This Sunday evening, I saw the new film titled The Town. Basically, the story revolves around a close-knit community in Boston known as Charlestown. In this small area, residents have grown up together and become like family. Also, most of them have joined the leading occupation of those in Charlestown: bankrobbing.
The story follows a bankrobber named Doug, whose hockey career was cut short by injury and poor choices. After what was thought to be a promising future away from the grips of Charlestown, he ends up where he started, and he finds it almost impossible to get away from the way of life that has now become like second nature.
While containing an unrealistic love story and a somewhat predictable ending, The Town also deals with an issue that I was not expecting: Environmental Determinism. An idea advocated by such writers as Thomas Hardy, Environmental Determinism basically says that an individual's success in life is fated by where they grew up. No matter how much an individual toils in opposition to their roots, they cannot escape where they come from.
As Christians, we like to advocate that God, and not environment, determines what we do in our lives. We stress with our words that fate has nothing to do with who we become and where we end up.
But, do we really live like we believe this?
In college, most people try to distance themselves from where they come from. They move out of town, change their hair color, examine their beliefs, or find a new interest in an attempt to prove to themselves or to someone else that the small town, high school, or family they grew up in has no bearing on their identity.
I've done it. I do it. I don't want to be the same person that I was in 2007, and when 2025 comes around, I won't want to be the same person I was in 2011. We all try to prove something to the people who knew us, to the people who abused us, or to the people who thought we were one thing when we were so much more.
The truth of the matter is, even as Christians, we act like WE are the ones who get us out of our environment. Our actions say that we have to fight Environmental Determinism every step of the way, even if our environment was not the crime-ridden streets of Charlestown. However, we forget that God does the changing. He morphs us into the people we are meant to be. He takes us away from home, brings us back home, or keeps us at home. Environmental Determinism has nothing to do with it.
So, live life as one liberated. God is changing you, moving you, shifting your interests, and widening your views. Don't fight to prove something. Just let Him work.
