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The
AMC Theater was full of young adults Friday night. They must have been seeing Moana
2 or Gladiator 2, because a smaller crowd was assembled with us
viewing Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin. (Google.com
reports that on November 29, Moana 2 had grossed 109.6 million, Gladiator
2 314 million, and Bonhoeffer 5.5 million.) There is a time for all movies, but make sure you
make time for Bonhoeffer as well. It is excellent. This is the poignant
story of the German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and martyr who wrote 38
volumes and continued to write even in prison. In the film, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
life comes in streams of flashbacks set alongside his being imprisoned for
speaking against the self-styled “savior” of the church, Adolf Hitler, who
replaced God’s word and its Jewish writers with his human word, Mein Kampf, and
turned Jesus from a Jew into an Aryan. Several times in the movie, Bonhoeffer
repeats selections of the beatitudes, including: “Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed
are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:8-10 NRSV). Bonhoeffer himself is portrayed as “pure
in heart” and “persecuted for righteousness’ sake” as he speaks forth for
“Christ without religion,” not “religion without Christ.” These words must be
understood in light of Bonhoeffer’s times, when the German church at first was
not speaking up against its takeover by Hitler.
The
point that we kept seeing and hearing was “not to speak is to speak” and
“silence in the face of evil is itself evil.” We were reminded of Solomon’s
words: “Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain are the righteous who give
way before the wicked” (Prov 25:26 NRSV) or “If you faint in the day of
adversity, your strength being small; if you hold back
from rescuing those taken away to death, those who go staggering to the
slaughter; if you say, “Look, we did not know this”—does
not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your
soul know it? And will he not repay all according to their deeds?” (Prov
24:10-12). During Bonhoeffer’s time “those who go staggering to the slaughter”
are the Jews and those who stood up for them. One cleric in the film confesses
that he did not complain when the Jews were taken because he was not a Jew. In
contrast, Bonhoeffer complained and he was isolated by many but commended by
others.
Aída
was reminded of her Dutch father’s story. He was sent before World War II to
Latin America by the Curacao Trading Company for a limited time. But when the
war began, the Netherlands government encouraged him to remain in the Dominican
Republic so that business could continue should Holland be overrun by Nazi
Germany. Sadly, his father died, starving to death in the attic of their house
outside Amsterdam when some Germans took it over as their headquarters. Though
unable to help his own father, my father was able to participate in the war
effort even being far away in another hemisphere. A boatload of Jewish refugees
was traveling from country to country trying to find one that would accept
them. My father was serving as consul of the Netherlands at that time, being an
employee (controller) of a Dutch company. He welcomed the refugees and worked
to give them visas to enter the Dominican Republic. The United States then had
a limited amount of Jewish refugees it would allow in, but the Dominican Republic
welcomed all Jewish refugees and offered them land and financial help.
Ironically, the Dominican Republic had its own dictator, Rafael Trujillo. But
his prejudice was against dark Haitians and Dominicans. (He meanwhile powdered
his own face to look light in public!)[1]
Each
of us listeners must ask ourselves, is this the time when I must speak up? What
is the worthy cause where I must stand up and not give way? At its core, this
movie is about the Church and all its members’ duty to fight evil but the
reluctance for either often to do so.
Written,
produced, and directed by veteran filmmaker Todd Komarnicki, the narrative centers
on racial prejudice in both the United States and Germany and skillfully uses
our main character’s life as a synecdoche, a microcosm of what these nations
were enduring. Clueless about the vast evil of prejudice when he first visits
New York during the Harlem Renaissance his consciousness is raised as he meets it
face to face only to return to Germany and find it is infesting his own home
country as well.
Bonhoeffer
is a theologian claimed as its own by both the left and the right. Sometimes
his writings are difficult to categorize. We can understand that now. He was
trained as a liberal theologian in Tubingen and Berlin, however, because of his
friendship with the African American church in Harlem, he made a personal
commitment to Jesus. The film powerfully portrays his relationship with the New
York Abyssinian Baptist Church. The Black pastor asks those assembled around a
table: “Where were you when you met the Lord?” adding that Jesus is always with
his people. Bonhoeffer declares: “I want that!” He wanted for himself his life
transformed by the presence of the living God.
In
the film, after Bonhoeffer meets the Lord in New York, he is portrayed as a
Christ-type. In the film, he teaches 12 men in the seminary,[2]
he leads in communion 12 prisoners, and prays before his death that he be
delivered, even as Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:42). His
life ends gloriously as he awaits entering Jesus’s presence.
In
closing, Bonhoeffer is a film well worth watching, excellently acted,
and creatively filmed. It is not a visual
sermon. Rather it is a gripping movie that speeds along like a spy flick where
danger is at every turn and the dire consequences of right actions are as swift
as the blow of a sledgehammer. It is a powerful film about a legendary figure
today but a courageous young man of his day who died in his thirty-ninth year. Thank
you to Angel Studios for the courage to research and produce it, a film about
Christ’s genuine followers as we look forward to celebrating Christ’s birth.
Aída
and Bill
