Strength Through Unity, Unity Through Faith

In the graphic novel turned blockbuster V for Vendetta, Alan Moore gave us the bitter phrase “Strength through Unity. Unity through Faith.” This battle cry is used as a rallying ideology of subjugation not unlike “If we don’t x, then terrorists win.” It becomes a unifying force to create more of a chasm between the evildoers “out there” and the good guys, who are obviously those of us of faith in something pristine and magnanimous. This faith, in the movie, is always spoken of, but only in tones of bravado as the backbone of their nationalism.

Religion has always been a unifying focus from the earliest days of the global myth of the Great Tower of antiquity to the recent debates about public healthcare and marriage rights. Of course, a people who are unified for a common ideology and move accordingly can be a powerful force. The unfortunate thing is that they also tend to be a mass of people who are easily manipulated, given the right circumstances. One thing history shows us is that few people, if any, are immune to that kind of coercion.

Most often Religion has, as its central focus, faith in something outside of oneself. Theoretical faith in a God becomes practically traded for faith in a leader. From there it is a small step to imagine the power that corrupts well meaning individuals; those who were once passionate about something that moved them, become impassioned for moving others. Those who were inspired become the ones who inspire. Where they once followed something inside of themselves, they deny their followers the same liberty and usurp their individual thrones within, demanding instead that they follow him.

The cleric becomes the god. Men, in turn, trade faith in themselves for faith in another. And, of course, as Jack Parsons wrote in Freedom is a Two Edged Sword, “Man has a right to be a slave if he so desires. If he does not assert and defend his rights he deserves slavery....his protestations are those of the hypocrite.” (p. 6)

The irony of it is this. This type of mental and psycho/spiritual slavery should never be the mark of an evolved, master people. Every man and every woman is a star in orbit around the sun. We have each been given an Inmost Light that provides direction, morals, character, dedication and Truth. The great men of faith in history were never satisfied to take their cues from others, but looked within themselves to interpret their interaction with God. They trusted not in the “word from on high” as given through someone else. No. They saw evidences of their own experiences with God. They heard his voice for themselves. They saw his manifestations. They moved on those without the aid of the local cleric who carefully administered Truth as it made sense within their dogma.

Those great men of faith were not special because they possessed something the rest do not. They were great because they listen to things we pass over. Moses. Jesus. Joan of Arc. Madame Guyon. St. Francis of Assisi. Fenelon. John Dee. Henry Cornelius Agrippa. Gandhi. Thomas Payne. Thomas Jefferson. Aleister Crowley. The list could go on. These are all men and women who paid attention to that Inmost Light and their legacies are some of the greatest of human history.

So Faith, in this sense, can be a wonderful thing. The object of that faith, however, is what makes the difference between a faith that is powerful and a faith that is flaccid and impotent. This is how the issue of Unity through faith can unravel and grow into an intricate cord of strength or a precariously braided pattern of control.

It is true that there is strength in unity and that unity comes from faith. Those two sentences I began with are, indeed, powerful and in the context of the movie V for Vendetta, they were quite sinister. However, they need not be. There is a strength and unity that can be a beautiful and liberating force. The difference comes in where the faith is found that gives birth to that unity.

Think of the equation in reverse with Strength as the product of both Unity and Faith.

Faith x Unity = Strength.

If the Faith comes from a sense of slavery to something outside oneself the Faith would present itself as a negative integer, so it becomes negative. So the equation would look like this

-Faith x Unity = -Strength

I realize it is a bit convoluted to use these phrases and the mathematical process this way, but it helps to illustrate my point so I’m going with it. The negative value of faith (since it’s really not faith in anything but someone else’s sense of faith) becomes the directional factor of the equation, deciding if the strength will be negative or positive. So in this sense, if the people’s unity is based on everyone’s faith in something or someone else, then their strength isn’t really that strong. That is why a totalitarian leader puts structures in place so that the people must always rely on him. This keeps their faith in him in a negative capacity, thus yeilding a strength which is more a facade than anything else. It’s not strength at all. In fact, it becomes the mathematical opposition of strength which is dependence and impotence.

However, with that same equation, if the people’s Strength is the product of a Unity which comes in a shared sense of Faith in the individual. Ah. This is where we get the foundation for revolution. This is where the real turning comes from. In the movie V for Vendetta, it was displayed as V inspired Evey to find that light within herself as she was imprisoned by him. In turn, the populace gained the same sense of faith in their own sense of justice and power that became inspired when the people witnessed the terrible tragedy of the young girl being shot.

History is replete with examples of this kind of Faith and Unity which are the truest factors in the equation which yields true Strength. Look at the Velvet Revolution of the Czech Republic, or at our own American Revolution. Look at Martin Luther, sometimes accidental revolutions are even more powerful than strategized revolutions. Look at the power and revolution brought about in the 60’s through the efforts of men like Martin Luther King, Jr. but began with a simple woman who decided to listen to her Inmost Light and refused to sit in the back of the bus. She inspired an entire culture to action. And their action wasn’t based on their faith in her, or in Dr. King. Their action was based on their faith in themselves, that they were deserving of more.

The seeds of revolution are planted deeply within the soil of the Unity. However, they are watered only by each individual as they learn to rely on themselves and listen to their own conscience. In this kind of Faith, Unity and Strength are weapons of might borne for the purpose of Liberty. But Liberty can only be a result of this kind of Faith. What results from the negative sense of Faith as spoken of earlier can only be described as a form of “godliness but denying the power thereof.” It parades around like liberty, strength and a sense of faith in God, but it is nothing less than enslavement to some other man who continues to devise and refine systems of subjugation.

In faith, we were born. In faith, we will die. In the lifespan between, faith should be our guiding purpose and our fuel for existence. How we define that faith, however, is what makes the difference between whether we will be men and women of greatness or men and women of slavery.