The Omen

In this scene, from the new movie "The Omen" - a remake of the 1976 movie about a family whose son turns out to be the anti-Christ - demon-possessed dogs chase the boy's father.

So you've probably seen the billboards. They're stark black, with white letters. 06.06.06. And the simple phrase "You have been warned."

It's a billboard for a movie called "The Omen" a remake of a 1976 creepy, creepy film about a man and his wife who give birth to a son who dies in childbirth. The father is persuaded by a sinister doctor to substitute a baby born that same day under mysterious circumstances to an unwed mother. The father agrees to keep the secret from his wife, which turns out to be a bad call because the son is Satan incarnate. So that's no good.



I am not that interested in the movie per se - though I heard it was really creepy and quite well done. I am more interested in the theological implications. In his review of the movie, Roger Ebert wrote this line which I thought quite interesting:

Enough of the plot. Let us consider instead the genre of theological sensationalism. I've observed before that when it comes to dealing with demons and suchlike, Roman Catholics have the market cornered. Preachers of other faiths can foam and foment all they want about satanic cults, but when it comes to knowing the ground rules and reading ominous signs, what you want at the bedside is a priest who knows his way around an exorcism.

Couple of thoughts:

1. I suppose it goes well along with Catholic tradition that when evil really comes, it does no good for you to try to fight off Satan yourself. What you need is a priest. The same goes for the Bible. Don't try to read that at home. What you need is a priest. Same for forgiveness of sins. Leave confession to the professionals. Jesus didn't seem to think that way - he didn't seem to believe that the only people who could really be spiritually powerful were the professionals. In fact, he left the future of the church to some un-educated fishermen. Kind of the opposite of professional clergy.

2. It's common in movies to exagerrate and be sensational. In this movie, "The Omen" for example, this boy is the ant-Christ and obviously evil - such as the chilling scene where he pushes his mother over the balcony of the home with his scooter, and then smiles as he watches his mother fall to the marbled floor below. But this is too easy. Evil is always this odious, this frightful - but it is rarely this obvious. Evil rarely comes in the form of soul-chilling demons with glowing red eyes.

Satan is far more subtle than that and as C.S. Lewis said in the intro to his Screwtape Letters - the greatest accomplishment of Satan is convincing the world that he does not exist. It is the malign evil that we cannot detect - or do not detect until it is too late - that is the most frightening. And it is this evil that claims the most souls. Gambling. Selfishness. Workaholism. People sated with entertainment, living purposeless lives. Of course, those things don't make good movies.