A Fortunate Man

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 

 

Agora vs. Fatima: Contending Christianities

The films Agora (2009) and Fatima (2020) contain very different depictions of Christianity. By depictions, I mean ways in which Christianity can be interpreted and lived. This is not to say that all of the interpretations are equally valid, for only those that contain internal contradictions evince hypocrisy. The sheer extent of the distance between the depictions shown in the two films demonstrates not only the huge extent of latitude that religious interpretation can have, but also just how easy it is even for self-identifying Christians, whether of the clergy or the laity, not only to fail to grasp Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels, but also to violate the two commandments even while believing that Jesus Christ is divine (i.e., the Son of God). The human mind, or brain, can have such stunning blind spots (or cognitive dissidence) when it comes to religion that even awareness of this systemic vulnerability and efforts to counter it are typically conveniently ignored or dismissed outright. This is nearly universal, in spite of claims of humility and fallibility more generally, so I contend that the human mind is blind to its own weakness or vulnerability in the religious sphere of thought, sentiment, and action. Augustine’s contention that revelation must pass through a smoky stained window before reaching us is lost on the religious among us who insist that their religious beliefs constitute knowledge. I contend that this fallacy as well as the larger vulnerability to hypocrisy should be a salient part both of Sunday School and adult religious education. For the vulnerability is correctable, but this probably requires ongoing vigilance. That is, the problem is not that the divine goes beyond the limits of human cognition (as well as perception and emotion) as Pseudodionysus pointed out to deaf ears in the 6^th century; the human brain is fully capable of spotting and countering its own lapses in the religious domain. In other words, the problem here is not that of the human mind being able to understand the contents of revelation because must travel through a darkened window before reaching us; rather, the problem lies in grasping what Jesus preaches in the Gospels and putting the spiritual principles into practice, rather than doing the opposite and being completely oblivious to the contradiction, which is otherwise known as cognitive dissidence. The two films provide us with the means both to grasp this problem and realize how much it differs from a healthy faith that has the innocence of a child’s wonder.

Agora is set in Alexandria, Egypt from 390 to 410 CE, while Fatima is set in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Both are based on historical events. Agora centers around Hypatia, a pagan mathematician and astronomer whom Bishop Cyril had his Christian brotherhood kill for having refused to convert, especially considering that she had considerable political influence locally. Historically, the brotherhood skinned Hypatia alive; in the film, her ex-slave Davus, who loves her, suffocates her before the brotherhood can stone her to death. He who has not sinned throw the first stone apparently does not apply to the members of the Christian brotherhood, who are no strangers to using violence. Earlier in the film, they throw stones at Jews at a music concert for listening to music and eating sweets, according to Cyril, on the Sabbath. This prompts the Jews to retaliate, and the brotherhood in turn with Cyril saying that even women and children should be killed.  Earlier still, the brotherhood is among the Christians who fight the pagans, who start the violence because Theophilus, the Christian bishop (or patriarch) who precedes Cyril encourages the Christian crowd to throw food at a statue of one of the Egyptian deities. Whereas violence used to “answer the insult” is not an inconsistency in the Egyptian religion, such a response contradicts Jesus’ second commandment, which includes serving rather than insulting one’s neighbor. The presence of God is most of all in love that is not convenient, and thus that goes against the human instinctual urge to retaliate.

In the Gospels, Jesus preaches on how a person can enter the Kingdom of God. In Luke (4:43), Jesus says, “It is necessary for me to proclaim the good news about the kingdom of God . . . because I was sent for this purpose.” Jesus attempts to orient his hearers to the Kingdom of God. The latter should be the focus of a Christian. Peace characterizes that kingdom, and the way to peace is through loving one’s enemies. More concretely, this means turning the other cheek, both literally and proverbially, but this is not enough. A person must go further to help, or serve, one’s detractors, which, incidentally, does not mean staying in an abusive relationship. Serving a person who insults Jesus, rather than retaliating, is an excellent way into the Kingdom of God.

In Agora, both Theophilus and Cyril miss an opportunity due to their hatred and prejudice against other religions. A person being served even as that person insults the helpful person’s ideals is more likely to convert to Christianity by grasping the humble strength that lies in voluntarily serving one’s detractors. The way not to convert is to insult, violently attack, and retaliate. The two Christian bishops are far from being able to enter the Kingdom of God. Like the Pharisees in the Gospels, the two patriarchs of Alexandria evince Jesus’ teaching that many who are first, or presume themselves to be first, are actually last—behind even the poor who suffer from illness (presumed even by Jesus to result from sin).

Humility, as is present in the willingness to serve even jerks and people whose political, social, or religious ideology contradicts one’s own, is shown by the three children who see and hear the Virgin Mary in Fatima. Those children suffer the hostile disbelief of the mayor and even Maria, the mother of Lucia, one of the children. Maria is a character of irony, as she seems so devoted to the Virgin Mary and yet is so hostile. As Paul wrote, faith without love is for naught. In 1 Corinthians (13:2), Paul writes, “if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” What sort of love?  Loving your friends and favorable neighbors is not enough. In Matthew (5:43-45), Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” The presence of the divine can be sensed by both the Christian and one’s detractor as the former helps the latter in spite of attitude of the latter toward the former. The Christian lays that aside and instead feels compassion in helping a fellow creature who is existentially so dependent on God. To view one of God’s creatures as such is to take on God’s perspective, and out of the sense of basic vulnerability comes the motive of compassion. A more basic bond between finite creatures can then be felt by both, and the presence of God is this bond because the dependence is so basic to a person’s being. Bringing this presence of God to humanity is Jesus’ task in preaching how to enter the Kingdom of God by loving one’s enemies.

Devotion to a deity or quasi-deity (for Mary is believed by Catholics to be in heaven in body and soul) is of no value and is even hypocritical if the person is not helping, but rather attacking people deemed as bad or as threats or antagonists. In Agora, Maria is convinced that her daughter Lucia is lying, and thus is needlessly and selfishly putting the family at risk of attack and financial ruin. Mobs are not known for their wisdom. Maria is only superficially a Christian. In actuality, she worships herself, as she presumes to be omniscient in knowing that the Virgin is not really visiting Lucia and the other children. That Maria’s devotion is for naught because she is cold rather than loving even to her daughter can be discerned from the fact that the Virgin is not visible to Maria while she is standing behind Lucia during a visitation. The implication is that believing in the Virgin Mary and even sacrificing to her in the misguided belief that doing so will cause Maria’s son to come back from the war alive are for naught if in heart and deed there is not love even and especially where it is difficult. The faith of the three children that the Virgin really is there and the willingness to pass on the Virgin’s messages even after the children are briefly imprisoned by the mayor evinces love that is difficult, and Lucia’s caring for her sick mother is a case of loving one’s detractors can thus be contrasted with Maria’s harsh mentality that is at best heroine worship. Maria imposes on her daughter a severe religious causality that merely supports Hume’s contention that we really don’t understand causation. Maria is consumed by getting the Virgin to keep Maria’s son alive in war, whereas Lucia resists the pressure of the priest, bishop, and mayor to tell them something that the Virgin said not to tell anyone. Far from insulting the Virgin by betraying her, Lucia protects her.

Whereas in Agora the Christians insult other gods, and then fight rather than serve those whom the Christians have insulted, in Fatima the Virgin Mary tells the children to pass on the message to stop insulting the Abrahamic god by sinning and not being sorry for doing it (i.e., repenting). Even the Christian bishops in Agora not only sin by insulting and attacking their enemies, but also fail to repent. The blind are leading the blind into hypocrisy and sin under the auspices of piety—serving Christ. Contrast the way in which the bishops serve (or defend) Christ with the way in which the three children serve the Virgin.

It is ironic that the Christians in Agora who arrogantly presume to know God’s will even as they violate it destroy the Alexandria’s great library, which a pagan says is “the only thing that remains of the wisdom of man.” Historically, had the Christians not destroyed that library, the world might have not only books written by Aristotle, but also early Christian manuscripts that have been lost. Again, the Christians in Agora are working at cross-purposes—not just given their desire to convert, but also in terms of learning more about Jesus’ preaching on how to enter the Kingdom of God. Pride and prejudice are indeed short-sighted.

Historically, Augustine borrowed from Plato and Aquinas was practically in love with Aristotle, and yet the Christians burned down the library of Alexandria in 410 CE to destroy pagan knowledge—Paul’s “wisdom of Athens.” Similarly, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain forbid her own sister the love of her life because he was divorced, but then allowed her own children to divorce their respective spouses, most notably Princess Diana. Elizabeth refused to give her stamp of approval, which was necessary, on her sister’s marriage to Peter Townsend because one of the queen’s roles is as the head of the Church of England, which did not allow divorces at the time. Where there is no act of love and mercy, however, faith and ecclesiastical position are for naught. In Elizabeth’s son’s coronation, the stultifying arrogance of exclusion evinced in the seating arrangement itself belied the new king’s claim of being a Christian, much less the head of a Christian institution. The invited guests in the farthest pews—those blocked by a screen-wall from being able to see the events in the ritual—sat in humility closer to the Kingdom of God than did the man sitting on King Edward’s throne.

The Kingdom of God is conceptualized differently in the two films. The Christians in Agora are oriented to a political Christendom without pagans, whereas the Virgin and the three children—and the children shall lead them—view the kingdom as a matter of not insulting God (i.e., not sinning). Whereas the former conception is externally oriented, against the pagans and Jews, and thus is earthly, the latter notion is of the interior, of the heart, within a person. The Kingdom of God is within. There’s no need to wait until the Son of Man comes on clouds.  Christendom viewed as a kingdom on earth led to the Crusades in which four popes raised armies to kill rather than love enemies. Alternatively, the popes could have sent Christians to serve the Muslims in the Holy Land. The land would then have been truly holy rather than the site of Christian hypocrisy.

In his tome, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes’s “Kingdom of Darkness” is none other than the Roman Catholic Church on earth—the same institution that has protected priests who have raped children and the bishops such as Cardinal Law who enabled the criminals rather than held them accountable. In doing so, those clerics, whether directly or, as in the case of Joe Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), by knowingly transferring a rapist papist priest to avoid scandal for the universal church, can be viewed as vicariously stomping out the innocent faith of the three children in Fatima. I believe there is a special place in hell for adults who snuff out the innocence of a child, whether or not those adults believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. In The Da Vinci Code (2006), the last living descendent of Jesus tells a monk who murders for God: “Your God burns murderers.” Doubtless the descendent distancing the Christian god from herself is due to all the hypocrisy that often occurs because so many Christians erroneously believe that accepting Jesus as one’s personal lord and savior is sufficient. The Kingdom of Darkness has much to atone for, and transferring accessories to crimes of violence against children to posh Vatican positions (e.g. Cardinal Law) rather than having the corrupt clerics serve the victims who would permit it speaks volumes concerning convenience versus inconvenient love.

Bishop Cyril in Agora believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; this belief works against the bishop, as it had for Theophilus, as both characters use it to justify defending Jesus by violence against the non-Christians who are critical of the insulting Christians. Cyril preaches that Hypatia is a witch, which in turn sets brotherhood on a quest to kill her. It is ironic that the brotherhood had been set up to “safeguard Christian morality,” which ostensibly was needed because the splitting of the Roman Empire in two meant that that the end of the world was nigh. Cyril reads a passage from Paul that woman should keep silent. Hypatia has definitely not been silent; in fact, she has considerable influence on her former student Orestes, who is now the Roman prefect who governs the city. How dare a woman, and a pagan no less, have such influence!, Cyril not doubt feels as he characterizes Paul’s opinion women as “the word of God.” A human opinion in a letter no less is the Word of the living God. To regard an opinion as such is to reckon it as infallible truth. Such truth is immutable, and the role and status of women deemed proper in Paul’s world have changed over time and from place to place. In utter contrast to Cyril in Agora, the three children in Fatima listen to the Virgin’s messages rather than give their own opinions. The children regard the messages as different in kind. Indeed, the children resist considerable pressure in not revealing the Virgin’s message not to tell anyone something about the future. Unfortunately, the human mind has a proclivity to emblazon opinion with the veneer of truth, and then to seek to enforce such truth by imposing it on other people. The arrogance of self-entitlement can be guarded against by keeping in mind that the fallible and limited human mind should not be so sure of itself on religious matters as to regard itself as infallible.

The two films also differ on how the Christians approach forgiveness. Astonishingly, Ammonius, a leader of the brotherhood in Agora, rebuffs Davus, Hypatia’s the ex-slave who suggests that they should forgive rather than retaliate against the Jews. Ammonius declares, “Only Jesus can forgive the Jews.” Wrong! In Matthew (18:21-22), “Peter came up and said to him [i.e., Jesus], ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.’” Neither Patriarch, Theophilus or Cyril, are in the business of forgiveness, especially to the enemy.

In contrast, Lucia in Fatima forgives her mother after the miracle of the Sun moving around in the sky convinces everyone in the crowd, including Maria, that the children were right all along; the Virgin Mary really is there. Lucia still loves her mother in spite of Maria’s chilly hostility and refusal to trust her daughter even though the Virgin obviously trusts Lucia. But the latter’s faith is not perfect. In asking the Virgin to do a miracle so the crowd would believe the children’s claim that the visitation is real, Lucia succumbs to the sensationalistic undercutting of religious meaning or truth by the assumption that the validity of religious preaching relies on something supernatural happening. The innocent faith of the children is nigh eclipsed by the more sensationalistic need for verification of the Christian adults who gather in the field to personally benefit from the visitations. Pray for this, pray for that; this is human, all too human. 

The salience of the need for a supernatural, metaphysical miracle, even for the viewers of the film, to prove that the Virgin is really there in the story world, and, by fallacious implication in 1917 as a historical event apart from the film, almost eclipses importance of the childlike faith of the children in the film. Only after the miracle has occurred can the movie end; the viewers would not be satisfied otherwise. The need of Maria, the bishop, the priest, and even the mayor to know definitively that the Virgin is really there with the three children is a need that the film’s viewers have as well.  Even Lucia wants a miracle; even she lapses in giving the need to convince the crowd any importance, especially relative to the content of the Virgin’s message. The important thing is to stop insulting God. Cyril and his followers in Agora insult God with their hypocrisy in God’s name.

Interestingly, witness accounts in October, 1917 attest to the miracle of the Sun moving around in the sky and even coming closer as a historical event, which could be seen from as far as 40 km away. It is tempting to let the metaphysical or religious actuality of the Virgin Mary (or the historical or risen Jesus) be the focus; to be sure, such a deviation from the children’s faith and the Virgin’s message is much less damaging than is the violence by the Christians in Agora, for that is antipodal to the way into the spiritual space of God’s “kingdom,” or way of being. For it is God’s presence felt within and between people as love especially when such love is not convenient that is of value in itself. Even religious personages pale in comparison. In the Gospels, Jesus sets the Kingdom of God as that for which he is tasked with orienting people. Within that kingdom, the presence of the divine can be sensed, made possible by an inconvenient love that expands human nature itself such that the human instinctual urge for the divine can be more satisfied and perhaps even be fulfilled.

See: God's Gold

Monsignor

Monsignor, a film made in 1982—in the midst of a very pro-business administration in Washington, D.C.—depicts a Vatican steeped in matters of finance centering around a priest whose degree in finance makes him a prime candidate to be groomed for the Curia. That cleric, Father John Flaherty, helps the Vatican operating budget during World War II by involving the Holy See in the black market through a mafia. In the meantime, he sleeps with a woman who is preparing to be a nun and subsequently keeps from her the matter of his religious vocation. The twist is not that Flaherty is a deeply flawed priest, or that the Vatican he serves is vulnerable to corruption inside, but that those clerics who mercilessly go after him are devoid of the sort of compassion that their savior preaches.

The pope, exquisitely played by Leonardo Cimino, demonstrates how upper-echelon leadership can transcend the managerial foci that so preoccupy partisans. Put another way, the social distance that tends to come with organizational figure-heads can give “the big picture” characteristic of “having perspective” some role in seeing to it that narrow organizational politics do not have the last say even in terms of what the criteria are to be. I suspect that too many CEOs go with the advice from their subordinates, and thus unwittingly buy into the managerial criteria charged with garden-variety one-upmanship. In such cases, organizational politics triumphs over what is really important from the standpoint of organizational mission statements.

In the film, the pope presides over the traditionalist cleric’s castigation of Flaherty . The pope later reads of Flaherty’s sordid deeds, and then speaks with the man presumably condemned. Rather than defend himself, Flaherty says, in effect, “guilty as charged!” Rather than take Flaherty’s misconduct as the most telling facet of the case, the pope observes that the traditionalist’s tone was that of jealousy, without any hint of sympathy for his brother in faith. The traditionalist’s utter lack of brotherly love stands out in retrospect to the pope as further from Christ, hence more serious, than Flaherty’s corruption. This prioritizing of values is made known to the viewer with the sight of Flaherty’s mentor, rather than the head traditionalist, as the next pope. In fact, the mentor reinstalls Flaherty in the Vatican after the contrite yet corrupt priest has spent some years in exile at a monastery. The film ends with the two men embracing, with facial expressions revealing true brotherly love—a real contrast from the cold, stern expressions of the traditionalists who had been so confident that the “prosecution” of Flaherty would result in one of their own as pope.

The message presented by the film is therefore that in a religion in which God is love, hardness in place of brotherly love is without any legitimacy whatsoever; it is worse than unethical conduct. This is one way of saying that religion does not reduce to ethics because more important things are involved. This is not to excuse corruption in the Vatican; the hypocrisy alone is repugnant to anyone who takes the clerics in the Curia at their word that they are following Christ in their living out of the Gospel. Even so, going after such hypocrisy without even sympathy for the human nature, which we all share, evokes the Pharisees whom Jesus goes after in the Gospels. A Church run by Pharisees does more than unethical conduct to undercut the faith espoused by Jesus because matters of the heart are more deeply rooted than conduct as far as Jesus’s preaching is concerned. 

Mrs. Miniver

The Oscar for Best Picture in 1942 went to a film that in the end comes down to war propaganda, complete with a plug for U.S. War Bonds. As troubling as film as propaganda is, the last scene in the film raises even more fundamental problems that the film glosses over. Tellingly, the scene takes place in a bombed church in the fictional English village.

As the congregation is mourning its dead with the war far from over, the Christian minister preaches righteous war, followed by refrains of Onward Christian Soldier. The problem of the religion of love extended even to one’s enemy, including turning the other cheek, turned to the service of war is ignored, as is the consequent problem of a religion that can be so contorted beyond recognition and yet still standing. In other words, the hypocrisy of Christians being urged to fight rather than love their enemies is missed, as is the problem of how a religion can stand even when it is turned against its own principles. Additionally, the premise of being able to know God’s mind, as in the preacher’s announcement that God is on their side of the war, is also far from transparent as a problem.

In his writings, Nietzsche advocates treating truth as a problem, rather than as an inviolable, or sacred given. The truth of God being on our side in a war seems to be as a good candidate. For in a religion in which God is love itself, the very notion of God on any side of a war can only be an oxymoron. Papering over it is the business of presumption, or hubris, rather than anything holy.

To be sure, Mrs. Miniver has its bright spots. Most notably, it depicts an idyllic family that is seldom caught in modern cinema. Also, the film is laudable in that it shows a greater good to which individuals are willing to sacrifice. As the minister observes in that last scene, it is a people’s war; everyone is in it. The common cause and related sacrifice all around do not, however, justify projecting the cause onto God itself, especially if the substance of the deity is love. 

Rather than encouraging the “Christian solders” on, the minister could have taken his congregation from its somber mood to transcend the banality of the war into a sort of religious experience wherein God’s love as love is felt among them. A hint of the possibility can be found in Vin, the eldest son and an air-force flyer, walking over to his wife’s grandmother to comfort her. Like the whispering wind passing by Elijah on the mountain, God is in Vin’s quiet move over to the crying woman as they are singing a hymn, rather than with the “Christian soldiers” as they fight on to fight the good fight. Film as propaganda is inherently problematic because it misses so much.