The Purge: Anarchy, Eggplants and the Will of God

We can invoke God's name for the worst of reasons.

It's not a new thing. In the New Testament, you read about lots of folks who claimed to be speaking for God. "Watch out for false prophets," Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew. "They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves." Throughout history, people have done some pretty horrific things in God's name—atrocities that have turned people away from God altogether. It's like a variation on that old Bon Jovi song. Sometimes we give God a bad name.

I was thinking about this a little after I left The Purge: Anarchy, a R-rated horror-thriller that shows just how badly God's name can be abused.

In the movie, the Purge is an annual abandonment to society’s darkest urges—a 12-hour period in which most crime (including and especially murder) is legalized. The Purge is pushed as a societal good (the crime rate has plummeted since its introduction) and a patriotic duty. And most critically here, it's also seen as something sacred.

In the first movie, a dying man is kissed on the forehead by his murderer, almost like a priest would kiss a confessor. "Your soul has been cleansed," he says. Participants even seem to pray together: "Blessed be the Purge," they say.

In The Purge: Anarchy, that sense of the Purge being a divine rite only grows. Killers sometimes sport religious symbols: One has a cross marked on his forehead. Another wears a mask with the word "God" scrawled on it. A woman roams the roof of a building, looking for people to gun down for the grievous sin of, I guess, walking down the street. Hollering into a megaphone, she talks about how often God in the Bible brings torment down on His creation: floods and famine and all manner of terrible things. The woman says she's simply doing God's holy work: She's a "one-woman mother---ing plague," worthy of a spot at God's left hand.

It seems like the filmmakers are critiquing how religion can be misused, and they may be swinging a few punches at the Religious Right here: The country's "New Founding Fathers" manipulate both the language of patriotism and religion for their own ends, as some believe happens today.

Now on one hand, I'd argue that faith is inherently politically active. Both church and state, after all, are built on a sense of shared morality and values. Religion can't help but enter into the conversation.

But the movie does hint at a real danger of religious activism: Nothing kills dialogue as quickly as to declare that "God wills" something. As soon as someone stands on those two words, the conversation has nowhere left to go.

Now, I do believe that God does want us to do certain things. I believe that our lives are, on some level, a learning exercise—where we're educated all the time about how to align ourselves more closely with God's will. When I had kids in the house, most of our household rules aligned with what I believed was the will of God—what to value, how to act and how to treat people. Even most of our secular laws are predicated on the idea of a broadly accepted sense of what's "right" and "wrong," which to me at least partly presupposes a greater power that defines what "right" and "wrong" are.

But I do think we've got to be really careful when we throw around that phrase.

It's like this: Say you've got a friend who loves, I dunno, eggplants. "I think eggplants are God's favorite vegetable," he might say. Or, "I'd imagine that, every day in heaven, we'll be eating eggplants." Now, I'm none too fond of eggplants. And if I was talking with this someone, I'd argue that eggplants were really just a joke of God's—a not-so-subtle spoof on the otherwise sublime world of veggies. I'd declare that, if God wanted us to eat eggplant, he would not have colored it purple. To which he might respond that purple is the color of royalty, and on it would go.

But if this friend said, seriously, that it's God's will that we all eat eggplants—that it's a sin if we don't eat them—we find ourselves in a very different conversation. Suddenly, my distaste of eggplants becomes a moral failing. My dislike of the vegetable puts me, in the view of my friend, in opposition to the Almighty. And by extension, I'm in opposition to my friend. We're on the verge of a holy war over eggplants.

Some true-to-life holy wars have been started over issues just about as consequential.

When you declare something to be God's will, you draw up sides. Either you're on God's side or you're not. Well-meaning people who want to be on God's side may be drawn into something that might not be God's will at all. Others might turn their backs on God: If that really is God's will, I want no part of it, they might say. And when you tie the words "God's will" with the words "the Purge," you've got yourself a real problem.  

When Jesus talked about false prophets, He told us that we would know them by their fruits. "Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?" He said.

The Purge seems like a no-brainer: That's a thistle all the way. As an activist in The Purge: Anarchy argues, it's pretty clear killing innocent people isn't something that God would condone. "We no longer worship at the altar of Christ, of Mohammed, of Yahweh," he says, covering his bases. "We worship at the altar of Smith & Wesson." It's also, I think, easier to see God's will after the fact, and through the lens of history.

But sometimes in the moment, before the figs and thistles have a chance to grow, it can be more difficult.

I'm a skeptical person by nature, and I think whenever someone says they speak for God or know definitively what He wants or wills, I find myself going into heightened alert status. And I try to weigh what they say is “God's will” with what I know and have been taught about God: His love for us. His desire to see us all drawn closer to Him. I believe that God wills us to always hone our character, to be more the people He designed us to be. But, at least in how we saw in Jesus, He does so with kindness and grace and love.

It’d be nice if it was always as easy to see the fruits of a false prophet, as we see in The Purge. But it’s not always so simple.

The Exorcist and Frightening Faith

In honor of its 40th anniversary, The Exorcist was recently re-released on Blu-ray, complete with a director's cut and a special little book that has who-knows-what sorts of horrors in it. Grace Hill Media—an organization that helps market largely secular movies to Christian audiences—sent me a copy. It's sitting at home now, and I honestly don't know when—or if—I'll be able to watch it.

See, The Exorcist is the scariest movie I've ever/never seen.

When I was about 16 or 17, I "watched" the film with my best friend. He and I would often watch horror flicks together, and the moment felt right (to my friend, at least) for us to watch of the most horrific, notorious flicks of all time. We popped in the tape at about 2 a.m. and, about 20 minutes into it, I decided the story of Regan's diabolical bodymate was going to be waaay too intense for me. I feigned sleep for the rest of the flick.

But it proved to be impossible to sleep—what with the sounds of retching and cursing and my friend saying, "Dude! Did you see that?!"

"I'm asleep!" I kept saying. But I kept peeking, too. And while I didn't see all of The Exorcist, I saw enough to know that the other horror flicks I'd seen before were mere child's play. And I've never quite had the courage (even though I review horror flicks all the time) to re-screen it.

Some may wonder why Grace Hill was involved in marketing The Exorcist—an R-rated movie about a possessed, profane, upchucking pre-adolescent—in the first place. It's not the sort of film that most Christian audiences gravitate toward.

And yet, the film—as scary and as profane and as disturbing as it is—has some deeply faithful elements.

The Exorcist book, published in 1971, was based on the real-life exorcism of Roland Doe in 1949, and the book's author William Peter Blatty is a committed Catholic. In 2011, he wrote (for Fox News) that the book wasn't even supposed to be all that scary. He writes:

That I am regularly hauled out of my burrow every Halloween like some furless and demonic “Punxsatawney Phil” always brings a rueful smile of bemusement to my lips as I lower my gaze and shake my head, for the humiliating God’s-honest truth of the matter is that while I was working on "The Exorcist," what I thought I was writing was a novel of faith in the popular dress of a thrilling and suspenseful detective story – in other words, a sermon that no one could possibly sleep through -- and to this day I haven’t the faintest recollection of any intention to frighten the reader, which many will take, I suppose, as an admission of failure on an almost stupefying, scale.

The Exorcist (like this year's The Conjuring) isn't just a goosebump generator: It's a film that insists to its skeptical audience that good and evil are real and tangible. That there is both a God and a devil. That there are powers beyond our comprehension, just as the Apostle Paul told us. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood," he writes to the Ephesians, "but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

These things are not often dealt with in your average romcom or Oscar-bait dramedy. Of the typical movie genre, only horror allows such an in-your-face examination of these sorts of themes and almost begs for spiritual soul-searching.

In a 2005 interview with Christianity Today, Scott Derrickson (director for the well-regarded The Exorcism of Emily Rose) said this:

To me, the horror genre is the genre of non-denial. It's about admitting that there is evil in the world, and recognizing that there is evil within us, and that we're not in control, and that the things that we are afraid of must be confronted in order for us to relinquish that fear. And I think that the horror genre serves a great purpose in bolstering our understanding of what is evil and therefore better defining what is good. And of course I'm talking about, really, the potential of the horror genre, because there are a lot of horror films that don't do these things. It is a genre that's full of exploitation, but the better films in the genre certainly accomplish, I think, very noble things.

But many Christians, particularly in Evangelical circles, don't see horror as redemptive at all. In fact, many believe it's a bit of a black hole—leading viewers toward dark and demonic themes. And while Derrickson admits that a little bit of balance is in order, he's a little bit surprised that Christians don't cotton to horror more.

"To me, this genre deals more overtly with the supernatural than any other genre, it tackles issues of good and evil more than any other genre, it distinguishes and articulates the essence of good and evil better than any other genre, and my feeling is that a lot of Christians are wary of this genre simply because it's unpleasant. The genre is not about making you feel good, it is about making you face your fears. And in my experience, that's something that a lot of Christians don't want to do."

Let me be honest: I agree more with Derrickson than some. And honestly, I like a good scare now and then. I'm not nearly as apt to watch horror as I was in my younger days, but I still appreciate a well-crafted, creepy movie. I might even watch one tonight while handing out candy.

But The Exorcist? Sorry. Not tonight. There are some fears I'm not quite ready to face.  

The Conjuring: Good Exorcise

Demons are not very subtle.

Every demon I've ever seen—restricted, thankfully, to movies—have been about as restrained as Lady Gaga after chugging a few Red Bulls. They stomp around and scare people and spit pea soup. They scream profanities and chant in Latin and sometimes twist the folks they're possessing into pretzels.

If I was a demon, I think I'd try to play it a little cooler. Because as soon as your host starts to weep blood or levitate out of bed, it's sure to bring the exorcists around, and before you know it, poof! You're being cast out and forced to endure interminable lectures from your higher-ups.

Of course, subtle demons would hardly be the subject of wide-release movies, either. Maybe demons just like the attention. Or maybe there's something in the very character of a demon that makes it impossible to be demure. After all, isn't self-restraint some sort of a … virtue?

The demon from The Conjuring certainly could use some counseling on how to control one's impulses.

She wasn't always a demon: Back in the 1800s, she was simply a witch named Bathsheeba who, shortly after her son was born, sacrificed the child to Satan. As soon as the deed was discovered, she ran out of her lovely Rhode Island home and hung herself on a tree outside—using her final breath to curse whoever might dare to buy the property forever after.

But unless you put these sorts of things in writing, people tend to forget. And so a century or so later, the Perron family (hubbie Roger, wife Carolyn and their five girls) move into the house and live quite peacefully for, oh, five minutes. And then things start to unravel.

The very first night, they find mysterious boarded-up cellar—something you'd think would've been spotted by an inspector. The next morning, the family dog is dead. Before long, the girls are screaming and sleepwalking and playing with strange, invisible playmates—and it's clearly about time to bring the professionals in—Ed and Lorraine Warren, two demonologists who'd go on to earn a measure of fame dealing with a certain house (and its undesirable inhabitants) in Amityville, New York.

The Conjuring, like The Amityville Horror, is allegedly based on a true story straight from the real case files of the Warrens. While I’m sure the makers took a few liberties (and frankly, I hope they did), the real Lorraine Warren said they got the crux of the story right. Moreover, the Warrents are fervent Catholics who believe very sincerely in both demons and the power of God to dispel them. At the end of the movie, we see a quote from Ed Warren:

"The fairy tale is true. The devil does exist. God indeed exists. And for us, as people, our very destiny hinges upon which one we elect to follow."

As such, The Conjuring is a pretty interesting feature for a Christian movie reviewer such as myself. The movie takes its faith seriously—so much so that faith-based marketers Grace Hill were involved in the publicity push. It's the sort of movie that embraces not just a generic sort of supernatural happening, but a real devil poking at a real, Christian God.

It's not the first horror flick to tackle spirituality so sincerely, of course. The original The Exorcist—the scariest movie I've ever seen—was based on a book written by a Christian (William Peter Blatty), who intended it as a "sermon that no one can sleep through." Scott Derrickson, who directed the well-regarded The Exorcism of Emily Rose, told Christianity Today that "horror is a perfect genre for Christians to be involved with."

I know of people who've felt the first real tug of faith through movies such as this.

But many Christians, particularly conservative Evangelical Christians, don’t typically like horror. It’s dark stuff, after all. Disturbing. They're certainly never very "nice" movies. Rarely are they uplifting.

Derrickson again:

To me, this genre deals more overtly with the supernatural than any other genre, it tackles issues of good and evil more than any other genre, it distinguishes and articulates the essence of good and evil better than any other genre, and my feeling is that a lot of Christians are wary of this genre simply because it's unpleasant. The genre is not about making you feel good, it is about making you face your fears. And in my experience, that's something that a lot of Christians don't want to do.

I have a complex reaction to horror movies—too muddled with personal baggage, perhaps, to be completely fair. I understand the unease that many Christians feel, but I'm sympathetic to Derrickson's point of view.

Horror movies are designed to move us away from a place of comfort, and I wonder sometimes whether we Christians can sometimes be a little too consumed with making ourselves comfortable. We sometimes tune out ideas that threaten our worldview, shun people who might challenge us. Sometimes, it seems the evangelical subculture goes to some pretty great lengths to keep us from encountering anything that might discomfort us: We can spend our childhood in Christian schools, go to Christian colleges, do all our business at Christian establishments (helpfully noted by Christian business directories). Yes, the Apostle Paul did tell us to "not conform to the pattern of this world," but I don't know if he would've advocated building a whole new world so we wouldn't have to deal with the other one at all.

This is not to equate a dislike of horror movies with our sometime impulse to protect and even isolate ourselves. But still, it’s interesting. At times, I think we long to make earth a little more like heaven. Horror flicks, and often even the world around us, remind us that heaven is a long way off. We live in a dark, uncomfortable and sometimes frightening place. And movies like The Conjuring—in their own rather unsubtle way—hint at how frightening, without God, it might be.

The Purge: Legislating Morality

Rod Serling would’ve been disappointed, I think.

While trailers for The Purge make it look like a depressing splatterfest, the sci-fi/horror flick is, in some ways, more like a frenetically violent, 85-minute episode of The Twilight Zone. Its central premise is something straight out of Serling’s imagination: What if society decided to make crime—assault, murder, the whole works—legal for a night?

It’s a great idea (the story concept, not actually legalizing crime), but one (as I said in my Plugged In review) that probably would’ve worked better on the old 1960s show. While the flick generously ladles out violence, it was pretty stingy on any actual suspense or scares. Your heroes can be improbably saved from imminent death so many times before you, as a viewer, start looking at your watch.

But while The Purge as a movie wasn’t that great, its central question sparked another, even more interesting question for me: What makes something right?

The whole friction between what’s legal and what’s right is really compelling to me, maybe because I had to wrestle with the concept so mightily while writing my Batman-focused book, God on the Streets of Gotham. On one hand, Batman’s a vigilante, breaking the law almost every night. On the other, he’s a stickler for rules: He never kills and often drops criminals off right on the police’s front doorstep. That weird dichotomy helps make Batman the compelling basketcase that he is, I think. And maybe we struggle with that own dichotomy in ourselves. Most of us really respect the law—unless, of course, 65 mph feels a little slow for a stretch of open road in the middle of Kansas.

Laws are supposed to reflect what a society says is “right.” And I think in a just society, they largely do. Remember the old adage, “You can’t legislate morality”? Legislation, I think, is an explicit reflection of morality. Everything, from traffic statutes to the tax code, represents (often imperfectly) our cultural moral priorities. And when we push to change a law or pass a new one, we always trot out oodles of ethical rationales for doing so.

But whenever we support or oppose a law, we make a very important assumption: Right and wrong transcend whatever’s on the books. There’s a higher morality at stake. And we want our human-authored bills and rules and laws to better reflect that higher sense of morality. So in another way, the idea we “can’t legislate morality” is right on. Morality’s already there, somewhere. We’re just trying to codify it.

Somewhere along the line in the world of The Purge, America’s “new founding fathers” had a whale of a discussion of morality. And for them, it all came down to what would make the country run better.

How they came to the Purge as a solution, I have no idea. But I’d like to imagine that, after hours and hours of discussion, they all decided to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. And when they heard Spock talk about how “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” (all sugared up from way too many donuts) they made a fairly horrific ethical leap.

“Hey!” one of them might’ve said. “Why not allow society’s many to kill off a few folks? It’ll really solve a lot of problems!”

And, oddly, the movie tells us, it does. We’re told that unemployment is rock-bottom and productivity is sky-high. Why? It’s all due to the Purge, and the flick suggests it could be one of two reasons: Either the Purge A) allows folks to blow off a little evolutionary steam, or B) culls society’s weaker, less productive members.

The movie’s new founding fathers made what is, essentially, a moral argument—but one that assumes that society itself is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, the higher authority. If society works better because of a given law, that given law must be, by definition, “right.”

Except it’s not. We get this. The movie gets this. And the main characters in the film grow to understand just how wrong the Purge is after its uncomfortable realities come literally barging through the door.

The movie suggests that right and wrong is bigger than us. We don’t make it up as we go.

I think most of us understand this deep in our hearts. But we don’t necessarily realize where that understanding inexorably leads us. That sense of overarching right and wrong has to come from somewhere—God, a divine intelligence, a strange, moral compunction in the universe. We can’t be merely chance products of an unfeeling universe and have a sense of universal morality.

The morality of the Purge—that is, the fictional law—predicates there is no such overarching morality. The universe doesn’t care what we do, so right and wrong is really a matter of practicality.

The morality of The Purge—that is, the movie—tells us that’s a fallacy. Something out there does care. And deep down inside, we all know it.