Crushes on Dead Men and Theology in Movies

John Calvin

In high school I started going to a new youth group at a local church.  I met lots of new people, made some life long friends, and learned a bunch of theology.  You see, this church youth group wasn't like the ones you may be familiar with.  We had fun like most, but rather than playing endless games of Have you ever? and freeze tag, we dissected systematic theology and pondered dispensationalism.  We were a bit intense.  I was also introduced to a guy there.  He said things I had never heard before.  He was wise and intellectual.  He glorified God's sovereignty and had an affinity for tulips.  After a while the inevitable happened - I developed a crush on him.  I was smitten with John Calvin.  

Me at the John Calvin
statue in Geneva

Some may see this as problematic considering the fact that Calvin died in 1564 (and there's that intense beard issue), but I was more concerned with Calvin's writings and doctrine.  John Calvin is famous in church history for propagating the notion of God predestining humans for salvation, and every other aspect of life, based on five theologic points that spell out the acronym, TULIP.  I was enthralled with Calvinism and the solace I found in believing God was in control of literally everything.  This theological crush was my entry point into Reformed Theology.  Over the next few years, my friends and I spent hours debating theology and stayed up to all hours of the night listening to John Piper sermons... for fun.  It was a very Jesus-nerd stage of life.  I was a bona-fide 5-point Calvinist, committed to the teachings of God's sovereignty, and considered free will a dirty word, or two words rather.

A lot has changed since those days, some of which I wrote about in a previous post.  While I still love a lot of Reformed thinking and have kept some of it in my current hodgepodge of eclectic theology, I have digressed into a 2.5 point Calvinist and acknowledged that I really don't understand it all.  Although I am in a new season of being content with not knowing all the answers, investigating the ways of God still fascinates me and I am constantly intrigued by the small things that shape my view of Him.

One such moment came when watching the film The Adjustment Bureau.  That's right folks, a secular movie was instrumental in shaping my theology [gasp]!  While this is something that I swore I would never EVER do, times have changed and I was actually really provoked by a quote at the end of the film.  For those of you who haven't seen the movie, I don't want to spoil it for you, but the basic story line is that an unseen organization called the Adjustment Bureau (led by the God-like mysterious "Chairman") predestines the future of humans until one day, a man (Matt Damon) tries to fight for his own fate.  At the very end, a member of the Adjustment Bureau closes the film by saying, "I think that's the Chairman's real plan ... maybe, one day, we won't write the plan. You will."  [Insert my mind warping, making connections, and thinking at a hundred miles an hour here.]  The credits rolled and I just sat there, pondering that thought.  

After some time and reflection, here is my hypothesis.  We know that God is abounding in love for us because He is a good Father.  And like any good father, He is going to make choices for us that are in our best interest.  This makes Him no more of a crazed power-weilding divine dictator than an earthly father who chooses nutritious food and warm clothes for his children.  The choices are in our best interests.  

But, just like when we grew up and our parents began to let us make our own choices about what we wore, ate, read, watched, and played, God also allows His children greater freedom as they grow into maturity.  I fully believe that when Jesus has returned and we are living in His glorious kingdom, He will delegate responsibilities to us, allowing us to rule and reign with Him.  (P.S. I totally call dibs on establishing a righteous and just government with Jesus someday!)  So in light of this, maybe life is one big training ground for us in our journey of regeneration and redemption, so that one day we will be equipped to rule with Christ.  That one day I will be so much like my Father in Heaven that He won't have to predestine things in my life - I'll make the choices He would have made for me all along.  

Maybe it isn't an either/or situation between Calvinism and the Armenian free will doctrine - maybe it's both.  Perhaps the Father has prepared seasons of greater predestination and seasons in which He allows us greater use of choice.  This concept would have driven me crazy a few years ago, because it seems so grey.  I firmly believed in absolute, right or wrong, black or white, truth.  But the more I get to know Jesus, I'm realizing that we live most of our life in the grey areas.  As a wise friend and mentor always says, we live life in the tension between two truths - forcing us to constantly rely on Christ to keep us in balance.  For the first time in a long time (maybe ever) I feel like I'm learning to walk this grey tightrope of balance between the two predestination camps.  Does God predestine life for us or do we have free will to make our own choice?  I answer, yes.

So that's the theology that I found in a movie and that's about where I sit with the whole predestination thing right now.  We must acknowledge that predestination exists because Jesus said "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them." (John 6:44) and Paul tells us that "those God foreknew he also predestined." (Romans 8:29).  But what that exactly means, I have no idea.  And I'm okay with that.  For now I'm loving the idea that God predestines parts of our lives out of His great, caring, protective love for us and that someday I'll be like Him.  


And let's face it, that beard really would have been an issue.  Sorry Mr. Calvin.

Where are you in the predestination debate conversation?