Children of Men

Many reviews have been written about the obvious elements of Christian allegory in Children of Men. Even the title of the movie has a biblical origin. Sometimes it’s easier to digest a story that seems to fall back on old familiar narrative patterns and mythological archetypes. But it seems to me in our post-Christian age we need to go further into the forms and frameworks that contain the bare ideas that are common to all humanity. The overt Christian elements of the story are often suspect and taken for granted in our current age. And for this, Christians need to alter their approach.

Due to this post-Christian resistance to explicit Christian themes, I think our culture has been seeking out the Spirit of Christ elsewhere, outside the distrusted conventional realm of the Church and the highly contested battleground of the Bible.

As a Christian who recognizes (and sympathizes with) reactions to suspicious agendas and ulterior motives in searching out the Christ, Joseph or Mary figures in Children of Men, it seems less threatening to me to first look at themes of the story that are common to all people, and then explain why it is that these Christian elements come to mind while watching the film. The author of the book on which the film is based is a professed Christian who was obviously influenced by her faith in writing the book. The film’s director came out saying he was not especially trying to put a Christian message on the big screen. Having said this, between the two creators there is a societal tension at work. One has a faith from which the story issues de facto, and the other serves no faith agenda, yet acknowledges the important common human message of the story.

It seems to me the only common denominator for all people, Christian and non-Christian, is to identify the common raw ideas in the story. But does this mean Christians should settle for a common denominator by allowing the “raw human ideas” to stand without having the especially revelatory agent of Christ? If Christ is truly the fullness of God and the unifier of all human concerns, then Christians should strive to explain and demonstrate why these raw, disparate themes concerning the human condition should converge in Christ.

There are many important and relevant themes in Children of Men. No doubt issues of racism, classism, and immigration are treated thoroughly. One theme that stands out to me and hit me on a personal level is that of man’s nature to propagate violence, so much so that violence results even when trying to accomplish peace. The title of the film’s reference to “children of men” and not to the more gender inclusive “humans” speaks to male brutality. Universal concepts of hope and trust stand out as even more overarching themes in the film.

Although the dominant themes of male aggressiveness and female pacifism are based on dangerous stereotypes, there is still great truth in what the two genders represent. Going further into the theme of the chaotic and aggressive ways of men, we can see the contrasted idea of women being the controlled and quiet influence that is characteristically maligned and subverted in favor of its brassier and more demonstrative alternative. The idea of hope always assumes a distance and the absence of something better. And the dire circumstances surrounding humanity in the story are met with a hopeless frustration that works itself out in an insecure male power struggle.

Whether or not one wants to attribute the violent and nonviolent ways of humanity to males and females respectfully, these are very common human realities nonetheless. So then how does a Christian respond to such realities? Even deeper than the blatant similarities to the Christian nativity stories of Matthew and Luke are the ideas of hope and trust mentioned above. But how can a person have hope or learn to trust in anything in a post-apocalyptic dystopia? The solution to these main themes of hopelessness and distrust is the idea of nonviolence. Nonviolence offers a way of demonstrating a trust in humanity’s gentler ways to get us through life. Nonviolence offers a way of demonstrating hope that such ways will win out in the end. Jesus taught the ways of nonviolence as foundational to his ministry, and he lived it out (Matthew 5). He exemplified how the subtly pervasive Spirit of God conquers the loud and destructive ways of humanity. It was the firm yet peaceful example of Jesus that eventually overcame the violence of Roman law and a corrupt Jewish political system. Although different rebel groups at the time of Jesus each had their own militantly calculated response (Zealots and other revolutionary movements), the quiet Kingdom ways of Jesus ultimately overwhelmed the cacophonic ways of the world.

This is one of the many difficult paradoxes of the Kingdom. Everyday we are being inundated by messages of violence and alerted to the harsh ways of human problem-solving. We are told we must fight violence with violence. In order to counteract this powerful influence of dealing with the world on equal terms we need to give audience to Jesus and his peaceful ways. We need to offset our society’s negative messages with Jesus’ positive one. It is precisely because the way of the Kingdom is so counterintuitive and non-rational that we need the constant reminder of the peaceful ways of the Gospel.

This film can help us take a closer look at the cycle of violence in our world. The failure of war as a means to resolve international conflicts in recent history is leaving a fresh impression of the problems associated with taking aggressive and retaliatory measures too hastily. As a result, a number of inspired works have come about to get this message across. Such projects like Children of Men will hopefully turn our attention to the peaceful ways of Jesus and help us all see how trust and hope in a Greater Reality are more effective modes of dealing with the problems of the world. Instead of resorting to human schemes with “calculated risks” and “collateral damage,” we can learn to look more closely at the unassuming and gentler ways of a child. And if we look long enough until the disbelief falls away like scales from our eyes, we can present the world with a hope that’s easier to believe in.