Gran Torino: A Profoundly Christian Movie

Warning: This post contains spoilers. If you plan to watch Gran Torino and don't want the end ruined, then read no further.

Gran Torino tells the tale of a grouchy, hardened Korean veteran whose wife has just passed away. Mad at his kids, mad at his neighbors, and mad at life, Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) gradually experiences a conversion through his relationship with the teenage Hmong brother and sister who live next door. Seeking to payback a gang of ruthless thugs for beating and raping the young Sue Lor (Ahney Her), Walt Kowalski seems set on some vintage Eastwood payback. However, the viewer is surprised to find that Walt, who has struggled with guilt his whole live over his immoral behavior during the Korean war, chooses to instead stand before the gang and allow them to shot him -- ensuring that they go to jail (since there were many eye-witnesses) and effectively ending the cycle of violence which could easily have escalated beyond control.

I found this film to be profoundly Christian in that is serves as an excellent illustration of ancient theories of atonement. As he his riddled with bullets, Walt falls to the ground in the shape of a cross -- a clear allusion to the Christ story. Whereas movies abound which venerate the substitutionary view of the atonement (e.g. Denzel Washington's Man on Fire), Gran Torino points to a much more sophisticated understanding of what exactly happened at the cross. By allowing himself to be consumed by evil rather than resisting evil with violence, Walt attains a victory much more complete than mere retaliation could have ever provided. Christ also chose to remain silent before his accusers and to "absorb" evil, thus defeating it.

Cycles of violence plague our world. Israelites kill Palestinians who kill more Israelites who kill more Palestinian. Violence begets more violence. I must confess that deep down inside I was rooting for Walt to storm the gang's lair and blow off a few heads. And yet, unlike William Wallace in Braveheart or Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo, our hero "leaves room for God's wrath" by not seeking revenge. He stands as a model for us all who are confronted with evil. Shall we meet evil with more evil, violence with more violence, or will we walk in the footsteps of Christ and "absorb" evil, effectively opening a door to the deescalation of conflict and paving the path to peace?

I find such a theory of the atonement far more satisfying than the substitutionary view which Steve Chalk has called an example of "divine child abuse." To whom was the "debt" of the cross paid? Not to God who does not demand blood, but to the Satan which thinks it is gaining a victory but is in fact swallowing its own poison. Why did Christ die? Gran Torino and the early church fathers answer the question in this way: He died to show us how we might live. He died to bring "peace on earth and goodwill toward men." He died as a role model to all of us so that we -- humankind -- have an exit from the unending cycle of violence. He died to give us a preview of the shalom which is at the heart of God and which will one day become the Ultimate Reality. This is precisely why the apostle Paul commands us who claim to follow Jesus to "know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:10-11).

Sadly, too many Christians have missed the point. They need to re-read the Scriptures through the lens of non-violent opposition to evil or, failing that, to at least watch Gran Torino several times. Followers of Jesus must cease imitating William Wallace, and start imitating Walk Kowalski.

Who would have thought it? Clint Eastwood teaching us non-violence and atonement theory!

Batter My Heart

I stumbled across this beautiful poem today. John Donne, my favorite poet, was a true mystic. Oh, that God would answer this prayer for me.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

The First Abolitionist

The rise of modern ethical values such as tolerance, equality, and fraternity is supposedly rooted in Western Enlightenment ideals of the 17th and 18th centuries -- or so secular historians would have us believe. Not so, challenges David Bentley Hart in his masterful work "Atheist Delusions." The narrative of Western history which most of us have come to accept, which I had accepted before Hart opened my eyes, sounds something like this:

Once there were rich, diverse cultures that embraced polytheism. No god was seen as superior to another god and, therefore, no religious war needed to be fought. These happy pagans celebrated uninhibited sexuality and enjoyed fine food and wine. Unfortunately, a monothestic, exclusionary religion named Christianity emerged within the pluralistic culture of Rome and eventually began to extinguish all dissenting religious opinions through power, wealth, and corruption. This monster-religion wedded itself to kings and princes in the West and, as a result, scientific advancement was stunted, wars over miniscule points of doctrine were waged, and the freedom of ideas vanished into history. Christianity brought upon the West nothing but ruin -- the dark ages, the Crusades, the perpetual ignorace of the masses, the wars of religion, etc. Thankfully, a few brave individuals sparked a philosophical and rational revolution which would eventually overthrow the tyranny of the Church in what we today celebrate as the Enlightenment. Today's modern values concerning individual human life, ownership of private property, tolerance and pluralism, and the liberty to pursue happiness found their birth only after the tyranny of the Church had been overcome and unadulterated reason was allowed to prevail. In other words, today we celebrate the civil rights movement, the equality of women, the freedom of the press, and so on and so on because a few brave men snubbed the Pope. Or so the great scholars Dawkins, Hitchens, and Co. would have us believe.

Hart debunks this mythology piece by piece. He demonstrates how Christianity has been a force for good in the West and how the grander ideals of our moral consciences are rooted in the biblical, Judeo-Christian story rather than in the godless Voltaires that Dawkins so admires.

One example. Much to my delight, I have recently discovered that abolitionism was born not out of the post-Enlightenment West. No, the earliest abolitionist is none other than Gregory of Nyssa. And the precursor to all the brilliant diatribes of Fredrick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Sojourner Truth was preached during Lent in the year 379.

Hart explains: "Whatever it is we think we mean by human 'equality,' we are able to presume the moral weight of such a notion only because far deeper down in the historical strata of our shared Western consciousness we retain the memory of an unanticipated moment of spiritual awakening, a delighted and astonished intellectual response to a single historical event: the proclamation of Easter. It was because of his faith in the risen Christ that Gregory could declare in his commentary on the Beatitudes, without any irony or reserve, that if Christians truly practiced the mercy commanded of them by their Lord humanity would no longer admit of divisions within itself between slavery and mastery, poverty and wealth, shame and honor, infirmity and strength, for all things would be held in common and all persons would be equal one with another" (180).

Just imagine... the thought of abolitionism was almost unthinkable to most Unionists even during the American Civil War in the 1860's! (We are, by and large, incapable of thinking outside of our context. Hence we who read Western history are often aghast to find even the most powerful of intellects spewing forth prejudice and ignorant hatred). And yet we find sprouting up within the fertile soil of post-resurrection Christianity a single shoot already reaching to the sky and crying, "Free all slaves! Slavery as an institution is vile!" Abolitionism does not date back merely to the mind of William Wilberforce; it can be found over 1300 years earlier in the mind of a Christian mystic and theologian.

This is but one example of Hart's demolition of the atheist's narrative of history. But I revel in it. I glory in the rich, life-giving, beauty-embracing ethic of my faith. David Hart gives Hitchens the academic middle finger and I applaud it and laugh with delight as he does.