Grace through the lens of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

My children have recently got into watching the original ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ film, which has been quite nostalgic as I remember regularly watching it with my sister when I was younger and knowing the words, not only to the songs, but almost every scene as well. There is one song in particular that you may recall which preceded the downfall of Veruca Salt, a rather spoiled, rude, selfish, greedy and somewhat violent girl. After her song which probably had a record number of ‘I wants’ in it, the egg-dicator decided that she was a bad egg and down the chute she goes.

This song forms part of our lesson on Grace and Life After Death, which has been taught this week at Verulam and will be in Samuel Ryder in the next couple of weeks. After considering their own views about the afterlife (including whether they would like to live forever) and exploring how the Bible describes Heaven and Hell, we begin an investigation to see who goes where according to the Bible. The aforementioned song introduces the idea of the young people becoming the judge (or egg-dicator) and deciding whether they would send a doctor, a thief, a murderer, a racist, a charity worker, a liar and a drug dealer to Heaven or Hell.

Needless to say, this exercise sparks a lot of interest and debate. Some are very quick in making their decisions while others consider it deeply by saying ‘depends’ as we don’t know their story and the other characteristics of the individuals being judged. Following a usually lively debate, we pose the scenario that if there was a perfect points scoring system that took into account all the good and bad things people had done as well as their motivation, age, awareness of right and wrong etc. and lined everyone up from best to worst, where would they draw the line? This horrendously difficult decision highlights the fallacy in the typical view that good people go to Heaven and bad people to Hell. Although the extremities seem fair, those either side of the line would have lived almost identical lines – maybe just a little lie separating them – and the difference in their eternal fate feels unfair.

The rest of the lesson explores the role grace plays in the Christian view of life after death by looking at Romans 3 (no one being declared righteous by the works of the law but through the gift of grace) and through stories of George Wilson, a man who refused a presidential pardon, the two men on the cross next to Jesus and the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

The lessons that we’ve taught so far have had some amazing conversations and the young people have certainly had their own perceptions of Christian beliefs challenged.

Geoff