Chester's Mill is a small town in Maine and it's residents awake one day to a new way of life. A dome of enormous size and dimensions and power has lowered itself over their town cutting them off from the outside world. Debbie and I have been watching this network television show the last handful of weeks and it seems to have hooked us with the well done drama and story line. It is science fiction, but follows the lives of characters who seem all too real. This story is based on a novel by Stephen King. The dome has not been explained so far in the series, and the mystery that is kept up from week to week is one reason that viewers keep tuning back in. This is reminiscent of the Lost TV series.
As I have watched this series, I have begun to notice an amazing allegory and I am not sure it was totally intentional by Stephen King or the show's writers. They may have merely dug for current social fodder that makes good story telling. The symbolism I see here is the dome itself seeming to have the attributes of a government gone awry, a totalitarian regime that dictates every detail of people's lives. One founding father of America said that a government that supplies your every need will take everything you have. The most serious affliction that plagues the residents of Chester's Mill is their loss of freedoms. They cannot come and go, they are trapped inside the dome, and they cannot receive supplies or help from the outside world. But the dome seems to nurture them, somewhat, for one week when they ran out of water, the dome caused it to rain. Isn't this God's role, to give us rain? But a government that sets itself up with enormous power and control likes to think that it is God to its people.
The town's people remember how things were before the dome. They long for that day again. Many Americans, particularly the older ones, (middle age or over) remember more innocent times in America and we long for those times. We have a generation coming up who do not know total national freedom, and may not be willing to fight or stand for what they never knew. Even 25-40 year olds today may have trouble remembering what we have lost. Political Progressives seem to think we have even gained value from socialistic reform and growth, but what they do not stop to realize is that a government that brings us this change-over to socialism must bring us the control of totalitarianism and a police state to enforce such change.
The dome town is upset because they have lost their freedoms. In America, right now, a Christian cannot say anything about an alternative lifestyle in public, or about Muslims, or even deny the first group wedding services. In the military, the leaders will not allow witnessing or the name of Christ to be spoken. Most of America's founding fathers were outspoken Christians! What would they think of this? America was founded on the principles of the Bible and Christianity. How long are we from the future denial of outside Christian assemblies or even indoors assemblies? For the government thinks we are teaching hate as Christians, although the tenets of Christianity are love and the tenets of Islam are hate. Just the same, Islam is the protected religion. The government has the inverse of the truth here.
In the latest episode of Under the Dome, a female doctor delivers a baby while she is dying herself. This woman is also gay, something highly demonstrated in the show. The mother of the female infant names the baby after her. This is touching story telling. As she lies on her deathbed, she says the dome allowed a new life into the town but also took one out. This smacks of state controlled life or abortion, and state death panels, who live and who dies. The dome here is a symbol of the state. The meaning is clear here, that the dome message suggests homosexuality as natural and wholesome, and that having a voice of who lives, (abortion) and who dies, (euthanasia) as also normal. Also in the dome is "lifeboat" mentality of values and the survival of the fittest. The female sheriff has her hands full trying to deal with civil unrest as people riot and loot in attempts to get their basic needs met. These are issues faced by the town under the dome, but also by an oppressive government that has grown too large and powerful.
Americans are like lobsters who do not know they are dying as the water gets hotter. The death is the freedoms of Americans. The leftists and Progressives who are trying so hard to usher in a new regime do not know what it is they have by the tail, until it reaches around and bites them, and they too feel the panic and the discomfort of lost freedoms. The conservative Americans who feel our way of life is not in danger have ignored all the warning signals and they have labeled people like myself doomsayers and just plain negative. If Chester's mill is a microcosm of our nation, the message is loud and clear. God would have us politically free and it was a gift that God gave us generations ago. At this point, the only thing that will reverse America's plunge into the abyss of a police state will be the grace of God and a miracle of God.
To see more about my novel, Hungry Nation, go to this website:
Greg Nichols
One of the main characters of the hit show has touched the dome with his bloody hand.
