Original photo by Dragonslippers

A moment of honesty first - I love this film. The original is fairly good, but the directors cut frankly is awesome. It adds a huge amount of material, and makes for a great evening’s entertainment. It also makes some very poignant statements that are worthy of note. As such, here follows five things that you can take away and apply to your life from a deeply cool film.

1. There is nothing that is unforgivable. Despite what some may say about fairness, the fact is that everyone has sinned. The Bible makes that abundantly clear, and to be honest, even if it didn’t, we’d still know it. Some of us sin more than others, and some commit sins worse than others, but at the end of the day, none of us measure up. The important thing to remember though, is that God’s forgiveness is absolute. In the film, in a fit of rage, Balian (the main character) kills his brother, a priest. Now, undoubtedly his brother had done him ill, and indeed some would say deserved it. Nevertheless, the fact remains that what Balian did was no good thing either. Despite that however, he goes on Crusade, risking his life repeatedly, to save the soul of his sister, and himself. No sin, no matter how heinous, is beyond God’s ability to wash away. Nor is the guilt it brings.
2. Doing right comes from a desire simply to do right. Soon after, we see Balian again kill someone, this time in self defense. The moral position of this is a little more cloudy, but I think must of us would consider this act to be non-sinful, due to its nature. However, what deeply impresses is the way Balian reacts after. Rather than killing the man he thinks is the servant of the man he’s just killed, he instead spares his life. He then asks the man (who turns out to be Nasir, a high level commander and protege of Saladin himself) to take him to Jerusalem. Upon arriving, instead of keeping him prisoner, he sets Nasir free, against the traditions of the time. He goes further too, giving him the horse he won as a trophy, and asks the slain man’s name, so he can pray for him. This so impresses Nasir, that he is moved to say ‘Your qualities will be known among your enemies before ever you meet them’.

   As it turns out, his actions then will later save him, when his life is in the hands of Nasir, in a reversal of their first meeting. However, Balian does not act the way he does, giving the man his freedom back, and the horse, out of any desire for gain. He does it simply because he knows what it is like to be a slave, and will not see another become one by his action. He does so because it is the right thing to do.

3. The right thing, and the hard thing, will often be the same. One of the bloodthirsty generals of the Christian army, Raynald de Chatillon soon attacks a Muslim caravan. In retaliation, Saladin brings 200,000 men to march on Kerak, Reynald’s castle. He would easily annihilate the entire force in the castle, and then move on Jerusalem, but for the actions of Balian. Sent to defend the castle, Balian takes his men (who are vastly outnumbered) and leads a cavalry charge against the enemy cavalry line. They are comprehensively beaten in short order, and the survivors are taken prisoner by Nasir. Returning the favour Balian once granted him, he lets them go back to Kerak.

   Balian does not defend the castle of Reynald because he cares for Reynald; Reynald (and Guy de Lusignan, his partner in crime) both hate Balian with a passion. Instead, he does it because if he doesn’t people will die, even though it will likely cause his own death. Similarly, you’re going to have to do things in life, not because you want to, but simply because they’re right. And in doing so, you’ll get hurt. Nevertheless, it’s still right. So do it.

4. You will see people do evil in the name of God. For as long as mankind has existed, we’ve set out to basically be pretty evil towards each other. And more often than not, they use God as an excuse. In the film, to rally the armies into going to war, Guy whips his troops into a frenzy, getting them all to shout “God wills it!”. What God apparently wills, is war with the Muslims. Somehow I find it hard to believe that that was what God wanted.

   It’s a sad fact that you’ll see all sorts of atrocities committed in the name of God. What’s worse though, is that it’ll invariably be men trying to justify things that they otherwise simply couldn’t countenance. They use God as an easy escape, turning the darkness of their desires and actions into “Divine will”. Do not let them break your faith. It is not God guiding them, but their own hearts. Hold on to your faith, and let them be.

5. Show compassion and forgiveness to your enemies. At the end of the film, Guy challenges Balian to a duel. The two fight, and Guy eventually loses out after a hard struggle. However, even though Guy has nearly caused his death several times, and actually tried to have him murdered once, Balian doesn’t return the favour. Instead, he lets him go, shamed and defeated completely, but alive. He doesn’t take the chance presented to him to rid himself of this tormentor. He grants the man reprieve. In the wonderful book “The Singer Trilogy”, Calvin Miller writes “Mercy (mer’ce) noun - The infrequent act of turning thumbs up on an old antagonist at the end of one’s rapier”. I think that’s a wonderful description for what Balian does as his final act towards Guy.

   People will offend you. Sometimes grievously. An acquaintance of mine recently put up a hotly debated post that I highly recommend you check out on the subject of “loving thy enemy”. It’s the hardest thing to do, and one of the few that really matters in life. Go read it.

Hopefully that’s given you some food for thought. Check out the directors cut of Kingdom of Heaven if you get the chance. You won’t regret it.