By now, approximately 40-50% of Christians who attend churches in America have seen the movie Avatar. After a small, informal research project, I was surprised to see how many Christians had watched the movie and didn’t get the amazing parallel to the salvation story of Jesus Christ.

First you have the incarnation: Jake Sully becomes one of them. It wasn’t exactly one birth in a manger, but over and over again in a “pod.” Then there was the final battle with the Satan figure, the commander, all dressed up in his robot. Then, the savior of the people suffers, dies, and then, in the final scene, is the resurrection.

What interests me most, however, is the fact that such a celebration story–even with it’s save the planet, go green overtones–can excite and enthuse so many people in theaters so that, by the end of the movie, almost everybody is cheering for the salvation of the Avatar people, even when the enemy, the “sky people are…us!”

Not everybody in theaters is a Christian, and maybe the Christians there aren’t astute enough to catch the parallel. Nevertheless, it’s amazing to see how people can be so caught up in a salvation story. Do you think this is an appropriate symbol of the receptivity–the growing receptivity–of Americans? Was it too far-fetched to say this couldn’t possibly be a message for a church that wants to get serious about incarnational mission?