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Adjustment Bureau

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Culture Alert “The Adjustment Bureau” leaves its audience entertained, however it also gives them something of great significance to discuss and think about. The movie broadly addresses concepts of predestination, free-will, and to what some would view as God. Although “The Adjustment Bureau” does not reflect a biblically view of God and his nature, however the movie does a nice job of demonstrating the importance of these issues. Throughout this paper I will explore the worldviews in correlation with Ravi Zacharias’ components presented in this film, and discuss my views and opinions on the issues portrayed. Having a consistent worldview can often be challenging with the different influences in life, therefore seeing a consistent worldview in a movie can be difficult. “The Adjustment Bureau” relates to “free-will” concept that philosophers have debated for years. David, the main character, is a politician running for Senate. His campaign is going really well until a photo from college is leaked to the media of him. David also meets a woman, Elise, and immediately falls in love. Elise inspires him in many ways and he even gives a very impressing speech. David soon realizes that his choices are not his own and the direction of his life is not under his control after he tries to start a relationship with Elise. His life direction is decided by a higher power. David actually accidently sees a mysterious group of men, “the adjustment bureau”, performing mind manipulation on his campaign manager. The adjustment bureau is a group that very secretively makes sure the “Chairman’s” plans for people’s lives is carried out. David also meets a man named Harry who was assigned to David at birth. Harry is supposed to help make sure David stays on “the plan.” Though, the adjustment bureau told David that he was not supposed to run into Elise again, David will not accept his fate and decided to set off on his own journey to make a relationship work with Elise. The Adjustment bureau does everything in their power to keep David on the plan and apart from Elise. This part of the movie gets quite intense. In a Christian worldview, I believe that this movie portrays the idea of a higher power. It explores the idea of free will vs. pre-destination. There are many metaphorical people portrayed in this film that relate to a Christian worldview. Actually at one point when David realizes who Harry is he asks Harry if he is an angel. When David tries to figure out who the Chairman is, Harry looked up towards the sky and said that humans know him by many other names. Referring to the metaphorical people, in a Christian worldview, the Chairman is God. In the film the adjustment bureau is portrayed as an omniscient group that wants the best for society and carries out the plan. On the flip side after watching the mind manipulation, and how the bureau and Chairman try to keep Elise and David apart, it is like the movie encourages David to fight against his fate, or in a Christian few, sin. The worldview portrayed in this movie has an explanatory power. Harry speaks of the Chairman and explains many things to David. A good worldview is neither too simple nor too complex in its explanatory power. This is debatable as the movie seems to be quite complex and the way the plan is carried out is extreme. However, I personally believe that my worldview may make myself view that this is a complex way. Zacharias mentions that a good worldview will have a strong foundation in correspondence and it will have factual support. I think this is also portrayed in the movie as David had physically witnessed mind manipulation and spoke with Harry to learn more about the Chairman. Though this may not be David’s worldview, it was portrayed throughout the movie. I have watched this movie before and honestly had never really put the two together. After the few weeks of this class and our readings I found myself relating more and more to the Christian Faith throughout the movie and finding odd metaphors. It also made me challenge my worldviews a little more. I have read many articles along with the book on having a consistent worldview and have tried to relate to Zacharias. I found it most interesting about the sinful nature of people that is shown throughout the film. It really shows our need for God and what the consequences would be in a Godless society. The part that really hit home for me was when David was fighting with an agent about the lack of mankind’s free will. The agent told David about how the Chairman had in history given humans more freedom to make choices for themselves, but every time that the Chairman had done that humans made some of the worst decisions. During the time that the Chairman stepped back events like World Wars and the Holocaust happened. The agent also talked about when the Chairman had the greatest influences all of the good that happened during those times. I think this movie can be interpreted in many ways and often people may just watch the movie and enjoy the drama and think nothing of their faith or belief system. I think that it is so true; when you avoid God and act selfishly in life you often create a lot of difficult obstacles in your life. Though my worldview does not go hand in hand with a bunch of guys in suits enforcing the plan, I do believe that God does have a plan. When Miller spoke about obstacles and overcoming them creating strength it opened my eyes to even more. God calls us to do things in many ways, and it is best that we keep our eyes and ears open to these callings. When David argues and goes against his fate and tries to be with Elise it portrayed the image of Sin to me. I am not relating to that in a Love sense, but our human nature to always do what we want when we want to. It takes a lot of soul searching, praying, and finding ourselves to finally open our ears to what God has in store for us. This is a great movie, and I hope that it too opened the thoughts and minds of my classmates if they chose to view this movie. I think it is pretty cool how the Christian Faith can be taken in bits and pieces out of this movie, and the message that it can send. I found myself deep in thought thinking sometimes maybe it would be easier if we all had Harry by our sides helping us to make the right decisions and stay on path. However, the more I thought I knew that if I keep my heart completely open to God he too will lead the way. I have many Harrys in my life, all the wonderful friends and family that God has blessed me with that help me to stay on path in my life.

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