My wife and I just watched the movie To End All Wars. I had read a good review of it and ordered it through Netflix. It was one of the most thought provoking movies I have ever seen. First,some nuts and bolts facts about it. It  is a drama based on a true story written by Ernest Gordon (Miracle on the River Kwai). Gordon was a POW held captive by the Japanese during World War II. The film is rated R for violence and brutality (not gratuitous)  and does contain some foul language. The director is David Cunningham,who is the son of Youth With a Mission founders Loren and Darlene Cunningham, and the screenwriter is Brian Godawa who has written the book Hollywood Worldviews:Watching Films With Wisdom and Discernment. It is not your typical Christian film, and I mean that in a good way.

The setting for the movie is a POW camp in Thailand. Many of the POW’s are from Scotland,and there is an immediate clash between the western values of human rights and dignity,with Bushido, the Code of Honor,as lived out by the Japanese commandant and guards. I was struck by what it means to be a slave. There is no talking back, there is no disobedience ,there is no freedom as commonly defined. The temptation of the prisoners is to become self serving and to give in to the desire to survive at all costs, to live out the Darwinian “survival of the fittest”. There is also the added intrigue of a group of POW’s who are plotting their escape.So within the circles of prisoners there are choices being made,there are temptations to be battled,and profound life and death consequences are experienced.

The prisoners are required to  build a railway bridge that is incredibly difficult. The movie makes an attempt,but fails to show us the horror of what that bridge cost in human lives, probably because of wanting to spend more time on character development, not to mention the impossibility of such a task.There were approximately 100,000 POW’S and 200,000 Asian slave laborers assigned to the project. Between 45,000 and 100,00 died in the effort to complete the railway fifteen months ahead of schedule.

Some of the predominant themes in the movie are vengeance,forgiveness,self-sacrifice,mercy, hope and hopelessness,repentance,and although not stated as such,the meaninglessness of running our own lives apart from God.Kiefer Sutherland plays the role of Reardon, an American who initially is all about himself.Ciaran McMenamin is Ernest Gordon and does the voice-over narration.Yugo Saso is Takashi Nagase,the sympathetic Japanese translator, Mark Strong is Dusty, the one who leads the way in living out the kingdom of God. There is great acting in the film. Heroism and evil exist side by side. It is war.Just like so much of our lives where we make the “small” choices of self or God every day.

One of the biggest mistakes one can make in watching this movie is to compartmentalize it as a WWII movie. The story transcends its setting, it shows how radical real Christianity is,and it should cause thought and heart explosions to be set off in every viewer. Be provoked in a godly way and rent this movie!

Yes,indeed! I tell you that unless a grain of wheat that falls into the ground dies,it stays just a grain;but if it dies,it produces a big harvest. He who loves his life loses it,but he who hates his life in this world will keep it safe right on into eternal life!(John 12:24-25)

My brother’s burden which I must bear is not only his outward lot,his natural characteristics and gifts,but  quite literally his sin. And the only way to bear that sin is by forgiving it in the power of the cross of Christ in which I now share.Thus the call to follow Christ  always means a call to share the work of forgiving men their sins.Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which it is the Christian’s duty to bear.( The Cost of Discipleship,Bonhoeffer,pg.100)