The Anonymity of Ideology

This Saturday I watched one of my favorite films again; V for Vendetta. Every time I watch that film I learn something new about our society and the lives we live. For those of you who haven't seen the film I strongly recommend watching it because it's bloody brilliant.

In the film the government controls ever thing and everyone, and a masked man who calls himself 'V' decides to do something about it. He does this by creating chaos in rather brilliant ways. Toward the end of the film he sends out hundreds of thousands of masks, the same mask he wears, and allows people to pledge their allegience to him by wearing them. The people who receive these masks believe that they are now part of something bigger than themselves and launch themselves into chaos. By wearing these masks they adopt V's principles and rules and are thereby no longer bound by social morals.

This got me thinking about Christianity and the church as a whole. It's easy for us to say "Well, the church has made mistakes in the past" and not take any responsibility for it, when the truth is that it was people who made those mistakes and in order to make things better for ourselves and others we need to carry the can now.

At the same time, people like to believe things that work for them and when they are questioned why they reply "I'm a Christian". That type of response is not only useless but it demeans the person trying to get an answer and it makes you look like a dickhead because you can't string more than one doctrine together.

And this is where the problem comes in for me. I actually don't want to be associated with the church or Christianity simply because the average church goer doesn't ever think about anything but rather takes what they can and hides behind the term "Christian" or "Church" because up until now it has worked for them. They think that by adopting the term "Christian" they are becoming part of something bigger than themselves, which isn't the case at all. They also think that in order to become part of this 'larger entity' they need to adopt a way of thinking which is only partially true.

But by not associating with those people I suspect I am doing more harm than good. Not only because the church is God's plan, but also because I am not improving anything at any stage, and that's not right.

So where do we draw the line? Where do we say "I can't be a part of this" and where do we say "I need to make a difference?" I'm not sure if people's perception should be making a difference in our lives, but by not associating we are doing harm, and that's not the plan. I think it's a journey everyone needs to make, and making a difference is almost always worth the work. One has to have integrity and rely on our own decision making abilities to find where we draw that line.

I suspect that if we were to stop worrying about perception and think more about truth and people, we would stop doing harm and start making a difference...