For the reasons that many details are missing from these chapters; and for the reasons I do not use actual names in these chapters... For these reasons and more, imagine that in this Chapter 5 we are blurring fact and fiction by first introducing an actual work of fiction. Please take a moment to watch this trailer from 2014:
If you have read Lois Lowry's book or seen the Walden Media movie called The Giver, the similarities between that story and the setting indirectly presented in this chapter are remarkable.
In The Giver, a fictitious nation-state has separated itself from the rest of the world--so much so that they ban all talk of whatever lies beyond their own existence. In this world, those in power have convinced the citizenry that the mistakes of past are best forgotten. Risks are not to be taken, questions are not to be asked, and individuality is lost to "collectivism" for the sake of harmony. It is literally a world of black-and-white, cut-and-dried, prefabricated social norms dictated by those in power. These same elders form "family" by deciding which babies live and die, and who lives with whom and in what domicile. Everyone lives a dictated existence. In this top-down world civic occupations are handed out like the uniforms, and uniformity is praised. The elders have medicated away emotions. Neither anger nor affection are exist. They have banned books and censored all sources of information in order to replace any transcendent "meta-narrative" with their own version of reality. Only one wise old sage, a character called The Giver, is allowed to remember how the world once was.
To anyone who has visited China or studied the CCP's experiments in cultural utopia, the plot line of this book and movie sound all too familiar. From my perspective, the comparisons are so spot on that I'm shocked the book has been translated into Chinese and has not yet been banned from China.
See this excellent allegorical film online.
It's often said that "truth is stranger than fiction' and that "art imitates life," but in some books, it is safer for those living by the Book but not "by the book" if others learn of their story by "reading between the lines."
To see the similarities between The Giver and the current nation state from which Enoch escaped, click on the underlined links below:
Imagine a world in which a nation-state had such a long and storied past of wars and famine and oppression that it wanted to press a restart button by erasing the past and all things "old". Imagine "youth troopers" so to speak, ransacking villages, businesses, and churches to purge all memories of the past--even treasured family photo albums--anything that may divert "the people's" attention from their new reality.
Now imagine that a man who grew up in this nation-state, who had seen the struggles and failures eventually became that nation's new leader. Let's imagine that it bothered him that one thing continued to thrive in spite of all efforts to exterminate it over the past fifty years: Christianity. He could not see the Christians. He could not understand why such a thing could survive at a grass-roots level but he feared a "grass fire." Let's imagine how such a person might feel if, in spite of the power of the nation-state, he heard reports that millions of people still clinging to faith were meeting in small groups in secret. Imagine the tension and attention such a conflict of forces might produce for such a leader in such a setting. What if such a leader became determined to demoralize the ringleaders of Christianity before they turn their world up-side-down. Imagine that more and more of such unauthorized gatherings are disbanded with their pastoral leaders being imprisoned.
I have decided not to write such a chapter here, but I would ask you to imagine one such church being pastored by a man whose father and grandfather had also been pastors. I might ask readers to imagine that pastor being put in prison for two-and-a-half years. Let's suppose while in prison, he and his wife change their son's name to Enoch. Then upon being released from prison due to life-threatening health concerns, the pastor and his wife planned (with God's help and the help of many strangers) to secretly find a way to get their son into "the real world. Imagine their tears of joy in knowing that their son Enoch, like the brave young man at the end of The Giver, "was no more."
If you watch the whole movie, the last scene shows a young man's dramatic escape from the failed Utopian state. He has been told that the sled will take him where he needs to go. His destination is not a fantasy but the world of reality beyond the borders of his former prison-nation. If you listen closely, inside the warm inviting cabin, "Silent Night" is being sung, a song that sings the story of hope to the world, a hope forbidden in the boys former world.
I have often said to Enoch, "Enoch, you are the boy on that sled." He does not see it, but I hope someday he understands.
[On to Chapter 6]
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