Defense of the Innocent

I find myself stunned once again by the irony of the extremist agenda, amidst the confusion of a sinful world. I have just returned from viewing the film "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and am somewhat surprised, though perhaps I shouldn’t be, at the lack of logic amidst the subliminal messaging of films such as this one.

Without ruining too much of the movie, please allow me to elaborate on the bare bones of the plot in order to make my case. In essence, an alien comes to our humble blue and green planet in order to convince us to stop destroying it, because it is one of only a handful of worlds capable of sustaining life in the universe. Humanity, being the evil fools that we are portrayed as being, attempt to kill him and stop his plans of destroying us before we even really know what he is trying to do with any certainty because of a slew of jumped conclusions and misinterpreted behaviors. So our little alien friend, portrayed by Keanu Reaves, unleashes the horror of the apocalypse upon our planet after rescuing all of the animal life he can aboard this special sphere things he brought to earth with him, in order to repopulate the earth with good beast-kind.

That, of course, is not how the movie ends, but I think that at this point you should start to see a few key elements that don’t align at all with Scripture’s view of our purpose on this world.

First and foremost, we as humanity were given dominion over the creation at its start (Gen 1:26). So no alien, no matter how “advanced” should have the authority to command us to abstain from doing anything of the sort. Granted, we are called to be good stewards of what the Lord has placed us over, but it is ours and ours alone to care for.

Secondly, I was struck with something that the author Gary North touched upon in his book "UnHoly Spirits". Dr. North spoke of the underlying theme of all such movies of alien invasion, and indeed all such ideologies concerning them. They all boil down to a concept of salvation from above by means of a higher evolution. Some race that has achieved a more utopian existence offers us a chance at a better life through the one which they have achieved…salvation by means of secret knowledge. Of course this ideology has existed for centuries under the name of Gnosticism, and is as old as sin itself.

Thirdly, I always find it unfathomable how people, particularly radical environmentalists, see the salvation of animal life as a noble quest, while many of these very same people condone abortion. I simply cannot understand how a quest for animal rights, which boils down to a desire to protect that which cannot protect itself, is any different from protecting the lives of infants. Or how we can somehow have the power to choose to kill a baby in the name of convenience, but not choose to kill an animal in the name of survival.

At any rate, the movie wasn’t bad, it was just guided by a false set of rules with very odd logic behind them. But as I said before, this really shouldn’t surprise me:

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile, there is no one who does good.” – Psalm 14:1