[Oe List ...] more on that Bonhoeffer movie

Sun Nov 24 12:37:07 PST 2024

Marshall-thank you for your questions-a most excellent example of artform
development demonstrating how the questions are almost like a spectrum
where the central question of each level is like the true red gradually
changing into the true blue. Thank you.
Don

828-292-9696

On Sun, Nov 24, 2024 at 1:21 PM Richard Alton via OE <
oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

> Thanks for the questions, Marshall
> Dick
>
> On Sun, Nov 24, 2024 at 1:54 PM W. J. via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Dick, I applaud your interest in introducing your Methodist Church to
>> Bonhoeffer with a movie and a movie conversation.
>> If you want to evaluate the various available Bonhoeffer films for
>> appropriateness for your audience and your pedagogical intent, instead of
>> just promoting the latest one that you just saw, check out this listing
>> from the International Bonhoeffer Society:
>>
>> https://bonhoeffersociety.org/2024/10/25/bonhoeffer-documentaries-and-films/
>> My perspective is that *all* of these films translate Bonhoeffer into
>> being a character acting in a story the filmmaker wants to tell.
>> Each film may illuminate a facet of Dietrich's life, but we can never
>> know *all* of his internal process as he struggled to discern the will
>> of God for his life and death.
>> What comes closest to illuminating his personal struggle are the glimmers
>> we catch through reading his writings and what witnesses have to say about
>> his extraordinary presence with others in places like Tegel Prison, for
>> example.
>> I would not want to be the director who had to select an actor who could
>> fully embody this role in a movie, especially if that kind of depth were
>> not even hinted at in the script. And if I had failed as a director to
>> grasp a sense of what the *real* Bonhoeffer was about.
>> I might wind up with a *turkey* of a film.
>> But my bottom line is that everybody creates his or her own personal
>> version of who Bonhoeffer was, based on one's individual values,
>> perceptions, and experience of dealing with life questions. Or not.
>> And so the decisional question is, what is each of us going to do with
>> "our" Bonhoeffer? What does "our" Bonhoeffer mean to us?
>> Marshall
>> I've attached my version of a generic list of possible questions for a
>> movie conversation. These are like a 'palette' of colors from which to draw
>> as appropriate for the group and their process. Please *improve* on this
>> version by adding your own generic questions or questions pertinent to the
>> Bonhoeffer film you decide to show.
>> On Saturday, November 23, 2024 at 08:35:06 PM EST, Richard Alton via OE <
>> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Sorry about the money mistake. But I have seen the movie and thought
>> Terry's comments were right on target. I am going to try and get my
>> Methodist Church to go see the movie together and have  an ORID
>> conversation. Will be interesting. Sorry about yours and Sarah's eye
>> problems. Just had a cataract operation. The eyes seem to go first as we
>> age.
>> Thanks, Dick
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 6:46 PM Richard Alton <richard.alton at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Marshal. go see the money and lead an ORID conversation with your
>> community.. will surprise you.
>> Dick
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 5:31 PM W. J. via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I still haven't seen the movie, but a few of us have. Here's my response
>> to a private email from one colleague:
>> Marshall
>>
>> D**, I'm guessing from your description that the screenplay was not the
>> result of any in-depth study of Bonhoeffer's life or his theology.
>> I bet the screenwriter didn't even bother to read Eberhard Bethge's
>> biography.
>> What I think he did is to create a cartoon Bonhoeffer character by
>> superimposing the skeletal outline of Bonhoeffer's life onto a thriller
>> movie framework.
>> Leaving out the nuances and agonizing complexities of Bonhoeffer's
>> ethical dilemmas as a pacifist.
>> I'm not shocked that this cartoon version of Bonhoeffer has him wishing
>> to "tear down the institutional church."
>> I think the real Bonhoeffer's life was more profoundly nuanced than that
>> kind of statement. His *Life Together* and *The Cost of Discipleship* were
>> written while he supervised the underground seminary at Finkenwalde for
>> students who were preparing to serve the dissenting Confessing Church that
>> opposed the official German Church coalition that embraced Hitler.
>> His focus on a "religionless Christianity" is a rejection of the 'smells
>> and bells' and medieval belief system Luther inherited from Catholicism in
>> favor of a radical immersion in the secular life of the world.
>> And also a radical following of Jesus rather than middle class cultural
>> norms.
>> Something like the monastic life of seminary students at Finkenwalde. Or
>> maybe the O:E.
>> Although Bonhoeffer never abandoned his upper-class entitlement to a
>> rich, privileged life.
>> I believe that the real Dietrich was in love with his young student
>> Eberhard
>> <https://spiritualfriendship.org/2014/08/08/one-more-post-on-the-gay-bonhoeffer/>,
>> who was the beneficiary of his will.
>> Dietrich reluctantly became engaged to marry the much younger Maria Von
>> Wedemeyer only after her grandmother relentlessly pushed her on him and
>> only after Eberhard got engaged to Dietrich's niece Renate.
>> I don't get the sense that he was ever hot to make love with Maria.
>> Perhaps their experience of 'true love' was always from an emotional
>> distance, especially after Dietrich's arrest just three months after their
>> announcement. There were letters and supervised visits. That's all.
>> After both became engaged, Dietrich wrote to Eberhard, imagining that
>>
>> *Now, we can resume our partnership, and we can travel together in those
>> places where we found so much joy, and we can leave our wives back in
>> Germany, in Berlin, or some place.*
>>
>> In other words, they both acquired beards, and Dietrich longed to renew
>> and pursue their spiritual friendship as 'soul mates' or whatever they
>> decided to call it.
>> But Eberhard was never willing to venture below the belt (as far as we
>> can tell).
>> I'm not at all sure that Dietrich was ever willing to go there, much as
>> he may have longed to do just that. He wrote in prison that he would die a
>> virgin.
>> But since Eberhard's *whole life* was about Dietrich--especially as his
>> martyred mentor and forever lost lover--how *hard* is it to understand
>> the depth of his love in return?
>> At least that's *my* version of Bonhoeffer. Now I'll have to see the
>> damn movie!
>> Marshall
>>
>> Dietrich Bonhoeffer Was Flamingly Gay-- Deal With It
>> <https://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2014/06/dietrich-bonhoeffer-was-flamingly-gay-deal-with-it/>
>> Links in the message (1)
>> One More Post on the “Gay” Bonhoeffer
>> <https://spiritualfriendship.org/2014/08/08/one-more-post-on-the-gay-bonhoeffer/>
>> Dietrich Bonhoeffer Was Flamingly Gay--...
>> <https://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2014/06/dietrich-bonhoeffer-was-flamingly-gay-deal-with-it/>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Richard H. T. Alton
>> ICA Global Fund
>> The Last Chapter
>> United Methodist Net Zero
>> T: 773.344.7172
>> richard.alton at gmail.com
>> Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
>> Won't you be my neighbor?
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Richard H. T. Alton
>> ICA Global Fund
>> The Last Chapter
>> United Methodist Net Zero
>> T: 773.344.7172
>> richard.alton at gmail.com
>> Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
>> Won't you be my neighbor?
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>
>
> --
> Richard H. T. Alton
> ICA Global Fund
> The Last Chapter
> United Methodist Net Zero
> T: 773.344.7172
> richard.alton at gmail.com
> Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
> Won't you be my neighbor?
> _______________________________________________
> OE mailing list
> OE at lists.wedgeblade.net
> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
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