Forsaken

In an interview on the film, Forsaken (2015), Kiefer Sutherland remarks that the film is black and white in terms of the bad and the good guys. In other words, the film is a classic western. James McCurdy wears the “black” hat, while Rev. Samuel Clayton, played by Donald Sutherland, wears the “white” one (even though his clergy-wear is entirely black).  However, Samuel is hardly very nice, or forgiving, to his son at first. On the other side of the dichotomy, Brian Cox, who played McCurdy, said in an interview that his character has the virtue of business sense in that the man buys up area farms, albeit by ruthless means, because he anticipates that the anticipated railroad would drive up land prices. Nevertheless, that McCurdy is willing to take the risk does not justify killing farmers who refuse to be bought out. Michael Wincott, who played Dave Turner—McCurdy’s hired hand, said in an interview that he didn’t see McCurdy as at all grey; rather, his own character and John Henry Clayton, the reverend’s son, are grey in that both try to resist killing; they both know better and attempt to resist the temptation. Even such nuances from the traditional “black and white” western do not go far enough in describing the de facto religious complexity in John Henry. In fact, the screenwriters did not go far enough to capture a truly Christian response to even one’s enemies. Hence I submit that the film gives a superficial gloss that belies just how far a Christian much go to follow the teachings of Jesus.

John Henry Clayton admits to atheism to his father, who of course is a Christian minister. The latter explodes at the statement, which is made on the assumption that a benevolent God could not have allowed for the horrendous suffering in the U.S.A.-C.S.A. “civil” war in which John Henry fought. Why does God allow the innocent to suffer? Perhaps because they were fighting? Perhaps the very question is faulty in that it anthropomorphizes God. Soon it is apparent in the film that John Henry does believe in God and values Jesus’s advocacy of “turning the other cheek.”

John Henry does indeed resist the taunts and then physical attack by Frank Tillman, who works under McCurdy and Turner. John even does as Tillman orders in the midst of the one-sided fight. Viewers might harken back to the scene in Gandhi (1982) in which Gandhi continues to throw Indian-identity cards into a fire even as South African policemen repeatedly beat him for doing so. In both instances, the resistance is active rather than passive because of the restraint needed not to hit back. This sort of restraint can be considered a moral sort of strength. In terms of Jesus’s teaching and example, it doesn’t go far enough, and in this regard the screenwriters of Forsaken fell short in terms of their knowledge of Christian teachings.

In Paul: Apostle of Christ (2018), both Paul and Luke (with Paul’s urging) agree to help the sick daughter of Mauritius Gallas, head of the prison in which Paul is being held prior to execution. Gallas has had Paul whipped repeatedly, and yet when Paul hears of the worsening health of Gallas’ daughter, the apostle urges Luke, a physician, to heal her. Luke is at first very reluctant (to put it mildly), but Paul tells him of Jesus’ teaching that God’s love is for everyone, and a follower of Jesus is called to this even in cases of helping enemies (or even just one’s detractors and rude people). Whereas self-restraint from hitting someone back is admirable ethically, Gallas’ reaction to Paul and Luke having cured the daughter is something else—something more than mere respect of their morals. Gallas begins to ask them about their faith. That is to say, going a step further here crosses from morality into the domain of spirituality. Jesus’ teaching to help even those people who have caused much suffering and harm is so far from the dictates of the world that something more than moral force must be involved. Such is the Kingdom of God, according to Jesus; it turns the world on its head, rather than merely being more moral strength in the world. Turning the world up-side-down is so radical that it implies an orientation beyond our realm; that is, a transcendent orientation that relativizes the world. Herein lies the difference between “merely” turning the other cheek and proactively helping one’s enemies or detractors. In the latter, it is not sufficient for one hand not to know what the other hand is doing, for the full intention must be to help in spite of the hurt felt and the injury incurred.

Forsaken aptly depicts the moral strength of resisting to hit an attacker back, but no hint is given of going a step further that would evince spiritual strength in line with Jesus’ teaching, which is more difficult to put into practice. Interesting, Rev. Samuel Clayton makes no mention of this teaching in preaching at church even though he does advocate resisting the temptation to kill the bad guys. Hence I look toward the screenwriters as having fallen short. The problem here is that viewers can come away from the film with the misunderstanding that Jesus’ teaching is less than what it really is. Moreover, the teaching and thus the religion could be viewed as moral in its essence. Rather than transcending our relations with others, the religion is thought to be of conduct between people. Is God the referent point, or is conduct between people? I submit that having a referent that transcends the human realm—beyond even the limits of human cognition, sensibility, and perception—distinguishes a religion from a moral principle.

On transcendent experience applied to human relations, see Spiritual Leadership in Business, available at Amazon.

Gandhi

Film is indeed an art form, but the medium can also function as a teacher in how it conveys values and wisdom. Both of these features of film are salient in Gandhi (1982), whose director, Richard Attenborough, says in his audio commentary that the film has done much keep Gandhi’s philosophy alive in the world. In using the film’s star protagonist to explain what is behind his approach, viewers become, in effect, students. The strength of film here lies in its use of both audio and visual means to engrave the lessons in memories. In Gandhi, the main concept to be explained and illustrated is nonviolent active non-cooperation or defiance of unjust laws or regimes.

In a speech to his fellow Indians, Gandhi declares, “We must defy the British.” The crowd erupts. “Not with violence,” he explains, that will inflame their will, but with a firmness that will open their eyes.” He then advocates burning clothes manufactured in Britain. “If you are left with one piece of homespun, then wear it with dignity!” Active, nonviolent defiance strengthens self-esteem. The strategy also has a strength that counters the force of the unjust.

For example, guards at the Salt Works hit the Indians protesting the British monopoly on salt. As the unarmed Indians walk row by row into the guards, wood swiftly comes down on heads, shoulders, and backs. “Women carried the wounded and broken bodies from the road, an American reporter reads into a phone, “until they dropped from exhaustion. But still, it went on and on.” Then, crucially, he reaches the essential point. “Whatever moral ascendancy the West held was lost here today. India is free, for she has taken all that steel and cruelty can give and she has neither cringed nor retreated.” In the voluntary taking on of suffering is a kind of invisible force that confronts the aggressors with their sense of being good rather than evil. In other words, the suffering is like a mirror making the dark side of the human psyche inexorably transparent. Not even a tyrant can put down such a squalid self-image. The image is also likely broadcasted to third parties and even the world at large, likely resulting in the very human sentiment of disapprobation, which Hume calls the moral sense. The culprits may find themselves cornered, psychologically and perhaps even politically and economically.

“I think our resistance must be active and provocative,” Gandhi tells the Congress Party leaders meeting in Jinah’s living room to strategize. “Where there’s injustice, I always believed in fighting,” Gandhi states at another point in the film. “The question is, do you fight to change things or to punish? For myself, I’ve found we’re all such sinners, we should leave punishment to God. And, if we really want to change things, there are better ways of doing things than derailing trains or slashing someone with a sword.” Nonviolent non-cooperation is geared to changing the unjust by forcing them to confront themselves.

“I wish to embarrass all those who wish to treat us as slaves. All of them,” Gandhi tells the Congress Party leaders at Jinah’s house. He then illustrates his point. Specifically, he asks the servant for the tray of tea and starts to serve “I want to change their minds, not kill them for weaknesses we all possess.” He then suggests a day of prayer and fasting, which of course would have the same impact as a general strike. The prayer and fasting are oriented to confronting a person’s own demons, while the societal discomfort draws attention to the demons plaguing the oppressors who are living comfortably while exploiting the Indians. Awareness is the first step on the road to change.

“What about very powerful tyrants like Hitler? Do you really believe you could use nonviolence against Hitler?” a photographer from Life magazine asks Gandhi in a later scene. “Not without defeats and great pain,” he replies. “But are there no defeats in [World War II]? No pain? What you cannot do is accept injustice from Hitler or from anyone. You must make the injustice visible; be prepared to die like a soldier to do so.” The strength in active nonviolent defiance is subtle, unlike that of a club or gun; the impact on the oppressor psyche is reflected in the excessive measures that it takes in reaction.

For example, Gandhi remarks at one point that “Marshal law [in Bengal] only shows how desperate the British are.” Surely some kind of force had provoked the desperation that the British rulers could not shake. The strength of Gandhi is essentially the innate ability of any human being to make force a confrontation within another person between a self-image, which can be so convenient to the self, and the demons that inhabit every person.

More broadly than in nonviolent civil disobedience, the demons plaguing another person’s soul can both be made more transparent and exculpated by means of restorative suffering. While Gandhi is on a hunger-strike to end Muslim-Hindu violence in the newly independent India, a violent Hindu man approaches Gandhi and tosses some bread on the old man’s chest.

“Here! Eat! I’m going to hell, but not with your death on my soul.” Unlike the typical oppressor, the man is already aware of his demons.

“Only God decides who goes to hell,” Gandhi retorts.

“I killed a child,” the man explains. “I smashed his head against a wall.”

“Why?”

“The Muslims killed my son! My boy.”

“I know a way out of hell,” Gandhi offers. “Find a child—a child whose mother and father have been killed . . . and raise him as your own. Only be sure he is a Muslim and that you raise him as one.”

The hardened murderer is stunned, and collapses at the foot of Gandhi’s slender bed. The great soul has given the angry sufferer a way to reintegrate his soul that is plagued with pain; in coming to see the Muslim side by raising a Muslim child, the man would come to see the other side in the societal strife and therein create space in his own soul for the otherness of the other in place of the seemingly intractable demons. For being a man of peace, Gandhi does an awful lot of fighting.

Just before Gandhi is assassinated by a fellow Hindu, he tells the photographer from Life that “(t)he only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts, that that’s where all our battles ought to be fought.” Civic clashes are essentially projections of those which take place in the human mind between contending urges, and ought to be viewed and attacked as such by opening eyes.