Rod Dreher is enthusiastic about the new movie Of Gods and Men:
In 1996, Islamic terrorists waging civil war in Algeria kidnapped seven Trappist monks from the Tibhirine monastery, held them hostage for weeks, then murdered them. If you see this event, as I did at the time, as another sad chapter in a long, cruel history of Islamic persecution of Christian minorities, you haven’t really seen it at all.
This is why you have to see the French film “Of Gods & Men,” a fictional version of the Tibhirine monks’ martyrdom. It is also one of the greatest works of Christian art ever made. Such is its power to astonish, to unsettle, and to convict, that, as the critic Steven Greydanus wrote, this is a film “that you do not judge — it judges you.”
The movie shows us the monks’ Gethsemane. These Trappists have lived among the rural Muslim villagers for decades, sharing their friendship, their poverty, their joys, and their suffering. Friar Luc, who is also a physician, provides rudimentary medical care to the poor, who would otherwise have nothing. They are monastic brothers, of course, but as one of them says, “brothers to all.”
April 26th, 2011 | 6:42 pm
The movie is extraordinary, first and foremost because the monks were. If the Amish response to the Nickle Mines school shooting demonstrated that radical and costly forgiveness is a compelling alternative in our world, the monks of Tibhirine remind us that such cruciformity is not the exclusive province of curious Anabaptists. Rather, it’s the way of genuine Christian freedom for all who believe that servants of Christ are not greater than their master.
April 26th, 2011 | 8:28 pm
the movie was beautiful, but like a Fabrage egg: pretty to look at, inspiring to other artists and high class intellectuals, but not very good for making an omelet. It makes the monks heroes, which of course they are, but there isn’t much in it to inspire the rest of us poor blokes.
I myself prefer Pierre Sauvage’s “Weapons of the Spirit”, about ordinary Christians who rescued Jews in wartime France.
And the choice to risk one’s life to help others because it is your duty is more common than you think, from the mom who carries a risky pregnancy to your local fire department and cops, to the EMT’s who do an airevac to save a life.
as for the Jihadis: well, 30 of my friends (doctors and nurses and pastors) were killed by “freedom fighters” funded by the World Council of churches. But that’s another story, one that won’t be told, since only those killed by politically correct enemies will make the cut.
April 27th, 2011 | 10:41 am
The film is not “fictional.” It is based on a true story. I think that the letter Father Chretien wrote in anticipation of what might happen is one of the great martyrdom texts of our day.
April 27th, 2011 | 12:03 pm
The film certainly is fictional, in the sense that it is fictionalized history. But we all know this really did happen. Calling it “fictional” is only to say that it has been dramatized, that it is not a documentary.
Tioedong, are you sure there is nothing for us ordinary Christians to learn from these monks? Most of us will never be in a position to die so dramatically for our faith (at least I hope and pray not!), but thinking about how the monks refused to hate, even though they faced death, and how they chose not to run from their responsibilities to serve those villagers, even though it would have been completely understandable had they done so — thinking of what these martyr-heroes did under such extreme circumstances put some steel in my spine with regard to the choices I face in incomparably less fraught circumstances in my own life.
All of us Christians are called to martyr ourselves for the cause of Christ. A few of us will be called to martyrdom in the literal sense that the Tibhirine monks were. Most of us face the long, slow, dull ache of dying to self every day, when the choices aren’t as stark, maybe, but the consequences for our souls are just as real.
April 27th, 2011 | 4:23 pm
The movie is very good and of great value. A true work of art.
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