Saturday, March 2, 2013

Everyone Loves "Pi"

Ah, the “Life of Pi.” What a sweetly told story full of imagery and imagination. Soothing colors and music. Tragedy and triumph of the human spirit. Even a search for God. But wait! To a Bible-literate Christian, a sad and incomplete narrative about Pi's belief in a God who does not tell us the truth.

I can over-look his fault. But I cannot say I can overlook how the movie failed to have much of an impact on my emotions. It was ok. Not great.


Think that point doesn’t matter? You may be the person who came away from the movie saying to yourself, "what a cool movie! I love Pi! He was inspirational!" I wouldn't disagree with any of that. I love him too. That part about God? Even President Obama noticed. He wrote a letter to the author telling him how wonderful his views were. If God tells you a story about Himself and you do not believe it, He will tell another one. Poppy cock! Pi's father said it best. "Believing in everything is the same as believing in nothing."

As a Bible literate person I can tell you that God hates mixture. He does not like anything that dilutes truth.

Why is this so important to an all-loving God? We will get to that later.

What if God, in all his infinite patience with man, once allowed us to believe everything as well as nothing. But now demands that everyone everywhere take notice of what he has provided for our salvation from wrath to come.

What if what we believe does not move God. What if what He has shown us as an ultimate truth is all that matters. Where does that put us? Can we challenge his justice if we fail to find the truth?

Not hardly. As judge He will demand from us not only what we have chosen to ignore or dismiss, but what we have failed to believe.

Something so simple that we cannot possibly misunderstand His justice.

In the story, Pi is dared to drink the holy water in a Catholic church. The Catholic priest takes the opportunity to present God to the young man but fails to present the whole truth. The reason is because he doesn’t know. Catholics everywhere missed out on the reformation and therefore ignore the contribution of the Jewish relationship to God. By failing to believe that the Bible is the only inspired word of God and replacing it with tradition and religion, they have removed the context of the story as to why it is important to believe in Jesus as a suffering savior who also conquered death for us all (a point the priest misses in his explanation to Pi).

The world is unraveling around us. Sad for anyone who does not recognize it. And the unraveling will grow in intensity and frequency.

Salvation? Provided through the life of Christ Jesus and in His name only. Oh, and God said that. Not Allah, not Buddha, not Krishna, not Vishnu. No other name. He made the rule and demands we believe His truth. Not what we want to believe. In His court of justice, we do not have a leg to stand on.

Wake up world. You are owned by God and He is reaching out to bring you into His world. The narrative is clear to a bible literate.

Jesus is the only truth. Open your mind and heart to Him today. Search Him out and you will find Him.

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