CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – There’s a cult horror movie called The Devil. It actually contains two important lessons about faith.
In the movie, five people are trapped in an elevator in a high-rise building. One of them is Satan. The others are sinful people whom the devil has brought together to torment. One is a woman who is going to visit a lawyer to divorce her husband and steal his fortune. Another is a mattress salesman who has ripped off hundreds of customers. One of the passengers has a violent gang rap-sheet. And the person with the darkest past of all is the just-returned vet from Afghanistan. He was in a drunk driving crash that killed a family. He was never caught. The story is narrated by a building security guard who witnesses what happens in the elevator through a security camera.
At the end of the movie, it is just the drunk driver and Satan. He confesses. He’ll be arrested – but he knows he is forgiven. And Satan says “Dammit, and I really wanted you.”
And the witness says his mother first told him the story of the Devil’s Meeting when he was a child. And she would comfort him, saying, “Have faith. If the Devil is real, then God must be real too.”
So what are the two lessons from this B-horror movie?
First, we’re all like the people in the elevator. We have all sinned. We only give ourselves false comfort if we say “my sins aren’t as bad as that person.” The issue in our lives, the only issue really, is whether we ask for forgiveness. We are told if we do, the ledger of our lives is wiped clean.
Second, our society focuses so much on evil and violence. There are far more horror movies than family entertainment. We spend more on Halloween than Easter. If that darkness occupies such a place in our culture, surely the counter-weight – God – is present too.
Chris Conley
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