This will be a different sort of blog... Have you noticed how many people are watching the movie "Inception"? By the way, if you haven't seen it, you should probably be warned not to read on so the plot is not ruined. The buzz has been big with college students. Why? For one, it's not a movie filled with gratuitous special effects and an inane plot.
For those who have seen the movie the ending has sparked all sorts of discussions as to the nature of reality and non-reality. Was it a dream or reality? Great discussions! Here are my thoughts... the movie addresses the two core issues that everyone struggles with. There are two "issues" that become apparent in the movie as the plot progresses toward inception (planting a thought in someone's mind). Cobb's primary issue (DiCaprio's character) was the guilt that he carried with him regarding a previous thought he planted in his wife's mind. He had been carrying this with him and it comes to light as he progresses deeper and deeper into the subconscious. Fischer (the young businessman set to inherit his father's empire) is struggling with something just as profound... shame. It's apparent that what haunts this young man is the broken nature of his relationship with his father and the need for approval and love driven by this sense that he could never meet his father's expectations. Isn't that what shame is? If guilt is "I've done bad", shame is "I am bad."
If good psychology is simply theology as applied to the deep core of a person, the movie asserts that there are two fundamental psychological drives in human life - guilt and shame. Both produce great anxiety in a person leading them to hide and cover and blame others in order to protect the self. What does this sound like?
The first two people in the Garden! Adam and Eve experienced unbroken friendship with God. They sensed God present around them and in them, filling the deepest eternal part inside of them. Pascal was correct although he didn't say it like he's quoted today. There is something like a God-shaped vacuum in each of us that cannot be filled with anything temporal. It is an eternal hole that can only be filled with an eternal person. When Adam and Eve asserted their independence and opted for self-righteousness they experienced something so deep that it's hard for us to get the full import. To know God intimately and then to feel empty was psychologically dizzying! In their now broken state they reached for anything to grapple with this new sense of emptiness where God had been. Their response? Covering, hiding, and blaming. Their profound sense of guilt and shame led them to do anything they could to deal with the accompanying sense that they had violated God's one law and that they were now unlovable. Think about the normal neurotic ways that we deal with guilt and shame!
But what does the Gospel say? As it relates to guilt, Christ has taken upon Himself the penalty that was due you. Your guilt was placed upon Christ when He went to the cross. Most Christian college students understand this. But what about shame? The additional action was that Christ's righteousness was given to the believer. In other words, God now sees the believer as having lived the life that Christ lived. This is remarkable and it's what theologians call, "Double Imputation" (2 Cor 5:21). Your sins and guilt are placed on Christ - He is treated like you should have been treated. And His righteousness (right standing with God) is given to you - you are treated as Christ is treated. In love, God says to the believer, "Why then are you saddled with shame? If I have done this for you, then you can now be honest with me. Take off the masks and learn to be honest with Me, yourself, and others. No more hiding and covering because you think you're a bad person."
What's amazing about the movie is the director, someone who apparently is not religious, gets religion at the core of what it should be. Every religion should have to deal with this incredible, deep sense of the guilt and shame that plagues everyone. I would go as far to say that this is a wonderful form or art. If art's function is to lead us to the Beauty of God, even a movie like Inception can have a profound effect on us by moving us toward the Beauty of God as demonstrated in the Gospel. And it provides a great opportunity to bring up the subject with those who don't know Christ (what do you do with guilt and shame?).
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