Bruce Almighty and God’s Governance

In my young adult Sunday School class at church, we’re doing a series on portrayals of God in culture and how they compare to the God of the Christian faith. This blog post is an adaptation of some of the discussion points from the third lesson.

One important thing to know about me is that I’m not easily offended. Jokes that poke fun at the Christian faith don’t bother me. In fact, I kind of like them, as long as they’re funny. On its surface, the 2003 comedy Bruce Almighty seems like an extended joke with Christianity as the punchline. But as we dig deeper into the story’s plot and meaning, we see that it’s really grappling with some difficult issues that each of us will confront at some point in our lives: Why does God let bad things happen to me and to other good people? Why does it feel like God doesn’t care? Could I do a better job at running the world than God does?

These are the very questions we find the protagonist asking at the beginning of the film. Bruce (played by Jim Carrey) has hit a rough patch in his life that comes to a head when he’s passed over for a big promotion at work and subsequently fired for his negative (over)reaction. In his frustration, Bruce lashes out at God, claiming that instead of him, God is the one who should get fired since he’s doing a pretty cruddy job at running the world.

And whether we like to admit it or not, we’ve all been there. When bad things happen to us, it’s natural to question God. We ask why he allows these things to happen. We wonder whether or not he really cares about us. We lose patience because we know how we want the world to be, and God seems to have a different agenda. Bruce’s sentiment is relatable, if not universal.

But what happens to Bruce next is certainly unique. Instead of being met with silence, he starts receiving messages on his pager prompting him to come to a certain address. After a while, he gives in, and when he arrives at his destination, he comes face-to-face with God himself (played brilliantly by Morgan Freeman). God tells Bruce that since he thinks he can do a better job at running the world than God can, he’s going to be granted the full power of divinity. Bruce walks away believing that he’s just conversed with a crazy person, but he soon finds what the mysterious man told him to be true: Bruce is suddenly all-powerful.

As you’d expect from a Jim Carrey movie, this premise sets off a series of hijinks that make viewers laugh, cringe, and sometimes blush. But as Bruce gets more familiar with his power and the responsibility that it entails, he learns a few important lessons about God’s governance of the world, lessons that we would do well to learn ourselves.

Our frustration with God often comes from our own lack of openness to him. In the scene where he lashes out at God, Bruce starts by asking for some kind of sign. He immediately drives past traffic signs that say, “Stop,” and “Caution,” before wrecking his car and having a total meltdown. He was so blinded by his anger that he couldn’t see the signs of God’s warning and presence right in front of him. God was giving Bruce exactly what he was asking for, but he refused to acknowledge it.

And if we’re being honest, we’re guilty of this as well. We get frustrated when God doesn’t respond to us the way that we want him to, and that blinds us to the many ways that God is, in fact, reaching out to us. We serve a God who is always present with us, a God who wants to do life with us. But we can’t see it if we’re too preoccupied with our anger at him. In order to hear from God, we must first make ourselves open to him on his terms. And when we do, we find that he’s been right beside us the entire time.

If we ran the world, it would be a catastrophe. Bruce is initially excited by his newfound powers because he thinks that he can use them to set everything right. Of course, by “everything,” I mean everything in his life that he finds unsatisfactory. He uses his powers to excel in his career and his love life. Eventually, he is forced to grapple with the question of how to use his power for the good of others when he has to answer their prayers. But Bruce fails fantastically on all accounts, ruining his relationship with his girlfriend and plummeting the city into chaos by replying, “Yes,” to everyone’s requests, resulting in so many lottery winners that everyone gets a measly sum of a few dollars.

Before we rush to judge Bruce for the destructive ways in which he uses his divine power, let’s ask ourselves: Would we do any differently? We often imagine how much better the world would be if we were in charge, but in those hypothetical scenarios, who benefits the most? It’s us. And the sad truth is that we aren’t even capable of properly leveraging the small amount of influence we have for the benefit of others. What makes us think that we’d do a better job if we were given even more responsibility? No, when we really consider the implications of having unlimited power, we quickly realize that we are woefully insufficient for the challenge. Which leads us to one simple conclusion.

God knows what he’s doing. There is only one person fit for the job of ruling the universe, and he’s already got it. As the creator and sustainer of everything that exists, God knows what is best, not only for the world and history as a whole, but also for each of us individually. In light of our own inadequacy and God’s position as the sole person qualified for governing the world, what more are we to do than put our trust in him, believing that he cares for us and that he knows what is best?

That’s the conclusion that Bruce comes to, at least. After causing catastrophe in his life and the lives of those around him, he finally admits that he isn’t fit to be in charge. He pleads with God to take his powers back, committing his fate to God’s hands. Then and only then is Bruce able to repair the damage that he has done and find contentment in the wonderful life that God has blessed him with. Sure, he may not have a flashy job or a perfect life. But he has enough to get by, and he has faith that God is out there watching over him.

Scripture tells us that God has an ultimate purpose for the world and that, in the end, that purpose will become reality. We may not understand everything that happens in our lives. In fact, we may not understand any of it. But we can trust that God is in control and that he is working history on both the grand, meta scale and the individual, personal level to his ultimate purpose, and we can trust that it is good.

Glee and God's Relatability

In my young adult Sunday School class at church, we’re doing a series on portrayals of God in culture and how they compare to the God of the Christian faith. This blog post is an adaptation of some of the discussion points from the second lesson.

Let me begin by addressing the elephant in the room: This is not the original version of the song “One of Us.” This is the Glee version of the song “One of Us.” I am not ashamed of my love for Glee or for their rendition of this song. I came across it during a recent re-watch of the show and found it to be the perfect topic for a discussion like this one. Although the show from which it comes is dramatic and silly, if we take the song seriously, it reveals some profound truths about the way many people view God, and I think that’s worth discussing.

I used to think I was being a bit rebellious when I listened to this song, like I might get in trouble for it if my pastor found out. Because the lyrics contain some questions about God that you wouldn’t expect to hear someone ask in church, at least not in such blunt terms. But I don’t consider this song offensive; rather, I’d call it misinformed.

“One of Us” reveals some beliefs and questions about God that are common in our culture. These issues usually lie under the surface, but it’s important to bring them into the light because they are real, and the church has adequate responses to them. What follows is a short list of the theological issues I see raised in the song and how the Christian faith addresses each one.

This song portrays God as mysterious and unknowable. The opening line asks the question, “If God had a name, what would it be?” This implies that God doesn’t have characteristics of basic relatability, or at least that he hasn’t revealed them to people. This sort of belief is all too common in our culture today. While it’s true that God is transcendent and beyond human comprehension (see last week’s blog post, there’s much, much more to the story.

One of the most amazing truths of the Christian faith is that the God of the universe desires to know us. He’s chosen of his own accord to enter history and interact with his creation in a deep, personal way. He even allows himself to be affected emotionally by human actions. He didn’t have to do that, but he chose to.

In response to the song’s question about God’s name, the answer is clear: God has a name, and he’s chosen to reveal it to us (Exodus 3:14). This revelation of the divine name has huge implications for our ability to know God and to relate to him on a personal level. Every relationship has two elements: knowing someone and being known by them. God knows us fully, whether we like it or not, but our ability to know him is dependent on his revelation of himself, and he’s chosen to take that step, to open himself up to us. Some might even call that vulnerability.

The song also views God as distant and unreachable. According to the lyrics, God has no face and lives “up in heaven all alone” with “nobody calling on the phone.” Like the narrator of this song, many people believe in God but don’t think that they have any access to him. Some adhere to the “cosmic watchmaker” theory, the idea that God set the universe in motion and then withdrew from it, allowing things to play out according to the natural laws he put in place. This apathetic deism is tragically all too common in our culture.

But it does not line up with the way God is portrayed in the Bible or the way God has interacted with his people over the centuries. Christians worship a God who is not only involved in the affairs of the world, but is so involved that he is always available to his followers. God is omnipresent, which means that his presence is with us in all places and at all times. All we have to do in order to communicate with him is reach out in prayer. Does that sound like a distant God to you?

God is involved in the mundane, everyday events of our lives. Every minute, he is present with us and available to us. We each experience phases of life when God feels distant, but even in those moments, he is there. He is available to us because he wants us to reach out to him, to know him, to live this life with him. All we have to do is open ourselves up to his presence.

The thesis of this song is the question, ”What if God was one of us?” The song imagines God as a stranger simply trying to get home. This question reveals a deep desire that we have to worship a God who is relatable. We want a God who can sympathize with us, who knows what it’s like to go through what we go through. We want a God we can relate to, a God who is like us in some way.

In response to that desire, the Christian faith has some good news: God did, in fact, become one of us. We don’t have to wonder what it might be like if God were one of us, because it’s already happened. In the person of Jesus Christ, the God of the universe became a man and lived life with us. He experienced what it’s like to grow up, to work, to struggle, to have his heart broken, even to suffer and die.

And that fact offers us encouragement. There is nothing we can experience that God hasn’t already been through. It’s not enough that we can know God and reach him. He took it even further. He came to the earth and lived a human life so that he could connect even more deeply with us. There’s nothing unknowable, distant, or unrelatable about Jesus. He’s a person just like us, and he also happens to be God.

So you want to know what it would be like if God were one of us? Look no further than Jesus Christ. He is God, but he’s also one of us. And that makes all the difference.