Topic: WorldNetDaily
It was a given that the biblical literalists at WorldNetDaily would despise the film "Noah" -- so much so, in fact, tnat it tried to capitalize on the film's publicity by publishing a book called "Noah: The Real Story." (Hey, just because WND despises the idea of a non-literal Noah doesn't mean they're averse to making a buck off it.)
It was also a given that WND's movie reviewer, Drew Zahn, would also despise the film. But the question was: How would he despise it? He manages to find a somewhat fresh take in his March 30 review, likening it to some game called “Two Truths and a Lie” (spoiler: the movie is the lie):
For the Bible is very clear from the first of Noah’s story that God established a promise (the biblical word is “covenant”) with Noah and his descendants, and even as He commanded the family to leave the Ark, God told the humans to be fruitful and multiply. Scripture says God was grieved with humanity, but Noah found favor in his eyes. The plan all along was for God to show mercy upon Noah and his family, to reveal God’s salvation from his own justice. It’s a story all about God – revealed through Noah, but still all about God.
“Noah,” however, cuts out the most important part of the story. In “Noah,” God announces not mercy, but judgment and judgment alone. Then He goes silent. He abandons Noah to decide whether humanity will live or not.
That’s great drama, but demonic theology.SPOILER ALERT: Then, in the critical moment, it’s not God who chooses love and mercy, but Noah. God is the bad guy in this movie, and Noah is the good guy. That’s just a wicked lie coated in the disguise of other truths.
And even though Emma Watson delivers a speech in the end that makes it appear as though God might be merciful in having chosen Noah for this task, she still reasserts it is not God who chose to save humanity, but Noah. As though God just abdicated his throne and delegated that critical call to Noah.
Look, I don’t really mind fictionalizing the story and embellishing it with rock monsters and all kinds of other glitz. I’ll forgive straying from the details of the story to spice up the drama. But when Darren Aronofsky took a story about God’s mercy and instead made it about his wrath, when it substitutes God’s indifference for God’s intimate love, when it makes God out to be the villain of the film … that’s not just fiction; it’s evil.
Presumably the millions of human and animal souls who perished in the flood, not all of whom guilty of anything in particular, felt somewhat different about the nature of God's mercy.
