When There are Questions of Faith

It’s been a while since I have shared anything regarding the mountain of entertainment but I felt it was time for me to share a few thoughts about the most recent film released by Marvel Studios. If you are an avid viewer of things that come out of the House of Mouse, you’ll probably have heard many people comment that when it comes to Marvel Studio’s Phase Four projects, it has not had a sense of connection in the same way that Phases One through Three have. I’ve noticed a common thread throughout the fourth phase that I think most have failed to see because, in reality, it speaks to exactly many of the problems that are being faced by society.

The most recent theatrical release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has concluded phase four with the story of how people deal with grief. Phase Four began with the Disney Plus series WandaVision which also dealt with grief. I’m not stating that the entirety of phase four is about grief but noting that these end-cap projects are points from which you begin to see the developing narrative throughout. The true connective tissue in phase four has been about how people handle the questions of faith in the wake of things like grief, tragedy, loss, and awareness of how small we feel in a world that seems to be much larger than we previously believed.

Some look to the occult like Wanda did when she could not cope with the loss of Vision in phase three’s Avengers: Endgame. Isn’t it interesting that her loss of vision drove her to construct a new reality for herself? This is how so many other people deal with loss. The lack of faith doesn’t enable them to maintain a focus or direction rooted in a relationship with God because there is a denial that God would allow loss or that any meaning could possibly be found in it. Wanda’s story is continued in the movie Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. I think this speaks volumes about the maddening effect of grief that is not dealt with properly.

The next project was the Marvel Series Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It dealt with how do you carry on a legacy that you don’t feel worthy to carry and learning of injustices from the past. Some might simplify this to generational curses and how you deal with that. This was a bit more complex than that but in keeping it this simple, you begin to see that it’s not always as simple as going through a twelve-step program that brings healing or deliverance so that you can live on. The attempt to do good deeds won’t always fix something that requires an all-loving God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

The next few projects, Loki, Black Widow, and Shang Chi all deal with how do you find redemption in the wake of what has been. This is an expansion of the themes of Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Shang Chi goes a bit further because it’s an attempt to deal with how you become your best self as the bridge between two worlds or opposing worldviews. Many people live today having the experience of coming from a household that tried to marry two worldviews to make an amalgam of some sort of faith. From the Judaeo-Christian perspective, God has said that He will not share His headship with anyone else (Exodus 20:3).

While some will put emphasis on mental illness for Moon Night, the underlying theme delves into Egyptian and other faith concepts of the afterlife. Ms. Marvel introduces the world to the life of a young Pakistani-Muslim girl and her family. She has to figure out how to integrate her faith and heritage in a world that is becoming more progressive and at times intolerant over time. How much of her faith is she willing to embody and how can she be accepted by all? So many people today want to live a faith that is acceptable to and tolerated by everyone. Jesus said that those who follow him must be all in. Be hot or cold, not lukewarm (Revelation 3:15).

Thor: Love and Thunder widened the conversation to the multiplicity of faiths that people believe in and deals partly with how people view the God or gods that they worship. How do you respond when your expectations of God do not measure up to how you think they should? Oftentimes, this is one of the toughest things for even Christians to grasp. The apostle Paul tells the Romans that “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to purpose (Romans 8:28).” It’s the interpretation and understanding of this that is often misunderstood even by many life-long believers in Christ.

I Am Groot, was a short anthology that revealed how one’s own perceptions of self could have a great impact on how we interact with the world around us. Ego can get in the way and make us feel God-like at times rather than tempering us and keeping us humble.

The animated series What-If is a bit challenging in the sense that it revolves around the unknown question of how would my life be different given if circumstances of life had altered in one way or another. This unknown often keeps people from living out their God-given destiny and being stuck in hopelessness. God always wants us to look and move forward because our past often leads to destructive outcomes. Jesus said, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God (Luke9:62).”

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever deals with the question of what do I do when I’ve placed my faith in science and it fails me. Many people are dealing with this question now as many have had their worldviews shattered because science has not proven positive during the pandemic. The real-world events of the loss of Chadwick Boseman to cancer during the pandemic and the fictional loss of T’Challa not long after Avengers: Endgame brings a sense of connective reality in what happens when faith is misplaced and how anger can eat at you when you don’t have a faith or a faith community to help you to process and heal when you can’t make sense of it all.

I deliberately did not bring up the movie Eternals, the Disney Plus series Hawkeye, and She-Hulk because they are variations on themes that I've mentioned already. However, it’s my hope that those who are having questions of faith will choose to seek first God’s Kingdom and His right way of doing things (Matthew 6:33). While this is often seen as counter to the culture, it’s a path that God has promised will keep you (Zephaniah 3:5). He knows that hope in any and everything else fails.