Stepford Wives

Claire (played by Glenn Close) was a brilliant scientist who murdered her husband and his girlfriend when she caught them in bed together. Horrified by the ugliness of her deed and the world around her, she asked: “What could I do to make the world more beautiful?” Her answer was to turn her dead husband into a robot who then recruited other men who wanted “perfect” wives. Claire believed most women were “over-stressed, over-booked and under-loved” and wanted a “better world where men are men and women are loved and cherished.”

Who wouldn’t want a little less chaos in their world? a trouble-free marriage? a safe world for children? an end to drunken drivers? Claire’s husband, Mike, explained to Joanna (Nicole Kidman) and her husband, Walter (Matthew Broderick) the benefits of scientific engineering: “If you could streamline your partner, if you could overhaul every annoying habit and every physical flaw, every moment of whining and nagging and farting in bed, just imagine being able to enjoy your mate only at their best.” Sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

But what kind of world would that be? If Stepford is any indication, it is not an appealing world. When Walter was tempted by the appeal of the perfect wife, Joanna asked him: “Is this what you really want? women who behave like slaves?” And then she asked: “These machines, these Stepford wives, can they say “I love you”? When informed that they could say it in 58 languages, Joanna, with pleading eyes, asked Walter: “But do they mean it?” She then planted a passionate kiss on her husband’s lips.

Walter ultimately chose to give his wife her freedom -- believing that a free, though imperfect love, was far-superior to the counterfeit, coerced love of a computer-chip wife.

God had a similar choice to make. He could have created a “Stepford” world where there are no victims or violence, arguing or apathy, criticism or coldness. Instead, He created a world where the pots can complain to the potter, where “the sculptures can spit at the sculptor.” Like Walter, God didn’t want robotic perfection.

William Thompson imagined the questions God pondered while creating us: “What if I veil My Divinity so that the creatures [won’t be] overwhelmed by My overpowering Presence? Will the creatures love Me? Can I be loved by creatures I have not programmed to adore me forever? Can love arise out of freedom?” God, like Walter, took the risk of freedom. He knew that force would never produce love. Our God delights in the passionate embrace of free human beings.