Rick Beckman

V for Vendetta

On Fri­day, my wife and I went to see the new movie V for Vendet­ta at our local cin­e­ma. I was­n’t sure what to expect as I knew very lit­tle about the movie beyond tele­vi­sion and the­atri­cal trailors for it.

And I knew it was a derived from a DC Comics char­ac­ter, and I’m a suck­er for movies based on comics.

The movie was for the most part enjoy­able. The sto­ry­line has the Unit­ed King­dom under the rule of a fas­cist gov­ern­ment which con­trols the media and pret­ty much every­thing else.

A hero-ter­ror­ist, ever wear­ing a Guy Fawkes mask, caus­es much trou­ble for the fas­cist régime, believ­ing peo­ple ought to be able to choose their own course. This hero-ter­ror­ist, known only as V, caus­es the destruc­tion of land­marks, exe­cutes polit­i­cal lead­ers and fig­ure­heads, and so on.

All the while, he col­lects banned artwork–including some very famous artwork–which he hides in his under­ground lair.

V also acquires a side­kick, Evey, who sym­pa­thizes with him after he res­cues her from sev­er­al gov­ern­ment agents.

They grow to trust each oth­er while V sub­jects her to a very unique method of train­ing some­one, all in prepa­ra­tion for V’s own “Fifth of Novem­ber” plot–the destruc­tion of the British Par­lia­ment building.

The act­ing was great, the spe­cial effects were good, and it was enjoyable.

How­ev­er, I must look at it from a bib­li­cal per­spec­tive and share what I see so that hope­ful­ly oth­er Chris­tians aren’t sur­prised by this movie.

The fas­cist gov­ern­ment in con­trol of the Unit­ed King­dom seems to be made to rep­re­sent religion–Christianity in spe­cif­ic. Numer­ous appeals are made for faith and belief in God, and the nation­al logo or what­ev­er it was is a cross with an extra hor­i­zon­tal beam in the design. The nation­al mot­to is, “Strength through uni­ty. Uni­ty through faith.” V and his fol­low­ers often van­dal­ize these posters.

The entire rea­son V is fight­ing, how­ev­er, does­n’t seem to have as much to do with per­son­al prob­lems with the gov­ern­ment as it does a vendet­ta against them on behalf of a woman who occu­pied a neigh­bor­ing cell at a deten­tion camp he was held at. This woman–a lesbian–wrote auto­bi­o­graph­ic notes on sheets of toi­let tis­sue which she passed through a rat hole to the neigh­bor­ing cell. V read these words of her life, her les­bian lover, and how the church-gov­ern­ment forced their sep­a­ra­tion. (Of course, you can­not por­tray any­thing as Christian–especially when mixed with the government–without mak­ing it hate­ful toward the PC-group-of-the-month.)

In the course of the movie, we learn that Evey becomes sym­pa­thet­ic toward the rights of the homo­sex­u­als and per­haps even finds her strength to fight along­side V from the same legacy.

In V for Vendet­ta, anar­chy (per­son­i­fied by V) and god­less­ness are tri­umphant over the church-state. And the satan­ic phi­los­o­phy of “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” so long as it does no harm would seem­ing­ly become the only law.

So let me just say a few things in response to VfV’s por­tray­als:

  • The true church­es of God have noth­ing to do with the world’s gov­ern­ments. We are called to pray for our lead­ers and to obey those that have the rule over us. And we are called to rec­og­nize that it is Satan who is the god of this world. Beware of those in pow­er claim­ing to be a mes­sen­ger of God.
  • The Bible calls us to love our neigh­bor and to do good to all men. This includes homosexuals.
  • Evey, in the cli­max of the movie, becomes a pic­ture of Eve in the gar­den in Eden. Evey is giv­en a choice, just as Eve did. And the choice was the same in both instances: anar­chy or obe­di­ence. Evey, like Eve, chose anarchy–willful rebel­lion against author­i­ty. It does not take a stretch of the imag­i­na­tion to think that Evey’s rebel­lion is a way of say­ing that Eve did good to eat the for­bid­den fruit. In doing so, she freed human­i­ty to live how­ev­er it wanted.

Eve’s choice, and Adam’s fol­low­ing, brought death upon all of human­i­ty. Only in Jesus Christ is there true free­dom. Only in Him can every shack­le fall off, smashed and made use­less upon the ground.

Only in the blessed Son of God can the free­dom sought by so many–including V and Evey–ever be found.

And only in Him do peace, love, joy, and so much more have “at the end of eter­ni­ty” as their end­ing point.

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9 responses to “V for Vendetta”

  1. The Thought Criminal Avatar
    The Thought Criminal

    Per­haps you should set aside some study of the work­ing of Anar­chism, which is not a sys­tem of chaos, the char­ac­ter to V which will show he is not a ter­ror­ist and the his­to­ry of your own peo­ple which will show that love thy neigh­bor will not stop your leaders.

    Reply
  2. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    Accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Her­itage Dictionary:

    1. The the­o­ry or doc­trine that all forms of gov­ern­ment are oppres­sive and unde­sir­able and should be abolished.
    2. Active resis­tance and ter­ror­ism against the state, as used by some anarchists.
    3. Rejec­tion of all forms of coer­cive con­trol and author­i­ty: “He was inclined to anar­chism; he hat­ed sys­tem and orga­ni­za­tion and uni­for­mi­tyâ€? (Bertrand Russell).

    With­out law, with­out lead­er­ship, there is chaos. Man is not fit to gov­ern him­self. Elim­i­nate Yah­weh, the King of kings, and you get a group of peo­ple sin­ning and sin­ning and sin­ning and sin­ning. Wel­come to America.

    “Love thy neigh­bor” will of course not stop the gov­ern­ments of the world. They are under the domin­ion of Satan. He is the prince of the pow­er of the air, the god of this world. That’s why I don’t vote. That’s why I’m not an activist. That’s why I’m not wor­ried about the head­lines, the news sto­ries, or what Mr. Clin­ton or Mr. Bush or Mr. Hus­sein are doing. They’re all pawns of the wicked one, so I’m not going to be sur­prised if it looks like the world is head­ed to Hell in a handbasket.

    How­ev­er, rebel­lion is a sin. V rebelled against his government–whether he did that via bombs or what­ev­er else–he sins a sin that God looks at as He looks at witch­craft. God calls us to be obe­di­ent to the author­i­ties over us–including the gov­ern­ment. The thir­teen colonies sinned against God when they rebelled against Eng­land. Iraqis sinned against God if they sided with Amer­i­ca in the war against Hussein.

    Sim­ple obe­di­ence is what God desires of us. Yeah, we may dis­agree with the gov­ern­ment, but we’re to sub­mit. If they pre­vent us from serv­ing God, then we rebel, as Daniel did when he ille­gal­ly prayed, serv­ing the King of kings fore­most. Sim­i­lar­ly, gov­ern­ments which call upon us to sin (i.e., by mur­der­ing in war), we should sub­mit to the Prince of peace and stand for righteousness.

    V and Evey reject­ed God and embraced all that He oppos­es, a world of “self gov­ern­ing,” a world of rebel­lion, a world of sin.

    Reply
  3. Rick Avatar
    Rick

    Accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Her­itage Dictionary:

    1. The the­o­ry or doc­trine that all forms of gov­ern­ment are oppres­sive and unde­sir­able and should be abolished.
    2. Active resis­tance and ter­ror­ism against the state, as used by some anarchists.
    3. Rejec­tion of all forms of coer­cive con­trol and author­i­ty: “He was inclined to anar­chism; he hat­ed sys­tem and orga­ni­za­tion and uni­for­mi­tyâ€? (Bertrand Russell).

    With­out law, with­out lead­er­ship, there is chaos. Man is not fit to gov­ern him­self. Elim­i­nate Yah­weh, the King of kings, and you get a group of peo­ple sin­ning and sin­ning and sin­ning and sin­ning. Wel­come to America.

    “Love thy neigh­bor” will of course not stop the gov­ern­ments of the world. They are under the domin­ion of Satan. He is the prince of the pow­er of the air, the god of this world. That’s why I don’t vote. That’s why I’m not an activist. That’s why I’m not wor­ried about the head­lines, the news sto­ries, or what Mr. Clin­ton or Mr. Bush or Mr. Hus­sein are doing. They’re all pawns of the wicked one, so I’m not going to be sur­prised if it looks like the world is head­ed to Hell in a handbasket.

    How­ev­er, rebel­lion is a sin. V rebelled against his government–whether he did that via bombs or what­ev­er else–he sins a sin that God looks at as He looks at witch­craft. God calls us to be obe­di­ent to the author­i­ties over us–including the gov­ern­ment. The thir­teen colonies sinned against God when they rebelled against Eng­land. Iraqis sinned against God if they sided with Amer­i­ca in the war against Hussein.

    Sim­ple obe­di­ence is what God desires of us. Yeah, we may dis­agree with the gov­ern­ment, but we’re to sub­mit. If they pre­vent us from serv­ing God, then we rebel, as Daniel did when he ille­gal­ly prayed, serv­ing the King of kings fore­most. Sim­i­lar­ly, gov­ern­ments which call upon us to sin (i.e., by mur­der­ing in war), we should sub­mit to the Prince of peace and stand for righteousness.

    V and Evey reject­ed God and embraced all that He oppos­es, a world of “self gov­ern­ing,” a world of rebel­lion, a world of sin.

    Reply
  4. David Avatar
    David

    Alh­tough — I could be called a Chris­t­ian — I would like to dis­tance myself from the Watch­tow­er organ­i­sa­tion (since it is based on the mason­ry sym­bols & ideas — BUT we’ll only know this for sure when the Lord re-appears to save his fol­low­ers and tell the sur­vivers — what is what) — as a ‘com­mon’ fel­low of this author I would like to add my 2 cents.

    I gen­er­al­ly agree with all your argu­ments regard­ing our behav­iour as Chris­tians to gov­ern­ments & lead­ers in this world.

    I also had high antic­i­pa­tion for this movie — but this les­bian part of the whole sto­ry could ONLY be employed (maybe from the orig­i­nal writer of the com­ic, or one of the Wachows­ki broth­ers) by any­one whose in favour of such behav­iour — and — to put it in sto­ry with this agen­da its just plain ludacris.
    Such under­tak­ing ticks me extreme­ly off — they can do what they want — but such stuff has noth­ing to do in such sto­ries — its like typ­i­cal Jews whin­ing about the Holo­caust. They know why they ‘had it’ THEY killed our Lord — so as a cho­sen peo­ple you get jud­get quite a bit from our heav­en­ly father if you fail him — and killing a guy who per­formed so many won­ders in their midst — is a pret­ty good rea­son to judge them.

    Any­how — to any­one still want­i­ng to watch this waste — be warned — at least you can — as I did enjoy the appeare­ance of anoth­er jew­ish actress.

    AND BY THE WAY: Wait­ing will sure­ly be over by the end of this year — as soon as you see the US or Israe­ly gov­ern­ment ‘DO SOMETHING’ regard­ing the ‘loon in Ther­an’ — well — you can sure­ly expect an answer — and this will be a KEY event — for (well… some know it) — Good Luck (you bet­ter take the Rev. 16 seri­ous­ly — because thats whats going to hap­pen — when this ‘HOUR’ comes — NO RAPTURE (as escape) — ALL will go through this HOUR.

    This com­ment was edit­ed while in moderation.

    Reply
  5. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    See­ing as how Rev­e­la­tion is most­ly chrono­log­i­cal, I’m not expect­ing Rev­e­la­tion 16 to hap­pen until the pre­vi­ous chap­ters come to pass. And since there’s no bib­li­cal rea­son for the Church to go through the time of Jacob’s trou­ble (Jews) and the judg­ing of the nations (Gen­tiles), I don’t expect to have to wit­ness any of it, lest we be allowed to from Heaven.

    Most of your com­ment does­n’t quite make sense to me.

    Sor­ry I had to edit it; I’m not going to be held respon­si­ble for allow­ing pro­fan­i­ty here (nor would I be too thrilled if fam­i­ly-friend­ly ‘Net fil­ters blocked my site sim­ply because of what my vis­i­tors say).

    Reply
  6. Rick Avatar
    Rick

    See­ing as how Rev­e­la­tion is most­ly chrono­log­i­cal, I’m not expect­ing Rev­e­la­tion 16 to hap­pen until the pre­vi­ous chap­ters come to pass. And since there’s no bib­li­cal rea­son for the Church to go through the time of Jacob’s trou­ble (Jews) and the judg­ing of the nations (Gen­tiles), I don’t expect to have to wit­ness any of it, lest we be allowed to from Heaven.

    Most of your com­ment does­n’t quite make sense to me.

    Sor­ry I had to edit it; I’m not going to be held respon­si­ble for allow­ing pro­fan­i­ty here (nor would I be too thrilled if fam­i­ly-friend­ly ‘Net fil­ters blocked my site sim­ply because of what my vis­i­tors say).

    Reply
  7. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    Dave, I do believe that there is lim­its on our obe­di­ence to the gov­ern­ment. If we are first obe­di­ent to God, then any sub­se­quent loy­al­ties (gov­ern­ments, mas­ters, teach­ers, boss­es, etc.) would be strict­ly pend­ing the abil­i­ty to ful­fil our our first priority.

    How­ev­er, out­right (and vio­lent, in the case of V) rebel­lion would not be a suit­able means of express­ing obe­di­ence to God and not man. In defy­ing the gov­ern­ment of man in pro­claim­ing the gospel, Paul did­n’t fight but accept­ed his lot when placed in prison. It was God Him­self who enabled a way out of it, for He is just and capa­ble of doing such.

    Even today, praise God. :)

    Reply
  8. dave Avatar
    dave

    I saw the movie V for vendet­ta last week and loved it espe­cial­ly the end­ing. I see no rea­son to
    find fault with any­thing except­ing the les­bian sto­ry which I thought was unec­es­sary and took away
    a lit­tle from say­ing it is one of my favorite movies of many years. I don’t know what this author
    or com­men­tors believe but my beliefs are con­strained and direct­ed by the Bible and Romans 13
    is not an impri­matur for all behav­ior, just check out Acts 5.29 or there­abouts and see that
    obe­di­ence to a gov­ern­ment has lim­its when it goes against God; ask shadrach,meschack, and abednego
    if they should bow down to a king and wor­ship him and that is what can hap­pen when you put all
    faith in a gov­ern­ment and give them your obe­di­ence. Some­one here must be a fol­low­er of Domionism
    and Rush­doony to be offend­ed or think that this film is Satan­ic or crit­i­cizes Chris­tians. If I
    ever see Chris­t­ian Recon­struc­tion­ist take hold of the US I’ll get my Guy Fawkes mask and join
    the rebels to fight any church state alliance. V is flawed and admits as much which is bet­ter than
    Bush or Cheney do when they admit to no mis­takes. His ven­gance though is wrong since God alone
    says he shall repay that ven­gance or jus­tice is God’s soverig­ni­ty. Hey this movie is more about
    Guy Fawkes blow­ing up a Par­lia­ment buildi­ing than it is pro­mot­ing sin and rebel­lion. You read
    way too much into this anti chris­t­ian screed which I don’t see. Dave Mil­am Chris­t­ian since 1972

    Reply
  9. Rick Avatar
    Rick

    Dave, I do believe that there is lim­its on our obe­di­ence to the gov­ern­ment. If we are first obe­di­ent to God, then any sub­se­quent loy­al­ties (gov­ern­ments, mas­ters, teach­ers, boss­es, etc.) would be strict­ly pend­ing the abil­i­ty to ful­fil our our first priority.

    How­ev­er, out­right (and vio­lent, in the case of V) rebel­lion would not be a suit­able means of express­ing obe­di­ence to God and not man. In defy­ing the gov­ern­ment of man in pro­claim­ing the gospel, Paul did­n’t fight but accept­ed his lot when placed in prison. It was God Him­self who enabled a way out of it, for He is just and capa­ble of doing such.

    Even today, praise God. :)

    Reply

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Rick Beckman