Sophie Scholl -The Final Days

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In February 1943, as Germany struggled with a two front war, a group of university students in Munich were busy publishing leaflets. The leaflets were diatribes against Hitler and the German government over the war and various government policies. They were strongly worded and called on the people of Germany to rise up. They were, given the setting, treasonous. Those students (known as The White Rose) were taking part in a dangerous conspiracy that would be punished severely if they were caught. Among those students were Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie.

In Sophie Scholl: The Final Days we meet Sophie just before she and Hans undertake a particularly dangerous mission. Because they ran out of envelopes to mail the leaflets to random addresses, they took thousands of them to the university to leave for people to pick up. At the last minute, Sophie pushes a stack of them off the balcony. Unfortunately they were seen and arrested. The film follows Sophie through her interrogation and punishment.

The film is based on records of the interrogation that have been shut away for many years, just coming back to light after the reunification of Germany. Much of the film is really a two character play with Sophie going head-to-head with Gestapo officer Robert Mohr. At first, Sophie has an answer to all his questions; he's suspicious, but nearly ready to release her. But her brother confesses and then she, too, confesses. She and Mohr spend the next few days in debate over Nazism and freedom. She is bright and articulate -- and courageous.

The ordeal goes on in a show trial along side her brother and another member of The White Rose, Christopher Probst. The trial is not about evidence, but rather allows the presiding judge to viciously reprimand each defendant in turn for their actions and the harm it does to the nation. The defense lawyers have nothing to say to help their clients (indeed, the defense lawyers are part of the Nazi court apparatus.) The sentence has been determined. The trial is only to warn others of what awaits them if they oppose Hitler and the Riech.

Throughout her ordeal, Sophie is sustained by her faith. We often see her looking out the window to the sky. At times we hear her prayers for God to be with her. The film also portrays her as something of a shadow of Christ. When Mohr finishes his final interrogation, he goes over to a sink and washes his hands in imitation of Pilate at Jesus' trial. A cigarette shared with her brother and Probst serves as a tableau of the Last Supper.

Sophie is indeed a valiant hero. In a time when many in Germany were silent in the face of atrocities, she and the others of The White Rose sought to rally the people against the oppression of Hitler and Nazism. When it was no longer possible to deny her involvement, she didn't shy away, but was emboldened, stating her pride in what she did. She never compromised, even when Mohr (ever the Pilate figure) offers her a way out of the trouble -- a move that would have saved her life.

I've had a terrible time writing this review. Sophie's story is an inspiration that is well worth seeing. It's nomination for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language is ample evidence of its quality. It is spiritually uplifting and intellectually challenging. That's the easy part of the review. The hard part is liking a film so much, but having it fall a bit short of what it could have been. Since the Winter Olympics just finished, I'll put it this way. It was a definite silver medalist. A silver medal is wonderful; it is something to be proud of, but just a bit more could have gotten the gold.

I think part of the problem is that American audiences don't already know about The White Rose and Sophie Scholl. Since it's a German film, the primary audience is those for whom the story of The White Rose has grown to almost mythic significance. Even though I read up on the movement and read the leaflets before I went, that heroic myth that the Germans would probably be able to easily tie into just doesn't translate in the subtitles.

For a German audience the film doesn't have to tell any of the background that is missing in the story. We pick up the story only at the point of the distribution of leaflets at the university and the arrest. We have no real idea of what led Hans and Sophie into this movement. Certainly it was easy (and safer) in Hitler's Germany to keep silent in the face of all that was wrong. What made Sophie different? Her courage in the face of persecution is the stuff saints are made of. How did she come by it?

All of this is to say that Sophie's character just wasn't filled in as well as it could have been to make the movie even better (at least for non-German audiences.) Even a few glimpses into her life before all this could have added a great deal to an already very good film. It would have been especially helpful to understand a bit more of the way that her faith molded her, not just as she faced persecution, but as she saw the work she was doing with The White Rose as calling to a higher law.

This is a story well worth telling, and worth telling well. It is told well, but just a bit more could have made it a true classic.

— Overview

February viewing journal

2-1-06	--	Harry and Tonto
2-3-06	--	The Edukators
2-4-06	--	Strangers in Good Company
2-8-06	--	Manderlay
2-11-06	--	The Cameraman
2-11-06	--	Spite Marriage
2-12-06	--	The New World
2-13-06	--	Antonia's Line
2-13-06	--	Free and Easy
2-13-06	--	King Arthur
2-16-06	--	Pusher
2-17-06	--	The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
2-18-06	--	The World's Fastest Indian
2-22-06	--	The Searchers
2-23-06	--	The Third Miracle
2-24-06	--	Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story
2-25-06	--	Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

The World's Fastest Indian

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The film opens with a shot panning a shelf filled with what looks like junk – pieces of metal that we can’t quite make out their shapes. Under the shelf are the words “offerings to the god of speed.� These are engine parts that have been made and rejected by a man who has made his life’s work the goal of going as fast as possible on his forty year old motorcycle. There is a sense in which the film is the story of this man’s following this god of speed with all his heart and all his strength and all his being.

Burt Munro is an aging eccentric who lives in a shed surrounded by weeds (which his neighbor constantly complains about), urinates daily on his lemon tree to fertilize it, and spends all his time rebuilding his antique Indian Scout motorcycle trying to make it constantly go faster and faster. His life’s dream is to take it to Bonneville Salt Flats to see just how fast it can go.

Burt has given his life over completely to the god of speed. He is not just a mechanic tinkering with the engine. He makes all his own parts in rather unorthodox ways. He has turned his life over to this machine as he molds it into what will give him that ultimate speed.

Burt is something of a holy fool – one who, in the pursuit of their god, acts in ways that seem strange and foolish. In many ways, he is an innocent. He has no guile. What you see is what you get and what he sees is what he accepts.

A good part of the film is Burt’s pilgrimage from Invercargill at the southern tip of New Zealand to Bonneville. One of the oddities of this film is that there are no villains. No one tries to stop him. There is no adversary that must be overcome – only the goal to be reached. Along the way he meets various people, each of whom he accepts as they are and they end up accepting him and helping him along his way. There are offers (temptations) to stay in various places, but he pushes on towards that goal. He has to follow his dream. He says, “If you don’t follow through on your dreams you may as well be a vegetable.� And he will follow through or die trying. One of the biggest obstacles he faces is his own aging body

When he finally arrives at Bonneville, we can see that for him this is holy ground. He looks at it with wonder and enters into the “worship� (Speed Week) with full abandon. There he meets still other followers of his god. They are a community that supports one another as each strives to find their way to the god of speed.

Even here, Burt is seen as a bit of holy fool. He’s too old. His bike is too old. He doesn’t understand the way things are done. Yet, they bend the rules to give him his chance, figuring he really doesn’t know what he’s doing and will have a run and be happy. Burt, however, is a true believer – in speed, and in himself. And his faith is well founded.

The World’s Fastest Indian is a nicely done feel good movie as we watch Burt strive to overcome whatever obstacles there are to reaching his goal. At one point he quotes (or paraphrases) Theodore Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.� So it is with Burt Munro as he searches to satisfy his god of speed. He must be in the arena to do as best he can. Only then will he know what his life has meant.

But isn’t that the way it is with whatever god we seek to follow?

— Overview

Tsotsi

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A young man who has grown up on the streets of the townships outside of Johannesburg is known only as Tsotsi -- the term for a street thug or gangster. He is the leader of a small pack of petty (and becoming not so petty) criminals -- Boston (a failed teacher), Butcher (aptly name assassin) and Aap (Tsotsi's oldest friend). These are people who have no hope for a better world. They have learned to survive by violence. They care for no one -- maybe not even each other.

One night, Boston badgers Tsotsi for some personal information -- his real name or if he's ever had anyone who has meant something to him, even a dog. Tsotsi's anger leads him to beat Boston to a pulp. He then goes off to a good neighborhood in Johannesburg and sits in the rain. Soon a resident drives home, but when she has trouble getting the security gate open, Tsotsi takes advantage of the opportunity and carjacks her car. Not far down the road, he hears her baby begin to cry in the backseat. After crashing the car, Tsotsi takes the child back to his shack in the township and is on his way to a new life.

Untrained actor Presley Chweneyagae gives a chilling performance as this young man filled with bitterness and violence who through the gift of a child, even for a short time, comes to understand that life is about more than self. Life is completed by having someone to care for.

Tsotsi and his crew live an almost feral existence. We only see them come into town to commit crimes -- and they are vicious crimes. They quickly find the weak and prey upon them. They care nothing about life or death, only the satisfaction of releasing their rage on their victims.

When Tsotsi chooses to bring the baby back to his shack, he takes upon himself the responsibility for another person. He is not equipped for all that is involved. He tries to feed the child canned milk, with minimal success. Soon he finds Miriam, a young widowed mother with a child of her own, and forces her at gunpoint to feed the child. In time he learns that caring for the child is beyond him, but how can he take it back? And what will life be like for him after having given himself, however inadequately, to another.

It is in his sharing his life, first with the child, then a bit with Miriam, and a bit more as he cares for Boston in his recovery after Tsotsi has beaten him so severely, that provides the beginning of redemption in his life.

Through brief and chaotic flashbacks we see a bit of what pushed Tsotsi to this life of anger and violence. We see his dying mother and cruel father. We see Tsotsi and Aap living in the pipes that make up the township's orphanage. (Tsotsi later comes back to those pipes and sees the next generation that is headed toward his life.)

In a key scene, Tsotsi goes into the city where he encounters a beggar in a wheelchair. Following him out of the train station, he eventually asks him, "Why do you live like a dog?" referring to the way he begs and survives on other people scraps. But we see that it is Tsotsi who lives like a dog – a pack animal who grabs what he can without regard or morals.

The film is a study in contrasts. We see the skyscrapers of Johannesburg and the clean city streets where the child's parents live, then we see the expanse of the township that seems to go on forever. We see the bare pipes that serve as shelter for the children without families, then we see the child's bedroom in his middle class parents' home filled with toys and beautiful things. Even within the township, we can see contrasts. Amid all the poverty, Miriam's home has things of beauty. She has made mobiles. One is made of rusted metal ("I was sad"). Another is of brightly colored glass ("I was happy").

The contrasts are not just matters of rich and poor. There are the loved (Miriam's child) and the unloved (the children in the pipes). There are those who survive and those who live. Tsotsi is on the cusp of moving from surviving to living. It is not an easy shift to make, and Tsotsi is only beginning to make the shift. But we have hope that the first steps he has taken will in time lead to life.

The film is based on a novel by one of South Africa's finest playwrights, Athol Fugard, and brought to the screen by writer and director Gavin Hood. I've had the privilege of seeing several of Fugard’s plays and also seeing Hood's earlier film, A Reasonable Man, at a film festival a few years ago. Hood is a talented filmmaker who has been touted as someone to watch. He has updated Fugard's novel in such a way to bring new life to this powerful story. Part of that updating is drastically changing the ending. But the ending that Hood ends up with in the film is one that is satisfying for the viewer as well, I think, as true to the spirit of Fugard’s story, even if it doesn't follow that ending.

Tsotsi is a powerful depiction of the power of sharing our lives with others. It is a film of hope in that, by the end, we see where Tsotsi's life can go, even if it is still a long and difficult journey. But he has learned that there is more to life than himself and the moment. The child he finds in the back of a car offers him a future he may have never contemplated. Futures are always a sign of hope.

- Overview

Manson's Memo 2/23

Sometimes you don’t have to travel very far to seem like you’ve gone far away. Last week Jane and I took a trip to Catalina. (That place “twenty-six miles across the sea� is really only nineteen miles from San Pedro.) Since we spent the night there, we had to pack a small suitcase. Travel there by boat is almost like taking a plane someplace – park the car, get your tickets, board, and off you go. We traveled for an hour, and ended up on that small island and in Avalon, a very touristy town. It is a place that on a clear day we can see from the beach (and on a clear day they can see to L.A.)

But it was so different. There were almost no chains there. There was a KFC, and Vons and Cold Stone ice cream – other than that, there were none of the fast food places we’re used to. It was so different, but we hadn’t even traveled out of the school district we live in. It is so near, but in some ways it is a different world all together.

There are times when it seems God is very far away from us (or that we have wandered far from God). It seems like the gulf between us to just too vast to be traversed. It may even be that on some days we think we can see the Realm of God off in the distance, but we don’t think we’ll ever make it there.

In fact, God is always closer to us than that “twenty-six miles across the sea.� We never have to travel far to find God and the new world that God has for us. We don’t have to travel at all. God is beside us each day.

שלן�

(shalom)

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

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The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is one of those films that has far more going on than you can absorb in one sitting. Even a few days after watching the film, there are bits and pieces that I wonder about, knowing there is meaning that I haven't yet found. Tommy Lee Jones, in his directing debut, has created a story that can lead us in thinking about many issues-- violence and anger, racism, fidelity, redemption.

In very rural West Texas, Mike Norton, an inexperienced Border Patrol agent, kills a Mexican cowboy working on a Texas ranch. It is a mistake that never should have happened. Mike quickly covers the body. (Burial one)

Mike is the kind of person that never should have a badge of any kind. We don't know what they are, but we quickly see that his has some serious unresolved issues of some sort. He is violent, controlling, self-centered and irresponsible. He is filled with anger and hubris. We see it when he is at work and when he is at home. It is his recklessness that leads to Melquiades' death. He fails to confess or admit what has happened.

When the body is found, no one much cares about finding the killer. The Sheriff treats it as just another dead Mexican. Pete, the ranch foreman Melquiades works for, tries to get the body for burial. The Sheriff ignores him and buries the body in a county plot. (Burial two)

Pete is Melquiades's closest friend and has promised that if anything happened to him, he would take him back to his home and family in Mexico. When Pete learns the identity of the killer (whom the authorities will not arrest), he kidnaps Mike and forces him to dig up the body and they start on a trek to Mexico for the third burial. That journey is filled with as many plot turns as there are turns in the various roads they travel.

In a key scene, Pete has taken Mike and Melquiades's body to Melquiades's little house. There he makes Mike drink from Melquiades's cup and put on Melquiades's clothes. This is the beginning of the process of making Mike accountable for what he has done. He first has to understand that Melquiades was a real person -- a person with a home, who had his cup to drink out of, who had dreams and a real home.

The journey they take to Mexico is arduous, both physically and spiritually. Death is constantly with them -- in the body they carry with them and in the dangers they face. Pete has taken control of Mike's life. He has taken away his freedom, but the anger and hubris remain. It is only when Mike finally lets loose of these that he is able to come to terms with what he has done and find the seeds of forgiveness.

The story is told in semi-linear fashion. The main story of Melquiades's death and burials moves along linearly with many flashbacks showing Melquiades's life from the time he started working for Pete.

There is a subplot that involves Mike's wife and the waitress at the town diner who have a fling with Pete and Melquiades (in flashback). Both of the women are married. They provide an interesting contrast to the fidelity of Pete in keeping his promise.

The story is structured in such a way to highlight the contrasts between Mike and Melquiades. Both are bound to Pete -- Melquiades by friendship, Mike by handcuffs. We almost always see Melquiades with a smile; Mike never smiles. Melquiades cherishes the wife he is absent from; Mike abuses his. Mike is always angry; Melquiades never is. Mike is completely self-centered; Melquiades is so generous that he gives away his most valuable possession, his horse.

While there are many ways of looking at this film (and as I said at the start, many things I'm still trying to figure out), it clearly shows the need for people to acknowledge, confess and seek forgiveness for sins in order to be able to move on in their lives. Mike, while trying to cover up the crime, was stuck in the world he had built for himself. It was a world in which there was no joy.

When Pete first kidnaps Mike for this journey, it is with the idea of bringing some justice to the situation. None of the officials seemed to care. Only Pete would hold Mike accountable for what he did. But in the process, that justice is seen not only in the retribution that Pete heaps on Mike, but also in the grace and forgiveness that comes though the ordeal.

In a sense, Mike ends up in that final grave along with Melquiades's body. He is no longer the arrogant and angry man that cared so little about anyone. Instead, he has an opportunity for newness. There is the chance for resurrection -- for Mike to live again after coming so close to death.

- Overview

Manderlay

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Manderlay probably has something in it to piss off just about everyone. Of course, Lars von Trier has already pissed off many people with Dogville who won’t bother to see this follow up. But for those who still want to hear von Trier’s message, they should come prepared to be offended.

Who will be offended? White liberals who see themselves as helping those less fortunate, African Americans who are seen as preferring to be victims rather than take responsibility for their lives, neo-cons who will see the obvious discounting of America’s attempt to spread democracy. White or black, liberal or conservative, von Trier has you in his sight.

Just as in Dogville, Manderlay focuses on the arrogance and hypocrisy that von Trier sees in America. (One of the key critiques of his films is that he tees off on America and American values without ever having been here; he relies on the way America is portrayed in popular media.) I think that von Trier, as an outsider, does indeed have perspectives that we need to see. It may not be easy to be confronted with his perspectives, and we may disagree with them strenuously, but it is valuable to have to deal with what he has to say.

This film picks up where Dogville left off. In 1933, Grace, her father and a gaggle of gangsters have made it down to Alabama, where they stop briefly outside a plantation called Manderlay. There a young man is about to be whipped. Grace’s father tries to point out that this is a local matter. Grace is outraged when she discovers that at Manderlay slavery is still in effect. The owner of the plantation (Mam) soon dies and rather than let the family continue the exploitation of the slaves, Grace (with the muscle of her father’s gangsters) sets them free and enslaves the family.

Grace’s father reminds her of when she was a child and set free her caged bird only to find it dead outside the next morning. But Grace assumes that with her power (the gangsters) she can make a difference. At first, the slaves are reluctant to be free. As Wilhelm says, “As slaves we took supper at seven. When do free men eat?� But freedom is forced upon them by Grace. She knows what’s good for them and will teach them how to live.

As the change plays out, we soon discover that Grace has not foreseen the consequences of her actions. It seems like everything she does only makes things worse. Soon the plantation is on the brink of failure.

Some spoilers follow

In time Grace shows them “Mam’s Law,� the book that had ruled their lives. She sees it as a disgusting set of exploitive rules. Wilhelm (one of the former slaves) tells her, “I wrote Mam’s Law for the good of everyone. You’ve been reading it through the wrong spectacles.� He then goes on to explain to her why these things were for the benefit of all.

Eventually, the community realizes that it needs a new “Mam� and votes Grace into the role, even though she doesn’t want it.

End spoilers

Sometimes it seems that von Trier likes to play with the mechanics of filmmaking to see what he can come up with. (Cf., his work in developing the Dogme Manifesto or the games he played with Jørgen Leth in making The Five Obstructions.) This can make for innovative and creative films. This has the feel of him looking at how to make a sequel that mixes up the sequel formula.

Like Dogville, Manderlay is played out on an almost bare sound stage with minimal props and sets. It carries forward the themes from Dogville – especially the themes of arrogance and hypocrisy.

This gets back to the many ways this film can manage to offend everyone. The key focus on the film is on the kind of white liberal guilt that Grace manifests. If you remember Tom Edison in Dogville, you will readily recognize him in Grace here. She is the one in the community who knows better than everyone else how things should be. She is the one with the moral compass. (At least that’s how she sees herself.) She takes the blame for the oppression of these oppressed people, even though she has not been involved. From her mouth the whole attitude (which reflects very well the kind of white liberal guilt that we often hear from society’s do-gooders) sounds arrogant and ludicrous. But not only is it arrogant, we see in the film that it can also lead to great anger when those we seek to help turn the words back on us.

It is also a bit hypocritical, the film points out, for those who claim to be victims of oppression to opt to live in that role rather than take responsibility for their own lives. One of the points of Mam’s Law was that these people needed to be taken care of. Many of them knew the purpose of the Law, and rather than moving on to more productive lives, chose to continue in the easier, protected life of Manderlay’s slavery.

I expect those who will be most offended are those who think that it is America’s role to make the world democratic. It should be remembered that Dogville was made prior to the beginning of the Iraq War. The arrogance von Trier alluded to there was that America could think that it had a right to impose their power. Here, as America is seeking to instill democracy in Iraq, he takes issue with democracy as the answer to every problem. In an interview on the film’s website, he speaks openly about America’s missionary effort with democracy. While he sees setting people free is a good thing, to export one way of life to other countries as the only way that is valuable is, in von Trier’s words, “very bad.�

I’m one of those who look forward to von Trier’s films. I continue to think he has something to say. That doesn’t mean that we have to accept his ideas. Perhaps we get offended the most when we see ourselves clearly and hear the words we say and the ideas we support in new light that makes them seem trivial and wrongheaded. It is this way that von Trier skewers the viewer. It doesn’t necessarily invalidate our ideas, but it makes us try to justify to ourselves the ideas and ideals we hold dear. Perhaps then we can justify them to the world – maybe even to Lars von Trier.

Complete downloadable Powerpoint Presentation review with 7 film clips from the film

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Faith and Film Critic Circle announce year's best

The Faith and Film Critics Circle has announced it's awards for the Best of 2005. While my favorited didn't always come out on top, it is still a great set of films.

I hate not singing in church. A couple of Sundays ago those of you who were at church could tell I had no voice. I had to save what little voice I had for the sermon. So all the time the rest of you were singing, I just sat there with my mouth closed. I could read the lyrics, but it’s just not the same. I could hear the rest of you, but that’s not the same either.

One of the things that many people enjoy in worship is the music. Sometimes we like the words of the songs. Sometimes we like singing old, familiar songs. Sometimes we like learning something new. Sometimes we hate learning something new.

Music has an important place in our worship. It’s not just to make us feel good, although it often does. It’s not just to set the mood. It’s not to fill up the time. Music is so important because it is participatory. It is the time in the service that we are not spectators, we are active.

But it goes beyond being active. That Sunday I couldn’t sing, I was active. I was following along with the words. I was trying to make the song my own, even if I couldn’t sing.

Another thing about singing is that it involves so much of us. It requires our intellect as we read and appreciate the words. It involves our bodies as we breathe and as we make those minor adjustments in our vocal cords to get different notes. It involves our spirits as we allow the music and words to speak to us and bring our emotional response.

That Sunday I couldn’t sing, these things just couldn’t come together for me, so I felt as if there were something missing.

It’s not just singing. Whenever we try to live our lives only in the intellect, or only in the flesh, or only in the spiritual realm, there is something missing. It is when we bring all these things together that we are truly living the life God designed us for. Then we can sing a beautiful song.

שלן�

A Time for Burning

Each year the Library of Congress and the National Film Preservation Board name twenty-five “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films� to be added to the National Film Registry. Films chosen cover many years and styles including feature films, cartoons, documentaries, and shorts. Among those named in 2005 to the Registry is a gem waiting to be discovered, A Time for Burning.

This 1967 documentary looks at what happened in a white, mainline church in Omaha, Nebraska, when the pastor sought to open the people of the church to the Black community around them. This was not an attempt to integrate the church or to be involved in the struggle for civil rights that was going on at the time. The program the pastor wanted to implement would have had ten couples (all volunteers) from Augustana Lutheran Church meet with ten couple from a Black Lutheran or Presbyterian church. The strife in the church over this problem gives us insight into the depth of the problem at that time, but also makes us aware that many of the attitudes people espoused forty years ago still plague the church as it tries to open itself to the world.

This is not to say that no progress has been made in civil rights over the past forty years. In watching the film, viewers will easily see many things that no longer take place. The blatant racism (even by well meaning people) would be much rarer in churches today. In a meeting of ministers, one relates a comment a woman made to him: “Pastor, I want them to have everything that I have. I want God to bless them as much as he blesses me. But I just can’t be in the same room with them.� It is hard to imagine a comment such as this being taken as seriously today.

But the church continues to be one of the most segregated institutions in our culture. The words of one of the proponents of the program continue to be true in our world: “You realize as a church we’re behind business…. What a ridiculous thing for a church, as a Christian body, to say on a moral issue ‘We’re behind business.’� Or consider this bit of a conversation: One member: “This church’s doors will never be closed to colored people.� Response: “In our hearts.� We have to wonder if things really have changed all that much in the last forty years.

Part of the film involves the pastor’s outreach to listen to black people in the community. We see him in a barbershop where the barber gives him an earful about the shortcomings of the white church. The barber, Ernie Chambers, went on to become a member of the Nebraska legislature where he has now served 35 years. His comments are not easy to listen to. They may be a bit exaggerated, but they certainly had a good amount of validity in the setting of the 1960s. They probably still have validity for today’s church if we allow ourselves to be open to hearing them.

In spite of the animosity that Chambers conveys, he was willing to speak to the pastor and other church members with openness. He, along with the pastor, offers a prophetic message that needed to be heard at that time. It may not seem quite as pressing today, but the basic message still speaks to a world that continues to have a strong foundation of racism and a church that still is struggling to find ways of addressing that racism.

One of the things that struck me as I watched was that many of the same things said about people of color in 1967 are now said about Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people today. Look back at some of the quotes from the film. “I just can’t be in the same room with them.� “As a church we are behind business.� “‘The church’s doors will never be closed….’ ‘In our hearts.’� I wonder how many times such things have been said as churches struggle with how they should treat LGBT people.

In researching this film, I spoke with Augustana Lutheran Church’s current pastor, the Rev. Susan Butler. She said that when the film came out that the members felt that the editing made them look worse than they were, but it also helped them to recognize they weren’t the church they wanted to be. In the forty years since the film, Augustana has become a multi-ethnic congregation that Pastor Butler describes as the most liberal Lutheran church in the state. It is involved in various community ministries and is a Reconciling in Christ congregation (that is, one that is welcoming to LGBT people.) I expect the struggle from 40 years ago taught them lessons that helped them reach this position.

Perhaps this film’s being brought back to our attention through the National Film Registry will allow their pain and struggle to lead other churches in the struggles we still face as we try to be open and inclusive in our mission.