Actor Benedict Cumberbatch has played quite a few roles as a gifted person who is also very arrogant. His Sherlock Holmes portrayal in the excellent BBC series, playing Kahn in Star Trek Into Darkness, and more recently Doctor Strange in the movie of the same title. Add to that as the voice of Smaug in the Hobbit “Trilogy”. He pulls of these roles quite well portraying someone deeply intelligent, but flawed with a arrogance that mocks those who can’t keep up.
In most of these roles there has not been a character arc where the character comes to grips with this flaw, much less acknowledge it. Well at least until Doctor Strange.
Doctor Strange is a brilliant surgeon, and he knows it. Until an accident renders his hands incapable at the surgery he was so adept at. His desperate search leads him to the Ancient One hidden in the Himalayas. Where after much struggle eventually he learns to overcome his pride and to learn to serve others.
There has been much discussion regarding Rod Dreher’s series of posts regarding The Benedict Option, and his recent book “The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation”. I am waiting to actually read the book, which I have on hold to comment on what he has to say.
I titled this post “The Benedict Cumberbatch Option” partly as a joke on Rod Dreher’s title. Well actually the title came to me as a joke first, and then I started to think about it as it regards to Doctor Strange. Last year I read through some of the major story arcs of the original Doctor Strange comics and some of the later ones. I especially enjoyed the original as done by Stan Lee and illustrated by Steve Ditko. Often I just enjoyed the whole tension of his being a “Sorcerer Supreme” using dark magic and invoking all sorts of creatures while being good and doing good. I feel this was all done as a gag as this tension is never explained or explained away.
Still I think there is a “Benedict Cumberbatch Option”, that is you admit and then repent of your flaws and work to overcome them as in the story arc of Doctor Strange. How we do this might take us to Nursia or for that matter the Himalayas. It might also just take us to deeper prayer in our homes, serving others, or all of the above.
G.K. Chesterton is famous for having replied:
“Dear Sir: Regarding your article ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ I am. Yours truly,”
Although he did go on to write a book of essays with that title that wasn’t about “I am”. Still we live in an age of reformers who never think about reforming themselves first. Although that is really not new. It is so much easier to opine than to actually take up the harder work of repentance. Really writing this blog post suggesting what you should do is pretty easy. Still my “preaching” in writing is mainly towards myself. We do live in a toxic culture where living the faith is not easy. It is almost as if Jesus telling us that we would have to pick up our crosses was not just rhetorical.
So I am putting the “The Benedict Cumberbatch Option” out there as my hopeful character arc of acknowledging my sins and repenting of them.
