“I am Legend,” Atheism, and the Theology of Zombies

This past weekend I took my teenage son Ben to see the movie “I am Legend.” Will Smith movies involving humanoids are always a little tongue in cheek - movies like “Men In Black,” and “Independence Day.” But I found “I am Legend,” disturbing, even downright scary. Not suspenseful like “Signs” but just plain ole scary.

I think it was the zombies that made it so disturbing. I confess I kept my eyes closed during most of the warehouse scene. I did see the part however when the zombies were all clustered together in the corner with their backs to the camera jostling for just the right spot away from the light like bats in a cave or bees in a hive. For reasons I don’t understand, that just creeped me out.

The zombies were creepy because it was as if the Divine Spark (I mean this in the “image of God” sense) that occupies humanity had been lifted from these “night seekers.” The zombies were human without the human element. Even though outside of Hollywood zombies don’t exist, yet in a Darwinian world, zombies would be quite plausible. If humans are only flesh and blood, mere products of biochemical reaction and mutations, spiritually dead and perhaps even soulless, then zombies would no longer be a genre of fiction but part of the evolutionary line. After all, it was the zombies that thrived and nearly killed off the weaker race in the world portrayed by "I am Legend."

Fortunately, I am not exposed to a lot of zombie movies and I don’t know how the zombies of “I am Legend,” compare to other zombies, or Rob Zombie for that matter. As a teenager I saw both “Dawn of the Dead” and the “Omega Man” at a drive-in on the same night. By the way, the “Omega Man” and “I am Legend” are both adaptations of the 1954 novel by Richard Matheson, a guy I never heard of until I began reading up on “I am Legend.” (Right now “in my head” I can hear Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries belting out the chorus from their hit song, “Zombie.”) Sorry for this side track. Back to the train of thought.

"Omega Man" movie poster, Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries and Rob

There were also some strong positive spiritual elements in “I am Legend,” specifically the ending. (Warning: Plot Spoiler). When Will Smith’s character Robert Neville discovers the cure that would make the zombies human again, the zombies continue their assault on his Plexiglas-encased basement laboratory. Robert Neville kept screaming, “I can cure you! I can save you!” But the zombies didn’t even know they were sick and were intent on killing the only one who could make them whole again. Perhaps this is a stretch, and I am certainly not equating Will Smith to Jesus. But for me it was reminiscent of Jesus when He says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were unwilling,” Matthew 23:37.

Moments later Robert Neville does give his life so that the human race can be preserved. And the cure was in the blood! Again, you can accuse me of reaching. But Caiaphas’ words of substitutionary atonement rang in my ear, better “that one man die for the people and that the whole nation not perish,” John 11:50.

Surely an atheist may say, “But wait! Will Smith’s character said he didn’t believe in God. This movie illustrates that it does not take a belief in God to do great moral acts.” Perhaps so. But the fruit of atheism, particularly in the last century, was responsible for more deaths than any other world view and the body count greatly exceeded the Crusades and Inquisitions, both of which will always be perennial black eyes on the Christian church. But, and this is important when we dialogue with the critics of Christianity, the Crusades and Inquisitions went against the teachings of Jesus Christ of the New Testament while Nazism and Communism were the results of natural selection of the atheistic worldview. Selfless acts of self-sacrifice are few and far between in a “survival of the fittest” world.

Even Fredrick Nietzsche, who 100 years ago, gave us the phrase, “God is dead,” also predicted that because God is dead, because man no longer has a use for God, that the 20^th century would be the bloodiest in history. He was right. Atheism can only bring us death.

Nietzsche: "God is dead"

“I am Legend” ends with one man giving his life so others could live. In light of this another point needs to be made: Have you ever noticed that the themes of redemption and atonement are so prevalent in our movies? These themes resonant with the human psyche as if we were pre-programmed with a leaning toward these ideas. This is the point John Eldridge makes in his book, “A Sacred Romance.”

And Jesus Christ’s laying down his life for sinners and His enemies is the epitome, the highest expression, the ultimate example, of the ideas of redemption and atonement which seemed to be scripted onto our souls. Why do we today in our modern age simultaneously express redemption and atonement in our art yet ignore it in the Incarnation? Reimbrandt, Michaelangelo and others did not struggle with this contradiction; however we seem to embrace this contradiction. It is as if this story of Jesus is written on our hearts yet in our modern society we cannot face it or acknowledge it -- as if we are like Will Smith wandering in the dark warehouse; we know what’s there but we really hope we don’t find it.

If we take the Christ out of Christianity then we merely get another man-centered, works oriented religion; a Savior-less religion is zombie-like spirituality. Something is there, certainly, but we know it is not spiritually living. Perhaps this is why Jesus, facing the physical death of one of His good friends, says, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,” John 11:25.