via cbs.com
This season of Survivor, “Redemption Island,” features an openly and blatantly Christian cast member. Matt Elrod is a pre-med student currently living in Nashville who has brought his faith into the game in an unusual way, especially for primetime television.
It’s tough to tell how much is the editing of the show and how much is truly Matt’s unique game play.
This season of the show includes a new feature, “Redemption Island,” where each player goes after being voted off the island. They have the opportunity to compete in one last challenge, and if they win, they have a chance to get back in the game. Matt has spent almost the entire game on the island, so this could very well have something to do with how he comes across.
However, as a Christian myself, I have found some of his statements concerning.
He has expressed faith that God has him “there” (on Redemption Island) for a reason – that it is God’s plan for him.
In the 11th episode, he told show host Jeff Probst, “I feel like I’ve accomplished what I came here to do. So whatever happens, I’m ready for it.”
I’m sorry, but isn’t Survivor a game? I recognize that being isolated on an island is a traumatic experience, game or not. Maybe I’m underestimating the psychological and spiritual effects of that isolation and he’s really losing touch with reality. But the truth is that it’s still a game.
I believe God has a hand in much that happens in our lives, but I also believe, in a mysterious way that we cannot understand, we are also free to make choices and experience the natural outcomes of those choices. While I would and do pray for wisdom to raise my children, to endure hard things well, and to overcome my personal weaknesses, I do not pray for God to help me to win a game of Uno, or help my team to win a swim meet, or help my country win a medal at the Olympics.
The implication of praying that way is, “God is on my side and therefore not on your side.” We may take promises from the Bible like “if God is for us, who can be against us?” and apply them to physical, temporary, mundane things like games and politics. This is a mistake – these promises refer to spiritual things of eternal significance. Some of the most heinous crimes against humanity ever recorded originated in misapplying these promises and presuming God was on a side he most definitely was not.
I believe God transcends “sides” the way we define them. Because of our tragic tendency to get it wrong, we must be careful not to presume to know whose side he is on or what he is about in any given situation.
I’m all for Matt asking God to help him play the game well, but please don’t mix God up in a quest to win a million dollars.
Joy is a writer, mother of four, wife, reader, follower of Jesus, but with lots of unanswered questions, bereaved, asker, listener and lover of rich soil, good food, music and sunshine – in no particular order. Two of her children were born with serious congenital heart defects, including her first. It was quite an initiation into motherhood. Between the two of them her family has been through six open-heart surgeries and countless nights in the hospital. This English-loving, non-medical writer learned to give shots, insert feeding tubes, run I.V. pumps, measure in mLs and pronounce words like “tracheomalacia.” She has been blogging since 2005, writing on faith and doubt, family life (which is always humorous even with the medical spin), grief and the depression that she only recognized a year after her oldest died at the age of 8. She is the author of Joy in this Journey and is also a contributing author at Deeper Story. You can also connect with her on Twitter!
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