Just saw The Dark Knight Rises . . . wasn't going to at first, don't really like films with dark themes and excessive violence, but the killings at the Colorado midnight screening got me thinking it was important to preserve our freedoms and not let fear take over.

The final film in the Batman series once again explored the eternal struggle, the eternal contrast between Good and Evil, captured graphically by this scene from the film:



I really have to compliment the writers who put the screenplay together. Yes, there was violence, mayhem,  and killing, but it wasn't gratuitous. Important, but complex themes were played out in the film. Bane, was a terrorist who took over Gotham in order to bring down the rich and powerful and return power to the people--or was he a freedom fighter?

This ideal isn't evil in itself . . . wasn't this our motivation for taking control of the American colonies by forcing English forces back to England. Wasn't it the reason we invaded Iraq in order to remove a ruthless dictator? Wasn't this the reason for both the French and Russian Revolutions, and the Cultural Revolution in China.  Does being in the "right" ideologically make killing right, or the dead any less dead, or suffering any less painful.


So many Christian principles played out through the fiction displayed on screen. 



The cat burglar character, played by Anne Hathaway, hadn't yet learned that it is better to give than receive. Near the end of the film, when it appeared everyone in Gotham would surely die, all she could think about was saving herself. In the end, her soul tested, she returned to help Batman win the day! One soul saved! 





For another character, in a complicated subplot, Marion Cotillard, as Miranda, was unable to forgive Bruce for killing her father. That "sin" poisoned her soul and her anger was to be vented on the 12 million people of Gotham. She died in the film without redemption.


During the struggle, Bane mentioned that he was sent to restore "Balance" . . . and I saw this as pointing to a puzzling and mysterious, but critical spiritual principle. If Evil didn't exist, God would have had to create Evil in order to provide a mirror, a reference point, so that Good can be identified. If Batman, then, represents Good, as well as a "Savior" symbol, in the film, lives were saved and a way of life was preserved.

If we look objectively at what Jesus accomplished, it was more about promoting a quality of life among people based on the Principles of Love, Forgiveness, Justice, and Sharing. Jesus didn't die on the cross to end death, disease, or poverty. Those are part of the "Balance" of the human condition which the Wisdom of God has established. The resurrection didn't change the eternal nature of the human soul. It was eternal before Jesus died and rose again, and remained eternal afterwards, but it is the quality of life that changed dramatically because of what Jesus and mankind's other prophets and teachers taught us.

While alive in flesh-and-blood bodies, relationships among people can be good if governed by Love. When we die, our souls live on. If we have learned to Love we can transition to this place we call heaven where there are other souls who have chosen the same Path. If we haven't, we go to another place, or if God is the kind of Spirit Being I've imagined, such a soul will be offered another incarnation on Earth or another such world where important spiritual lessons can be learned.

So, once again I applaud the gifted storytellers who conceived of The Dark Knight Rises, a modern retelling of the Gospel, in such a way as to give us all such an entertaining Sunday School lesson!