Finding the Contaminated World "out there" Inside the Sacred "Here"

The first lesson we learn as we come into this world is that there is a world beyond our spheres of comfort. Unfortunately, we in the Church either have yet to learn this lesson ... or we have forgotten it ... or we simply have excommunicated it to the "no-man's-land" of the barbarian wilderness.

Ironically this seems to be the main message of the recently released film "Doomsday." An efficiently deadly virus "the Reaper Virus" has infected parts of Scotland. The government of the United Kingdom makes the decision to quarantine Scotland by building a wall that follows the old Roman wall, built by Emperor Hadrian. The government decides to simply let the people wallow and die inside the wall. The wall is efficient at keeping the people in ... but not in keeping the virus at bay. It resurfaces some 30 years later in London. The government begins to take a similar route in dealing with London ... keep the contagion (ie. virus, people, etc) inside the quarantined area, seal it off, let the people rot and die.

Satellite imagery shows vehicle activity in Glasgow, and the government decides to send in a specialized team to find a long-forgotten scientist who was supposedly working on a cure inside the walled area. However, the photos are three years old, and only now are being acted upon.

The team is sent in and are overcome by the barbarian inhabitants living in the forgotten area. They are lawless, cannibals. Indeed one of the last recordings of the scientist is his grieving over the loss of personal and social morality of the survivors being absolute. Some of the team escapes from the cannibal clutches with the daughter of the scientist. She was also being held by the Cannibals ... evidently as some sort of ransom in dealing with her father ... who we eventually find out as taken the role of a medieval despot (king with absolute authority).

They flee to northern Scotland and encounter the long lost scientist ... and his fiefdom. His society is exactly that of a medieval kingdom ... castle, robes, knights, toothless women and all. The team is taken prisoner and interrogated by the scientist-turned-historic-Dracula-type. He has no cure. He quit trying to find one. He and many others fled to the north. He had convinced them that life did not exist outside the walls. Indeed he had grown to such an agoraphobia that life did not exist outside the walls of his castle. He very poignantly says, "We have survived through evolution. We have earned the right to keep to ourselves, isolated from corruption."

The team manages to valiantly escape the Scottish Dracula's Castle with the scientists daughter. They radio back to headquarters in London that they are ready to be picked up. After evading the cannibals one more time they are rescued by helicopter ... except the leader of the team (she remains in the walled-country). She records a conversation with the English head honcho who came to rescue them. He confesses his plan to let the Londoners rot and only later present the cure to the world ... as if he developed it. The recording manages to find its way to the media outlets all over the world ... and his career ... possibly his very life ... is roasted.

While this movie was quite hard to watch, it carries a certain veracity in juxtapositioning three "societies" (contemporary civilization, utter barbarism, and medieval draconian serfdom). The common thread running through is human greed and selfishness ... what the Scriptures teach is good-ole human sin nature. Despite our technological sophistication, we are all not that far removed from utter barbarism.

I am Wesleyan through and through to the core. Wesleyan Christianity teaches that the process of Salvation is victory over sin and transformation into the righteousness of God and thus increasingly greater fellowship with the Community of the Godhead (Father, Son, & Spirit) and increasingly greater fellowship with the community of the saints. I believe this with all my heart. This is what wakes me up in the morning and sends me to bed in the evening ... to get rested for another day of practicing this type of Christianity. However, many of my Wesleyan friends have too greatly underestimated that stubborn sin nature that persistently haunts all people ... Christian and non-Christian alike. Certainly it is true that we are to walk with increasing victory over sin and self and Satan in our lives. Yet, we have to remember we are not all at the same level of holiness, nor are we even all Christians. Human sin nature has to be taken seriously in our ministry ... to one another as believers and to the world outside the walls of our church.

However, we must never forget that we are saved by God's grace and Jesus's blood and the Holy Spirit's transformation of us. We must be humble, treading very lightly on distinguishing ourselves from those in the world. We are called to be a separate people ... but only in how we live our lives, not necessarily where we live our lives. Our primary duty as Christian believers is to love God and love our neighbors (which means walking among our neighbors). Jesus defined our neighbor as anyone in need. "Anyone" includes those inside our walls of comfort and those behind the walls of contamination. If we are not careful to practice a "Great Commandments" Christianity, we may find the contaminated world "out there" is actually inside the sacred "here."