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Thursday Review

Subject: A review of the movie Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace

(Thur. October 3, 2002)

(Approx. 1400 words, 3 pp.)

On giving the last full measure of devotion and duty

(but)

Too often we don't even give the first full measure? We don't even sign up?

For Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazis Germany the test of his Christian faith and of his life in the New Covenant and even the test of the death to his self-centered existence was to stand up against Hitler's Germany, almost a lone voice of truth in Germany and in the church of his day. It cost him his life. He could have sat out the war in American, but he chose to go back into the lion's den, and he was eventually arrested and executed shortly before his concentration camp was liberated.

Bonhoeffer is portrayed in this move, Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace, as something of an inept spy but committed to Germany and to truth, justice, and righteousness, and to God in Christ. He was an amazing man when you get right down to it. . . and brave, brave indeed to get caught up in all of this when it could have been so easily avoided. Be silent and go along, or simply flee, but this modern day "Paul" insisted on going back to Rome, and even to possible death.

Why did Bonhoeffer speak out, and put himself at such risk? I think for a man of character when something is wrong, if you cannot say it is wrong, what can you do? Or what will you do? Albert Camus once remarked of our modern times (we paraphrase from memory): "It used to be bad deeds that one had to justify, but today it is good deeds." Bonhoeffer, as the original Christians, refused to take the absolute loyalty oath to Caesar, or in this case to Hitler as "god," and he would not so instruct his students to do so. People may argue whether he was ultimately more of a spy or a Christian martyr in the traditional sense, but it really hardly matters which? But probably much more a traditional martyr than a conspirator.

This is a very powerful movie, and for some reason, it seems like it would be boring, but in actuality it is completely the opposite as Mr. Bonhoeffer without gun in hand confronts almost pure evil with little chance of ultimate victory. Quite rightly, this flick won a best film award at the Monte Carlo Television Festival (whatever that is). It is a very simple movie about a minister with the courage not to go along with Hitler, but it is intense, very intense, and very well done and moves quickly, very quickly to the inevitable end. The hammer drops again and again, from one scene and crisis to another, and success and escape almost come time and again. But, in the end, it is execution we know from history, even from the start of the movie, and we can say we all have to go down some way, so we might as well all go down swinging, and go down living and speaking what we know to be right, and true to what we believe in our heart of God and his love, peace, truth, and righteousness?

This movie has it all, even a love story for the dear Pastor Bonhoeffer. The elements of the story are sincere love, moral clarity in war, conviction, truth, justice, righteousness and what is truly good, and what we are put on this planet for, not your normal Hollywood themes which are usually more just "let's have another affair or explosion, and another affair or explosion, etc." My goodness, what real art we create in America? No one in America can wait an hour and half or certainly two hours to consummate their relationship in sex in most movies, let alone wait for a wedding ceremony? I wonder why? Maybe we should ask a love expert or daytime TV sex doctor? I think we should really stop and ask ourselves how American movie making got so screwed up, and what we can do to change it, or should we not?

At any rate, this move has it all: love and war, truth, faith, and conviction to the end, (and what a touching "affair" he had, at least according to this movie). With all of this what more could you want? It is actually a very suspenseful movie, pure intensity, good in the face evil, and, again, it is about good that you know will die when the film starts. And, in fact, according to this movie, he almost escapes conviction, but alas, things fall apart, and the center cannot hold, and mere anarchy is loosed upon his world. The final act has him caught at the last moment and to the gallows he goes because Bonhoeffer is caught or at least associated with the famous plot to kill Hitler or at least the people in the plot, and then all is lost. One escape plan or another is postponed or fails, as the blood dimmed tide is loosed upon the world. Why he did not go and talk to the Allies in his last chance, I cannot see exactly, was not all lost at that point anyway? Obviously he did not want to be an official "official of the Nazis"?

Bonhoeffer, Agent of Grace ends with Bonhoeffer's final "sermon" (if you can call it that) in a bombed out church to a handful of prisoners just before he is to be set free. Bonhoeffer gives his prophetic vision of true Christianity and belief in God for the future after the war: "In the future. . We will need a new form of Christianity at a time when the world has come of age. . we need more than just religion in the formal sense, we need faith (in God) and Jesus Christ at its center. Real Christianity means sharing each other's pain (and) . . when the world is changed and renewed, there will be a new language . . . . liberating and redeeming as was Jesus' language. It will shock people. It'll shock them by its power. It will be the language of a new truth proclaiming God's peace with men."  This "sermon" ends, and Bonhoeffer then goes home to be with the Lord, quite unexpectedly, as it is portrayed in the movie.

In any case, the prophecy is that the world finally finds a personal faith in God through Christ, and it will liberate and redeem us as mankind. This is not a general vague spirituality without the reality of sin, man's fall, repentance, and salvation, but in fact it is a Christianity which is the very New Covenant fulfillment of New Testament Christianity for all mankind in love, peace, and reality. In short, Bonhoeffer speaks not of a simple belief in God generally but, rather, clearly of a fulfillment of the New Covenant relationship found in God's redeeming and liberating righteous love for mankind in Christ. However, as the old expression goes, and it was certainly true in this case, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country."

Bottomline? The message of this movie?