Common Sense Reborn

“Stranger Things” Part 2

²⁴“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.” (Matthew 6:24)

This week we are doing an “At The Movies” type mini-series. If your local church has never done “At The Movies”, you are really missing out. These message series take movies from popular culture and extract Biblical Truth out of them. My family and I just finished watching “Stranger Things” Season Four, and I could not help but see many of the parallels from the Bible in the plot and some of the characters. But today, I want to focus on one of the new characters that has a bone-chilling resemblance to the real-life horrors threatening our country today.

Jason Carver, played by actor Mason Dye, is a main antagonist of Season Four, but one of those great antagonists that you hope changes course to become the hero that, we, the audience, desperately want. I will not ruin the outcome of whether Jason becomes the hero I had hoped he would or not. But I will say that the writers of Season Four do a fabulous job of creating Jason into another monster who reflects the monsters of modern-day America.

Jason is introduced in Episode One of this latest season and we quickly see the senior, and Captain of the Basketball Team, being a natural leader. He stands in front of the student body during a pep rally and gives a motivational speech about Hawkins High taking a long overdue state championship. That game is won by a buzzer beater from Lucas Sinclair (who, as a freshman, finds himself thrust from the Party of Outcasts to the Party of Jocks). Jason is dating the school’s most popular cheerleader, Chrissy. Here the writers follow the typical high school formula, but quickly use it to complicate the narrative when Chrissy becomes the first victim of the show’s greatest villain: Vecna. Chrissy is murdered while visiting Eddie Munson to buy drugs off of him. Jason believes Eddie is responsible for killing Chrissy, believing a national conspiracy theory that is going around the news at the time that “Dungeons and Dragons” clubs are cults and satanic in nature. Jason believes that Eddie has summoned the devil and Eddie’s “D&D” club is responsible for the continual killings in Hawkins. Quick note, most of the younger kids, minus Lucas, have become members of the Hellfire Club as Dustin and Mike have always been involved in D&D type games. Anyway, back to Jason. Jason refuses to hear and see the truth in what is really going on in Hawkins, which leads him to be a constant interference for the Party as they attempt to stop Vecna. Jason not only believes the national conspiracy theory, but he promotes it to others, and gets many of the townspeople to believe the same deadly notion that the card game “Dungeons and Dragons” is a satanic club that has opened a portal to hell and the devil himself has descended onto Hawkins (Jason is partially correct on this). But instead of focusing on stopping the devil, Jason is only concerned about the human aspect of the Hellfire Club, putting the real heroes in danger and interfering with their ability to stop the real evil.

Hopefully this is enough plot reveal for Jason for you to understand his overall purpose in the storyline for Season Four. As I watched Jason’s character develop, I could not help but picture him with a “MAGA” hat on as he stood before the town and rallied them to take up arms to hunt down and kill the “Hellfire Club” members, all thanks to his refusal to see the truth and to oversimplify things; and believing in a foolish conspiracy theory. Exactly how most Trump supporters behave. The brilliant writers of “Stranger Things” do a fantastic job of pulling the parallel into the storyline and Jason becomes a wonderful parody of Right-wing extremism.

It is no coincidence that “The Holy Post” had an important guest on their latest episode, and we had the opportunity to listen to the show on our way home from Florida on Sunday. Skye Jethani interviewed Elizabeth Neumann, former counterterrorism and homeland security adviser to the Bush, Obama, and part of the Trump administration. She left the position during Trump’s time because she realized that Trump was a tyrant and was breaking laws while in office, no surprise there for anyone with common sense. Now Ms. Neumann has released a book entitled “Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace” and in that book, she discusses the threat to America from Christian Right-Wing Extremist that believe violence is the key to fixing everything wrong in this country (Jason Carver). I cannot stress enough how crucial Ms. Neumann’s interview is to listen to (which is why I am sharing it below). If I had the time, I would definitely read her book, which you can find by clicking the hyperlink above. I might grab a copy closer to election time to share some of the insight with y’all.

So, the Biblical Truth that we can extract from Jason Carver’s character is that the devil will use those who should be the heroes to divide us and become the greatest threat to Christianity’s existence. Just like Jason Carver does throughout Season Four, the Christian Nationalist movement is threatening to destroy America, taint the name of Jesus, and lift a convicted felon back to the Oval Office, all because their beloved bloated leader did what exactly in his four years of presidency? Oh, that’s right, besides dividing this country into the greatest strife we have seen in decades; besides allowing white supremacists to emerge from the shadows and be inspired that the leader they had long waited for had arrived; besides inspiring the greatest threat to democracy on January 6, 2021; the only thing he did for people was cut their taxes, especially for the rich and for businesses. But Jesus teaches us in the verse at the very beginning of this post, you cannot serve two masters: you cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. You cannot be a follower of Jesus and allow someone like Trump to hold power in this country. You cannot defeat the devil if you are chasing down the only people with the ability to stop him.

Tomorrow, for the last day of this shorter-than-planned mini-series, we will look at the devil, himself, and see how he compares to the villain of “Stranger Things”. Here is my second favorite track from the Season Four soundtrack, an ’80s classic brought back to life by the show. But today, I am sharing the song with the clip from the show. Click the image below and see why “Stranger Things” is such an incredible work of storytelling and cinematography as Kate Bush‘s “Running Up That Hill” helps Max escape “Vecna’s Curse” (you will only understand if you watch the show).