00-heaven?
What would Jesus say to James Bond?
Dave Crofts, 6th December 2006
Most of the articles on this website tackle serious issues - some of life's big questions - things like "Where's God in a world of suffering?" or "What does Christianity say about other religions?" So asking "What would Jesus say to James Bond?" might seem a little bit trivial, almost a bit of a joke...after all, James Bond is just a fictional character, so it's not as if he and Jesus will ever get to meet.
But I think it is a legitimate question to be asking. Let me tell you why. As a Christian, I believe that the Christian message is relevant to the whole of life, not just the bits that you might label as "religion". And that means it's relevant to the cinema - which means it's relevant to James Bond. We can legitimately ask "What would Jesus say to James Bond?"
It's obviously also a very topical question to be asking - the new Bond film, Casino Royale, is currently dominating the pre-Christmas blockbuster season, so everyone's talking about James Bond. If you haven't seen it, it's well worth a watch - and this article shouldn't spoil the plot too badly...
And I also think that it's a really interesting question to ask - simply because James Bond is such a cultural icon in today's society that by asking "What would Jesus say to James Bond?" we're actually able to think about what Jesus says to our culture, and even to ourselves as individuals within that culture. Which makes this a really relevant topic - much more than just idle speculation.
So hopefully that's got you persuaded that reading this isn't going to be a waste of your time. What I actually intend to do is answer three questions really: "What is James Bond like?", "What do we like about James Bond?", and then, finally, "What would Jesus say to James Bond?" Would it be heaven for 007?
So what is James Bond like? Here's my list:
James Bond is good-looking. James Bond is blond - for the first time, as Daniel Craig takes on the role. And I have to say, he does an excellent job. He's convincing in the action sequences, convincing with the Bond girls, convincing in the dialogue - I think he's got a great career ahead of him. But that's beside the point...I should continue my list...
James Bond is heroic, often against all the odds. He's a maverick. He's fiercely independent and doesn't play by the rules. He can be reckless and he's certainly a risk-taker, but his risks pay off. He's smooth, witty and stylish. He's great with the ladies. He's resourceful, successful and determined. He's brave. He's agile. He's fit. He's England's most powerful weapon against international crime.
Casino Royale gives Bond a chance to demonstrate all those qualities in abundance, in the bad guys he kills, the women he beds, the one-liners he drops and the improbable victories he achieves.
It's not an approach that is always popular with his colleagues - M describes him as "a blunt instrument" and he gets accused of "risking millions of dollars and hundreds of lives in a game of luck" - the poker game at the heart of the film. But boy, does he get results - as one of his female conquests sighs, "Why can't nice guys be more like you?" "Because then they'd be bad," is Bond's response. "But so much more interesting," she replies. And another Bond girl is no less glowing: "If all that was left of you was your smile and your little finger, you'd still be more of a man than anyone I've met."
It seems that the cliché is true: all men want to be him, and all women want to be with him.
But why? What is it that we like so much about James Bond? What is it that makes him such an iconic figure - someone we even aspire, at times, to be like - and, if we've got the right computer games, can actually play at being?
Well, we could probably list a number of things, but I've picked out two that I think are absolutely central to Bond's appeal, two things that, if either were taken away, would leave Bond a pale imitation of the all-conquering super-spy we know him to be: his independence and his success rate.
Bond is incredibly independent. Now, that might partly be because he has some trust issues, but mostly it's because he just doesn't need anyone else. The guys back at MI6 seem to spend most of Casino Royale just trying to keep tabs on him - he's off making his own investigations, getting into (and out of) his own tight situations, taking his own decisions - often in casual disregard of official rules or orders. At the end of the day, he's the one calling (and indeed firing) the shots.
And we love that, don't we? We're thinking, "Yeah James, you don't need to listen to those stuffed suits back at HQ - you've got this bad guy nailed! Go get him!"
And then there's his success rate. OK, he sometimes makes things a bit hard work for himself - but that only makes his successes even more spectacular. Down the course of his career, Bond has despatched dozens of villains with a 100% success rate - no-one gets away with it when 007 is on their tail. He always gets his man.
And he always gets his woman too - they seem to melt in his arms like chocolate under a blowtorch. Even in today's post-feminist society, Bond is still racking up the notches on the bedpost. It's an impressive (if slightly alarming) success rate.
And if you took away either of those things - his independence and his success rate - he'd be no kind of hero at all.
If he was incredibly independent and a total maverick but always got things horrendously wrong, he'd be a total liability to the British Secret Service, a figure of fun - or, worse, a figure of tragedy. Plus the Bond films would be a whole lot shorter, because he'd be killed off by the first henchman he cracked a joke in front of.
And if he was a really successful spy who always followed orders to the letter and never deviated from the agreed plan, he'd be no fun at all. You wouldn't pay to watch a film about a spy who saves the world by doing what he's told.
Independence and successfulness. Two things we love about Bond. But why do we love those qualities? Well, I think it's because they're qualities we all want to possess ourselves. We all want to be independent, and we all want to be successful.
The desire for independence and success is right at the heart of our society. It explains our ambition, the emphasis we place on careers or qualifications, the fact that so much of life is results-driven and performance-based. Following rules is seen as a sign of weakness, and breaking them a sign of strength. We put huge amounts of time, effort and money into being able to stand on our own two feet, acclaimed as successful people by all those around us.
And James Bond is a product of that culture. Indeed, you could almost go so far as to say he embodies that culture.
Of course, this desire for independence and success is there in us on an individual level too. Bond's rebellious streak appeals to our own rebellious streak - we all like to bend the rules a little bit, especially if we think we can get away with it, and even more so if we can justify it as being in a good cause. OK, we don't get chances to do it in the spectacular ways he does, but the difference is only one of scale. We still like to think we're the ones who are ultimately in charge of our lives.
And so much of our own self-esteem is often tied to how successful we are - we don't measure it by how many bad guys we've killed or plots we've foiled, but we might measure it by how many girls we've pulled, and we almost certainly measure it, at least at times, by how many exams we've passed, how much money we earn or how many friends we have.
So - now we're getting to the sharp end of the matter - what would Jesus say to James Bond? What would Jesus Christ's verdict be on this fiercely independent and incredibly successful individual?
Obviously I've got to speculate to a certain extent, because there aren't any stories in the gospel accounts of Jesus' life where he met up with any spies. But we do have, in the Bible, reliable accounts of numerous encounters Jesus had with various individuals - some of whom were pretty successful and independent. They weren't James Bond, but they had the James Bond mindset - a mindset that, as we've seen, we often share... So I think we can have a fair guess at what Jesus might say to James Bond.
Of course, the obvious thing you'd expect would be for Jesus to take the moral high ground and tell Bond, "Well, you could start off by not killing as many people. And follow it up by not sleeping with many women. Don't treat life as cheaply - and don't treat women as cheaply either." Or words to that effect. And you don't have to read very far in the Bible to see that Jesus would have that kind of verdict on those areas of Bond's lifestyle.
But that's not where I want to focus. I want to focus on these two elements of independence and success - these things that we so highly prize in James Bond, these things we wish we shared with him.
And in respect of those, I think Jesus would say this: "Even the most independent and successful hero still needs to be rescued."
Let me expand on that. Jesus once told a story about a man who was very successful and independent - it's in Luke's gospel in the Bible. I'll read it for you.
"The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to myself, You have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.'"
You see? There it is - success and independence - he has done well for himself and wants to live off the fruit of it. Let's continue...
"But God said to him, 'You fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'"
And Jesus concludes his story with the words:
"So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God."
That story is a warning against many things - greed, materialism, but also a preoccupation with success and independence, so it's massively relevant to what we're talking about today. And what it tells us is that no amount of success and independence in this life can deal with humanity's greatest enemy - something bigger than any Bond villain - death.
In fact, the Bible is clear that there is only one person who can deal with death: Jesus himself. It's a huge claim - but it's substantially backed up, because Jesus himself, after dying on a cross, rose from the dead to prove once and for all that he'd defeated it. When faced with death, even the most independent and successful hero still needs to be rescued - and Jesus' remarkable claim is that he's the only rescuer capable of doing the job. In fact, if you wanted to put it in spy terminology, that was the objective of his mission.
It's interesting, I think, that at at least two points I can think of in Casino Royale, Bond needs to be rescued by somebody else. He might be exceptionally courageous and resourceful, but there are two points in that film where he is completely beyond helping himself - if you've seen it, you'll know what they are (and probably be wincing inwardly at at least one of them). For all his independence, he is entirely dependent on others. He has done all he can, and the only way he will survive is if someone from outside comes in and rescues him. And I don't think it's spoiling the plot too much to say that, thankfully, someone does.
And whilst it would be ridiculous for me to claim that they're there to illustrate this point, I think those couple of incidents are helpful in reminding us that even the most independent and successful hero still needs to be rescued.
So ultimately, I think Jesus' message to James Bond, doubtless amongst other things, would be "Even you need to be rescued - and I'm the only one who can do it."
And if that's true for James Bond - a fictional character - how much more is it true for us? Real people, for whom this issue of death is a real concern - even if it seems for many of us like a pretty distant one at the moment.
We can, as we've seen, pour all our efforts into emulating the success and independence of a James Bond. But ultimately even we need to be rescued. Which really raises the stakes as far as taking Jesus seriously is concerned.
I don't know where you're up to in your thinking about Christianity. Maybe you've been looking into it for a while - in which case, I'd say keep going. And make Jesus Christ the focus of your attention. Or maybe you're just dipping your toe in the water - you wanted to read something entertaining about James Bond and all of a sudden you're being made to think about death. It's all got a bit serious and scary. Well, if that's you, then I hope this has made you think, but more than that I hope it'll make you act and look a bit deeper into these things.
Please do go and see Casino Royale if you haven't already - it is good entertainment if nothing else. Enjoy watching Bond be independent and successful - it makes for a good film. I guess all I'm trying to do is persuade you, as you watch it, to keep an eye on the bigger picture...