Based on the true story of nine French monks of a monastery in the village of Tibhirine in Algeria’s Atlas Mountains, Of Gods and Men is a remarkably thought-provoking film that reveals the essence of religious beliefs. It is luminously beautiful, not only because of their peaceful life and work along with the Muslim community behind the tranquil natural scenery, but also because of their steadfast love and spiritual beliefs in God, unshakable even amid the turmoil. Through the narratives of the nine monks’ life, their community, and the process that leads to their final decision to stay at the monastery, the film shows how they are driven to dedicate their lives to the Muslims and to the Church, which illuminates the Church’s beliefs, in particular the text Nostra Aetate, Lumen Gentium, and the Testament of Dom Christian de Chergé.
They dedicate their lives to the Muslims by immersing themselves into the Muslim community, showing their respect and admiration towards the people with different religion. The monks talk and live peacefully with the villagers even though they believe in different religions. Brother Luc provides free medical care for the villagers and all who need his services. The monks’ hospitality towards the Muslim villagers illuminates Nostra Aetate, which emphasizes the common ground of Muslims and Christians and shows understanding of their differences. As Nostra Aetate 3 mentions, “The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems”, it draws upon the similarities that the two religions share in order to illustrate its understanding and respect of their differences; for example, Although Muslims do not regard Jesus as God, the text steps back and acknowledges that the Muslims “revere Him ［Jesus］ as a prophet”. The monks’ actions indeed demonstrate their acceptance and respect of people with different beliefs.
Beyond that, the monks actually show more than just respect, but admiration towards the Muslims and Islam. They attend the villagers’ Muslim ceremonies. The abbot Dom Christian reads Quran in addition to studying the Bible, and tests the leader of the insurgents about the Quran; later Christian identifies this leader’s corpse and even prays for him without discrimination. Brother Luc also treats another shot terrorist. The essence of Nostra Aetate is thus manifested and fulfilled in the monks’ deeds. As Nostra Aetate 5 writes, “We cannot truly call on God…if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God.” The monks, especially Christian, are not simply motivated by their respect to Muslims. They are invited by the Church with a moral duty to genuinely love Muslims and Islam and to actively wonder why Muslims are part of God’s creations, although it might require them to commit their lives to do so. To treat the Muslims “in a brotherly way” is to see them by inquiring and seeking into them for who they are. For the monks, it is through studying the Muslim texts and living in a community with them that they know how God is also calling the Muslims to holiness just as they are.
The monks have therefore completely immersed themselves into a Muslim community. They are so connected to the villagers that in one scene, when the monks are deciding whether to leave or not, two of the monks confess, “We are like birds on a branch. We don’t know if we are to leave.” A Muslim woman answers, “You are the branch. If you go, we will lose our footing.” The Christian monks, along with the Muslim community, decide together how to respond to the terrorism, and the two sides go through the struggle together in the process. The monks’ life-and-death decision is tied to that of the villagers, demonstrating again the real mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence between Christians and Muslims as Nostra Aetate suggests. They choose to devote themselves and even their lives to the Muslims by tethering themselves to the Muslim community.
They also dedicate their lives to the Church by unifying as a community in the Church, a visible element of the Church’s sacramental identity, becoming Christian witnesses to the world, and revealing God’s salvation for all people. All that they do illuminates the nature of the Church. The simple life of the monks—to pray and work—shows their conformity to Christ within a community. It is manifested first in their consistency of prayer. For example, when a helicopter is roaring over the monastery, they gather side by side, pray, and sing the psalm, asking for God’s mercy. From their modest work and living in the Church, they also learn to ask for help, to repent, and to say thank you, through which the Church calls the followers together as a community to find its salvation in Christ. Their sense of community resonates with the meaning of the Church explained in Lumen Gentium. As Lumen Gentium 8 writes, “Christ…established and continually sustains here on earth His holy Church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as an entity with visible delineation through which He communicated truth and grace to all.” The Church is the Body of Christ through which followers of Jesus Christ are bound together. God binds Himself freely with humanity and manifests Himself in the Church, and thus the Church clothes people with the glory of Christ. By gathering believers, God creates a community, to help them learn to confess their need for God and to ask for God’s mercy. This is what it means to be the Church, and what the monks are devoting themselves to first of all.
In this sense, their offering of their lives illustrates more spiritual meanings than just the act of martyrdom. It is a confirmation for the Church of the redemption for all and the Christian witness to the rest of the world. As Lumen Gentium 9 writes, “God gathered together as one all those who in faith look upon Jesus as the author of salvation and the source of unity and peace, and established them as the Church that for each and all it may be the visible sacrament of this saving unity.” The Church is thus a visible fellowship, which by invisible grace, bears fruit. The Church’s goal is to make people just like Christ. The process is the struggle to be remade and to be recreated; Christians are finally “born” when they are fully conformed to Christ, becoming the fruit of the Grace of God. This commitment may cost their lives, and is perfectly carried out through the death of the monks. When gathered together, they die to themselves out of love for God, redeeming their sins, and building up the Church. Therefore, the monks dedicate their lives for salvation in the Church, presenting themselves as the fruit of God.
By agreeing to stay at the monastery and giving up their lives, the monks, like the “disciples of Christ”, present themselves as a “living sacrifice” and “bear witness to Christ” as Lumen Gentium 9 demands, through which God extends salvation and holiness to all people, including non-Christians. The monks offer their whole life because their love to God is so immense that it can overcome everything; they, by willing to sacrifice themselves, become Christian witnesses to the world. God uses these monks to reveal to the world, and see their death as a gift to the Algerians and a universal call to holiness. Every human is called to be a saint, and the possibility of salvation is extended to all people, including the Muslims and also the extremists. Christian thus also extends the fellowship to a terrorist when he prays to the terrorist who will kill him, and when he decides to stay and risk being killed by terrorists. As Lumen Gentium 5 writes, “The Church, then, considers martyrdom as an exceptional gift and as the fullest proof of love. By martyrdom a disciple is transformed into an image of his Master by freely accepting death for the salvation of the world—as well as his conformity to Christ in the shedding of his blood.” Holiness is always a conformation to Christ. Therefore, through their death not only will they reveal God’s salvation in Christ, but also God can even appeal to the Muslims and the terrorists who will kill them. By revealing God’s love, God simultaneously invites non-Christians to be shaped by it.
Their dedication to the Muslims and to Church can be more deeply understood and manifested in the Testament of Dom Christian de Chergé. As Christian writes, “This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills: Immerse my gaze in that of the Father, to contemplate with Him His children of Islam as He sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to refashion the likeness, playing with the differences.” Christian is first saying that because of Christ’s “passion”, his death and resurrection, God has opened the avenue of holiness and sanctification for all people. What the cross reveals is God’s desire to be united with humanity; for Christian the fruit of union and love revealed on cross can be found even outside the Christian tradition. People in all traditions and religions can achieve the likeness of Christ and the sanctification with the union with God. This imitation of God exists within people’s own traditions; within Islam itself, Christ is present in a hidden but effective way. If God is able to invite people to him through other traditions, it is a grace that comes through Christ and it is by virtue of the fact God opened himself up on the cross to people in order to redeem people. Muslims can become holy as “He sees them”, and they are able to do so as the “fruit of the passion” of Christ.
God calls Muslims to holiness by virtue of Christ’s death, and the dedication of Christian’s life to understanding this is perfected by a death that imitates Christ’s. The sanctification of all people including Muslims is the conformation to Christ, and Christian wonders how Christ is actually hidden to these people while still so effective. His hope is thus to participate in the life of the trinitarian God through his own death, one similar to Christ’s, so that he can faithfully witness to the redemptive death of Christ, and that God can invite the Muslims and also the extremists to become holy in a similar way. Thus Christian will be able to see how non-Christians can participate in the life of Trinity as well. In true love and wonder for the Muslim community around him, he immerses himself into the death of Christ, and understands his death as his own final witness to the Muslim community and to the sanctification God extends to Muslims and the terrorists in Christ.
In the end on a gray day, seven of the nine monks are taken away by armed terrorists and disappear in the mist of snow, leaving the audience with a sense of inner calm to grieve and meditate over their death. Of Gods and Men is not a film about how the monks die, but how they live and why they are willing to die. It is a quiet but powerful film in its way that brings to profound meditation of Christian religious beliefs through the understanding of the monks’ dedication of their lives to the Muslims and the Church.
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1. 以上言论不代表我的个人观点，只是我神学必修课学到的基督教（带点catholic）的宗教思想，我自己是不信教的
2. 请自行谷歌Nostra Aetate, Lumen Gentium
3. Testament of Dom Christian de Chergé是影片结尾Christian念的“遗书”，谷歌就有原文
4. 这故事是真的，只有部分情节戏剧化
5. 那段时期很多别的教徒也做了同样的选择
6. 奉劝广大豆友不要以剧情片的角度来看这部电影
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