Why I liked Avatar

I know that people are mostly divided about the value of AVATAR and that it mostly got overlooked in the Emmys. “Great visual effects—unimaginative story-line” goes the criticism.

I also know that some Christian theological types have a problem with the world-view and the religious message expressed in the movie. Basically, it is native American pantheism. But guess what? We need to wake up to the fact that we do not live in a Christian culture and should not expect movies in our culture to have a conservative Christian worldview. When they do, we can be pleasantly surprised.

Let me try to draw out at least one positive aspect, one redemptive analogy, at least for Christians, from this story.

The message is anti-colonial, which is a “Jesus”-type message (at least more so than an Imperial message). The message is cross-cultural and missional in a non-imperial sort of way. The message is one of delight in infinite cultural diversity straight from Genesis 11 and Romans 5:9 that respects every culture, every language and values the ability to cross over cultural boundaries to learn new languages and learn new sets of cultural values. This was the message of the 1990s Jesuit movie, set in 1770s Paraguay called The Mission. One of my all time favorite movies! This was also, at least partly, the message of Dances with Wolves which I loved! (my main objection to Dances with Wolves was the one-sided presentation of military white guys = bad/Indians = good. Same with Avatar)

Having lived in another culture, learned another language, and having acquired the ability to appreciate a view of the world from different cultural lenses (in my case, Colombia), I am always thrilled to watch the process of humbling, stripping, unlearning and relearning that an adult goes through in cross-cultural adaptation.

Phil. 2 describes the original missionary process of cultural stripping, of unlearning and “laying aside” of cultural perogatives that Christ went through in the incarnation. The first seven steps were downward steps. He did not grasp for equality, he surrendered his divine perspective, he submitted, he humbled himself, he took on humanity, he became a Jewish carpenter in a specific place and time, and he became obedient to the point of death.

This process of “letting go” is absolutely necessary in cross-cultural adaptation. One cannot learn to understand the Colombian mindset without “letting go,” at least temporarily, the U.S. mindset. One cannot understand another culture without taking a step back from one’s own culture and learning to hold it loosely and view it objectively.

As AVATAR illustrates, there is an aspect of death in letting go of one’s own identity, as Jake Sully did, in order to become a Na’vi. And it is never just a uni-directional, cross-cultural experience: as Fernando Ortiz demonstrated in his study of Cuba in the 1930s, it is a bi-directional TRANScultural experience in which the change flows both ways.

And that my dear reader, is the primary reason that I liked Avatar. My God is a divine Father not a divine Mother (and yes, I enjoyed the Shack) and stands apart and above his own marvelous creation. I get it. But, there are still lessons that can be learned from this visually stunning movie and the story, repeated in many other formats and venues of a savior that leaves behind his own culture to take on a new identity in order to understand a people and to protect them from evil.