Bond, Batman & the Christian Myth

In Skyfall, as is the case in every James Bond movie, we find 007 captured by and being lectured to by the latest villain plotting world domination.

As Raoul Silva describes his ability to bring chaos and destruction with computers, Bond quips, "Everyone needs a hobby."

The British agent turned terrorist inquires, "So what's yours?"

"Resurrection," retorts Bond.

With that one word, the most famous agent of MI6 indicates his role in the most famous and important myth within storytelling, but he's not the only one.

Christopher Nolan's comic book trilogy captures the essence of the modern mythology. Batman is the Greek god for the 21st century. Broken, but powerful. Demi-god, but oh so human. Dead, but alive.

The conquering of the grave, both figuratively and literally, runs through all three Batman films. Nolan has his hero face the ultimate enemy – death.

Numerous times, through out the trilogy, characters die either symbolically, apparently or obviously, particularly in the last film, The Dark Knight Rises.

Those long thought gone reemerge to destroy Gotham. Batman ultimately decides the only way to save the city is through his own final act of self-sacrifice. Of course, the dead have a tendency of not staying dead in these films.

Why do characters from the unflappable Bond to the tragically wounded Batman tap into this idea? Why does this resonate so well with us? What makes this concept appealing and captivating?

It grabs us because we long for it to be true. Something within us yearns for the idea that death can be done away with. Why can't the grave become another defeated foe?

Nolan's Batman trilogy and along with Skyfall are part of a long line of stories that mimicked what C.S. Lewis termed the Christian Myth, the true myth. From his essay, "Myth Become Fact":

The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens — at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle.

Much of what we find admirable in Bond and Batman, we see perfected in Christ. They are the imperfect shadows in make believe of the perfect story in reality.

For Lewis, the resurrection serves a role as a myth, just as it does as a fact.

Just as God is none the less God by being Man, so the Myth remains Myth even when it becomes Fact. The story of Christ demands from us, and repays, not only a religious and historical but also an imaginative response. It is directed to the child, the poet, and the savage in us as well as to the conscience and to the intellect. One of its functions is break down dividing walls.

The Christian can appreciate Bond's hobby of resurrection and the Dark Knight's continual rise knowing that both are dim reflections of the truth of Jesus.

This does not mean that we should reject the films and stories that point toward the true myth. On the contrary, we should embrace them for what they are – signposts.

In discussing a little boy reading about an enchanted woods, Lewis said, "it stirs and troubles him ... with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted."

We do not have to despise the stories of resurrections, thinking they will confuse the audience. Actually, they stir up a longing for something real, awakening a desire for the true myth, for the God who does conquer death in dying.

Bond and Batman evade the grip of death on the screen. Christ has enabled us to, not just escape, but have victory over death. The myth is real.