While “The Hunger Games” tells a grisly tale of oppression and violent revolution, pastor Chet Miller-Eshleman believes that it’s also a tale of fulfillment of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
For Miller-Eshleman, pastor at LifeBridge Community Church in Dover, Ohio, the popular fiction series doesn’t glorify violence, but instead calls for the blessing of the weak and the poor as commanded by Jesus.
“In ‘The Hunger Games,’ violence has within it the seeds of its own destruction. You live by the sword, you die by the sword,” he said. “And Katniss”—the story’s heroine—“sees that in the rebellion so well. She sees the rebels embrace violence as a tool, and very quickly they’re no different than the Capitol”—the rich and powerful city that rules the outlying 12 districts.
Miller-Eshleman, who spoke recently at Bluffton University’s weekly chapel service, suggested that Katniss and other heroes of the story are people just like those who heard Jesus preach the Sermon on the Mount. “They’re not put up on a pedestal; they’re very common, ordinary people,” the minister in residence said.
And the denizens of the districts are the very people whom Jesus calls us to aid. “You see people who don’t stand a chance, who are not in positions of power and influence,” he added. “They feel powerless; otherwise, they wouldn’t strike out violently.”
“In ‘The Hunger Games,’ we see an underdog, and we see them overcome,” he said. “For 20-somethings or for college students, it really mirrors life well. Struggle is hard. It’s long term, and you often lose as much as win.”
Miller-Eshleman, whose son, Samuel, is a Bluffton sophomore, added that struggles in the real world need not be overcome through violence. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us not only to resist an evil person—such as the rulers of the Capitol—but also to turn the other cheek when struck so that the oppressor may strike you again.
While reacting violently to those who harm us may be our immediate impulse, Miller-Eshleman believes that Jesus tells us to retaliate without the use of force. For him, turning the other cheek can be used as a weapon against the oppressors. “This action robs the oppressors of the power to put the oppressed down. It’s respectful defiance,” he said.
No matter what conflict we face in our lives, Miller-Eshleman urged, remember how Jesus teaches his followers to act. “The question is not if one should fight, but how,” he said. “And the wonderful thing is that when you change, so does our world.”
The pastor’s message was part of a Bluffton chapel series on “The Kingdom of God and ‘The Hunger Games,’” using ideas from Julie Clawson’s book, “‘The Hunger Games’ and the Gospel.”
