The Gospel According to Encanto

An old friend of mine hosts a podcast about movies. Apparently his show is pretty big in Japan. Anyway, because I’m his token religious friend, he’s been trying to get me to come on his show to talk about Christian movies.

While I would love to be a guest on a podcast (tell your friends), the problem with this idea is simply that Christian movies are so, so, so bad. And you know this if you’ve tried to sit through, well, any of them.

What I prefer to do is watch content that is not explicitly religious and see spiritual, theological, or religious themes coming through in the story. This is very easy to do with movies that are ultimately about religious themes, like the 2017 Ethan Hawke vehicle First Reformed or Scorsese’s grim take on the Endo novel SIlence.

Sometimes it’s easy even when the movie isn’t explicitly about religion. This was the case with Disney’s recent animated hit Encanto.

The World of Encanto

I will give here a brief and mostly spoiler-free summary of the film’s plot. If you haven’t seen the movie and do not want any spoilers whatsoever, you may need to turn back here.

Our protagonist is Mirabel, who we soon learn is the only member of the Madrigal family who does not have a supernatural power. Others in the family can talk to animals, heal through food, control the weather, etc. But note that this world is similar to ours—it’s not as if people have powers all over the place. The Madrigal family in Colombia is very special.

We don’t know much at first about the family’s gift, only that a long time ago, when the family was in its darkest hour, they received “the miracle.” The miracle, which is embodied in a candle whose flame never goes out, built the family a magical house and imbued each new family member with powers. They must use these powers, the family matriarch (“Abuela”) insists, to help both the family and the surrounding community.

So that’s our setting—a family with a magic house, a miraculous candle, and superpowers. And one young woman who, for whatever reason, was not blessed with a power. I won’t get too much into the plot, except for its religious themes below, but the main tension of the movie is that the family’s miracle appears to be dying. The house is cracking and the powers are on the fritz. Most members of the family—especially the controlling Abuela—blame Mirabel for the looming crisis.

The Religion of the Miracle

I was struck early and often in this film by the religious reverence the Madrigal family has for their miracle. And this makes sense—there’s a lot the family (and the viewer) is asked to accept on faith. While we have plenty of evidence that there is magic at work, making it easy to believe in, we don’t know how or why. This one family, for some reason, can work wonders. They have connected this supernatural reality to a sense of ethics and duty, and it shapes they way they live in their community. This, to me, is religion.

Just as real religion can go wrong, so too can this miracle-magic-religion. We see this in the conflict between Mirabel and Abuela throughout the film. Abuela functions a lot like a religious leader, domineering the family out of her sense that she knows better than any of them how the magic ought to be used. So she sets heavy expectations on them, controlling them through perfectionism, ritual, arranged marriages, etc. I do not mean to fully villainize Abuela here—like an actual religious leader, she is a person with hopes, dreams, and fears. But like a religious leader, she also has a position of power than can be misused in ways that hurt others.

In many ways, the Madrigal family/house has become an institution. A religious institution. And as you likely know, those don’t have the best track record.

The Moral of the Story

The point of the story was, in my view, not only religious but in some senses very Christian.

The Christian feel of the film very explicit when we learn that [mild spoiler] the miracle originally came to the Madrigal family just after the grandfather gave his life to fend off a violent mob and to save the lives of Abuela, her three young children, and the rest of the neighborhood. The magic and “religion” of Encanto literally came about through someone laying down his life for his friends.

But even beyond this straightforward connection, the primary takeaway of the movie seems very resonant with Christ’s encounters and teachings. When Abuela remembers that horrible night when she lost her husband, she remembers why he bestowed the miracle—which was the same reason why he gave up his life—for the people. For his wife and children and neighbors to live and flourish.

Her moment of repentance is the realization that she has been working so hard for “the family” (as an institution), to protect its status and house and magic, that she has lost sight of the beloved people who make up the family. She has been prioritizing religion over people.

Now, Mirabel has her own character arc and growth (as she learns to empathize with Abuela and the suffering she has endured). Nonetheless, these encounters between the girl and her grandmother remind me of Jesus with the religious leaders. Mirabel loves her family members more than the magic and customs and “religion” of her family, and she’s trying very hard to help her Abuela get there.

“The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.”

The magic was given for the Madrigals and their community, not the people for the magic.

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