Perspective: Hallmark Movies, Jake Busey, and God-Awful Theology

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The following perspective contains minor spoilers for the third season of Stranger Things and major spoilers for every Hallmark movie that was ever created.

Hallmark Movies, Jake Busey, and God-Awful Theology

What's the price of a pet canary?  Some loose change, right?  And God cares what happens to it even more than you do.  He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail - even numbering the hairs on your head!  So don't be intimidated by all this bully talk.  You're worth more than a million canaries.

Matthew 10:29-31 (The Message)

Some guys have all the luck

Some guys have all the pain

Some guys get all the breaks

Some guys do nothing but complain

From "Some Guys Have All the Luck" by The Persuaders

My grandmother has been living in a nursing home for almost a year.  Lately, when I've visited her in her room, the television has been tuned to the Hallmark Channel.  I've found the movies that are aired on this channel to be extremely predictable, because they all seem to have the same basic plot.

The protagonist is typically a woman who is undergoing some change in her life; perhaps she has recently relocated or has just started a new job.  In her new setting, she meets the man of her dreams.  At first, she is hesitant to admit that she is attracted to him, because she already has a steady boyfriend or a fiance - or maybe an ex-boyfriend who wants to reconcile with her.  This guy is usually more financially successful the gentleman she just met but a lot more self-absorbed.  After a series of increasingly romantic events, the protagonist leaves her boyfriend or fiance and moves on with her new suitor.  She seemingly "trades down" in order to "trade up" in all the ways that really matter.  The two presumably live happily ever after.

It's not a bad story, I guess, as long as the viewer identifies with either the protagonist or the man who ends up with her in the end.  What if the viewer doesn't typically relate to "chosenness"?  Personally, I tend feel sorry for the guy who gets dumped - at least, on a "meta" level.  The writers of these movies create this character for the sole purpose of being rejected by the protagonist.  Worse yet, they don't give him any redeemable qualities, so that the viewer actually wants the protagonist to break up with him and move on with the man she just met.  The poor schmuck doesn't have a prayer!

Basically, what bothers me about Hallmark movies is that the writers create characters to be rejected.  Something about that kind of writing just seems wrong to me.

Something else I watched recently, which I enjoyed a lot more, is the third season of the nostalgic science fiction series Stranger Things.  Naturally I expected the creators of this critically-acclaimed series to do a better job of creating characters than the people who crank out Hallmark movies.  At first glance they appear to do so.  For example, Billy Hargrove, who is portrayed by Dacre Montgomery, is introduced in the second season with no apparent redeemable qualities.  Over the course of the third season, the writers humanize him to the point that the viewer actually feels sympathy for him.

Looking back, I see that the writers of Stranger Things actually committed the same sin against some of their characters as the creators of Hallmark movies.  Introduced in the third season is a character portrayed by Jake Busey, who I don't think is even given a name.  This character has no redeemable qualities; antagonizing one of the protagonists is all he is shown doing; and his ultimate fate is to fall victim to the "big bad" of the series.

I feel sorry for Jake Busey's character, whatever his name is, because he too was created to be discarded.

This phenomenon is actually quite prevalent in television and film.  My supervisor at work recently remarked that, whenever he watched the original Star Trek series, he could be sure that anyone wearing a red uniform would be dead by the end of the episode.  Some crew members of the Starship Enterprise were apparently written into the story as "cannon fodder."

I recently realized that what I hate about Hallmark movies is the very thing I hate about Calvinism.  As you probably know, I am a lifelong Methodist, and Methodists generally aren't the biggest fans of John Calvin's theology.  One of the major tenants of Calvinism is predestination, which is the idea that God has already chosen who will be redeemed and who will be condemned.  Free will does not even factor into the equation.  Basically, according to Calvinism, some people are created to go to hell.  Calvinists cite passages of Scripture like the following: "Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?"¹

I suppose Calvinism isn't such a bad theological system, as long as a person can be absolutely certain that she and everyone she loves is among the "Elect."  Personally, I cannot be confident that God loves me and accepts me unless I believe that God loves and accepts everybody.

As someone critical of John Calvin, I will admit that he was no dummy.  He actually developed a logical, sophisticated, biblically-based theological system.  Its major weakness, in my opinion, is that it's God-awful.  When I say that it's "God-awful," I mean that it makes God seem awful.  Theology should glorify God and not make God seem like a monster.  Not long ago, Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart went so far as to call John Calvin a "moral cretin" who "was capable of believing basically things about God that made God morally inferior to Satan."²

Calvinism presents a God who, not unlike the people who write Hallmark movies, creates characters for the sole purpose of being rejected and discarded by God.

Through one of the ancient prophets, God says to us,

My plans aren't your plans,

nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways,

and my plans than your plans.³

We can trust that God is writing a story better than anything produced by Hallmark or Hollywood, and we can trust that God does not create characters only to be rejected or discarded.  The Psalmist reminds us that each of us is "fearfully and wonderfully made" by God.⁴  Jesus assures us that God knows everything about us, even the number of hairs on our heads, and that even the creatures that go unnoticed by us matter to God.⁵  God does not create disposable characters.

May you realize, dear reader, that you matter to the One who wrote you into existence.  May you realize that every creature on this planet matters to God.  May you trust, even when you feel rejected by the world, that you are accepted by God.


Notes:

1. Romans 9:21 (NKJV)
2. David Bentley Hart and Jason Micheli.  "That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation."  Crackers & Grape Juice, 09/13/2019.
3. Isaiah 55:8-9 (CEB)
4. Psalm 139:14 (NRSV)
5. Matthew 10:29-31

The photograph featured in this perspective has been released to the public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.