Back a few years ago the Evangelical blogger Dalrock used to roast the Kendrick brothers for their movies along the same lines. There’s something about the Protestant rejection of tradition that leads to their art always having an earnest presentness, as if the whole of Christendom had always been more or less a bigger version of the crowd at a suburban megachurch.
First, Bonhoeffer does appear to have been genuinely and significantly influenced by his time spent in a black Baptist church Harlem. I haven't seen the movie, and given the rest of what's going on there I don't doubt that the filmmakers smuggled in a lot of 2020s-type thinking about race. But they'd have been doing Bonhoeffer a disservice if they didn't depict this influence as a big deal.
Second, Bonhoeffer was an early-twentieth-century German Lutheran. He may have been slightly more theologically conservative than the majority of the German state Lutheran church at the time, but that's hardly saying anything. His theology was far to the left of anything that might be realistically described as "Evangelical" in the North American sense. He was a universalist, for crying out loud. Pitching Bonhoeffer as some kind of "Evangelical" martyr was always difficult, to the point that any such narrative that takes Bonhoeffer at all seriously is going to end up making some rather odd moves.
I'm not trying to defend the quality of the movie--again, I haven't seen it--but to suggest that if the movie ends up being a paean to the Postwar Consensus, that might not be a skinsuit at all. It might just be the logical extension of Bonhoeffer's own theology.
I think the Jewish focus is also a very American take on this all. You know that tens of millions of others died too, right? Even more were injured or otherwise traumatised(they like this thing nowadays).
Otherwise as you pointed out it falls into the same pitfalls as most of the american and british historical movies do. Projecting current and self moral sensibilities on a wholly different world.
Wow. Thank you for the heads up. I also got the 'ick' (as the kids say) when watching The Sound of Freedom - it felt like it flew too close to the sun, showing just a little too much skin to almost involve or entangle the viewer in the supposedly heinous crimes criticized therein. Interesting, duplicitous vibes all around. It seems we truly are in the era of the false prophet, or the wolves in sheep's clothing...
Should it be any surprise that we see parody made of real experience, from any camp today? The same people that cry out to protect Israel at all costs loudly cheer for the genocide of the Palestinians and anyone else that dare get in their way. The con-servatives are just as guilty as the left now of hypocrisy, revisionist history, and crucifying all that ever was and will be for their precious worldview. I despise Evangelicalism almost as much as leftism for the same reasons, and don't kid yourself into thinking any other church tradition is better. They all have something to sell you to further their agenda and vie for dominance.
What's so ironic about this, is that they've turned Dietrich Bonhöffer into a proxy for postmodernism in that he superficially resembles their agenda. Little do they know he'd also be here crusading against the Palestinian genocide and the Ukraine Selbstmord against this great American empire the filmmakers love so much. Nor would he share in their distorted opinions about race and place, but they can't imagine a man proud of his home and people also valuing another people, only not to come claim his nation as their own
Back a few years ago the Evangelical blogger Dalrock used to roast the Kendrick brothers for their movies along the same lines. There’s something about the Protestant rejection of tradition that leads to their art always having an earnest presentness, as if the whole of Christendom had always been more or less a bigger version of the crowd at a suburban megachurch.
Well. . . two things here.
First, Bonhoeffer does appear to have been genuinely and significantly influenced by his time spent in a black Baptist church Harlem. I haven't seen the movie, and given the rest of what's going on there I don't doubt that the filmmakers smuggled in a lot of 2020s-type thinking about race. But they'd have been doing Bonhoeffer a disservice if they didn't depict this influence as a big deal.
Second, Bonhoeffer was an early-twentieth-century German Lutheran. He may have been slightly more theologically conservative than the majority of the German state Lutheran church at the time, but that's hardly saying anything. His theology was far to the left of anything that might be realistically described as "Evangelical" in the North American sense. He was a universalist, for crying out loud. Pitching Bonhoeffer as some kind of "Evangelical" martyr was always difficult, to the point that any such narrative that takes Bonhoeffer at all seriously is going to end up making some rather odd moves.
I'm not trying to defend the quality of the movie--again, I haven't seen it--but to suggest that if the movie ends up being a paean to the Postwar Consensus, that might not be a skinsuit at all. It might just be the logical extension of Bonhoeffer's own theology.
I think the Jewish focus is also a very American take on this all. You know that tens of millions of others died too, right? Even more were injured or otherwise traumatised(they like this thing nowadays).
Otherwise as you pointed out it falls into the same pitfalls as most of the american and british historical movies do. Projecting current and self moral sensibilities on a wholly different world.
Wow. Thank you for the heads up. I also got the 'ick' (as the kids say) when watching The Sound of Freedom - it felt like it flew too close to the sun, showing just a little too much skin to almost involve or entangle the viewer in the supposedly heinous crimes criticized therein. Interesting, duplicitous vibes all around. It seems we truly are in the era of the false prophet, or the wolves in sheep's clothing...
Should it be any surprise that we see parody made of real experience, from any camp today? The same people that cry out to protect Israel at all costs loudly cheer for the genocide of the Palestinians and anyone else that dare get in their way. The con-servatives are just as guilty as the left now of hypocrisy, revisionist history, and crucifying all that ever was and will be for their precious worldview. I despise Evangelicalism almost as much as leftism for the same reasons, and don't kid yourself into thinking any other church tradition is better. They all have something to sell you to further their agenda and vie for dominance.
What's so ironic about this, is that they've turned Dietrich Bonhöffer into a proxy for postmodernism in that he superficially resembles their agenda. Little do they know he'd also be here crusading against the Palestinian genocide and the Ukraine Selbstmord against this great American empire the filmmakers love so much. Nor would he share in their distorted opinions about race and place, but they can't imagine a man proud of his home and people also valuing another people, only not to come claim his nation as their own
The shit trailers on Rumble make this obvious.