Visualizing Villains

Last night I saw V for Vendetta (again) with some friends. As usual, the film inspires me to poke around online and I came across a quote by Don Feder on Wikipedia, claiming the film is "the most explicitly anti-Christian movie to date."

Really? Even ignoring the "to date" qualifier--which covers a lot of history so I doubt it is true--I fail to understand why it is "anti-Christian." I saw no suggestions that Christ was a bad guy, nor the Bible should be thrown aside. The opposition weren't necessarily cast as Muslims nor Jews nor Atheists (for example, one admits he isn't Muslim even though he has a Koran; he just likes the book and its words for their own sake).

The movie was anti-fascist, anti-totalitarian, anti-big government but not anti-Christian. Christianity was a cloak the antagonist wore to justify their statism. It was an ends, not a means. To claim the movie was anti-Christian is akin to claiming it was anti-guns, because that's what the bad guys were armed with (especially since V relied on knives and explosives).

Everyone wants to be seen as victim, even the worst tyrants. There are few better ways to gather sympathy and power. I suspect it is that motivation that subconsciously drives Feder to make such absurd conclusions. However, it is also possible there are a few in Christianity--a vocal minority to be sure--that may see a world of merged faith and government as a virtuous goal. Those are among the scariest of people. They stand along other power hungry who feel unions or businesses or intellectuals or any one group should stand solely at the helm of the state. Those governments are by its very nature tyrannical and that's what V for Vendetta shouts down.

I'll be visited Iowa for the next week and a half so expect my posting to be less frequent. Thankfully Jenny is here to help pick up the posting in my absence.