lewisdwilliams on Nostr: I’ve recently been making a concerted effort to watch as many things as I can ...

I’ve recently been making a concerted effort to watch as many things as I can around the subject of Christ as a part of my recent interest and desire to adopt his ― or rather His ― teachings (along with any and all reading I can do). One of the film’s that I was reminded of was Martin Scorsese’s Silence, based on a novel from a Japanese Christian. The story follows two Portuguese priests as they smuggle themselves into Japan ― during a time when Christianity was outlawed and anyone caught preaching it or professing their belief in it was forced to apostatise else be tortured and executed ― in search of their old mentor who has reportedly denounced the Christian God publicly during his own mission there.

I believe I would most effectively convey the essential essence of the film by describing it as a Christian’s 1984. For in a similar manner to Winston whereby his determination to never stop loving Julia is subverted through physical and psychological torture, the foreign priests undergo such a torture of their own determination to never stop loving and thus imitating Christ ― and with similar results (I was reminded of Huxley’s discussion of conditioning by physical torture and terrorism in Brave New World Revisited, namely by the Chinese communists ― a collection of writings I would recommend anyone read, even in lieu of having read Brave New World). Like what made O’Brien’s torture of Winston so sinister being that he did, however unexpectedly, ultimately succeed in getting him to genuinely lose his love for Julia, and irreversibly, by getting him to give her up and beg, genuinely, for her to take his place in Room 101, subsequently replacing his love for her with a love of Big Brother (“We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves”), so too does the Japanese inquisitor succeed in getting the foreign priests to lose their faith, replacing it with their own; but in their case by turning the Christian ideals of protecting others from suffering and putting oneself in their place, as a martyr if necessary, in on itself: by torturing, killing, and martyring others ― rather than the priests themselves, as they would come to have expected, accepted, even wanted (for it is the ultimate imitation of Christ) ― according to their willingness or unwillingness to apostatise. This subversive method of torture is quite the reversal, a turning inside-out, of the story of Christ’s crucifixion; and it is this that the foreign priests ― and we the audience ― have to wrestle with: is denouncing Christ in the name of imitating Christ in keeping with what Christ taught, or would have taught had he been the subject of such devilishly intelligent methods of torture? One finds themselves inevitably asking ― of course ― “What would Jesus do?”

As much as Christ’s sacrifice was a trial (superbly, gruesomely ― the most gruesome thing I’ve ever watched in fact ― reenacted in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, which I also watched recently; although I am quite sure one does not need my testimony to consider watching that), the most brutal one anyone could undergo in the name of their faith, conviction, love for their friends, family, humanity, and so on, the trial that the foreign priests are subjected to is of a radically different, more sophisticated kind. It is more of a psychological trial than a physical one, for the physical torture that is being done is being done to someone else in one’s stead, and with one being denied what they would have come to have expected to be their opportunity for martyrdom in such circumstances completely throwing their moral calculation of what to do into disarray, this works to inflict on them an immensely powerful psychological torture (one which works by turning what they would have thought to be an impenetrable defence against such evil into a weapon against themselves ― a weapon of their own making). And this is the true evil of the “mind-manipulation” ― to borrow Huxley’s phrase ― employed by the inquisitor. While Christ’s crucifixion is a demonstration, through all of its gore and barbarity and inhumanity, of the ultimate act of love and glory and triumph as Christians conceive of it (in non-violently resisting tyranny by using the horrific torture and murder of one’s own body, as Christ did, as a symbolic example in order that no one else has to experience such a fate ― but also to force the perpetrators to grapple with, morally, the horrors they are inflicting or supporting being inflicted on a defenceless man ― in the hopes that such defiant love will overcome the hate that seeks to destroy its physical embodiments; an equally subversive psychological tool, but of the best, most positive kind, that has been employed by every pacifist and every pacifist movement since the time of Christ), martyring oneself is much easier for one to wrap one’s head around, wrestle with, come to accept, than the martyring of others in the name of one’s commitments, one’s principles, even one’s faith and commitment to God (hence the inquisitor’s ultimate success). And honestly, had it been Jesus facing such a trial, I believe that Christ would have apostatised too if it meant preventing the suffering of those who followed him; whether or not one agrees with me (or the priests) is up for debate, but that is the moral dilemma the film leaves us with once the credits roll.

With all that said, I would highly recommend the film, Christian or not ― it is a fascinating analysis of morality, evil, and the human condition. I endeavour to read the book when I can.

https://youtu.be/IqrgxZLd_gE?si=f5IB9-aTdOHEkmLh