The Theology of Disney

As you may have read in my last newsletter, my family and I just spent a week in Disney World. What a wonderful time it was! From riding the Star Wars ride, Star Tours, five times to exploring the different worlds of EPCOT to feasting on the wonderful food the park had to offer. Despite the thrills and organized chaos that come with a Disney vacation, it was a wonderful time to spend with my entire family. Would I go again? In a heartbeat. It was that good of a time.

There was one thing that stuck out with me in the trip in particular. Throughout the small city that is Walt Disney World, there are various quotes from Walt Disney himself. One reads “I don’t want the public to see the world they live in while they’re in the Park. I want them to feel they’re in another world.” I casually read this sentence, not paying it any mind as I hustled to our next ride. But there was something about this quote that kept impaling my brain. It just would not leave me alone. Finally I started to mull the questions, “Why do people need an escape from reality?” and “Why should they escape to Disney World?”

Disney World might be the closest thing that we can get to a Utopia on Earth. Think about it. The parks are immaculately clean. You are constantly entertained…even waiting in line can be entertaining. The workers (called Cast Members) are care free and happy, even if it is synthesized. And most importantly, the parks are rid of a perceived notion of evil. When you go there, you escape the atrocities that are the rest of the world. It may be the closest thing we have to a utopia on this earth. So, is this escape truly why people flock there and are willing to shell out money for a temporary euphoria?

Being a minister, I have a tendency to look at the world through a biblical perspective. In the creation account in Genesis 1, we see God’s perfect order creating a world that is without evil or blemish. It is a world that is perfect for the pinnacle of God’s creation: mankind. “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31a, emphasis mine). God made a world that was perfect for us, and this world is what man was meant and wired for. It was very good. It was shalom, or peace as it was intended to be: full and complete.

In Genesis 3, we see the quick and decisive fall of mankind that cursed everything that was once good. Man, who was created perfectly human and was already told by God they were “very good,” was told by another being they could be better...that we didn’t need God, for we could be our own God. Lies we still believe today. The serpent said, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of [the fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4b-5). How was it possible for people who were created perfectly human to become even greater? It was not, but that did not stop us from believing the lie. And so the fruit was picked, and the rest is sad, sad history. The world is now corrupt and evil.

So why is there a need to escape this reality? If we were indeed made to live in that shalom, if we were created for a world that was perfect for us, then it is no wonder that we are crawling and fighting to get back to a world that we were wired for. This is why people, I believe, are so eager to get to Disney World; they are pining for a world that they were meant for. Disney World is a generic Eden, where you forget that the world is harsh and cold. (This is not a knock on Disney World. I would gladly go again.) We are yearning for a world that is free of tears, death, mourning, and pain. Disney tries to offer that. The only thing is that at some point you have to pack up and leave, and eventually you are left with the “Disney Down.”

C.S. Lewis says it much more eloquently in his book Mere Christianity. He says, “The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.'”

If this was the end of the story, it would be a sad world that we live in. Jesus Christ, in his glory and compassion, saw that we were broken people attempting to work our way back to perfection, but failing miserably. In his love, he reached to us, by taking those imperfections and impurities and making us realize that we are in desperate need of God, and that our attempts at self-salvation have also failed. And he cleansed us. He declared us righteous. If we believe that Jesus Christ is the true savior of the world, then we are part of his story. What is that story? God is making all things new. He is restoring the broken, and making them whole again. We now get to participate in this epic narrative. God is restoring shalom. So when we yearn for a world that is free of tears, death, mourning, and pain, we must remember that redemption and restoration are God’s desires, also. As it says in Revelation 21:4-5, "He (Jesus) will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he (Jesus) who was seated on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.'" Amen.