Apocalypse

‘If the world ended tomorrow would you be happy with how you’ve lived your life?’ With these words, the hypnotist and illusionist Derren Brown launched Apocalypse, his Channel 4 two-parter which concluded on Friday evening.

Derren’s aim in the show was to take an unsuspecting person who’d been letting life pass him by, and place him in a controlled environment where he’d have the opportunity of learning how to make the most of himself.

The person chosen, Steven Brosman, had expressed a willingness to participate in a Derren Brown show, but allegedly had now idea that he had been selected. Steven himself confessed ‘I’m lazy. I’m more of less irresponsible.’ and his family and friends agreed. His mum felt he didn’t really appreciate his family while his dad thought Steven was ‘not fighting hard enough to make the best of himself.’

With the co-operation of Steven’s family and friends, Derren Brown leads him to believe that the earth is threatened by an asteroid strike. It’s ‘apocalyse’ – which actually means ‘revelation’ or ‘unveiling’ but has come to refer to a world-threatening event.  

Derren then hypnotises Steven and takes him to a giant set looking like a military base where he finds himself with three other survivors played by actors. The base is surrounded by zombies – humans affected by a virus carried on the asteroids. (The drama series The walking dead has been an inspiration here.) Over the next two days, Steven faces challenges designed to stimulate personal growth.

Those words ‘If the world were to end tomorrow, would you be happy with how you’ve lived your life?’ challenge us all. Have we loved and appreciated the good things? Have we developed our potential and stretched out a helping hand to others? Have we faced up to the big questions about what we are on earth for? Do we, in Derren’s words ‘forget to desire the things we already have’? Is there something of the ‘walking dead’ in us – alive, but blind to the glory of life?

Christians believe that at the end of time we will face God, face the consequences of how we have lived and that it is crucial that we live in perpetual readiness.

Derren Brown intended to help Steven by placing him in an environment where, deprived of everything he’s taken for granted, and accompanied by folk who will challenge him, he will grow and change. It would be too crude to see this as an exact parallel of what God does for us,  but it’s certainly true that God is active in our lives, in our struggles, in our relationships, and that the environment in which God places us challenges us to choose growth and joy and love in a rather similar way to that in which Steven is challenged.

And just as the characters he met helped Steven grow, in courage, decision-making and compassion,  so the people we journey with us  help us – whether we’re Christians or not – to grow as people. There will be those who support us (as Ian in the show initially supported Steven.) There will be others, like Leona whose frailty inspires in us compassion and protectiveness.

And there will be those whose words give us reassurance and challenge. Leona, in leaving a video message for her mum, affirms what Steven means to her. ‘I don’t think I’d have gotten through without Steven.’ She also helps him by her example, telling her mum how much she appreciates her. ‘Sorry I haven’t helped as much as I should have done. I will be the best I can be.’

What can I learn from those around me, and what can they learn from me? And surely we do not need a crisis before we will share what’s on our hearts?

At the end of Apocalypse, Steven is once again hypnotised, and restored to his family. It’s like a new beginning for him, a rebirth. The experience ‘made me feel a lot more confident. I’m more engaged with life.’ he reported four weeks later. He feels he’s really changed, and says ‘I’ve never been closer to my family.’ Looking back at life before Apocalypse he says ‘I realise I was just wasting the days.’

Of the new Steven, Derren Brown says ‘It’s still you, but the best possible Steve Brosman.’ It’s the kind of language we use as Christians to describe the transformation in us when we realise that God is there, that he loves and forgives us restoring to live the walking dead, that we need not fear the Apocalypse Does this similarity mean that coming to faith is no more than a different route to psychological well-being?

Well no, because we believe the change in our lives is not the fruit of jumping through hoops at the behest of a benevolent illusionist, but the result of encounter with the being we call God. The impact of the experiment on Steven may well lessen as time passes, but the God who brings as apocalypse to our old ways of seeing reality will never leave us.

‘It’s still you, but the best possible Steve Brosman.’ When I open my life to God, it’s still me, with my talents and personality, but on my better days you should see in me a greater goodness, a greater grace and love, God -given. And yet I do not think I will ever in this dimension become ‘the best possible John Dempster’. That change belongs to the future, and to another dimension, in a new earth on the far side of Apocalypse.

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 8th November 2012)