The year 2015 has brought with it many acts of violence.
Just a few weeks ago, there were senseless shootings in Paris. Last week there
was another shooting in California at a
facility for the developmentally disabled. Today, December 7th,
marks the seventy-fourth anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor. And today,
I found myself seated in the AVR at school with probably about 150 high school
students, watching a movie that unfolded the depravity of human beings in a
fictional but very real story. And the students laughed at the worst parts.
Blood Diamond is a
movie about diamonds being smuggled from war-torn Sierra Leone to Liberia, and
eventually to London at the profit of both warlords and diamond companies
abroad. Wait. No. It’s not really about that. It’s a movie about men trying to
believe in the basic inherent goodness of mankind who meet other men who have
been left to their own devices and are senselessly putting to death their own
kind. It’s a movie about how a person’s value system can become so warped that
they will do anything to get what they want, even at the cost of another man’s
life. It’s a movie that glorifies humanistic philosophy; a movie without God; a
movie devoid of any real hope.
The story centers around two main characters: a white
Zimbabwean (Danny Archer) and a fisherman (Solomon Vandy). They both want the
same thing: a diamond, but for entirely different reasons. Along the way, a
third character, a woman (of course), joins them as an American reporter bent
on getting the ‘real story’ so that she can actually do something to change the
situation in Africa. She spends her time interviewing people and taking
pictures, but all the while knows that it might move some people to write a
check or shed a tear, but it won’t change the situation. She wants to get to
the heart of the diamond smuggling business, and she knows that Archer has a
hand in it. Maddy Bowen represents those humanistic philanthropists who want to
do good, save the world, and live a fulfilled life. She believes that human
beings are good or evil based on what they choose to do. Other characters
reflect this philosophy, including a man who was rescuing child soldiers from
the RUF to ‘un-brainwash’ them, and at one point he says, “I believe man is
inherently good” and then goes on to talk about how his experience, though,
proves otherwise. Archer, on the other hand, seems to be all bad. He wants the
diamond to better his own life and to get out of the continent of Africa. He
uses people and will say just about anything in order to achieve his goal.
Vandy, on the other hand, is a man who just wants his family back, and if the
diamond will help him get it, then yes, he wants that diamond too. He will do anything to get his son, who has
been taken captive by the RUF and brainwashed, back safely.
At the end of the movie, Archer and Vandy get the diamond,
but Archer realizes he’s mortally wounded. Vandy, ever the noble one, tries to
carry Archer to the helicopter, but Archer pleads with him to stop. He gives
back the diamond (that up until then, he had planned to keep) and, in a perfect
Hollywood moment, makes up for all his past sins. He calls Maddy and makes sure
that she will take care of Vandy and his family and then tells her to expose
everything in her report. As he stares eternity in the face, he makes his peace,
and with a smile on his face and a beautiful African sunset in front of him,
the camera pans out and the audience is led to believe that he has redeemed
himself.
And that is just one big reason that this movie is
incredibly sad and hard to watch.
Throughout the movie, there were acts of violence where the
rebels would come in and just start shooting anyone they happened to see. The
kidnapped, indoctrinated young boys were turned into killing machines. They
were led to believe that it was all for the good of their country, even if it
meant killing fellow countrymen who stood in their way. Honestly, it was
sickening to watch. Women and children were shown gunned down, their bodies
sometimes flying through the air, or their blood splattering on a wall behind
them. Sometimes the shooting was deliberate and calculated. A man gets shot off
a bridge. A couple other men get shot, but then shot again for good measure.
Their bodies twitch and then lie still. And then the audience erupts in
laughter. Who was laughing the most? The 7th graders who had the
largest turnout for movie night. The 7th graders are 11 to 12 years
old. They sat there laughing as they watched boys as young as themselves kill
other human beings because for them, it’s not reality. It’s just a movie.
At the end of the movie, I ‘clinched’ it for the audience.
Nobody really wanted to listen to me after sitting through a two hour movie,
but I still tried to ask questions. Nobody wanted to say what they had learned,
if they had learned anything, but some that I called on gave the typical
answers: loyalty, courage, sticking up for someone, equality. I changed tactics
and quoted the reporter who said that our goodness depends on what we choose to
do. The whole audience agreed, blissfully ignorant of what they were saying.
Then I asked them if we were basically good people. That was enough to prompt
them to parrot back that no, we are sinners. The problem, though, was that they
couldn’t answer the question that if we are bad people, why aren’t we going around killing each other
right now? I also talked about the humanistic viewpoint of the movie and that
you cannot possibly be good apart from God. Some kids were listening, but most
conveyed the opinion that I was ruining a perfectly good movie with my
‘intellectual questions.’ They got most quiet when I talked about their
callousness to the violence in the film. Some of them seemed to have not
realized that such violence is a living reality in for some children and not
just something you watch on a screen in front of you.
I read 2 Chronicles 6 in my devotions this morning, and what
jumped out at me was Solomon’s prayer: “But will God indeed dwell with mankind
on the earth? Behold heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain Thee…” And
yet, in the New Testament, Christ Himself came to earth, fully God and fully
man, and dwelt among us for a time before He died on the Cross to atone for the
sins of His people, making peace between a holy God and sinful man. The entire
time I was watching the movie this evening, I was hoping Hollywood would
surprise me and point to Christ, the only way of salvation and true redemption.
Instead, it showed the reality that the world is dark and in desperate need of
redemption and yet offered nothing to provide an ounce of true hope.
But praise God for His Word and the reality that the Savior has come and that because of HIS
finished work on the Cross, we can be redeemed and have peace with God. And in the
blackness of twisted, fallen humanity, the Gospel light shines brighter than
any diamond, bringing real and living hope founded upon a real and living
Savior who bought us with His own precious blood.
For a child will be born to us, a son will be
given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
There will be no end to the increase of His government
or of peace,
On the throne of David and over his kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
From then on and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.
Isaiah 9:6-7
