. Zombie, nuclear, genetic, viral. It seems that the only future we in North America can see is one with abandoned sky-scrapers crumbling onto vine-choked streets or desert wastelands spanning across once fertile country. Gone are the dreams of flying cars, the eradication of disease, and the human potential.

On Saturday, I watched Disney’s Tomorrowland, which ponderously addresses this very issue. While the pace may have been slow through the first and second acts, the final questions that the movie asks more than make up for it. For those who haven’t seen the film, there are spoilers ahead. Go, watch the movie, and come back when you’re done.

Alright, here’s the good stuff. Near the end of the film, we find out that the machine that has been “predicting” the violent end of humanity has been projecting that message to everyone on earth for over twenty years. Instead of opening our eyes to the potential for disaster, humanity becomes obsessed with the impending doom, forgetting about the possibility of a better tomorrow.

And then Nix drops the biggest bomb I’ve heard from a Disney film in a long time: people accept a bleak and hopeless future because it asks nothing of them today.

Think that over for a second.

Hope for a better tomorrow asks something of us. It asks us to work for the future. It tells us to work hard, think fast, and overcome obstacles, because in doing so, we build toward the shining world we want. If we pull together and think of someone or something other than ourselves, we can defeat the world-destroying problems that threaten to overcome us.

Doom, however, does not ask us to work hard. It doesn’t ask us for anything. It asks us, instead, “What is the point? You’re just going to die anyway.” It tells us we can’t fix anything, so why try? Just enjoy the here and now before it’s too late.

Perhaps this is part of the millennial apathy problem. Raised with the horrors of war, injustice, and the failing of the American Dream, we find it much easier to just accept the brokenness of the world instead of fighting for a different future. It allows us to focus on ourselves, spouting YOLO whenever we are challenged on our decisions. We accept the inevitability of death and have forgotten Dylan Thomas’ urge to “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

But, as Christians, we know that the world does not end in doom. We know, in the end, Good wins. And that should inspire us each and every day.

The Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, contains the words: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” What would happen if we actually lived that way. If we started to believe that tomorrow does not have to be dark and hopeless and instead began to work for the kingdom? What would God do through us if we took a stand against evil and injustice, even if it cost us dearly? What if we looked despair straight in the eyes and said, “No. Not today. And not tomorrow either.”

Evil is overwhelming. But God is more so.

This week, ask yourself if you have, consciously or unconsciously, accepted a bleak future and have turned inward in response. Spend a little time meditating on your thoughts of the future, and your responsibility in its formation.

Are you going to accept the dying of the light? Or rage against it.

In this case, I choose to rage.