Avatar, Cameron, and...Christianity?

I went into Avatar with low expectations as to plot, high expectations for the beauty of the imagery and construction of the movie itself, and no preparation for any new or interesting subtext. I came out very puzzled and rather more interested in Cameron's work than before. Midway through the movie, I suddenly started picking up indicators that there was another plotline operating sub rosa. Huge clue: the lead scientist in the avatar program on Pandora is named Dr. Grace Augustine. Let's sit and stare at that for a moment. St. Augustine of Hippo is a Doctor of the Church. One of the (many) things he's famed for theologically is taking sides in a dispute with the heretic Pelagius in a dispute over grace and nature. Pelagius argued humans could justify themselves and achieve perfection through dint of their own efforts. Augustine argued that, due to original sin, we are bound to depend on divine grace for salvation while still maintaining free will. The humans invading Pandora, seeking to achieve mastery by dint of force and imposition of their will on the garden planet, use huge mechanical cyborg-type bodies (see the head of security, Colonel Miles Quaritch). The humans seeking to understand, cooperate, and blend with the inhabitants--that is, cooperate with the planetary consciousness/higher power/"Mother" are led by Dr. Augustine and use biological "avatars". I think there's a lot more to be said here, but I'm not sure what it is yet. Another hint: Home Tree, the massive ancient tree which serves as the Lothlorien-style home for the clan at the center of the movie plot, which is large enough for the "the birds of the air [to] come and perch in its branches", is growing right over the largest deposit of "unobtainium" on the planet--that is, they live in a "house built on a rock." And another: Cameron's aliens had a massive, world at risk fight at the end in which the lead warrior of the hosts of Pandora casts "Dragon" out of the sky. He then descends to do battle with the military leader of the Sky People on the earth, who'd survived the fall. And said Sky People are seeking to destroy the planetary "Mother." Sound like this, much? My godson presented a paper at a conference on eschatology in which he developed the notion of Terminator 2 as an apocalypse. I think Cameron has been using Christian imagery for years. I've never seen Titanic or much of Cameron's other work--I'm barely acquainted even with Terminator--but now I think I'll have to go take a look. There are several options here. One is that he's just using a strong source of great imagery and potent story elements when he borrows Scripture. Another is he's Christian and working the story of salvation into all his work. Yet a third (made somewhat plausible by the plot of this movie) is that he's into Liberation Theology, and so offers Marxised symbols of Christianity--a pernicious brew. Again, I'm not sure. His critique of the human invaders is not merely an anti-military screed--there are warriors among the Na'avi--nor an anti-capitalist rant. Rather, I think he's saying something useful and important by having the human invaders fail to 'see" the alien other. The aliens, by contrast, greet one another by saying "I see you." In one sense, they acknowledge the other as being on a level more fundamental than a mere obstacle, as something more than either a resource or an impediment--the common failing of Marxism and pure capitalism. Christians are called beyond this myopic view to one in which humans have intrinsic dignity and all of creation has been given to us for stewardship rather than ruthless exploitation. We are forbidden, in other words, from living or encountering others like the invaders. In another sense, there's theology here. I and thou, straight out of Martin Buber...and referenced frequently by Joseph Ratzinger. Take for instance this snippet from a piece on Mary, the Mother of God and Mother of all the Living, the Woman whom the earth helps at the end of Revelations 12:

What is grace? This question thrusts itself upon our text. Our religious mentality has reified this concept much too much; it regards grace as a supernatural something we carry about in our soul. And since we perceive very little of it, or nothing at all, it has gradually become irrelevant to us, an empty word belonging to Christian jargon, which seems to have lost any relationship to the lived reality of our everyday life. In reality, grace is a relational term: it does not predicate something about an I, but something about a connection between I and Thou, between God and man. "Full of grace" could therefore also be translated as: "You are full of the Holy Spirit; your life is intimately connected with God." Peter Lombard, the author of what was the universal theological manual for approximately three centuries during the Middle Ages, propounded the thesis that grace and love are identical but that love "is the Holy Spirit".

There's a lot more to be said--the connection between people and planet mirroring the relationship between Christians and the Body of Christ, made possible by Mother Mary and the action of the Holy Spirit. The "incarnation" aspect of the avatar program versus the false incarnation of the human/cyborgs, like fallen angels assuming physical form to war amongst men. The motherly mediation of the planetary consciousness for the birth of the savior among the people. Anyway, I'm not sure what he's doing, but color me much more impressed than I expected to be. Postscript: Cameron makes heavy, heavy use of Plato's allegory of the cave:

Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world and in here is the dream

Also, there's a scene for the preparation of the grand assault on the natives, in which the humans are in a room with all the windows shutting, the powerpoint shining on the wall... Additional Postscript: in Stephen Greydanus's review of the movie, he mocks the "Grace Augustine" thing and makes passing reference to the "intriguing" interconnection of lifeforms thing. I think he needs to go take another, harder look at some of this. Again--Cameron may be doing a "Teilhard de Chardin," "Liberation Theology" type job with his subplot, but still there's more going on here than I've seen discussed elsewhere.