[...]Chapter 5: Horror and Culture « The Message Behind the Movie[...]…

I think that some of the ideas in these verses talking about division of God’s Church apply:
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
1Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?
5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

When we look at a flower correctly, we do not see the flower, but we see the clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, soil, and everything else in existence in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made up entirely of non-flower elements, it has no independent being. Each of those things which make up a flower are also made up entirely by elements of non-self, including flowers. When we see these verses above, we see that God uses all these parts, but serving or recognizing only one or some of the parts is not fully recognizing God. In the example in the verses, Paul and Apollos are inter-beings, parts which are connected by God. When we see Paul or Peter or John or other Christians, we do not worship them, yet we hold them in high regard and have respect for them because we see them as parts of the whole, parts of the body of Christ.

In the same way, the Na’vi do not worship nature on the surface, they do not worship the flower, but they recognize the oneness of everything that makes up the flower, and recognize that the flower is a part that makes up other things, which is also used to make itself. They are not worshiping nature as we see it with our eyes, but they are worshiping the oneness that holds it all together, while respecting each individual part, and that oneness is God and comes from God. They may not refer to it as “God” but this does not mean that the idea or concept of God is incorrect. It also doesn’t mean that everybody’s concept of God is correct, but when we see people’s fruits, we can see their understanding. Their fruits do not equal understanding, but they are evidence of understanding. The Na’vi seemed to be very peaceful living as one before men came along and persecuted them and their beliefs. The men are led by greed/selfishness and the love of money, which is the root of all evil.

In this context we can see ourselves, Christians, as the Na’vi. Sin nature, which is selfish and not loving, is the man. Inside ourselves there is a battle going on between the good in us that God has given, and the selfishness which is of man. We notice in the movie that the Na’vi didn’t expel that selfishness, that taint of greed, by their selves, they had to call on the help of the force behind nature, and not specific things, one or the other, but the thing that held all of nature together. They didn’t worship those hammerhead bull things when they came to help, they did not worship the banshees of the sky, they respected each thing as its own part, and worshiped the orchestrator of it all, and relied on help from the orchestrator to expel the evil taint of selfishness and greed, which is represented by man and his desires.

Cameron isn’t selling nature worship, he just wants people to understand and recognize that each part of nature is a piece of the whole, that it comes from something bigger.

I think the movie is very great and very representative of the Christian walk with God and the battle versus sin nature. It is representative of truth. That is why it can be applied to so many movements and things that have happened throughout history. There is truth in this movie. It speaks to the human psyche on the deepest level which is to our struggle to be rid of sin through the help of the oneness and infinity that is and is of God. It is the ultimate struggle, the struggle of good versus evil.