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Writing a nice, clever, well paced movie review is not my forte. Instead, I’m going to write a blog post – a couple of reflections, notes, and reactions as a Christian on this last weekends latest flick – Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

First, Christians should be aware of the stories being told by others. How do these measure up next to the Christian story? If the Christian story is the true story by which we evaluate other stories, then other stories can be false stories in contrast. Think of it as moral gravity. Competing stories can try and tell you that the bad guy wins, but this goes against the Christian story. They can tell you all you need to be a better person is to forgive yourself, but the Christian story says that no amount of forgiving yourself will actually deal with your guilt. That was my first problem with Inception. Self-forgiveness is false forgiveness.

The second area that gave me food for thought was the fact that Nolan more or less admits that the stories that people experience or hear can change their behavior. In an unguarded moment, we might open ourselves to having our thoughts changed by a well told story. He shows us that stories are effective means of inserting certain foreign thoughts. It’s interesting then that this story about that fact is told within a broader story and is being consumed by the theater-full by both Christians and non-Christians with their guard down. In the film, Cillian Murphy is the guinea pig, but in reality the theater goers are the guinea pigs. This is particularly worrisome to me given the false-story that Nolan is telling.

3. All concerns aside, Nolan has indeed proven that he is a very capable directory and storyteller. Just like Homer was a master storyteller who told a good yarn, I have no problem calling Nolan a master of his medium. But like I mentioned before, it’s whether the story you tell is true that matters.

Tagged: art, Christian art, Christopher Nolan, false forgiveness, Inception, storytelling, truth