Saturday, November 29, 2008

"Bella" Redemptive Value

I watched the movie "Bella" the other night. Only because so many people raved about its redemptive value and how pro-life it was. At the end of the movie I couldn't believe that it was over! I guess the "redemptive value" everyone was excited about was that the unwed main character decided not to abort her baby. But the craziness of the whole film was that instead of giving the baby up for adoption or marrying the male supportive role, and having the family she expressed that she wanted "more than anything", she instead gives him the baby to raise-although it was not his child and she stays in New York living her life and at the end of the movie she comes to visit the girl-obviously for the first time when the child is about 3 or 4 years old. It was ridiculous. Moreover, she "gave" the baby to this man, who was formally her co worker to raise because years prior, he was involved in a terrible accident that resulted in the death of a little girl who was no more than 3. So I guess in the end he felt redeemed and forgiven because he had the chance to give life to the "little accidental baby" his co worker clearly did not want. The whole ending, the whole reconciliation of tragedies in both the lives of main characters was so selfish. The woman eventually decided that she shouldn't kill this child by aborting it, so she gave it away to be raised without a mother, because it was too much for her to deal with. That in itself is tragic not redemptive! She felt she couldn't be a good mom. She didn't even try! And her coworker thought that he could once again be a "good and happy" if took care of this unwanted child and prove to the world that he was not the irresponsible, careless person that was involved in a tragic accident years prior. This was redemptive? The only thing redemptive thing that I got out of the whole movie was that Jesus made it so abundantly clear, that you "being good" does not redeem you or score you points with Him. Yet we strive and strive to prove ourselves to ourselves and to others that we matter and that we are important because we are "good" and do "good"things and we volunteer, and give to the needy. It is so hard to believe and get through our heads that Jesus loves us through and through and that being good or striving thereof only leads us down around to performance orientation, where we perform to get the approval of people, and of God, which usually stems from living a childhood where we had to strive to get the approval of apparents. Know this, that He knew us before we were born, He knit us together in our mother's womb (Psalm 139). All have sinned and have fallen short of Gods Glory, but the gift of God is eternal life (Romans 6:23, Romans 3:23) . God came that we may have life and life more abundantly (John 10:10). He wants us to experience life on our jobs, life in our families, life in our thought processes, life in our health, Life in the decisions we make, or don't make. Only He can redeem us. Only He has the power to turn around impossible situations. Yet why is it when we hurt, we blame Him and run away from Him? And why is it that when he does something for us, that can not be explained away yet by saying it was a miracle from God, we don't acknowledge Him or give Him any credit? Where is the redemptive value in that?

2 comments:

Laurie said...

Wow. I have not seen the movie (though it's in the list of "to see" in the back of my head) - but I so appreciate what you are saying. It sounds like a just appraisal.

Anonymous said...

The thing I like about the movie is that it's very realistic. That's basically how a selfish, unsaved person might handle things. In the end, I'm just happy there was a child to be born out of it. ;-)