Who Owns the Creative Rights?

Recently, Amazon purchased the intellectual property rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s classic is one of the most significant pieces of fiction ever written and is my personal favorite. When Amazon purchased the IP and announced there would be a new series called Rings of Power, many people were doubtful about whether the powerhouse company and movie streaming service would be faithful to Tolkien’s world. I think it is safe to say that Amazon took some creative liberties when reimagining Middle Earth. The same concerns and doubts reemerged when it was announced that Netflix purchased the rights to C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and announced that outspoken feminist Greta Gerwig would be directing the forthcoming series. Many devoted Narnia fans dread seeing the modern ideological twist on the beloved classic.

Imagine being Tolkien or Lewis. You carefully create a world, characters to inhabit it, and a complex story into which you weave your own worldview and heart. Then your world is taken by a corporation that does not share your ideologies or convictions in the slightest and watch as they bend and mold it into how they think it should be. What would Amazon or Netflix do if Tolkien or Lewis raged into their writer’s room and demanded their world to be run their way?

 With contemporary stories and entertainment, we constantly see the classic postmodern notion that the Beholder has the final say on truth and reality. This idea, which has dominated Hollywood for decades, diminishes the autonomy of the original author and erroneously promotes the creative interpreter as the ultimate lord of creation. When it comes to novels and movies, we roll our eyes and perhaps gripe about it to our friends, but we eventually move along with our lives because, at the end of the day, our creation is rarely the object that is manipulated. However, we must not miss or grow dull to the reality that this usurping of authority over one’s creation is a clear metaphor for the rebellious heart of man toward God. When humanity encountered their Creator, we put Him on a cross. But this rebellion is not the case for all creation.

 We don’t need to wonder how the natural elements would respond if they encountered their Master. There is a firsthand account in Matthew 8:26. In this story, Jesus is asleep during a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee. Desperate, His disciples wake Him up and ask Him to save them. We are not sure exactly what their expectations were, for they were astonished by what Christ did. Jesus rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. After seeing this, the disciples marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” The creator had spoken to His creation.

Colossians 1:16 tells us that Jesus is the creator. All things were created through him and for him. The sea grew calm when Christ spoke, for His voice that called those water molecules into existence. They obeyed Him. The wind and waves were subjected to the voice of their creator. Christ holds intellectual property over this world and everything in it. They are subjected to him. 

There must be a reverence for the deity and power of Christ stronger than any other. Created beings should not be cavalier, arrogant, or indifferent to their creator. Like the wind and the waves, we are responsible for obeying Him. However, Christ did not come so for us to have a spirit of fear and dread but joyful rest. Christians hear and obey the voice of their Good Shepherd (John 10). It is a voice of comfort and one that they love. The sheep of the Good Shepherd obey his voice and follow him wherever He leads. There is a healthy fear of the consequences of disobedience, but that cannot be the sole drive of a Christian’s obedience. The sheep of the Good Shepherd love their Master. They obey because it’s his voice that gives the commands.

All things were created by Christ and for Christ. Rebellious humanity lives and acts presumptuously, crowning themselves lord of Jesus’ creation, but the heart of a Christian must be that of loving submission. Christians know what sort of man Christ is. That is why we worship Him. We must fight the modern idea that we know better than the Creator. Our posture must be that of the storm and the obedient sheep to the Good Shepherd; when Christ speaks, we listen. He is the main point of the story, not us. Spurgeon said it well, “All I can hope to do is to be lost in my subject that Jesus Christ may be All-in-all.”