It’s probably not a question with which we really need to bother – after all, God is the one who ultimately decides these things – but watching Quentin Tarantino’s World War II fantasia “Inglourious Basterds” made me wonder: Are Nazis unforgivable?
Tarantino’s movie is so many things it makes your head spin – a war film, yes, but also a spaghetti Western, a splatterfest and a Brad Pitt comedy. Yet what the picture ultimately amounts to is a revenge movie.
Pitt anchors the film as Lt. Aldo Raine, leader of an elite crew of Jewish-American soldiers who prowl behind enemy lines scalping German soldiers. The few who are allowed to live are freed only after a swastika is carved onto their forehead, leaving a scar that will always remind them of their sins.
The movie gets more outrageous than that. I won’t reveal the ending for those of you who are still interested in seeing it, but suffice it to say Tarantino has envisioned an alternate history that offers an especially bloody, hands-on form of catharsis for anyone who thinks Hitler was a bad guy.
Considering that’s pretty much everyone, Tarantino’s movie means to intrinsically justify all of the murder and mayhem on the screen. If we’re allowed to cheer the pain of anyone, wouldn’t it be that suffered by Nazis as we watch them get their due from the very people they’ve hideously oppressed?
There was plenty of cheering, hooting and hollering in the theater I attended, which made for an extremely uncomfortable atmosphere. It wasn’t only that we in the audience were passively engaged in a cathartic act of vengeance – a sin itself - but also that we seemed to believe we had a free pass to do so, all because those suffering the violence, in this particular case, “deserved” it.
Is this a righteous way of looking at things? Are Nazis beyond redemption? To mix the movie’s metaphors with those from Christian hymns, can the Germans’ scarred foreheads be washed in the blood of the lamb, leaving them white as snow?
Not only is this ultimately God’s business, it’s also particularly difficult to answer if you have no personal family connection to the Holocaust. So I’m curious to hear what others – especially those who bear their own scars from World War II - might have to say about this issue, and about Tarantino’s film in particular.
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Comments (4)
Corrie ten Boom had to explore the same thing, when after the war she was speaking to an audience about forgiveness and God's love and her former Nazi guard came to her to ask her for forgiveness for what he had done...at first she couldn't forgive, and then praying for help, through Christ, she could.
Should we forgive? Can we forgive? Yes, through Christ. Trust building is another issue and one that needs Divine help for. Put it this way, if Judas, before he died, truly repented, would he be forgiven? Should he? Who then, DID Christ die for?
Just a few thoughts. Thanks for getting the grey cells working!
On the other hand, the fact that these people who had committed violent felonies were singing in the choir means they had changed some. I'd have to say that, up until the time he lost the power to inflict violence on others, killing Hitler would have been justified at any time. Carving the foreheads of every minion a team runs across, not so much. On the whole, considering what a lot of Americans watch these days, and how little history people grasp, I'm glad that the Nazis are at least the bad guys in this movie. It might keep down the popularity of the Aryan Nations in our own midst.
And as far as forgiveness goes, it was never for the person that did the sinning as much as it is for the person who needs to forgive. Our hearts get hard and when they do, we can not hear from God because the pain and suffering we are going through blocks us from hearing Him.
There is a multitude of wisdom in the phrase, "forgive and forget." If only we can do that, then we will be free indeed. Time heals all wounds if we allow the healing to start with forgiveness. Will we ever really forget? Probably not, but if we try, it can make a world of difference in how we live out our lives. Forgiveness empowers us not to be the victim.
Those men and women who made it out of those concentration camps are not defined by the situation they were in, but how there were when they came out of it. Just like Paul, who had a thorn in his body, was not defined by the torn, but by the means on which he dealt with the torn. He might not have liked it, and from scripture, we can tell he was enough of a pain to him that he asked God to take it away 3 times, but he grew from the situation and allowed Gods grace to be enough for him. The thorn was no more.
We all should be looking to God for our strength and allow Him to take care of the sins of others.