May 26, 2026
The German silent film, Metropolis (1927), directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou, is a landmark work of science fiction that has had an enormous influence on cinema. Beloved franchises, such as Star Wars and Blade Runner owe a debt to this film. Although first released with mixed reviews, it has been later assessed to great acclaim.
Moreover, Metropolis has poignant religious imagery that connects with a particular social vision. The story set in a futuristic city with an enormous divide between the economic elite and the working class. Anticipating multilevel cities like Coruscant in Star Wars, the workers live in the depts of the city (die Tiefe) that benefits the wealthy and powerful on the surface. It also foresees a coming age of which society is manipulated by artificial intelligence.
Theologically, I see interesting apocalyptic symbolism in this film, inspired by biblical revelation. This is not to say that the film is essentially "biblical," but it is a modern story told with this apocalyptic framework in mind. The central theme is the search for a form of mediation or a mediator (ein Vermittler) between the "head" and the "hands" that will unite the two economic classes. What is the "heart" that can unite the body politic? That is, it is a film in search of a Messiah.
As I was writing this meditation on Metropolis, Pope Leo XVI published his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity). The subject is Artificial Intelligence in the global economy. Like the aim of Metropolis, he seeks to articulate a "heart" that mediates between leaders in the tech world with their employees. In other words, as science fiction is no longer fiction, but now our lived reality, how do we respond as followers of Jesus?
The Tower of Babel
The story begins with Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), the son of prime executive and master of Metropolis, Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel). Freder lives in the Pleasure Gardens of the Tower of Babel, where he competes in sports and is given the choice of women to pursue.
In the biblical story, Babel represents a resistance to the blessing of God to "disperse and multiply" (Genesis 1:26-28). They decided rather to unite and build a tower to heaven with the latest technology, "Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth’" (Genesis 11:4). Rather than reflecting the image of God, they want to make a great name for themselves.
However, Freder's bliss is disturbed when the beautiful Maria (Brigette Helm) brings the children of the workers into Pleasure Garden to show them their "brothers." This is a social violation and the guards quickly remove her and the children from the premises. Nonetheless, the sight of Maria moves Freder. Who was this woman? What did she mean that he is a brother to these children? He then descends to the "deep," to where the workers run the engines that make Metropolis and the Tower of Babel work.
What Freder discovers there disturbs him more. It is not just that the workers run the machine. The machine runs them. They are a part of its mechanism. While there, he has a vision of Moloch as the personification of the machine, hellishly devouring the workers, as they walk monotonously into the demon's mouth. While the figure of Moloch is rather obscure in the Hebrew Bible (whether he is a god or the description of ritual sacrifice), here he refers to a demonic sacrifice of the innocent for the sake of the few.
This scene reflects the concern of the rise of industrialisation in the middle to late 19th century, reminding us of an earlier encyclical in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII entitled Rerum Novarum (“Of New Things”). This work too addressed the problem of the exploitation of workers.
Even the early Karl Barth, while a pastor in Switzerland, was actively engaged in the labour movement and adjacent unions, which fought for the rights of workers (See Eberhard Busch’s biography Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts).
As a Westerner, we might naively believe that these kinds of working conditions no longer exist. However, we live in a complex international "Metropolis," in a global market and economy. Much of the labour has been simply moved to other developing countries, where the sight of exploitation is removed from daily life and experience.
The Need for a Mediator
Freder travels deeper into the "deep" of the city to the ancient catacombs, where the workers gather to hear the message of Maria. She is portrayed as a prophet of solidarity. Certainly, she is, as one named Maria, an allusion to the mother of Christ. As she preaches, she is surrounded by crosses, symbols of the sacrifice of Jesus.
In her speeches, she illuminates the exploitive history of the powerful and wealthy, who create their Towers of Babel on the backs of the enslaved. Metropolis, therefore, is only a modern form and expression of a long tradition and history of exploitation.
As the workers gather around her in hope, Maria announces they are waiting for a mediator, who will unite the "head," with the "hands." What will bring together and unite the masters of Metropolis with the exploited workers? What will improve the lives of the workers?
What is needed is a "heart," which, of course, stands for compassion, love, solidarity, equality, and fairness. The heart unites the brain and the hands as one body. The brain must not exploit its own self, its own body, but most care for it. What can make the economic leaders of the society have compassion for and care for the workers in a way that maintains their dignity and humanity?
Interestingly, Pope Leo XVI makes a reference to the Tower of Babel in his encyclical with an appeal to a common humanity, "With the heart of a shepherd and a father, I ask everyone to abandon the construction of yet another Tower of Babel and to join forces in building up the common good, so that humanity will never lose its beauty, and the world once again will come to recognize the human heart as the place where God desires to dwell." This is a prophetic call to the executive leaders of the emerging AI economy.
As Freder listens intently to Maria, they both recognize that he himself, as the son of Fredersen, could be the "heart" that will unite the different classes in Metropolis. He even takes the place of one of the workers, exchanging clothes and position in an act of solidarity. He must first become one of the workers to truly understand their plight.
Artificial Intelligence and Manipulation
While Freder is listening to Maria, the scheming father, Fredersen, follows his son into the catacombs with the scientist and inventor, Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) and also hears of prophecies of Maria. However, he wants to a put a stop to this potential transformative workers movement. He endeavours to exploit the new technology, an artificial intelligence invented by Rotwang, to dampen their aspirations for a mediator.
However, Rotwang has his own scheme: an act of revenge against Fredersen, who stole his beloved wife from him. She died in childbirth, when Freder was born. Rotwang makes the Android in the image of Maria and gives her the assignment to seduce and distract the upper classes, while manipulating the working class to being a chaotic, revolutionary uproar. In revenge against the Fredersen, he intends to bring chaos to Metropolis.
Meanwhile, Freder hears the preaching of a Monk in the church about the apocalyptic whore of Babylon (Revelation 17-18). In that story, a woman named "Mystery" sits on a beast, seducing the nations. In biblical scholarship, this imagery signifies the city of Rome and its imperial influence politically and economically. But mostly it represent its spiritual corruption: it seduces people to death. What seems seductive is in reality a demonic beast. It is a horrid image of the grotesque masked in surface level beauty.
In Metropolis, the android Maria rides not the beast of Rome, but the seven deadly sins of pride, envy, lust, sloth, wrath, greed, and gluttony. What lies at the heart of the problem are the desires of the flesh. It is sin. The Android itself is used to proliferate evil desires and social chaos. She seduces and distracts the upper middle class of Metropolis through erotic allure, then descends to the catacombs and reverses the message of the real Maria, tempting them to revolt. The workers must destroy the machines, taking over the city in chaos.
However, what is neglected in the ensuing chaos is the children. The workers are possessed by revolt. They destroy the machines and the entire factory space begins to flood with water. Yet Freder finds the real Maria and together they save the children from the flooding. They heroically bring them to the surface. The future generations of Metropolis are saved.
Scapegoating: Burn the Witch
Who is to blame for this situation? According to the raging workers, it is Maria, the false prophet, who they do not yet realise is an android. They take her, tie her up, put her on a stake, call her a witch and burn her alive. However, to their horror, they see that it is not who they think it is. As the artificial flesh melts away, her metal skeleton is revealed.
Meanwhile, Rotwang chases after the real Maria. And Freder chases after him. The great battle between Freder and Rotwang occurs at the top of a church, as the workers, including Fredersen, watch in bated breath. Rotwang falls to his death. The film concludes with Freder uniting his father and workers, by the encouragement and prompting of Maria. Thus the prophecy is fulfilled. The Mediator is found.
Of course, this story, even as Fritz Lang suggested, is purely a fairy tale. In saying this, it is possible he was responding to the Nazi interest in the film. The propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, saw the Nazi party as the mediator between the head and the hands, the economic elite and the working class.
He also saw the power of cinema to propagate Nazi ideology to people in the culture. In a later, also infamous film, Triumph of the Will, the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler is portrayed as a workers movement, forging a better destiny and future for the German nation. However, that film avoids naming the real scapegoat of the Nazi's, the Jewish people.
Or is the scapegoat the capitalist? From a Marxist perspective, the problem is the master of the city, Fredersen. Revolution is required to set up a socialist state of the Proletariat. Perhaps Fredersen and Freder should have fallen off the roof! The revolution simply needed to be better planned and organised rather than the chaos unleashed by the android.
Still it begs the question: Will the wealthy, capitalist leaders of the Western world truly develop a "heart" for the working classes? Will the divide between rich and the poor dissolve? And who or what is the real cause of this economic divide?
Moreover, how might the story help us interpret the emergence of artificial intelligence today? Who are the Fredersens and Rotwangs? It is interesting that Rotwang's original motivation is to somehow overcome death, bringing back the memory of his lost love. That is, there is a desire for transcendence. But the technology quickly becomes a battle ground for dominance and control.
For example, in the news recently was a lawsuit between two of the largest tech giants in the United States. Elon Musk accused Sam Altman of violating the initial non-profit humanitarian intentions of OpenAI. Of course, the lawsuit was mostly a competition among the rich and powerful for control and dominance. There is a lot of stake in the global economy with respect to AI and the adjacent technologies necessary for it.
What is the responsibility of the likes of tech leaders and politicians? Where will this AI arms race lead us?
And what is our responsibility?
The Way of the Cross
Certainly, a reading of Pope Leo XVI's encyclical is helpful. In it he propose a humane vision rooted in the image of God that aims to mediate between "head" and the "hands." There is a real attempt to imagine how AI could develop in a way that really does benefit society. How might AI be used to help develop a "civilisation of love?"
However, in light of Metropolis, we should pay more attention to the monk preaching in the church. That is, the real problem lies in the desires of the flesh. This is an apocalyptic crisis. There are real people that stand behind digital technologies and manipulative advertising that exploit the weaknesses of the flesh. That is, the technology is designed to keep me addicted to their media. It is constructed to keep us distracted. Our attention is the commodity.
Moreover, Freder too represents a Christlike figure, as he descends into the deep and exchanges his life for the worker. This points to the need of a substitutionary sacrifice, a radical divine act of solidarity. But the true Mediator is not the son of a capitalist, but of a Jewish carpenter. Jesus of Nazareth took our place in solidarity, having resisted the power and allure of "Babylon" and the seven deadly sins. He is the Lamb of God, the foundation of a new and better city: the new Jerusalem.
The true way out is not just to transform Babylon, but to renounce it, "then I heard another voice from heaven say: ‘ “Come out of her, my people,” so that you will not share in her sins.'" (Revelation 18:4). As we see in the film, we must renounce the deadly sins that are pervasive in our lives and too often mediated through technology: pride, lust, sloth, greed, envy, gluttony, and wrath.
One way to practice this is to spend time in solitude with God through the Gospel. To find time daily where we are unplugged from technology, reflecting on the story of scripture, listening for the voice of God. What if we meditated on texts such as Revelation 18, where we see the "end" of the Babylons of the world?
What would it look like for international tech and business leaders to renounce all forms of exploitation and genuinely put the concern and health of workers as well as "consumers" at the forefront of their values as companies, even for those who live in developing nations? This does not assume there are no exceptions, but what if it was the norm?
And what if we too as these "consumers" learned to resist and renounce the desires of the flesh, as proliferated to us through social media and now artificial intelligence?
Taking up our cross and crucifying the desires of the flesh with Christ is one way we can resist the emerging Tower of Babel. But let us also mediate on Revelation 22. For we are invited into a new eternal society that is rooted in Christ, a new "pleasure garden" that comes from God himself.