The Theology of Screenwriting, Part 20: Kingdom of God
This week I continue to explore theological themes in relation to screenwriting, considering them metaphorically because in my view, we see these themes in movies all the time. By understanding them, we can use these theological themes to enhance the meaning and depth of our stories.
For background on the general subject, you may read my introductory comments in Part 1 here.
Today in Part 20: Kingdom of God.
We think of kingdom as being a place, ruled by a monarchical figure. In both the Old and New Testaments, there is a use of the term kingdom referencing a holy place, where God rules in a transcendent realm. Indeed we find many references in the New Testament to the “Kingdom of Heaven” which is in some ways interchangeable with Kingdom of God, underscoring its celestial locale.
However there are two uses of kingdom of God in the Bible that have an intriguing connection to the craft of writing. An example of the first is Mathew 3.1–2: “In those days John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching. His message was, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” Here we have a sense of the kingdom in terms of time, it is coming and in the near future.
The second take on the term comes from Luke 17:20–21: “One day the Pharisees asked Jesus, ‘When will the Kingdom of God come?’ Jesus replied, ‘The Kingdom of God can’t be detected by visible signs. Nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the Kingdom of God is within you.” Here we have a sense of the kingdom in terms of proximity, it is inside each one of us.
If we look the concept of the Kingdom of God/Heaven in a metaphorical way, both that it is inside us and it is coming, we have a new way of thinking about the Hero’s Journey, specifically the Call to Adventure.
The Call arrives from the future — “The Kingdom of Heaven is near” — beckoning the Hero to leave their Ordinary World and onto the great adventure of their lives.
And yet this Call is not arbitrary, but rather intimately connected to what lies within us, our Core Essence, Authentic Self, True Potential. In other words, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
Frederick Buechner says this of the Kingdom of God: “It is not a place, of course, but a condition. Kingship might be a better word… As a poet, Jesus is maybe at his best in describing the feeling you get when you glimpse the Thing Itself — the kingship of the king official at last and all the world his coronation. It’s like finding a million dollars in a field, he says, or a jewel worth a king’s ransom. It’s like finding something you hated to lose and thought you’d never find again — an old keepsake, a stray sheep, a missing child. When the kingdom really comes, it’s as if the thing you lost and thought you’d never find again is you.”
So here again, another way of envisioning the Hero’s Journey: The Protagonist ventures forth, facing obstacles and tests along the way which lure and compel that which lies within to come forth into conscious being. By doing so, the Protagonist claims the power and authority of their kingship enabling them to defeat the Nemesis and achieve Unity.
The kingdom of Heaven is near. The Call to Adventure is just there moments away for the Protagonist after we type FADE IN.
The kingdom of God is within you. The power of metamorphosis lies inside the Protagonist, ready to be awakened.
The upcoming journey will challenge the Protagonist to the limits of their being, trials and tests, and in the end if they succeed, it is because in large part they have moved into a new condition, a new state of being… one we can think of as kingship.
With that I will take a break in this series. If you’d like to read more, let me know. If there’s interest, I can resume the Theology of Screenwriting in the near future.
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