Religion plays a prominent
role in the film, Lykke-Per, or A
Fortunate Man (2018). On the surface, Peter Sidenius, a young engineer,
must navigate around an old, entrenched government bureaucrat to secure
approval for his ambitious renewable-energy project. The two men clash, which
reflects more general tension that exists everywhere between progressives and
conservatives regarding economic, social, religious, and political change. Although
pride may be the ruin of Peter and his project, the role played by religion is
much greater than pride manifesting as arrogance, if indeed it is arrogant to
stand up to abuse of power, whether by a government bureaucrat or one’s own
father.
Peter’s dad is a Christian
pastor whose meanness to Peter belies any claim to know God’s judgment as well
as to have an authentic Christian faith. Kierkegaard’s chastisement of the Lutheran
clerical hierarchy in Copenhagen in the nineteenth century by emphasizing the
need and primacy of subjective, inner piety resonates in this film. In fact,
Peter’s angry reaction to his dad’s meanness when Peter is leaving home to go
to college is similar the reaction that Kierkegaard must have had to hardened
clergy in his day. Peter’s father begins by saying that although he gave money
to Eybert, Peter’s older brother, when he left home, “you will get no money.”
Adding insult to injury, the malevolent father gives Peter a watch that Peter’s
grandfather had given Peter’s father. The “strings” attached to the watch that
undo the giving spirit that runs throughout the Gospels is his dad’s hope that the
watch will “sooth your hardened heart and open your stubborn mind.” Just in
case Peter misses the point, his dad notifies his son that he is on the “road
to perdition.” Peter is right, of course, in calling out his dad for his “cold
intolerance” and “false piety.” That his dad demands an apology without having
apologized for insulting Peter and then slaps his son’s face hard reveals the
Christian minister’s abject hypocrisy, which we know has been longstanding because
Peter says that he felt “like a homeless stranger” growing up in his dad’s house.
Faith without love is worse than naught. Interestingly, after being slapped,
Peter tells his dad, a Christian minister, to hit him properly. It is as if
Jesus were saying to the Roman guard who scourging Jesus, lash me again—this
time do it properly. In retrospect, Peter’s line anticipates his integrity
and spiritual nature that come out as the narrative evolves.
Peter can be excused from rejecting
his dad’s deity even though Peter has no idea that the Jesus in the Gospels
would reject the hypocritical piety of the judgmental and hateful pastor. “Get behind
me, Satan,” Jesus would likely say to Peter’s dad, and to Peter himself, Jesus
would likely advise, “kick the dust off your sandals” and don’t look back. Peter
has no idea that the Jesus in the Gospels is innocent and yet willingly suffers
by judgmental and hateful men who are like Peter’s dad.
Following the death of Peter’s
dad, Peter’s mother less harsh though just as judgmental when she meets with Peter,
as if she, like her husband, were omniscient and thus entitled to judge their
son’s soul. She presumes that her son has rejected God, when in actuality Peter
has rejected his parents’ conception of God, and for good reason. His
mother, unlike his father, however, grasps from the Gospels the value of
humility and selfless love, and she is clever enough to urge Peter to be humble
and selflessly love other people rather than demand that he recite the Nicene
Creed. I suspect that his mother’s softer message of humility and selfless love
is what enables Peter in grieving the death of his parents to face and reject
his own sin of pride.
Peter asks the Christian pastor who officiates at the funeral of Peter’s mother for forgiveness for having hurt so many people. In the humbly asking the pastor for forgiveness, Peter accepts and values the Christian message underlying the Incarnation in the Gospels, where God’s selfless, or self-emptying love (agape), is in God becoming lowly flesh in order, again in selfless love, to redeem humanity from itself, and especially its pride. In other words, Peter does not need to make a profession of faith by reciting the Nicene Creed. In fact, that pastor, who associated with Peter’s dad when he was alive, abandons Peter by walking away rather than comforts the young, grieving son who is literally on his knees begging for forgiveness from God through the pastor. “You can cry more if you want to,” the callous cleric says as he turns to walk away as Peter is still kneeling. That pastor does not absolve Peter, or even say that God forgives him. But this is not necessary, for God is present not in that pastor, but, instead, in Peter’s change of heart that is triggered by his grieving. To be sure, Peter may go too far in his embrace of institutional Christianity, for he deeply hurts Jakobe Salomon, his fiancée, by breaking off their engagement because she is Jewish and he now views himself as officially Christian. Perhaps in grieving his parents, Peter internalizes some of their judgmentalism, which, along with omniscience, is associated in the film with institutional religion.
The irony may be that Peter, who dies a few years later from cancer even though he is younger than 45 or so, may go to heaven whereas both of his parents are likely in hell, but, lest I fall into the trap of presumed omniscience like Peter’s parents, I must remind myself: who am I to judge those characters? I can only stand perplexed as to the staying power of the stubborn presumed rectitude of Peter’s parents while I admire Peter’s willingness to confront himself spiritually to the point of willingly putting himself in a vulnerable position, literally and figuratively, that reveals the hurtful hardness of heart of yet another Christian pastor besides Peter’s dad.
Confucius (Kongzi) said, "A cap made of hemp is prescribed by the rites, but nowadays people use silk. This is frugal, and I follow the majority. To bow before ascending the stairs is prescribed by the rites, but nowadays people bow after ascending. This is arrogant, and, though it goes against the majority, I continue to bow before asccending." The Analects 9.3
