Scorsese's Portrayal Of Christianity Depicted In The Film, Silence

Silence, a film directed by Martin Scorsese, depicts two Jesuits who travel to Japan in order to find their mentor and to spread Christianity once again in the country. As soon as they get to Japan, they were immediately welcomed and honored, as they observe that the Christians in the country only practiced their religion in secrecy. They were seen as saviors, which imitated how God revealed himself through His son, Jesus Christ, as a source of hope for the Christians who were living in fear. They finally had priests to administer the sacraments and lead them in strengthening their faith. Similarly, the plot of the movie revolves around the question of faith, whether people are willing to apostatize Christianity in the form of stepping on an image of Christ in order to save themselves from suffering and death, or if they are willing to renounce their faith in order to save themselves.

To give a brief context, it was during a period when Christians in Japan were persecuted, which is the reason why they had to hide their faith, and how trampling over the image of Christ was seen as renouncing one’s faith. However, this mindset that the Japanese Christians and Fr. Rodrigues, the main protagonist of the film, had of their faith were false because faith is something that cannot be measured by a test and faith itself should not be considered as a test. The film also proves this misconception, as it will be shown how the people who step on the image and fail the test still manage to strengthen their faith even more, such as in the case of Fr. Rodrigues. This supports how faith assures people of the things that they do not understand and how their belief of God is truly a mystery in a sense that it is beyond their capacity to understand, such as how the act of renouncing their faith strengthened their faith even