Desolate Swampland: The Ideological Clash of European Christianity and Japanese Buddhism as Illustrated by “Silence”
Kas 158 (Modern Japan) Reaction Paper 1
Religious movies generally suck, at least for me. Those Christian movies that revolve around the ideas of persecution complex, messianic complex, and religious exclusivism are particularly annoying. Instead of telling a good story, most of them end up being just a sermon brought into the big screen, designed to spread religious propaganda. It that is not enough, some of these films even insert their anti-“woke” political agenda and go on spreading stupid and harmful stereotypes against liberals, atheists, and people of other religions. I am specifically talking about that “God’s Not Dead” trilogy and the rest of Christian films released by PureFlix.
But beneath those pile of movie garbage lies a precious gemstone, mostly ignored by most people. This is the 2016 movie “Silence” directed by Martin Scorsese, the same guy who created those other film masterpieces like “Taxi Driver”, “The Irishman”, “The Wolf of Wall Street”, “Goodfellas”, and “Gangs of New York”. There is something about “Silence” that somehow differ from the other religious flicks. It does not attempt to assert Christianity being the superior religion to all civilizations, nor try to paint the Japanese Buddhists as backwards. It was a movie that has a surprisingly balanced theme.
The main premise is all about these two Portuguese Jesuit priests from the Diocese of Macao, Father Sebastião Rodrigues (played by Andrew Garfield) and Father Francisco Garupe (played by Adam Driver) in quest to find their beloved mentor Father Cristóvão Ferreira (played by Liam Neeson) in Nagasaki, Japan, who was rumored to have renounced his Catholic faith and lived as a Buddhist monk named Sawan Ochuan during the anti-Christian purges of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The two priests believed that it was their duty to travel to Japan and find out the truth about their mentor, as well as for them to continue his evangelical mission into the islands. What comes next is that they too, of course, faced the same Christian persecution carried out by the Governor of Chikuwo and the Grand Inquisitor, Inoue Masashige. In the end, the central theme will revolve around the apostasy of Father Rodrigues, which arguably is the most painful part to watch.
The movie tackled plenty of theological layers that are all equally interesting to discuss. For example, that Japanese Kirishitan (Christian) named Kochijiro, who is the companion of Rodrigues and Garupe to Japan. He felt constant guilt for apostatizing and watched his whole family, who did not recant, to be burned alive by the orders of Inoue. He kept betraying the priests and recanting his Christian faith in front of the inquisitors, and yet also kept asking for forgiveness for having a weak soul. His character was reminiscent of the apostle Peter who was prophesied to betray Jesus three times, or can be an allegory for humanity in general who was still deemed worthy of God’s love despite their corrupt sinful nature.
Philosophical concepts such as the problem of evil and utilitarianism was also well explored. Both Father Ferreira and Father Rodrigues faced separate challenges on their faith, where the Grand Inquisitor both demanded them to abandon Catholicism in exchange of stopping innocent Japanese Christians being tortured. Inoue’s rationale is that priests pronouncing their disbelief is the quickest way to stop spreading Christianity, instead of executing all of them, for martyrdom only makes their faith even stronger. Recant and save more lives, or not recant but more will be killed. It was surely an agonizing decision akin to the Trolley Problem. Father Rodrigues’ faith was shaken due to God’s apparent silence about his children being persecuted and killed by the Japanese. After all, why would an all-powerful and all-loving deity let all of those happen?
But what particularly caught my attention is the East vs. West historical trope showed in the movie. For instance, there was once a brief argument between Father Rodrigues and the Grand Inquisitor’s interpreter about their religions. The priest pointed out how the Buddhas are all mere men and only the Creator is the eternal one, while the interpreter retorted how the Buddhas are beings that men can become. From the Japanese point of view, the Christian worldview of living a joyful and peaceful life by following God’s commandments roots from arrogance. The Western way is all about man being in the center of nature, while the Eastern way is all about man being united with nature.
During the first meeting of Father Rodrigues with the Grand Inquisitor and his council of elders, one of the elders said that after careful examination of the Christian doctrine, they concluded that it is useless and dangerous in Japan. The Jesuit then exclaimed about his Platonic notion of absolute Truth, believing that they, the missionaries, have brought them the Truth that is universal in all time and places. That it cannot be called as such if it is not true in Japan as it is in Portugal. But that same elder made a rather compelling rebuttal, saying “…a tree which flourishes in one kind of earth may decay and die in another.”
When the priest finally saw his former mentor Ferreira again, the priest-turned-monk explained to Rodrigues why Christianity can never take root in Japan. To Rodrigues, it is because the Japanese are killing the Christian community, or in his words, “…the roots have been taken up.” But Ferreira’s answer reflected the same sentiments of the council: that Japan is a swamp where the buds of Christianity eventually rot. This is because the Japanese cannot conceive of the Christian God the way Westerners do. They believe that nothing transcends human. The spirits that they worship do not exist beyond nature, but with nature. God, for the Japanese, is Dainichi, the sun itself. Therefore, the Kirishitan converts only worship the Christian God from their Eastern point of view, never from the actual gospel. Ferreira pointed out that the converts never sacrificed their lives for the Christian faith itself, but for priests like him and Rodrigues, who served as their only hope in a society that persecutes them.
But aside from Christianity being a threat to the way of life in Japanese culture, they also saw it as a political danger. The Grand Inquisitor Inoue himself told an analogy to Rodrigues about a Japanese nobleman having four different concubines in their house. The women are all jealous of each other and wanted to get rid of one another. The nobleman then made a wise decision by kicking them all out of the house. The nobleman is Japan, while the four concubines are Spain, Portugal, Holland, and England, all fighting for trading rights in the islands. This is why Japan developed their closed-door policy against most Westerners until the Meiji Restoration. In the end, it was only the Dutch East India Company who they permitted to trade with them, mostly because they do not have the goal to proselytize Christian faith.
Father Rodrigues finally gave in. He surrendered and abandoned his Christian faith by stepping in a fumi-e, an image of Jesus. The voice of Jesus himself spoke to him, commanding the priest to step on him, since after all, he was born and died to carry men’s pain. Rodrigues spent the rest of his life as Okada Sanyemon and lived with his wife and stepson in Edo, never speaking of his former faith ever again. He worked with Ferreira (now Sawan) as confiscators of Christian imagery in Dutch products. He was given a Buddhist burial when he died, but it was revealed in the last moments of the movie that he passed away still holding a makeshift cross, indicating that he still practiced his faith silently an actually died as a Christian.
“Silence” perfectly demonstrated what true faith and devotion looks like, without being preachy. It also equally showed the beauty of Zen Buddhism and explained how justified the Japanese were to ban Christianity into their islands, though whether or not they were justified in torturing and killing the kirishitan converts was an entirely different question. Even if I am an atheist, the movie made me sympathize with the Christian characters, but simultaneously also understanding the motivations of the Japanese inquisitors. They did an excellent work for balancing the Eastern and Western perspectives in the film, something that most Hollywood filmmakers repeatedly fail to accomplish.
References:
Scorsese, Martin, director, Silence. Paramount Pictures, 2016. 2 hr., 41 min., 9 sec. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0490215/
Passed on June 30, 2023
