The Prestige: Deceit.

What is brilliant about the movie is how the director / screen writer deceives his audience, where everything clearly isn’t what it seems and the a-chronological plot delaying the twists and turns as far as possible. 

I guess that deceit as we see it in this film also forms a part of our normal lives.  When I was in matric (± 6 years ago) I felt terribly deceived by the church and more specifically the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC).  I grew up in the church, not knowing what the “function” of the Holy Spirit is, if He is on the same “level” as God the Father and God the Son, what are the gifts of the Spirit and how does it work, etc.  It was also in the time of the first publication of the “Left Behind” series and I wondered about the rapture and why my church kept me from this knowledge.  I think that was maybe my most prominent story of deception in the church (definitely not as huge as what Dan Brown in his fictional writing of “The Da Vinci Code” made it all out to be).  

Obviously in my theological studies I gained some insight as to how the Bible is to be interpreted concerning the so-called “rapture”, and having gained insight concerning the “gifts of the Spirit”, I still believe that congregants should be taught about their spiritual gifts, firstly because it is important for discipleship, and secondly (going only on human capabilities, which ironically is dependant on the Holy Spirit) the church will die if their spiritual gifts aren’t used. 

But enough on that! I think that there is a more prominent phenomenon of deceit in the church that we need to work on. I think that 80% of people (maybe even more – seeing that 90% of all statistics are made up !) in the church are too afraid to be themselves, too afraid that if they where to be honest with their fellow congregants that they would be judged, that they wouldn’t be welcome in a place that is already supposed to be the gathering place of “habitual criminals”, with the exception that these criminals already received grace for their sins. Too bad that these criminals can’t forgive themselves for their own sins, and therefore they won’t be able to forgive others for their faults and sins. 

**Spoiler Warning** 

Borden and is twin brother’s whole life ended up being a lie.  They had to work so hard at keeping their secret, that not even “his” wife and mistress knew their own husband/lover.  They both had to work so hard at keeping up their lie – keeping up the act – that both ended up sharing only half a life – if it even was that much! 

In the church we need to make space for people’s stories, stories of hurt and shame, stories of fear and glory.  If we want to be at all relevant in “modern” society, we’ll need to start taking care of our family, the other parts of the body (1 Cor 12-14).