{"id":2867,"date":"2012-04-09T09:22:20","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T14:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2867"},"modified":"2012-04-09T09:22:20","modified_gmt":"2012-04-09T14:22:20","slug":"the-hunger-games-and-jesus-not-quite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2867","title":{"rendered":"The Hunger Games and Jesus\u2026 Not Quite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, I finally got to watch the film \u201cThe Hunger Games.<\/em>\u201d Don\u2019t worry I don\u2019t think I will say anything that would be considered a spoiler. There was one part early in the movie that I thought Christians might claim as proof that the film has Christian themes in it. After watching the movie, I did a little googling and sure enough that is exactly what the Christian spin was.<\/p>\n

First, I should point out that the author, Suzanne Collins, is a Catholic. However, that really didn\u2019t play into her writing of the book or the screenplay. Her focus was on politics, economic, and government, not on religion.<\/p>\n

So the claim being made by Christians is that early in the film, when Primrose Evergreen was called to the hunger games, her sister Katniss sacrificed herself in the same way Jesus sacrificed himself for the sins of humanity\u2026 Except that Katniss wasn\u2019t on a cross, didn\u2019t die for three days, wasn\u2019t resurrected, etc. In other words, there are no similarities at all. In fact, the sacrifice itself is entirely different.<\/p>\n

Or starters, Primrose didn\u2019t commit any crimes nor was she even accused on any crimes. According to Christianity, the Jesus sacrificed himself to pay for the crimes of all humanity. Katniss sacrificed herself to save her sister from being called to the hunger games where she would have almost certainly died.<\/p>\n

Not all sacrifices are like Jesus. If Primrose had murdered someone and was found guilty and sentenced to death and then innocent Katniss told the judge that she would accept the death sentence so that Primrose could get away with murder, then we would be having a serious conversation about Christian themes in The Hunger Games.<\/p>\n

That, after all is the theme of Christianity. All human beings are wretchedly evil and guilty of breaking God\u2019s laws. God, acts as judge, jury, and executioner and has found us guilty. But then along comes Jesus (the only innocent person) to take our place in Hell\u2026 except that he doesn\u2019t actually take our place at all, but I digress.<\/p>\n

The Hunger Games was a good movie, but it has nothing at all to do with religion. Religion isn\u2019t mentioned at all and the film has no religious themes in it at all. It simply doesn\u2019t pertain to that subject matter.<\/p>\n

\"Enhanced<\/a><\/div>\n
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