Refiner’s Fire: ‘Oh, God!’ Oh, Carl Reiner!

Oh, god!,” a new Carl Reiner film, has received wide publicity and is creative enough to attract a wide audience. But its theological statements leave me uneasy. I sometimes ask myself what it was like to be a disciple of Jesus. I’m sure most Christians wonder that from time to time. It must have been difficult for the disciples to tell their spouses that God was hanging around the neighborhood and had spoken to them. If “Oh, God!” achieves anything, it shows some of the unusual problems people would have with the incarnation. George Burns plays God and John Denver is Jerry Landers, an atheist grocery store manager to whom God reveals himself (Denver gives a surprisingly good performance).

Jerry’s encounter with the Divine is considered foolish by his wife, the religion news editor of the Los Angeles Times, Dinah Shore, and the rest of the world. Perhaps this is reminiscent of Paul’s description of the kerygma as being foolish in the eyes of the world (1 Cor. 1:27). The world resists believing that God has spoken to people. Most of us want to keep God out of our lives. But Jerry Landers has to tell his wife that God spoke to him on his car radio, in the shower, and as a bell boy. It makes you wonder how Moses’ wife reacted to her husband’s account of the burning bush.

God does have personality. And, as Elton Trueblood in The Humor Of Christ tells us, he has a sense of humor. The film shows a God who can sit back and reflect that ostriches are silly, and that avocados have been created with too large a pit. But when God gives approval to Voltaire’s statement that “God is a comedian playing to an audience who is afraid to laugh” I wonder whether Reiner goes too far. Despite his creativity, there are several theological problems in the film.

Jerry Landers is supposed to be the new saviour of the world; he is commissioned to spread God’s message. Jesus’ words regarding himself as being the only way to the Father are contradicted. The film rightly criticizes denominationalism before personal belief—as characterized by the Pharisaical clergy of the local seminary. The criticism becomes excessive, however, in its scourging of profiteering evangelists. Although some hucksters should rightly be instructed to “sell shoes and shut up,” it seems unjust to exactly imitate the voice of a leading evangelist who is not a con artist.

No less than five times during the film is the message of God stated. Basically, God is upset about the way things are going on earth (the pollution, hate, and wars). God wants everyone to know that the people’s lives and the world’s events will work out all right if everyone gets together and does their share to help matters. Even though it is difficult for people to believe in God, God believes in us. Not only does this version of the Gospel place the entire burden of salvation on the shoulders of people, it completely ignores the need and purpose of Christ’s atoning work on the cross.

This idea is pressed further when God explains the reason for all the suffering on earth. The suffering, says God, is a result of people not cooperating with each other. This answer is not presented with an Augustinian or Pelagian view of original sin. Rather, it seems to be saying that if everyone pitched in and did their share now, suffering would end. This response seems tragically inadequate when you consider such problems as birth defects, cancer, heart disease, and the like.

The film presents a humanistic salvation and a humanistic God. It doesn’t bother me that God wears a captain’s hat and glasses in this film. After all, Jesus wore sandles and ordinary clothing, too. But I am disturbed that God is presented as a person who just doesn’t know what the future holds. When asked about what is to come, he replies: “I only know the future as it becomes the present.”

In “Oh, God!” God apparently is able to break into history, but he’s only done so in a few circumstances, such as the Red Sea, a New York Met’s game, a rainstorm in an A.M.C. Pacer, card tricks, and a disappearance act in a courtroom. George Burns plays a God who is “God only for the big picture and who doesn’t get involved with details. One who doesn’t guide our destiny … which is just a matter of luck. The only help we are to get is from each other.”

The resurrection or any other miraculous intervention such as the incarnation of Jesus Christ has no purpose in this film. Jesus is not considered to be God. What is most disappointing to Christian viewers is the Christological statement of the film. God is asked: “Is Jesus Christ the Son of God?” God responds: “Jesus was my son, Buddah was my son, Mohammed, Moses, You (Jerry Landers), the man who said ‘there is no room in the inn’ was my son.” In other words, this is a film of the Bahai faith, which tries to syncretistically blend all religions together.

Regarding the purpose of human existence, God replies in the film: “Men and women persons, their existence means exactly and precisely, not more, not one tiny bit less, just what they think it means, and what I think doesn’t count at all.” In short, the God of this film has not spoken about the solution to the human predicament.

When God is not omnipotent, omniscient, and holy, a portrayal of the Divine becomes a limited anthropomorphism with a touch of magic. You merely need to read early Gnostic apocryphal works to see the shortcomings of a Merlin-like Jesus who turned the stones of fighting boys into birds, and cloths of a poor merchant into purple linens. Jesus never yielded to requests to perform supernatural antics to impress people. He healed and restored people in order to help them physically and spiritually. “Oh, God!” is certainly a creative attempt at describing God’s dealings with people, but falls short of showing us who God really is.

Philip A. Siddons is pastor of Wright’s Corners United Presbyterian Church in Lockport, New York.

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