While hanging out with my family by the pool, we discussed creepy billionaire vaxxer Bill Gates buying up all the fertile farmland in the United States. For what nefarious reason Bill Gates is buying this land was up to anyone’s guess. Could he be preparing for societal collapse? Could he be trying to jack up food prices? Is he trying to permanently replace the food supply from organic, fresh ingredients with even more processed gunk and bug meat? Who honestly knows? Long gone are the days when Naboths refused to sell their inherited vineyards. Instead, today’s Costco Americans would gladly sell the land their fathers fought for thirty pieces of silver.
My family and I also discussed how Bill Gates would be able to survive if the world went to hell and we ended up in a dystopian hellscape. Now, my brother reasoned that Gates would indeed survive in a dystopian nightmare as he would hire a private army like most billionaires do. But my galaxy-brained argument is that money (or at least the American dollar) would be pointless in a wasteland when you have no food, no weapons, and no resources. Bullets will replace the American dollar. And besides, can we honestly say these billionaires would lead an army through a Mad Max-style environment? Warlords and strong men will roam the Earth. Who would you rather follow in a dystopian hellscape where there is no electricity, no running water, and no internet? Bill Gates or a warlord like Lord Humongous?
Mad Max is a dystopian movie series created by Australian director George Miller. The franchise’s first movie is Mad Max (1979), starring Mel Gibson, who plays the title character. Other titles in the series include Mad Max 2 (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), and the spin-off, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024). The series follows Australian police officer turned wandering drifter Max Rockatansky as he adventures into the wasteland of post-apocalyptic Australia. The world of Mad Max experiences societal collapse due to war and ecocide, causing critical resource shortages. As Max encounters survivors and pockets of civilization, he must make hard decisions on whether or not to help them or go his own way.
The movie series has been well-received, especially Mad Max 2 and Fury Road, both labelled among the best action movies ever made. Mad Max has also had a significant influence on the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction. Don’t be fooled, however. Mad Max is no 1984 or Brave New World. While there is a story, most of its narrative relies on the production, settings, and cinematography. One does not need a monologue or a soliloquy. Just seeing the series with your eyes explains the series. The dystopian wasteland of Mad Max is gritty, bleak, humid, violent, dirty, and depraved. The dystopian classics in literature explain with the written word, while Miller lets the cinematography do the talking.
There is no evidence that George Miller has faith in Jesus Christ. Born on March 3, 1945, in Queensland, Australia, Miller was a physician for several years before embarking on a career in film-making. In a 2023 interview with ABC Sydney, the interviewer asked if Miller had faith, which Miller hesitated to answer. Calling “faith” a tricky word. “Faith can be a noun thinking. If it’s rigid, then you’re in trouble.”
Miller talks about religion in terms of a collection of stories to help humans make sense of what they do not understand, like the seasons. Miller also believes in the “Universal Myth” theory:
“So you invented gods, often lots of gods. Sometimes it was one god to explain, and they were metaphorical, and they’re powerful, and important, because they give you understanding and comfort, and a way to find your way, navigate existence,” he says.
“The problem with dogmatic religious belief is that they concretise the metaphor.”
It would make sense that a quasi-agnostic like Miller would believe this, considering he is a storyteller at heart. This belief is what makes the Max Rocktowsky (and the Furiosa) character a memorable one. It is no mistake that the Mad Max series’ identity is Australian. The characters are gruff and gritty, much like the ancestors of Australia, and the continent itself is almost entirely wastelands. Australia also has a car culture, which is the primary mode of action with “road battles” in Mad Max. But even with these Aussie elements, Max is relatable enough that people from other cultures can identify with him. To the Japanese, he is the lone, vengeful samurai. To the Scandinavian, he is the lone, vengeful Viking. To the British, he is the lone vengeful knight. To the SJW, he is the lone trannie bravely flaunting his/her/zur’s stink-ditch to poilite WASP society.
This is much like the Bible, which features many characters relatable to the modern man. It is true that the Bible, or more specifically, the Torah, is primarily Jewish. After all, Jesus Christ is racially Jewish, but the Bible can relate to any tribe on Earth. Family units can relate to the struggles and turmoil of the Patriarchs of Genesis. Man can relate to David and his inner struggles with God. We can also relate to the apostles with Jesus’ ministry and teachings.
With the release of Furiosa: A Mad Max Tale, the series has been retconned in that the series is told by unreliable narrators called “History Men.” The History Men are a group of historians who chronicle the events and legends from after the collapse of civilization. The History Men are scholars, historians, teachers, and prophets all rolled into one. Due to rampant book burnings, they tattoo words and phrases onto their skin to preserve as much knowledge and stories.
Now, the Bible is a pretty long collection of writings, and no matter how good someone is at micro-calligraphy, no History Man can write the entire Bible on their body. But we have to ask ourselves, would the World, which is evil, really preserve the Bible after a catastrophic collapse of civilization? Followers of Jesus Christ know that the Bible has the very words of eternal life and have insight, hope, rebuke, and clarity about the condition of man and the redemptive plan God has for humanity through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We also know that the Bible is the stone-cold truth regarding the world, its sins, and the holiness of God. But does any of this matter to the worldly man?
Men indeed need to eat, and what is scripture to a man who is starving? But man cannot live on bread alone. Men need something to keep going and not lose hope. Men need the truth instead of BS. But the reality is that men love darkness instead of the light and will craft reality from their sinful delusions. Sure, knowledge about infrastructure will be tattooed on the History Men such as how to generate electricity, how to do agriculture, and maybe something like Sun Suz’s The Art of War. But afterwards, instead of the Bible, History Men will tattoo the entirety of Harry Potter and Game of Thrones on their bodies to preserve the unholy scriptures of the modern man. And even if scriptures are “preserved,” they will be edited and debased by perverted men. Genesis and Revelation will not be included; there will be no mention of sin or a call to repent. There will be plenty of universalist teachings and a complete removal of the clobber passages. If the church of today refuses to defend the Bible in peacetime, why should we believe they will in war time?
So with this in mind, the History Men tell the tales and legends from the wasteland of fallen civilizations. Could they be true stories? Or are they just made-up tales about the brutality of life? The truth could be somewhere in between. Max and Furiosa could be looked at in a similar vein as the legend of King Arthur in that the characters are an amalgamation of different stories, both real and not, rolled into one.
The first of these movies is the original 1979 Mad Max. The tale is an origin story for Max Rockatansky, aka Mad Max. Unlike the other films in the franchise, the original Mad Max was constrained by a budget and did not have the luxury of having huge set pieces and elaborate costumes. With this in mind, Mad Max is the most tame cinematically of the film series. Yet Miller does a brilliant job of setting the tone and pacing of the film with a simple story, vile characters, tragic “heroes,” and well-done car crashes and stunts and highly kinetic images. As Miller points out in an interview, Mad Max was a silent movie with sound.
The story takes place in a near-dystopian Australia. I point out “near-dystopian” rather than dystopian because society in Mad Max has not completely collapsed, unlike the other movies in the franchise. While it is vague why society is collapsing, most hints the movie gives are from oil shortages and ecocide. The movie was released during the 1979 oil crisis, when there was a worldwide energy shortage and unrest caused by the Iranian Revolution, which could have inspired the early plot. The dystopian Australia is dirty and grimy. Nearly everything is dilapidated, with the most dilapidated building in the movie ironically being Max’s police station. The Australian Government can no longer protect citizens, and the roadways are overrun by violent biker gangs. The poorly funded Main Force Patrol (MFP) is the main police force left to bring forth law and order, a group Max is a part of.
The portrait of the biker gangs is interesting in that most of them are comically childish and stupid, along with being ultra-violent. The opening scenes of Mad Max have a cop-killer named “Nightrider” along with his girlfriend escaping in a patrol car and causing mayhem and destruction until Max runs him off the road, killing both of them. This sequence has Nightrider and his femoid friend laughing minically like they were on meth and had an almost child-like glee to their violence. The same type of childishly psychopathic behavior is present with the rest of the bikers.
The portrayal of childish-violent biker gangs is much different than real-life biker gangs, whose members are sophisticated and have more structure than what is portrayed in Mad Max. It could be that Miller used something more along the lines of P.D. James’s Children of Men where the youths of the dystopian novel, called “Omegas” are violent, remote, and unstable and act like feral man-babies.
Often, the older generation will view the new generation as savages. I am sure the boomers of Miller’s generation viewed the up-and-coming Generation X crowd as drug-induced maniacs obsessed with sex and violence. While this is probably boomer paranoia, there is some truth to the idea of youths going mad, as the riots of 2020 have taught us. After all, if you were raised in an era full of false promises that became broken, no jobs, no careers, $666,000 in student loan debt for a worthless degree, no chance for a sane girlfriend, no chance for fatherhood, addicted to SSRIs, soy in the food, wealth-hoarding by elders, lack of empathy by the controllers of society, mentally ill women and children running the government, and above all us, lying pastors and preachers spewing false gospels, false hope and candy-coated Christianity instead of truth and a call for repentance, you too would buy a Harley-Davidson and go batshit on reprobate society.
The gang leader is nicknamed “Toecutter.” Toecutter is a complete sociopath as well as charismatic who relishes in the violence he causes. As strange of a nickname he has, the Bible records that the evil Canaanite king Adoni-Bezek would cut off the big toe and thumbs of his enemies until he was captured by the tribe of Judah and had his digits cut off the same way. The other major bad guy in the film of note is Toecutter’s underling, Johnny the Boy. Johnny is a young, impressionable kid with a childish phycopathic streak. Early in the film, he is arrested after the gang and himself assault a young couple. However, corrupt court officials deem him mentally unfit to stand trial and release him from jail despite protests from Max’s partner, Goose. That night, Goose, after a chase, gets burned alive by Johnny after being egged on by Toecutter.
So, on one hand, there are vile gangs like Toecutter and Jonny who have chosen the path of violence in a broken down world. These gangs get away with it from an even more vile and depraved society (aka, soy-ciety) made of karens, soyboys, SJW warriors, and shyster lawyers who manipulate the law (aka, the lawl) so dirtbags like Johnny can get off. Here, we have two extremes of society. The lawless, represented by Toecutter, and soy-ciety, made up of beta administrators who let the Toecutters of society off because of self-rightous indignation. In other words, this is just another day in the current Western world.
That leaves us with the main character of Mad Max, Max Rockatansky. Max is a man of few words. He is wildly accepted and respected by his peers as the best pursuit man on the MFP, yet he does not care nor mention his growing reputation. Max is a family man who has a young wife and child whom he cares about deeply. Throughout the film, he is weary of his police work and the growing violence of society. This comes to a head when Max sees the burnt body of Goose and turns in his resignation. When his captain questions him on his quitting of the MFP, Max is not scared of the violence per se, but is instead afraid he might become like the thugs that he pursues. After all, the only thing that separates Max and Toecutter is that Max has a badge that gives him the authority of force. Max’s captain ends up convincing him to take a break from the force to clear his mind.
However, while on a trip to the beach. Toecutter and his gang ruthlessly pursue Max and his family, ending up with Max’s young son being killed and Max’s wife being comatose. An enraged Max takes a super-charged Pursuit Special vehicle and systematically hunts down Toecutter, Johnny, and the rest of the biker gang and brutally kills each of them. All of this is done without the MFP’s authorization, turning Max into a fugitive. With that, Max drives into the wasteland of Australia, beginning the legend of Mad Max.
Max represents the decent, good man, trying hard in a dying society to just live and do his best. Max is law-abiding, does his job, has a family, he could very well be paying his taxes. Yet the civilized man like Max is pulled by two portions of scociety: Ruthless thugs like Toecutter who only believe in survival of the fittest, who get pleasure causing as much mayhem as possible, and gay and cringe lawyers, HR harpies, and busy-bodies who get pleasure from abusing their administrative power or twisting the law, letting criminals like Johnny off yet sticking it to people who do good like Max. The law failed Max and society rejected order that Max could offer. So what is Max supposed to do in this situation when thugs, gangs and the uncivilized take his family away and the law denies basic justice because the law is controlled by self-rightious jackasses and karens? Max does two things: he takes the law into his own hands, and after the deed, he forsakes society by heading to the wilderness.
Mad Max was a smash hit, grossing way above its budget and putting George Miller on the map as a director. With the rest of the Mad Max series, Miller earned a much bigger budget, allowing for more bombastic set pieces, bigger car chases, and a more outrageous diesalpunk aesthetic.
The rest of the series takes place after complete societal collapse. It is heavily implied that the result of societal collapse was because of nuclear war, causing critical shortages in basic needs and polluting the Earth due to fallout. The result is that Australia becomes more of a wasteland than it is. The most precious resources in this wasteland are water, food, ammo, and arguably most of all, petrol, which powers the remaining vehicles and infrastructure left. Oil refineries play a massive role in two sequels (Mad Max 2 and Furiosa).
Society itself has become more tribal than what we see in modern civilization. Biker gangs, mutants, nutballs, and feral children are what makes most of what is left of society. However, we see decent people trying to rebuild civilization despite the violent lawlessness and toxicity of the wasteland. Regardless, the setting of the rest of the Mad Max series is bleak, with a theme of survival of the fittest. Here, all the BS has been cut. It is only be survival, and often that survival comes down to who has the most gas, the most water, food, and ammo, who has the bigger vehicles, bigger guns, and bigger balls. Most of the tribes and gangs scavenge for supplies, often through violent methods, and some are lone wolves, just trying to survive this new reality on their own.
This leads to the principal struggle for Max in the rest of the series; As Max gets wrangled into the political manifications of these tribes, should he help them or go his own way?
Max eventually helps the various tribes he encounters in the sequels, but often, these are for selfish reasons, like the need for fuel and supplies. Every sequel’s ending has Max, after helping out a community of survivors, refusing to integrate back into society and instead going back to wander the Wasteland, increasing his legend.
Now, one has to ask why Max would reject society and refuse to integrate. Max is still tormented by the deaths of his friends and family; their specters haunt Max in his dreams and thoughts, but is this the reason to shun the world and instead choose the path to walk alone? We still see Max as having his humanity when he saved the feral kid in Mad Max 2 or refusing to kill Blaster in Beyond Thunderdome when it is revealed he is mentally handicapped. Max has honor and has the respect of many leaders he comes across who see his brave actions. Yet, Max is adamant about going back to the wasteland to fend for himself. The question is why?
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) – Mad Max vs. Blaster Scene (5/9) | Movieclips
While not as outlandish as the Mad Max series, the Bible points out God’s use of the wilderness as a training ground for men to rely solely on Him. Such examples include Moses, Joshua, Elijah, and even Jesus Christ. However, Max is hardly any of these characters. After all, Max’s origins are one of retribution and vengeance.If anything, Max is like Cain, who, after killing his brother Abel, was banished from society, settling in the land of Nod, east of Eden. But even still, Max was never banished from society, and instead, chose to go his own way and live in the wasteland as a wanderer, only helping others when it benefits himself.
Like many in the world, we have all experienced trauma and loss. Throughout the series, Max is haunted by the deaths of his wife and child and by the harsh realities of the world. This, in turn, has created a deep sense of grief and distrust in others. There is no bigger attachment for a man than from a child or spouse, and when those are ripped apart from you, you either be like Job and praise God despite being in the storm of life, or you become numb to attachment and refuse to have any connection ever again. All that is left is the will to survive. The survival instinct kicks in where self-preservation is paramount. Any form of connection will leave you vulnerable to the dogs, drug peddlers, sex pests, murderers, new age pagans, and hucksters roaming outside the gates of paradise.
Still, a conversation with his police chief in the original Mad Max gives us a hint of what could be going on with Max’s psyche when he worries that he will become just like the thugs he used to pursue and grow to enjoy the violence. Max has no more badge or authority to exercise law and order. All Max has is his police gear, vehicle, and what little shred of humanity he has left as he travels the wasteland. It is here that Max belongs. Max has all the capabilities to be a great man for society, but it is the desert wasteland where he belongs. He does not have to worry about protecting women, children, and those who can’t fight back. Max does not have to worry about being taken advantage of by society. It is where Max has to not worry about holding back violence against thugs who wish him harm. To Max, the wasteland dystopia is the only fair place because it is survival of the fittest.
Sadly, this is how many so-called followers of Jesus Christ go about their lives, even in the modern era when you do not have to worry about fighting biker gangs wearing hockey masks and fetish gear just for some unleaded gasoline or fighting mutants for some lettuce. Many, yes many, have chosen to “de-church” and refuse to participate in fellowship with other believers, instead going out in the wasteland of secular, debased, depraved, and perverted society, aka, soy-ciety where practicing good is evil and practicing evil is good.
Now, this might seem an extreme comparison considering we do not live in a dystopian nightmare in the image of Mad Max. But to the wise, we are living in a spiritual wasteland where people do right in their own eyes instead of following the will of God. The result is not only pockets of physical anarchy but spiritual anarchy as well.
Think of it this way; If your wife and child died and you are trying to make sense of a debased world, you are looking for answers, you are looking for truth, would you seriously walk into the modern church where they give you worldy solutions, and worldly theology instead of the truth and salvation through Jesus Christ? Men and women of ancient times did not go out into the wilderness to meet with a huckster, give you the secrets to your “best life now,” or give you worldly arguments. People went to the wilderness to meet with a Prophet who would cut through the world’s BS and give you the cold hard truth. Instead of a call for repentance and faith in God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the so-called church instead preaches like the world and gives only worldly solutions to worldly problems. Is it any wonder why some have chosen to go their own way in life and forsake the church?
If Max represents the good man broken down by the harshness of the dystopian society, then Furiosa represents the person born and molded by the dystopia. The Furiosa character appears in Fury Road and Furiosa, with the latter being a prequel and origin story. But much like Max, Furiosa is another “legend” of the wasteland told by the history men, and it is dubious if this legend took place.
In Furiosa, we get her origin story as a child born after the collapse of society. So, in essence, the dystopian world of Mad Max is all she has ever known. Unlike Max, who knew what the world was like before the collapse, Furiosa was born and molded by the world. This is similar to the Gen Alpha crowd, who do not know what the world was like before the Internet. In the first scene, Furiosa picks from a peach tree in the Green Place, one of the few remaining places in Mad Max that can produce crops. The hidden land also has forests, a stream of water, and grass. It is here where she calls home. This scene could be symbolism of Eve in the Garden of Eden and grabbing the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Green Place is controlled by Vuvalini of Many Mothers, implying that Furiosa was raised in a maternal environment with no male authority or influence. Furiosa is kidnapped by plunders, causing the Vuvalini to raise the alarm, and a character named Mary (implied to be her mother) chases after the bandits.
After days of riding through the desert, Furiosa’s kidnappers meet with their leader, Dementus. Dementus is first introduced wearing a prayer shroud and looking awfully like Jesus Christ. But the warlord of the Biker Horde is anything but Christ-like. Demintus is an amalgamation of the worst traits of Mad Max’s past villains. Dementus is brazen, charismatic, has low cunning, a disregard for his comrades, and almost has a childish immaturity that gets worse in the film. He rides a stylish chariot powered by motorcycles, giving him a regal flair. The only thing Dementus carries with him from his past is a teddy bear his children used to have before they were killed by the violence of the dystopian wasteland. So much like Max, he is a creature born from tragedy. But unlike Max, who is a loner and still has a sliver of his humanity, Dementus fully embraces the wasteland lifestyle. Dementus gives in to the worst parts of his humanity and becomes insane much in the same vain as Saul. He still carries the baggage and tragedy of his life through an innocent teddy bear; in fact, he wears it as a sleeve. He now uses it as a symbol of his rage and desire for power and control. Max hides his past and hurt, but Dementus uses it as fuel in his quest for power in the wasteland. So, in essence, Dementus can be an inverse of the Max character. While Max represents the lone decent man, just trying to make a living and survive, Dementus represents the unhinged internet troll doing his best Joker impersonation and making everyone’s life a living hell.
Mary eventually rescues Furiosa, leading the Biker Horde to pursue them. Mary gives Furiosa a peach seed and tells her to go back to the Green Place and warn the others as she distracts the Biker Horde, but Furiosa disobeys her mother and goes back for her. Leading Furiosa to be captured again and watch her mother be crucified. This is a pivotal moment, similar to Max watching his wife and child die. After this, Furiosa has a quiet rage bubbling within her towards Dementus. Dementus, in turn, “adopts” her. While captive in a cage, Furiosa tattoos a star guide on her right forearm that leads her back to the Green Place.
So, in essence, Furiosa’s story can be in a similar vain to Joseph’s story in Genesis. Instead of being sold by her brothers into slavery, Furiosa is kidnapped from her homeland and elders and about to go on a journey that will take her down different paths. But unlike Joseph, whose story leads to redemption and forgiveness, Furiosa’s story will lead to vengeance, retribution, and guilt.
In the next series of scenes, we are introduced to another major antagonist, and the main antagonist of Fury Road, Immortan Joe. Joe is the warlord of The Citadel and leader of a fanatical army called the War Boys. Joe is, by far, the most powerful villain in the series. The Citadel is a massive stronghold of rock towers that sit above an aquifer of fresh water. Not only does this give a natural defense to marauders, but fresh water provides much-needed irrigation to grow crops. Life at the Citadel is harsh and brutal, with most of its sickly citizens being used for slave labor. Those with valuable skills are afforded a middle-class lifestyle while the upper class enjoys more luxuries such as fresh air, vegetables, and other objects stockpiled in Joe’s biodome vault.
Joe’s army, the War Boys, is a quasi-religious military order in the same manner as the Vikings. They are completely loyal and blindly follow Joe, even unto death. The War Boys rub white powder on their bodies, giving them a more skeletal appearance. This is more symbolic as, due to the radioactive fallout, all the War Boys are dying of cancer, which is implied to be lymphoma, requiring blood transfusions. This gives Joe and the War Boys an almost Vampire-ish bend to their villainy as they hunt for wanderers of the Wasteland to harvest their blood.
Despite Joe’s status as a tyrant, there is a tragedy to the character. Joe used to be a high-ranking officer in the Australian army. This is hinted by several ornaments and worn-out medals on his armor. He is charismatic, talented in administration, and knows how to lead an army. Despite being determined, resourceful, and ruthless, the Wasteland lifestyle changes Joe completely, and he becomes the tyrant of the Citadel. His most defining trait is his obsession with fathering an heir for his empire. Joe keeps a harem of women enslaved at the Citadel to try and procreate a child with much failure. Joe has three sons, but they are either deformed or have mental defects. Now elderly, Joe is ravaged with sickness due to the harshness of the Wasteland and is close to death.
In a way, Joe is an evil reflection of Abraham, who himself desired a child with Sarah, who was barren. God promised Abraham a child despite Abraham and Sarah being elderly. Abraham believed and had faith that God would do good on his promise. Yes, Abraham did have Ishmael with Hagar by Sarah’s directions, but Ishmael was not the child of promise. That person would eventually be Isaac.
I found this part of Joe’s character fascinating and another reflection of Max. Max lost his family to the dystopia, while Joe can barely start a healthy family due to the dystopia. This is yet another reflection of the sign of the times. Because we live in a spiritual dystopia, some people have lost families due to the mass degeneration of morals and the pursuit of pleasure and hedonism. Sons and daughters will forsake families, often for the most ridiculous reasons, to pursue doctrines, ideas, and scams of demons. And then there are people out there like Joe, who can barely start a family at all due to feminism, social media mind pollution, the degradation of marriage by culture, and the hardness of men’s hearts.
The Wasteland is toxic and full of radiation. Yet, despite its toxicity, people still try to build civilization. Despite hardships, people still try to move on and rebuild. Joe is indeed a tyrant and an evil man. Yet, instead of throwing a party, playing video games, or twerking his behind on Onlyfans, Joe tries his best to rebuild civilization despite the harshness of his methods. There is no time to bellyache or whine and cry about the economy or doom-post on Reddit about politics. Civilization continues. Despite war, famine, and pestilence, men and women continue forward.
Dementus tries to take over the Citadel, which he fails. he eventually sets his eyes on an oil rig Joe gets his gasoline from and conquers the refinery. This sets up an uneasy peace between Joe and Dementus. Furiosa is traded to Joe in the negotiations to become one of his wives. But she escapes and adopts the persona of a boy and joins Joe’s army, climbing up the ranks. She eventually falls in love with a fellow soldier and both try and escape to the Green Place. But both get caught by Dementus. Furiosa’s lover is killed, and Furiosa escapes from Dementus but not without severing her arm containing the star map. The symbolism here is that through fate and circumstances, she is forced to cut ties from her past life. A massive Road War is triggered by Joe and Dementus, which ends with Dementus’s army being massacred and Furiosa finally getting her revenge. It is never explicitly stated what happened to Dementus, but the history men made up a fantastical story that Furiosa used Dementus’s still-living body as fertilizer to grow a peach tree from the seed Furiosa’s mother gave to her. What does this symbolize? I don’t know, but women and trees don’t go well together.
This sets the stage for Fury Road, where Furiosa, now a well-respected general in Joe’s army, escapes to the Green Place with Joe’s wives.
Joe’s wives are an interesting aspect of the film. They are five females, all healthy and capable of producing children. All five of them have different backgrounds, with some being kidnapped and others traded like cattle. They are all locked away in Joe’s Biodome at the top of the Citadel. The Biodome is the most luxurious part of the Citadel. It supplies the females with fresh air, food, water, and literature. In essence, these wives live a life of luxury compared to everyone else in the Wasteland. The wives are, by far, Joe’s most important resource, to the point he starts a massive road war when Furiosa escapes the Citadel with them.
According to official sources, the origin of the wives’ rebellion against Joe is due to their teacher, a History Woman named Miss Giddy. Her job is to culture the wives into reading, playing piano, singing, among other things. It is also implied that Miss Giddy teaches the wives feminist ideals and what life was like before the Wasteland when women had more rights in society.
Now, a lot can be said about this plot point. On one hand, Joe is an evil tyrant; there is no doubt about it. Joe takes advantage of everyone around him and is the perfect archetype of a sinister warlord/cult leader. Indeed, Joe takes advantage of his wives. But on the other hand, one cannot help but eye-roll at the lunacy of the wives’ rationality who are protected, well-fed, given entertainment, and other luxuries, and they threw it all away. Of course, this mirrors Eve’s temptation in the garden. Eve was in paradise and had the whole world, with only Adam and God above her in authority. Yet the serpent tempted Eve that if she ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, she would be just like God. Eve had it all, except for power, and the temptation for power and usurp authority is especially strong in the fairer of the sexes. Eve did gain knowledge and power when eating from the fruit, but at the cost of childbirth being agonizing, a rift in the relationship between males, and banishment from the Paradise of God’s presense.
Now, the Bible is infamous (or famous, depending on your perspective) for containing major characters with multiple wives. Jacob, David, and Solomon are a few. Of course, God’s original design for creation is one man and one woman in a marriage. However, because of sin and the hardness of man’s heart, polygamy was tolerated but never blessed. Polygamy was common in ancient times when unmarried women were often subjected to prostitution or slavery. That is why a husband or father was needed to give her backup and protection in the twisted and dark world she is in. This is why Laban tricked Jacob to marry Leah in the first place, to make sure Leah is protected under Jacob’s house. The ancient world was brutal. This was doubly so for women who could not survive an intense tribal setting like the ancient world without the backup of a husband. This is why God put in the Torah, provisions for widows.
Thanks to our modern era, women are the most protected and privileged they have ever been. They are the most well-fed and have more freedom than any other generation. But one can make a good argument that women of today are the most spiritually attacked of all generations. Just like in the Garden of Eden, Satan has been working overtime, spreading bad ideas, BS, and other modern nonsense to tempt females that they can become gods. Feminism, obviously, is one of the principle ideologies that goes against the Bible. When combined with the Sex-in-the-City lifestyle being promoted by demons in the gaystream media, and so-called social media influencers telling young women that it is wholesome to show your chocolate starfish on Twitch for $5 an hour, you have a recipe for societal collapse where the birth rates are plummeting.
With the help of Max, Furiosa and the wives escape Joe and head towards the Green Place. However, upon reaching the location, they discover that the fertile land has become a toxic dump, with only a few holdouts left. Heartbroken, Furiosa and the wives head towards the salt flats to look for another home until Max convinces them to take over a now undefended Citadel. Furiosa does this, and with the help of Max, they kill Joe and his generals in another road battle and take over the Citadel. A celebration occurs as Furiosa is made leader of the Citadel, while Max again disappears into the crowd to go his own way.
On the surface, Fury Road is a story about how the feminist spirit took over violent patriarchy. It is a tale about how a ragtag group of educated femoids and zany simps spray-painting their teeth did away with the old guard. Immortan Joe is the all-encompassing boomer, a crusty white male, dying, trying to hold onto an aging empire and an ideal. But he is overcome by the new and young who believe in a new way of doing things. Similarly it mirrors the church in that the next generation did away with the suit-wearing preachers of old like David Wilkerson or exiled hard pastors like Paul Washer who preached hard on repentance, personal holiness, and Christ-crucified to trying to be as relatable to people as possible by doing away with the suits and wearing t-shirts and jeans. Instead of repentance, they preach acceptance, and instead of preaching personal holiness, they preach tolerance. In a twisted sense, it is similar to how Jesus Christ did away with the Old Covenant, which was run by the blow-hard Pharisees of His time, to usher in a New Covenant of the ages, paid for by His blood and resurrection.
But Fury Road is also a tale about a usurper in Furiosa, who, for her quest for personal redemption, took over the old establishment to try and create a future for herself and the wives. And like everything in life, there is no right or wrong answer to whether she did the right thing. Yes, Joe had to be stopped, but now, Furiosa must live with the consequences. She now has no standing army at the Citadel. All of Joe’s advisors are dead. It is questionable whether or not Joe’s allies and partners will follow someone who betrayed Joe. The citizens are still sickly and dying, and if we are assuming that Furiosa will institute something like a democracy, there is no guarantee that she will stay in power, and civil war could break out. All this is compounded by Furiosa’s feminist ideals and upbringing in a near all-female society, which, as the movie points out, led to collapse. After all, are the wives going to hunker down and start producing healthy children to rebuild society? Or will they morph into the Modern Woman and pursue degeneracy? There is a chance Furiosa can become an excellent ruler in a similar fashion to Aunty Entity from Beyond Thunderdome. But even she knew she had to suck up to the man who was busy shoveling pig feces to keep the lights on. Will Furiosa have this same humbleness? Jesus Christ pointed out that the meek will inherit the Earth. It is doubtful the sickly citizens of the Citadel will survive a generation.
So, Mad Max gives an interesting thought experiment to modern Christianity and the Church. What would the Church look like in an environment like Mad Max? For starters, if there was a nuclear war, I doubt it would get to the point where civilization would crumble into a dieselpunk wonderland. If there is one thing men like, it is order and civilization. Even in the Bible, there have been apocalyptic events, and civilization went on. Noah experienced the Great Flood, and life went on. Joseph in Egypt experienced apocalyptic famine, but life went on. Life went on when Israel was exiled into Babylon. Life went on when Israel fell in 70 A.D. Life went on when Rome fell. But, that aside, we live in the most perilous of times with the Nuclear Age where mankind has access to weapons that can destroy the Earth many times over. All it takes is one madman to spark total annihilation. Of course, students of scripture will notice that fire is a constant theme of God’s wrath and judgment, especially when it comes to the Day of the Lord. 2 Peter describes how God will use fire to burn the heavens and earth to bring forth the new heavens and earth. Could God use WMDs to initiate this judgment?
But that aside, we need to be real with ourselves regarding the current state of the Western man. The fact is that the vast majority of people in the Western world, especially in America, would never survive 6.66 seconds in a tribal setting like the one depicted in Mad Max. Most of the human resources in America are morbidly obese, comically stupid, and have no survival skills other than what they learn through Minecraft. The average Costco American would be weeded out and die at extreme speeds. An HR department, white knights, keyboard simps, or preaching the gospel according to Anita Sarkessian would be turned to rubbish in the wasteland where survival is the only goal. Alphas will turn to betas. Betas will be turned into slaves. Karens, and Kevins would be executed immediately for their insufferable behavior. And people like Brock Lesner would rise to power as the real warlords of our time.
I am 100% confident the Church will be fine in an environment like Mad Max. In fact, the Church will thrive. Much like a hidden rose garden surrounded by brick walls away from the public eye, God will protect His bride from the evil outside in the world and take care of it like a gardener takes care of the roses in the private garden of a king. This is the church that is protected from reprobates, sex pests, jeezebels, pharisees, false prophets, drug abusers, nut cases, social media degeneracy, Hollywood, mainstream media, corrupt politicians, the self-righteous, and every strange flesh. You never hear about this church today because God is making sure his Bride is not corrupt before the coming of the Lord. What the actual question should be is what would the mainstream Western church look like in such a situation? The answer is pretty dire.
For starters, we will finally see who the hirelings are and who the real shepherds are. We will see who the sheep are and who are the goats. We will see who is real and who is fake. We will see who will stand by the church and who will not. The fact is that the Western church today has lost its sense of tribal identity. Despite our differences in culture, class, ideology, political affiliations, race, sex, and yes, even theology, Christians are united by one banner, and that is the banner of Jesus Christ who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But because the West lives in an era where there is no physical persecution, no hunger, and mostly peace, we are left to bicker among one another about trite issues while everyone is spiritually dying. The fact is, in a Mad Max environment, instead of being under the banner of Christ, many, yes many, will instead split up into tribes that have nothing to do with Christ. That is, if anyone has a community to go to in the first place. Online communities would vanish overnight, and communities you thought were communities would turn out to be vapor.
There will be pockets of true believers in the middle of the chaos, but they will be surrounded by people who have no affiliation with Christ at all Even worse, so-called “christians” who come in the spirit of Judas, aka, Jud-ass will backstab disciples of Christ for toilet paper or a bag of doritos.
This problem will be most damaging to Protestant Churches that have no semblance of leaders whatsoever. While Catholics have the Pope and Eastern Orthodoxy have their local fathers, Protestants have no real leaders whatsoever. Of course, I am not talking about the actual, real, God-ordained shepherds who God has placed to take care of his hidden rose gardens. But can the John MacArthurs, Tim Mackies, John Mark Comers, and Doug Wilsons of polite protestant christianity really lead their flock through societal collapse? Can we honestly say the reformed gas-baggers who believe in all 666 points of Calvinism or those who graduate with 666 college degrees in theological studies from Moody Bible Institute can lead grown-ass men in an environment like Mad Max?
This might be an unfair comparison. After all, most preachers are not called to be warlords or military commanders, but they are called to be witnesses to this wicked and adulterous generation. All preachers are called to preach the truth and call all men to repent and turn to Jesus Christ for salvation. But the problem is, are pastors/preachers doing this today? I tell you the truth, yes, prophets, preachers and pastors doing this today. But the problem is that society itself has rejected their messages. Just like in the era of the Old Testament prophets and just as Paul writes to Timothy, the time will come when society will reject sound doctrine and will follow preachers that will tickle their ears and will tell them what they want to hear. This is how hucksters like TD Jakes and Joel Osteen are so prevalent.
Now, if all hell broke loose and we all started having road battles and fighting for cabbage and gasoline, the Osteens and Jakes of the world would vanish into the aether. After all, the dollar bill would be useless in the Wasteland. The femoids who are in “leadership” positions in these churches would get kicked out of leadership faster than Athaliah in Judah and God will establish the Debrahs of the faith that actually give men respect. The homos and creepy sex pests plaguing the leadership of these churches would high-tail (or pound tail) it out of church to join other LGBT gangs to look for butts to bugger. The endless debates about Calvinism and free will will cease. The rift and debate about Postmillennialism will magically go away. The Bible degrees from so-called universities will be like filthy rags, and instead, those who have experience in prayer and fasting will be called for service.
In laymen’s terms, a Mad Max environment will be a good thing for the church because, just like with God and Israel and Jesus Christ and the church, they have to find out who is real and who is fake. God has sent countless trials to humanity since the Garden of Eden to reveal the true character of humankind. And time and time again, society has proved itself to be faithless. Because of society’s unbelief, God has to send judgements, trials, prophets, and strong men like the Judges to set society back on the path of righteousness.
That is not to say that churches will start doing road battles or raid villages and outposts. The church is called to be peaceful, with Christ’s followers trying to live their lives and be at peace with all men. But what these strong men God will raise up to tend to the church is making sure these churches are out of the world which is debased and depraved and instead be like the Green Place in Furiosa. Just a peaceful land doing their own thing and not indulging in the degeneracy the biker gangs or warlords do. These men God will raise up are not the strongest; they will have meek and gentle attitudes. They will look weak. But what separates these men of God from the boys will be their courage to say no to the World and the World’s definition of what good and evil is. They will make sure their flock and their minds conform to God’s definition of what good and evil is through the study of scripture.
Whether or not it was a “sin” for Max or Furiosa to get retribution is not really the point. Like most things in life, our fallen nature gets the better of us, and incidents happen. The fact is that these are broken people in an even more broken world. Furiosa lost her childhood home, her mother, and was thrust into being a soldier. Max brutally lost his wife and child and was forced to be a wanderer. The same thing goes for many other characters in the franchise.
The fact is, many, yes many, are living a life similar to Max in which they refuse to go back to society or even a body of believers and instead choose to live in the wilderness. This is especially problematic with young men who have chosen to check out of society completely, living the lifestyle of a gamer. Thanks to the pleasures of modern life, one can shut out of society in their one bedroom apartment and live a solitary life, only coming out when it benefits them or they have a need. Even worse, many so-called believers have chosen to “de-church” or shun church altogether. Even in the pagan world, communities are practically dead thanks to social media and the spirit of the age that calls for all men to distrust one another.
But, let’s back up and analyze the current state of the Western world and ask ourselves a difficult question: As men of God, what is there to fight for? God has given not only the Western world but the mainstream western protestant church over to a reprobate mind, to the point where not only do they preach that homosexuality is a good thing, but it is holy and should be celebrated. Divorcing your husband or wife because of “muh feelings” is the most loving thing you can do. Not fasting because of “muh food issues” should be honored, that not reading scripture and getting all your Bible knowledge from The Chosen is wise even though the scriptures are right there in your Samsung. A man cutting off his dingaling, putting on a wig, and calling himself a woman should be respected; in fact, he/she/zur should have a front-row seat in the pulpit. Having a child out of wedlock willingly should not be shamed but celebrated. Being addicted to pornography should not be taken seriously. The mainstream church looks like the world, sounds like the world and speaks like the world. And all the world spews is BS.
Even worse, because the Church is so obsessed with being seeker-friendly, many churches do not address the more pressing matters of the heart or some of the more uncomfortable issues of the faith. There is no call for personal holiness or what to do when you have a tragedy. The result is that many of the sheep in God’s flock starve. But the goats are surely entertained. Is it any wonder why many young men (and women) are flocking to Eastern Othodox Church, which has its own issues, too big to cover in this article?
But the fact is, this is the Bride of Christ. Are there problems in the church? You bet there is. But even if the Bride of Christ is weak and frail, that is no excuse to willfully exclude yourself from fellowship with other believers. Eventually, something has to give. Eventually, a time will come when God will call you out of the desert to perform bigger things than your monk lifestyle. A time will come when it is put up or shut up, and you have to let go of the past. There is a time and place for everything. There will be a time for mourning, but eventually, that mourning needs to turn to dancing. There is a time when you are at war with your circumstances, but eventually, you will need to be at peace with your circumstances and move forward with life. A time will come when God will call you for duty, and you had best be prepared because He comes at an hour you do not know.
A man cannot change the past. Nothing we can do can bring back the part of our souls we have lost due to the trials of life. Instead of blaming God for our circumstances, we need to let God be our healer with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and realize that God has stitched eternity on the hearts of men who know we are not built for this wicked and adulterous world but built for eternity in a new Heavens and new Earth where there is no death or pain. We only have two choices: Either we become God’s enemy and live in the past, pursuing the broad way of life. Or we repent, let God heal us, and enter in the narrow path which leads to life and rest.
But this is easier said than done. After all, Max’s idyllic family was destroyed. Why should Max follow God when God is in control of all things, and at the very least, ordained for it to happen? This makes the Book of Job so profound and frightening: Job’s lineage was destroyed, yet Job still had the power to praise God in his trial, even if he did not understand why these things happened. Can any man know the mind of God? We do not know why trials and tribulations happen in our lives. Why do people get cancer? Why did a friend die? Why did a divorce happen or this and that? But trials and tribulations show us what we are and what our character is.
And for many, yes many, they fail even the most trite of tests and end up cursing God and revealing their faith is very weak. Even in this current wicked and adulterous generation who claim they are “Christian,” they reveal they are faithless and children of the devil when even the smallest of tests come their way.
This leads to Abraham, the father of the faith, who for many years tried to produce a child with Sarah but could not and had to bear the shame and pain of being childless for years upon years. Abraham’s only solace was the faith he had in God, who promised him he would have a child with Sarah. Abraham could not see it, yet he believed God, and God credited his faith as righteousness. In fact, Abraham’s faith was so strong that when he had Isaac, he was willing to sacrifice his only son because he believed God would resurrect him from the dead. And indeed Isaac was resurrected from the dead.
https://www.gotquestions.org/life-Abraham.html
The point is that we have to love God more than anything else in this world. That includes family, wife, child, and everything else. There can be no idol in our lives because idols set us up for catastrophic hurt. But Max’s situation is different because it involves something wholesome and good, like a wife and a child. The cold fact is, no man moves on from hurt like that. Losing a wife and child you love dearly is the most brutal hurt a grown-ass man can go through. It is almost like your future is ripped from you.
I guess this is what the disciples and other followers of Christ felt when He was crucified. Watching the promised Messiah die, along with the hope of the Kingdom of Heaven, must have been gut-wrenching to those who witnessed Christ and His ministry first hand. Yet Jesus proved who He said He was by being resurrected from the dead on the third day. That not even death could conquer Him. And now Christ is the first fruit of a coming new age where there will be no more hurt, pain, or death to all who believe.
As human beings created in the image of God, we are only given two choices in life: We either repent and change our minds regarding our circumstances, or we willingly become reprobate and lose our minds, doing what is right in our own eyes. Yes, there are trials and pain, but we have to let God heal us. If we remain bitter, we will never experience God’s power and be transformed into His Son’s image.
Maybe this is all too much. Maybe we are truly living at the end of time, where the spiritual wasteland has made spreading the Great Commission such a pointless task that the only reasonable thing to do is to go monk mode and die. I am sure this is exactly what Elijah thought in his time when the OG Jezebel was Jeezebeling Israel into practicing Baal worship the same way the Jezebels running society and church are forcing us to worship the Holy Spirit as the mother-earth goddess or forcing us to take an enneagram test. What exactly is there for believing men to fight for when society has shunned and rejected them? It is easier to forsake society and try and build your own in the digital wastelands of Minecraft.
But we can flip this question another way and ask what exactly is God fighting for when humanity has rejected God completely and totally? The Bible is full of stories of how this loving God is constantly bombarded with rejection and unbelief. God has every reason to destroy humanity and make it new. But God is long-suffering and instead chooses to suffer for humanity. Instead of vengeance, God moved forward in His redemptive work through His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for the sins of humanity and give the gift of salvation to all those who believe in faith. God could have simply left his presence away from Earth and gone somewhere else to leave humanity in total spiritual darkness to craft their hell. Yet God sent His Holy Spirit to all those who believe in His Son to give His children a light in the darkness.
Elijah thought Israel was done for and lamented his failures, but God had to lift his spirit and remind him that 5000 did not bend the knee to Baal or take that Harry Potter personality test. Elijah had brothers who knew what was going on and did not bend the knee to Jezebel or the Baal-butt religion.
There is still hope even if the world is hopeless and spiritually dead. The mainstream media, social media, and media influencers want to leave you in the desert of despair and create an echo chamber of misery so they can make money. God wants you in the desert to train, comfort, teach, discipline, and prepare you for life. If God can create life out of dead bones and raise His Son from the dead, are we so faithless that He will not give us the strength to overcome any heart issue? He can give us new allies and new communities, turn enemies into friends and rekindle old relationships. If God can create everything out of nothing, and He can turn the most godless reprobate into a powerful voice for Him. If God has power over life and death, is it unreasonable to believe that God can even completely heal the broken-hearted in whatever circumstance they are in?
Jesus did not die for you to play vidya 24/7. Jesus did not die for you to doom-scroll on TikTok. Jesus did not die for you to post memes on Twitter or epically troll the libtards on Youtube. Jesus Christ died so that you may have life and have it abundantly. If we want to be like Jesus Christ, we must take the risk of being hurt. If we want to be like Jesus Christ, we have to pick up whatever burdens we have on our hearts and follow Him. God wants us out of the Wasteland and into the Promised Land of rest. But we first must trust God and follow his word through faith if we ever want to stop wandering in the desert and start seeing changes in our lives and environment.
There is one more theme in the Bible regarding the desert and the Wasteland. And that has to do with demons. The desert is often associated with demonic activity in scripture. Max, Furiosa, and the rest of the cast of the franchise can be looked at as demons. And the Wasteland is Hell. This is what Hell looks like. A place full of wandering souls, usurpers, warlords, the mentally unstable, and sex pests with no hope for the future. A place where men and women fight to quench a thirst that cannot be quenched and to fill a belly that cannot be filled. It is a place of selfishness and hatred. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of good, treacherous, rash, concieted, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denys its power. It is a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now, the characters of Mad Max at least had some spirit in them. Imagine today in the modern era with so many addictions and idols and a spiritually dead society, what would happen if a Mad Max event happened and all hell broke loose? That will be the day when men stop playing games with the faith and truly call upon the Lord for rescue.
Jesus Christ Red Pill 