My girlfriend and I recently watched a very interesting movie called V for Vendetta.
While there are some things I strongly disagree with in the film, overall, there are many good points in the movie that could and should be applied to society today.
Let me briefly set the backdrop for the film:
V for Vendetta is a futuristic movie. While the film never tells exactly what has happened in the world, something has gone horribly wrong. America is no more, and later on in the movie we find out that there was some kind of world war/civil war that America lost. Britain is under totalitarian rule by a leader who much resembles Hitler, and the outlook for society is very bleak.
The film starts off in the room of Evey, an average citizen in England. The TV is on in her room as she is preparing to go somewhere late at night, past the government enforced curfew.
What the man, the so-called "Voice of London" said on the television shocked me.
He said the following:
"America...here was a country who had everything, absolutely everything. And now, 20 years later, is what? The world's biggest leper colony! Why? Godlessness. Let me say that again... Godlessness!"
Before I continue, I highly suggest this movie. There is a lot of Truth in it, and unfortunately, some lies. But you can decipher through that yourself...
For now though, I would just like to focus on that one line:
"America...here was a country who had everything, absolutely everything. And now, 20 years later, is what? The world's biggest leper colony! Why? Godlessness. Let me say that again... Godlessness!"
We come later to find out that those who are saying this do not believe in God either...
But that quote in and of itself was not made by some crazy "fire-n-brimstone" preacher...it was made by secular America.
It scares me that secular America is willing to say what we Christians are not willing too...America is on its way to hell, and fast.
R.C. Sproul once said:
"The days of sentimental faith are over. A foreboding atmosphere hovers over culture. In this atmosphere, humanity looks to the future, not with breathless anticipation and enthusiasm, but with a sense of helplessness."
As pluralism and post-modernism advances more in society by the day, we are starting to see the effects of "Life Without God."
Rising crime rates, terrorist threats, failing morality, more government divisions, more substance abuse...and a pop culture coming to the realization that life isn't as perfect as we think it is, in fact, that something is horribly wrong.
And V for Vendetta points to wear that is heading...
No, I am not saying that in a few years America will be a "colony" or that we will be sucked into a war that will be end for America. With how the world hates America right now, maybe in a hundred years or so that will happen, and that's a BIG maybe...
But what I am saying is that an America with no God is an America that will not be safe, and much less, not as enjoyable to live in. When people push God out of the equation, only bad things can happen.
If you don't believe me, just open a history book sometime...
The underlying theme in V for Vendetta is that there is something awfully wrong in the world...and if we don't do something to fix it soon, "Godlessness" will destroy it.
R.C. Sproul was right; something awful "hovers over culture." We live in a society where it has become easier to hate then to love. Indeed, nowadays it takes courage to love, and any one of the millions of mindless, desensitized TV watchers every night can easily find a reason to hate.
I know because, like you, I am one of them...
But "Life Without God" will do that to you...
As post-modernism, pluralism, and nihilism continue to scream from their cores that God doesn't care or that there is no God, and as we buy more and more into that crap, we are only setting our culture up to die.
And, as usual, the Church, which holds the One Lasting Solution, is silent.
And our silence is just as bad, no, it is worse than the lies that America is buying into.
I just hope we haven't passed the point-of-no-return.
Perhaps the scariest thing is that, like Hitler, post-modernists and pluralists believe that they are right...
And we saw what happened when Hitler thought he was right...
But V for Vendetta isn't all about dark philosophical ideals and such. V is the charismatic freedom fighter that is devoted to bringing down the evil that has captured the people. I won't ruin the end of the movie for you, but let's just say that V makes his stand, and the world of his day needed it badly.
While the hero, V, doesn't bring God back into the picture, he does bring the CHOICE FOR GOD back, something our culture may not have in the coming decades.
And when the day comes that the freedom to choose God, another religion, or no God are out the window, we can only bet that the other freedoms we enjoy will soon be gone as well...
Because religion and God are the only thing standing between the alternate world of V for Vendetta and our current culture.
And the Church is refusing to resist it, and in so doing is embracing the hell that is coming down the pipe.
If you think this all sounds unrealistic and impossible, just look at what happened in Nazi Germany, or at the fall of Rome, the fall of Jerusalem, the fall of Babylon...history repeats itself, and America is next.
Then again, I'm just a 20-year-old college kid. What could I possibly know about any of this...
In Christ,
Hackett
