I watched the movie Constantine this week and I have few thoughts about it. Just a heads up, I’m going to blatantly contradict myself; so I’ll try to keep my post as short and innocuous as possible for even the most uptight reader.
As a Christian, I cannot recommend this movie to anybody. It has theological and scriptural errors, takes cues heavily from occult teachings and practices, and paints a very inaccurate and obtuse picture of the relationship between heaven and hell.
That being said… I enjoyed the movie. Not only did I enjoy it, but I actually took something away from the movie that I feel is worth journaling about.
For those that don’t know, here is a break down of the plot. John Constantine has a ‘gift’. He sees things in the spiritual realm that people are not supposed to see. This gift drives him nuts and as a teenager, so he commits suicide. He was clinically dead for two minutes before the paramedics resuscitated him, but that two minutes was all it took. As a suicide case, he was given a one way ticket to hell, and when he is going to die for the second time (this time from terminal lung cancer) he is going to be sent right back there. This doesn’t sit too well John, so he decided from that point on he was going to use his ‘gift’ to banish every demon that he came across in hopes of earning his way back into God’s grace.
Here is what I took away from the movie: The character of John Constantine is a great Christian role model. I wish more Christians acted like John Constantine. I wish I acted more like John Constantine. If he were real I think he would be a great Christian for these reasons.
1. He understands the reality of the spiritual realm.
Because he has his ‘gift’ and can see it, John understand spiritual warfare. It’s real to him, and because its real to him he adjusts his life and actions accordingly, and is prepared for conflict.
To be a Christian, I have to believe that Spiritual warfare is a very real thing. And if I truly believe and understand that, it should be affecting my day to day actions and bring about in me a constant state of ‘readiness’. I’m sad to say this is not the case in my life. Right now I tend to treat spiritual warfare as a mere annoyance more than a real conflict.
2. He expects certain situations to happen and handles them with resolve.
In one of the more dramatic scenes in the movie, John transports himself into hell to have a look around. In spite of all the fantastic CGI taking place during this transformation what I noticed most was the look on his face. His face showed experience, confidence, resolve. He fully understood and expected what was going to happen to him in the situation and because of his expectations, he couldn’t be caught off guard.
In the first part of John 16:33 Jesus himself says:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trials.”
I, as a Christian, have been told to expect evil… and yet I can’t count all the times I’ve been caught off guard by it. Expecting evil to happen does not mean I’m wishing for it to happen, but that expectation should be the first step in equipping myself to deal with it.
3. When the chips are down, he prays.
Hollywood got this point a little backward, but not really. In the movie’s final scene when John is taking on the big bad demon, he quickly exhausts the tools at his disposal. So what is a man to do when every spell, incantation, and religious relic brought to the fight falls through? He lifts his eyes to heaven and prays for help. I wanted to tell him that prayer should always be the first weapon at the disposal of the Christian used. (Though often it is the last.) Of course, if John prayed for help first thing, it would have been a super short movie.
