Disclaimer: Before I begin this post you should know that if you read past this intro paragraph there will be spoilers. So if you have not seen a certain Quentin Tarantino movie about WWII and have a desire to see it in the future, come back to my blog after you have seen it. I really encourage you to read this, but I do not want to ruin the movie for anyone. That being said...
Thursday night I went to the midnight showing of a certain Quentin Tarantino movie. It was an interesting movie set in an alternate world where Redemptive violence is not only not a myth, but it is the best way.
The movie is set during WWII. It begins with a man hiding a Jewish family at his farm. An SS officer comes to his house and eventually brutally murders the whole family. One daughter escapes however to play a large part in the movie later. The Nazi officer was laughing and having a generally good time doing his duties. So from the very beginning you are instilled with a new and passionate hatred for the regime and especially this officer.
Enter the "Basterds" [sic]. This small company of (largely) Jewish American soldiers' sole job is to do to the Germans what they have done to the Jews and other people who have been brutally murdered by the Nazi Regime. They would kill them in brutal cold blooded ways including one member of the group nicknamed (by the Nazi's) "The Bear Jew" who had a particular affinity for a baseball bat. Their methods were very specifically designed in a manner that would strike fear into the Nazi's and they did a particularly good job with certain theatrics they performed (i.e. the Bear Jew would be in a tunnel where you could not see him but you could hear his baseball bat knocking against the concrete with the knowledge of what was to come being slowly and methodically tapped into the head of the soon to be victim).
All of this was to be expected in the movie however. But what was truly hard to see was that in this world (created by Mr. Tarantino) is that this redemptive violence proved to be truly redemptive. In the movie there are actually two plots to kill hitler and all 4 heads of the Nazi Regime (thus ending the war) that are planned by two different parties but at the same time and place. The first is by our Jewish girl (Shoshanna) who survived the initial scene of the movie. Shoshanna has now taken the french name Emmanuelle Mimieux. Through a series of unfortunate turned fortunate events she inherits a cinema. And again fate moves to create an opportunity for her to host a movie showing for all the high officers in the Third Reich. She concocts a plan to lock them into the theatre and subsequently burn it down. At the same time the British OSS find out about this event and concoct a plan of their own. They will use Pitt's special little band to infiltrate the gala and blow it up.
Well after several hiccups in the plan it all comes together. This scene is more violent than most scenes I have ever seen. The theatre explodes into flame with the backdrop of Shoshanna's laughing face projected onto the smoke. Dynamite is going off. People are screaming and the Soldiers from Pitt's unit are shooting wildly into the crown with machine guns. Their eyes burning with the hatred and blood-thirst of the deaths of millions of people in them. They use whole clips on the Führer himself until he is just torn to shreds. Though these men are shown to use inglorious methods they pay off in a "glorious way." The movie ends with the war ending at that point. D-Day was not necessary and millions of lives are saved by this violent plan.
Well that was in Tarantino's world. And I thank God that this world is different. You see in history there were some 15 assassination attempts on Hitler's life. One in particular illustrates my point the best. Dietrich Bonhoeffer the great Christian author and theologian was actually a part of the July 20, 1944 attempt on Hitler's life (recently made into a movie called Valkyrie). This attempt used a bomb and the bomb actually went off. It killed 4 German high officers but Hitler himself was barely hurt. This attempt actually spurred Hitler on to more cruelty. He even brought Mussolini to the spot to show him how God had protected him from such a close threat (the bomb was mere feet away but moved behind a heavy table leg). Hitler was more convinced than ever before that God was protecting him and his mission. Violence galvanized violence. As Shane Claiborne put eloquently in his book Jesus for President, "Another attempt to pick up the sword went haywire, not only fueling further bloodshed but costing our brother Bonhoeffer his own life as he was executed by the Nazis. Once again the cross lost, and the devil laughed."
Jesus came to this earth to end violence and injustice. He did it however not with more violence as he very well could have. Instead, he showed us all that there is a third way. This way was to use non-violence to end the cycle of violence. He sacrificed himself so that we could be saved from future death as well as from violence that we commit here on earth. Jesus' way is truly glorious.
So often we try to justify violence and pass it off as a tragic but necessary part of the fallen world that we live in. But Jesus came to proclaim a new way. We don't have to live like this. It's beautiful and effective for true change. Look at the example of Matin Luther King Jr. and the difference that his non-violent practices made in the world.
So I challenge you to live differently. Do not be a part of the world that Quentin Tarantino has created. Live in the kingdom of God, in this world but not of it.
Grace and Peace
