Much to Daniel's joy, we had a family movie night tonight, watching the first 40 minutes of Horton Hears a Who featuring the voice talents of Jim Carrey and Steve Carell. I actually nodded off during major chunks of the movie, but I was blind-sided by all the theological undertones.
For those of you who haven't seen the movie (I'm assuming that 99% of you who don't have kids are in this category), Horton is a happy-go-lucky elephant who encounters a sub-atomic universe which cannot be seen by the naked eye or heard easily by the ear. His claims around this universe are met with skepticism from his friends, but outright disdain and anger from Sour Kangaroo, who calls Horton's beliefs "dangerous" for children and society and insists, "If you can't see, hear or feel something it doesn't exist."
Despite constant pressure and ridicule by Sour Kangaroo, who is ironically determined to destroy this universe she doesn't acknowledge exists, Horton presses on - loving his friends and the children he plays with while defending the universe that most others don't see.
Sour Kangaroo can be seen as a combination of Christopher "Religion poisons everything" Hitchens, Richard "Faith is one of the world's greatest evils" Dawkins and Bill "Religion is a form of mental defect" Maher - not simply content with their own perception that God does not exist, but finds that others' belief in God and the desire to spread that belief as fundamentally dangerous and thus makes it their personal mission to "destroy faith". Horton might represent any and every Christian who at the core believes in the God of the Bible, yet continues to wrestle to see Him more clearly and share Him to others each day despite the discouragement of the Sour Kangaroos of this world.
Hebrews 11:1 tells us: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Who would've thought we'd see this in the form of a modern day animated Christian parable?
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