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Robin Hood with Russell Crowe

I found this movie fascinating. It tried to give the historical and political underpinnings for the real person, if he was real, Robin Hood. I liked it, even though it rarely referred to the Christian faith of the parties who pressured King John into signing the Magna Carta. In fact, the only one relying upon God was King John, who referred to the divine right of kings. Thus, the movie shows the skewed view, no, the ignorance of the modern world: That the only Christian influence upon history was in favor of tyrannical kings, while freedom was something invented by humans, not instilled in humans by the gospel.

This is why the modern, secular world opposes Islam while embracing it and tolerating it. It doesn’t understand the source of freedom is in religion. Islam must be tyrannical politically because that is its root – tyrannical religiously. “Behave, or else!” is its motto. Christianity says believe and you shall be saved – before you ever behave, in fact, after you have royally misbehaved. Therefore, humanism is helpless before Islam. It says, You Muslims are human; therefore, you must love freedom. But that ignores the fact that they love slavery, or they would believe the gospel, which promotes freedom. But freedom is terrifying to the slave, unless born again.

Thus, while I liked the attempt to put Robin Hood into a fuller historic context, I found it lacking in the Christian history that so pervaded the 11th and 12th centuries.