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CLIP
The clip starts at 4:06 and lasts until 12:31
In post-apocalyptic walled-in Chicago, the ‘founders’ segregate citizens into five factions with different roles and personalities. Your faction defines what you do with your life: service (Abnegation, the public servants), honesty (Candor, the lawyers and judges), peacefulness (Amity, the farmers), intelligence (Erudite, the scholars), and fearlessness (Dauntless, the cool ones who jump off things and seem to know parkour). Those who belong to no faction are the factionless, the poor and outcast. On the eve of her choosing ceremony, Beatrice who was raised in Abnegation discovers that she is a Divergent - someone who can be in all the groups. This causes trouble when it is revealed that Divergents are seen as a threat to the leaders and are killed off. Things get more intriguing when Beatrice discovers that the Erudite are planning to overthrow Abnegation as leaders - this leads to teenage angst, jumping off things, mind control and the start of a new franchise.
With another three films coming it’s definitely worth getting to know your Candors from your Amities - so it’s thankful that there is a good cast and a compelling plot behind the proceedings. There are a lot of themes that can be discussed from Divergent, along with a lot of good scenes and quotes that can be used as a discussion starter. The themes explored include overcoming fears, family, belonging to a group, being controlled by those in charge, falling in love and fulfilling your potential. For a teenager watching Divergent there is a lot that can be reflected on.
After showing the clip as a stimulus, break into small discussion groups (you may wish to have a designated discussion leader in each group) and explore the following questions:
• Would you be happy to be chosen to be in a particular group for the rest of your life – Why?
• Which group would you want to be in?
• Why might someone who can be in more than one group be a bad thing?
• During the film, Beatrice says, ‘The test will tell me who I am, where I belong’. Is our world any different in trying to get us into certain groups? Are we guilty of doing the same thing as the leaders in Divergent?
After discussing the first set of questions, read through all of 2 Timothy 2 together (some context to this passage would be helpful for your young people) and then either discuss as a group or return to the smaller groups to discuss the final set of questions:
• Does 2 Timothy 2 outline too strictly how we should act?
• Are verses 20 and 21 implying that some of us are better than others?
• Verse 22 tells us to ’flee the evil desires of youth’, what might that mean and look like? Is that a fair command?
• Does 2 Timothy 2 encourage or discourage us to be ‘divergent’ from our society – Why?
