“The blood of Christians is the seed of the church,” said Tertullian. Some believers were tied to stakes in the sea to await the high tides that would gradually drown them, while others were bound and tossed off rafts some were scalded in boiling hot springs, and still others were hung upside down, their ears slit to ensure a slow death from bleeding.
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In scenes graphic though not gratuitous, Scorsese’s movie depicts the various torture techniques. Those who refused, the warlords hunted down and killed, in the most successful extermination attempt in church history. Japanese who made a public display of stepping on the fumie were pronounced apostate Christians and set free. In an honor culture that exalts conformity, the fumie plaque-a bronze portrait of Jesus enclosed in a small wooden frame-became the ultimate test of faith. The age of Japanese Christian martyrs had begun. The warlords expelled the Jesuits and required that all Christians renounce their faith and register as Buddhists.
As that century came to an end, though, the ruling shoguns’ suspicion of foreigners, exacerbated by the rivalry among missionary groups, led to a change in policy. Francis Xavier, one of the seven original Jesuits, established a church there in 1549, and within a generation the number of Christians had swelled to 300,000. That is the setting for Silence.Īt one point in history Japan seemed the most fruitful mission field in Asia. Zealots behead, crucify, and torture Christians unless they recant. A nation turns inward by sealing its borders and embargoing trade.
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Government officials crack down on followers of a foreign religion. Though it depicts events from four centuries ago, Silence seems startlingly relevant for our time. Silence presents such an alternative, one that every cinema-loving Christian should see. Christianity Today called it “one of the best films about Christianity ever made.” As Andy Crouch and Makoto Fujimura have argued in their respective books, Culture Making and Culture Care, Christians shouldn’t complain about popular culture unless they’re willing to create and to support good alternatives. It would be sad, however, if Silence slips too quickly into the Neverland of Netflix and late-night cable.
At the same time, Christians may balk at the honest portrayal of doubt, apostasy, and betrayal. That approach may not help him at the box office, for the average moviegoer may have limited tolerance for a long historical drama about Jesuit priests in Japan. To my surprise, Scorsese played it straight, in an Oscar-worthy treatment that closely follows the plot of the novel. I wrote about Endo’s novel in my book Soul Survivor, and I admit to misgivings about how Endo’s classic work might be treated by the director of such films as Taxi Driver, Gangs of New York, Goodfellas, The Last Temptation of Christ, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Now, in a lavish $40 million production, Scorsese’s cherished project has come to fruition. For almost thirty years, one book has obsessed the movie director Martin Scorsese: Silence, the celebrated novel by Japanese author Shusaku Endo.
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