Silence: Learning from Endo and Scorsese

If we can take Martin Scorsese's varied film career as a reflection of human life than his completion of his long-awaited passion project Silence is not all that surprising. He's crafted numerous classics, countless cultural touchstones some spiritual, some historical, and some incredibly human. 

But at this point in his career it seems like he has nothing left to prove to us as his audience and maybe at this point in life, if nothing else, we could do well to try and learn from someone like him. Because given the climate with funding and the like, Scorsese could not have made such a film just for other people or money or acclaim. He must have made it, at least partially, for himself.  

Man has long wrestled with God since the days of Jacob. Nothing is new under the sun in a sense. And Scorsese by way of Shunsaku Endo is doing a truly remarkable thing to consider these very questions. I admire him for having the wherewithal to even begin to tackle this material. 

Coincidentally this is also a very faithful adaptation of Endo's novel Silence, a historical fiction based on true events about two Portuguese Priests who head to 17th century Japan in order to spread their Christian faith--a faith that already has approximately 300,000 believers but is under fierce attack by the Japanese magistrates and for good reason. 

They often are lacking cultural understanding meaning their message is neither contextualized or delivered in such a way that is helpful to the people. The question is asked whether the faith missionaries brought is even the same anymore or do you simply trust that it will reach the people you supposed. In this case, the Christian "Gospel." 

But delve into this issue and doubters can beg the question, can the Truth (capital T) be universal? There's certain similarities between religions. From a cursory level, you can either draw up the similarities between Christianity and Buddhism or cast them far apart. Father Ferreira finally concedes that doing good is enough. It leads to human flourishing but at the detriment to your beliefs. What are we to do with that dilemma? Most importantly of all, potentially the most volatile and insidious question of all can we still be worthy of love if we have doubted, turned away, or recanted. 

But this is not a film to stew in or even a film to view alone. It is meant to be seen together, ruminated over in tandem, and considered with a certain amount of thoughtfulness. It asks for its viewer to be open, to be aware, and if need be, do their own amount of soul searching. Are their questions that you've never been willing to confront? And this goes for anyone from any type of background, belief, or point of view. 

For Christians, this undoubtedly would be a tough picture because it confronts their doubts head on. For those who do not consider themselves all that religious, it throws you right into the dilemma of a spiritual man and demands you at least consider the questions placed in front of you. 

Humility of these Japanese is astounding and the utter hopelessness of the priests at times is equally telling. It flips the paradigm that we expect. However, I think we would all do well to watch this film and always revert back to scripture. 

For me it recalls the passage from the Old Testament in 1 Kings:
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 

If there's any great hope we can take out of this film or life in general, it is that God is always present even when we think otherwise. Even now God is working in Japan--in the hearts of the Japanese and, yes, even in my own heart, as hardened as it is sometimes. 

I would encourage others interested in these topics to read Silence and Makoto Fujimura's companion piece Silence & Beauty. But above all, revert all these texts back to scripture. Because that's where we can see God's true heart for his people.