At The Movies

I went to a movie last night. I discovered two important things: those theater seats are so comfortable and the pre-movie ads, previews, and promotions are as loud and generally obnoxious as the ones I saw the last time I sat in a theater. My choice: suffer through the offensive thirty minutes of promotional pandemonium or time my arrival to coincide with the actual start of the movie. O, the choices that present themselves!

The movie was the powerful story of a German man who, in the early days of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, was faced with an agonizing choice. I recommend the movie Bonhoeffer to you. It is well worth seeing and discussing. The movie led me back to the 1960s and Joseph Fletcher, the founder of a movement known as Situational Ethics. This way of thinking and making choices looks at a particular action and evaluates it on the basis of the context of the moment rather than on a universal code of ethics or morality. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who became involved in opposition to Hitler’s terror and who finally moved away from the universal moral code of his religion. When Bonhoeffer became part of a small group determined to assassinate Hitler, he crossed the line into Fletcher’s world of Situational Ethics and he faced the terrible dilemma of choosing between an ancient code of moral conduct or the needs of the immediate moment.

That same choice dilemma exists today and it will always be part of our human journey. Do I follow the mandates of my faith; is that code the authority that informs my actions. Or, do I choose to act on the basis of the moment’s particular circumstances. Is the Gospel of Jesus my source of ethical and moral responses, or can I step beyond those spiritual principles and act on the basis of “the greater good” or my interpretation of the particular moment. It’s a tough place to be, but you and I are there almost daily. As a spiritual exercise, become familiar with Fletcher’s work. Google it and grasp the basics of what he taught, and then consider the spiritual demands of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This puts the phrase “love your neighbor” in a whole new light.