Apocalypto: God, Humanity, and Combat

Last night, I was up really late watching Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. I wanted to avoid this picture in a big way because I knew what Mel was going to make me watch: human sacrifice. I wouldn't put Apocalypto up there with Schindler's List, but occasionally there are movies that I make myself watch, even if only to push me to places I don't want to go.

On the surface, I enjoyed the movie. It was everything a good movie is supposed to be about-- a) really bad guys do really bad things; b) good guys fight back; c) good guys win. But like Schindler's List, the movie leaves you feeling hollow inside. During the gruesome scenes of human sacrifice, my mind wandered to Romans 1:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Maybe I am just naive, but it seems "plain to me" that abducting people from their homes, cutting out their hearts, and chopping off their heads is evil. We live in a culture that wants to make excuses for this kind of behavior, we'd like to rationalize it away as the product of bad upbringing. Even so, it's difficult to imagine how this sort of activity isn't patently evil.

My culture wants to tell me that if I lived in the ancient Mayan empire that I too would advocate for the slaughter of innocent people. My culture wants to tell me that I'd not know that what I was doing was wrong. My culture is misguided.

I understand predisposition. I understand that kids raised in certain environments are conditioned and desensitized to violence. But I also understand the "gut," the root of conscience, the Spirit of God -- you call it whatever you want. I understand mercy, love, and grace. My culture wants to tell me that these things inside me are part of the tapestry of human existence... we are apt to follow delusions, apt to act magnanimously, apt to save life and take it. "It all depends on how you are raised," they say. It's my human situation that makes me weak, and my human situation that makes me strong. Because of this duality, I'm in no position to say what I would or wouldn't do. I'm in no position to pass judgment.

Personally, that sort of jive makes me want to puke. Whether it is a terrorist beheading a Western reporter, or a Mayan chief cutting the heart out of a captive, evil is blatant. I admit there are subtleties. I admit that gray areas can make it difficult at times to know what to do. I admit that morality does have a contextualization component.

But we are without excuse when it comes to outright evil. There are choices to be made when it comes to wielding the knife. When torture enters the picture, it's about the killer, not the victim. If all our ethics are situational, and there is no set law of morality, then someone tell me in what situation is acceptable to torture a child? In all possible worlds, it is not permissible to torture children. I dare anyone to say otherwise. There is an absolute truth, hazy though it may be at times. But we do in fact know it when we see it.

I watched this movie basically thanking God that I was born in a different time and place. You see, I couldn't stand back and watch that sort of thing. I'd change it or die. Which brings me to the topic of combat. I'm a martial artist who has never, and probably will never, use my training. I'd rather take a dozen black eyes than ever use a single technique.

So why did I take this art form upon myself? The answer is really simple. Should this morally ambiguous culture of ours ever get to the point of beheading people for kicks, I'll die fighting it. I watched Apocalypto with great interest as the victims were marched up the steps to their slaughter. None of them fought back. Even the hero of the story, when they marched the remaining captives out to target practice, ran away from the enemy. The hero's hands were freed and he ran. He didn't fight until the final 20 minutes of the movie.

I wanted to take an art form and learn it so well that if I ever found myself in that kind of situation, I could look a man in the eyes and resist him with my very best efforts. I'd rather take my chances with an evildoer's hands around my neck, than his spears in my back.

It's not what Jesus would do. He would allow men to slaughter him on the off chance they'd see how evil they had become. But it seems pretty "plain to me." Evil is to be resisted. Not that morally gray area that the Christian-Right wants to get you fired up about. I'm talking about genuine evil. The kind that grins while it tortures. The kind that enjoys pain. You know it when you see it. The question is probably less about what Jesus did. He was on a specific mission. The question really is, what would God do? And whether Jesus would or not, I believe we should fight evil when it is as utterly blatant and sickening as murder for pleasure.