What I Learned from The Omega Code
Dispatches from my brief deployment as a culture warrior.
Shortly after graduating high school, I worked for a summer at a small company which sold medical equipment and parts. The job was data entry and paid about minimum wage. For lunch most days, I walked across Stark Street to 7-11 and bought a Big Bite and a large box of Rainbow Nerds. On paydays, I feasted at Taco Bell.
The company’s sales were moving toward the internet, so we had to take prices and specs from outdated programs and type each detail over onto the back end of a web page. The work was tedious, but my kind of tedious, so I was able to get into a flow. Our wing of the office was mostly empty except for me and two attractive blondes in their 20s. I typically got to pick the music and the Nerds provided a constant sugar rush. In retrospect, probably one of my favorite jobs!
The office had a lot of Christians, and I’m sure my faith was a big reason I was hired. My Christian co-workers were almost uniformly the kind types, though, and I have no complaints about any of them. One of them was grateful for my disc jockeying and gave me a copy of Keep a Secret by Mysteries of Life, a pop-rock band from Indiana with a prominent celloist that became one of my favorite obscure acts and whose cover of O.V. Wright’s “That’s How Strong My Love Is” was featured at our wedding.
Standin’ in a shadow so long/I rise above the storm
Standing in a shadow so long/I think I’m gettin’ warm
I wanna see the source of the light
I wanna see the dawn chase the night/Outta sight
That’s good stanza!
Anyway, one day some of the Christians invited me to see a movie, The Omega Code, which was about the End Times and starred Casper Van Diem fresh off his starring turn in Starship Troopers. The End Times were a big deal back then. They still are—and probably always have been since Paul was writing to the early churches, expecting Jesus back any minute now—but the Left Behind series was burning up the bestseller lists, so what I mean is there was clearly money in apocalypse.
The pitch was this: the Hollywood elites pretend Christians don’t exist, so Christians should make sure they knew we were a market worth marketing to by turning The Omega Code into a box office smash. I didn’t know anything about the film, but I liked the idea of being a part of a movement, of sticking it to the dominant culture makers who pretended we didn’t exist.
That night at home I told Dad about the plan to make The Omega Code a hit and I was surprised when, rather than dubbing me a valiant Knight of the Culture Wars, he warned me not to get suckered.
“They always try and rope us into watching that crap and it’s never any good.”
Still, I went. “They,” after all, were our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, who I didn’t plan to leave in the lurch. I vaguely recall us meeting at Eastport Plaza and proudly taking a stand by buying movie tickets. What I definitely remember was The Omega Code being awful. To back this assertion, here are some blurbs from Metacritic, where the film earned an aggregate score of 14 (out of 100).
This wretched jumbo helping of Fundamentalist Christian agitprop takes itself entirely too seriously to be anything but ploddingly dull. - Cody Clark, Mr. Showbiz
Code Word: Bad! - David H. Jones, TV Guide
Proof positive that heavy underground buzz doesn’t necessarily imply merit or even intrinsic interest. - Russell Smith, The Austin Chronicle
Not all critic responses were dunks. The curve was lifted a little with this lofty praise:
Given its budget, the quality of its writing, acting and production is remarkably high--about miniseries level. - David Van Biema, Time
I didn’t have Metacritic in 1999, but I didn’t need experts to tell me The Omega Code sucked.
I’m grateful my brief excursion into Culture War sleeper cells was an unmitigated disaster, or else I might’ve stuck around. I’d seen hints of this sort of purity-focused culture dieting before—a friend who purged his music collection of non-Christian influence by flinging CDs out his car window while hurtling down I-205 (an act he later regretted); high-pitched suspicion over fantasy novels and Dungeons & Dragons; the folks who resorted to home schooling rather than expose their progeny to the horrors of public education—and each case felt like it was missing the point. Jesus didn’t call his followers to wall themselves away. He teaches us to step boldly through the world, like lambs protected by a Good Shepherd.
My experience with The Omega Code resurfaced after reading this tweet regarding “Cancel Culture,” which is the new phrase for ideological boycotts and which clearly resembles the tactics of the Culture War campaigns of the ‘90s.
Is it fair to point out that teaching children to ignore everything impure backfired? For sure. Can Culture Warriors get mad when their own weapons are turned against them? Not without hypocrisy. But also, “I’m not gonna pay attention because they did it first!” isn’t quite the redeeming response which satisfies my soul. A stronger point might be, It was foolish then and it’s foolish now, no matter who’s leading the charge.
But you don't have to take my word for it! Here’s the Apostle Paul warning the Colossians of this exact sort of religiosity nearly two millennia ago:
So don’t put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.
Don’t tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They’re a lot of hot air, that’s all they are. They’re completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.
So, then, if with Christ you’ve put all that puffed-up and childish religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? “Don’t touch this! Don’t taste that! Don’t go near this!” Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and austere. But they’re just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important. - Colossians 2:16-23 (MSG)
A caveat: My point here isn’t that we should never boycott or be wary of brands and people who gross us out. Actions have consequences, and truth brings light which chases out the dark. Plus, Christian mom skepticism brought about my favorite meme of 2021 so far.
What I’m saying is, part of faithful maturity is holding all sides in tension. Take Ryan Adams, for example, who was my favorite musician for almost a decade after Heartbreaker and before my perspective toward him changed when his emotional abuse patterns came to light in 2019. On one hand, I mostly skip his tracks these days. We all have to answer to our own conscience. On the other, if “Winding Wheel” comes on, I’m still gonna remember its golden strums playing over my friends Cami and Andrew’s first dance as husband and wife, and how Mindy saw me a little teary-eyed, appreciating the goodness of that moment, and then later decided it was okay for us to make out for the first time. I’m still gonna remember, and I’m still gonna sing along.
I’m also gonna keep wearing Nikes as long as they make quality shoes and eating Chic-Fil-A when their sauce and nuggets call my name and I’ve still never played D&D but I’d really, really like to. It looks so fun! And I know Jesus will be with me regardless, and all you Bossy McBossertons can get bent. Saint Paul said so.