Witness to the Christian Community
October, 2006
In the 1985 film Witness,
director Peter Weir and writers Earl W. Wallace and William Kelley
capture the ethical struggles of resident aliens, at home and as they
venture into the strange and foreign world of others. The Oscar-winning
film grapples with the ethical conflict between violence and pacifism
as seen through the eyes of Philadelphia police officer John Book and
the Amish community he visits.
When eight-year-old Samuel Lapp witnesses a murder in Philadelphia
while traveling with his mother Rachel, the two become the target of
the evil, corrupt police officers who committed the murder. An honest
police detective, John Book, risks his life to protect them as the
mother and child retreat back to their isolated Amish community.
Severely wounded by the corrupt police officers, the hot-tempered,
violent Book must adopt the Amish ways as he lives among them while
recovering from his injuries.
As Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon suggest that "the church is
a colony, an island of one culture in the middle of another" (Resident Aliens,
p. 12), Detective Book finds the Amish community an island inside his
own community. Book and the Lapps may all live in the same Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania, but the differences in their worlds is startling as he
and the Lapps leave behind the urban inner-city police precinct and
enter an isolated community without automobiles, electricity or
telephones. Where Rachel Lapp and her son were able to travel and
adjust to Book's modern world, the fish-out-of-water Book has greater
difficulty. Rachel carries her Christian ethics with her, so she is
able to maintain her ethics, regardless of her surroundings.
Book’s temperament is driven by a response to his often violent
environment.
When young Samuel finds the police officer’s handgun, it prompts
a deep discussion between the boy and his grandfather. This important
expository scene explains to the audience the Christian ethics of the
Amish. With the weapon on the table in front of them, the family elder
says to his grandson, "this gun of the hand is for the taking of human
life. We believe it is wrong to take a life. That is only for God. Many
times wars have come and people have said to us: you must fight, you
must kill, it is the only way to preserve the good. But Samuel, there's
never only one way. Remember that."
The Amish overaccept Christ’s message of peace, because, as
Samuel Wells writes, "overaccepting imitates the manner of God’s
reign" (Improvisation, p.
134). [Or more accurately stated, Christ’s peace enables the
Amish to overaccept violence and evil.] By overaccepting, the Amish
choose to be more Christ-like, because "Christians imitate the
Character of God to the extent that they overaccept the gifts of
creation and culture in the same way God does" (Improvisation, p. 134).
Police Detective Book comes to see the Amish community comprised of
quiet pacifists who would rather suffer or die righteously in their
faith, than sacrifice their faith by defending themselves with
violence. While on a trip into town, the Amish are harassed and mocked
by a group of locals. A look of revulsion comes over Book’s face
as he moves to intercede. "It's not our way," one of the Amish men says
to him. "It’s my way," the alien Book responds, as he steps
forward to defend his new friends by violently attacking the
troublemakers.
Just as it’s a seemingly simple extension of their Christian
faith for the Amish to refuse to fight in a war or react to aggressors
with violence, in our broader society, war simply becomes an extension
of the violence in our culture.
Hauerwas and Willimon maintain, that in our modern, Constantinian
world, where true Christian communities like the Amish are marginalized
by the mainstream, war becomes a necessity, "We are quite literally a
people that morally live off our wars because they give us the
necessary basis for self-sacrifice so that a people who have been
taught to pursue only their own interest can at times be mobilized to
die for one another" (Resident Aliens,
p. 35). Where many Constantinian Christians are able to rationalize or
justify war or violence because they are steeped in a society that
celebrates individuality, the Christ followers most committed to being
Christ-like in a Church-centered community, refuse to lift a hand in
offense or defense. The Amish refuse to participate in a modern society
that celebrates individuality, demands conformity for
self-preservation, and cherishes the commercial economic market that
sustains it.
In Re-membering the Body,
Barry Harvey sees the external, invisible control of society as
"anonymous and indirect, but precisely for this reason all the more
sweeping. It determines where we will live (and when we will move),
what kind of clothes we will wear (proper ‘business’ attire
and uniforms with the company logo), and what sorts of food we may eat
(no sack lunches at the desk, please). As Clapp observes, if a church
were to impose this sort of discipline on its members it would quickly
be denounced as ‘authoritarian’ if not worse" (p.
109).
Hauerwas, Willimon and Harvey see the world exerting its pressure on
Constantinian Christians who willingly accept the worldly influence and
rules, but the Amish reject these rules and gladly accept the rules of
their God-centered, church-oriented community. The Amish are able to
maintain their church and community in the face of pressures from the
outside world, because "the church doesn’t have a social
strategy, the church is a social strategy," (Resident Aliens, p. 43).
When Eli Lapp shares with his grandson the story of their faith, he
looks to apply his teaching and to learn if his story has been
understood, by asking, "would you kill another man?"
Samuel Lapp: I would only kill the bad man.
Eli Lapp: Only the bad man. I see. And you know these bad men by sight?
You are able to look into their hearts and see this badness?
Samuel Lapp: I can see what they do. I have seen it.
Eli Lapp: And having seen you become one of them? Don't you understand?
What you take into your hands, you take into your heart. Wherefore come
out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not
the unclean thing. Go and finish your chores now.
Samuel Lapp: Yes Großvater.
Eli Lapp quotes the apostle Paul’s second letter to the
Corinthians when he paraphrases Isaiah 52:11, "‘therefore, come
out from their midst and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘And
do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you.’" Paul had
already asked in his letter, "for what do righteousness and wickedness
have in common? . . . What does a believer have in common with an
unbeliever?" (2 Corinthians 6:15-17).
Unlike Constantinian Christians who embrace the society in which they
live, the Amish heed the admonishment from the author of the epistle 1
John, "for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust
of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but
is from the world" (1 John 2:16), and they turn their backs on the
world, while seeking to embody God’s love for the world.
The film’s dénouement finds the evil of the world coming
to the Amish community, as the murdering, corrupt police officers
travel to the Lapp farm to kill Samuel. While Book tries to fight the
men and defend the Amish family, young Samuel rings the alarm bell and
Amish men from miles away come running to help. "Improvisation is
inevitable," writes Wells. "When Christians, whether scholars in a
colloquium or parishioners in a house group, whether bishops in a
retreat house or aid workers in a field station, gather together and
try to discern God’s hand in events and his will for their future
practice, they are improvising (Improvisation,
p. 65). The men know they will not fight, but they won’t walk
away from the trouble, either. In their commitment to help, they
improvise a new level of Christian ethics.
In a demonstration that "there's never only one way," dozens of
Amish men peacefully encircle the corrupt police captain, and the
criminal surrenders to Book. With their commitment to Christ-like
peace, the Amish are able to face and overcome the alien evil in their
community.
All of us living outside cloistered communities like the Amish or the
monastic life, are walking in the world, where nearly every step takes
us further away from the Father. Because all of us, no matter how close
we think we walk and talk with God, are of the world we inhabit,
perhaps the greatest effect of Christians living in a world of
unbelievers is we learn to lie to ourselves. We rationalize our ethics
in situations that conflict with our faith, we justify our biases and
we isolate ourselves from our Christian community by surrounding
ourselves with the fruits of consumerism. If "all Christian ethics are
social ethics because all our ethics presuppose a social, communal,
political starting point – the church," (Resident Aliens,
p. 81), then in many ways, in the moments we are away from the church
and its supporting social structure, we are separated from our ethics.
While some Christians have a strong support structure that sustains
them in their travels, like Rachel Lapp, most of us are simply bogged
down in the world like Detective John Book. Like Book, we seek to do
the right thing in an ever-changing world where the ‘right
thing’ is often elusive.
As Detective Book prepares to leave the community, Eli says to Rachel,
"he's going back to his world, where he belongs." Few of us have access
to the complete Christian community like the Amish, and instead try to
survive in a world where we never completely "belong." But Jesus
reminds us that while we may still be in the world, through him, we
have peace: "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may
have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have
overcome the world" (John 16:33). By remaining in the world, each of us
has the opportunity to do our best to improvise in our Christian Ethics
and fight evil, like John Book, and to fulfill one of Christ’s
greatest challenges to us, his followers, "Go into all the world and
preach the gospel to all creation" (Mark 16:15).
The Amish story is just one small part of the larger narrative of
Christ’s miraculous life and resurrection. By remaining in the
world of tribulation and evil while we divorce ourselves from the
Constinian Christian mentality, we have the opportunity to be like
Rachel Lapp and carry with us and apply true Christian ethics as we
heed Christ’s charge to share the Good News.
© 2007
by Jim
Meisner, Jr.