{"id":1488,"date":"2012-10-19T00:16:37","date_gmt":"2012-10-18T18:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/intelligent-torvalds.74-208-171-134.plesk.page\/?p=1488"},"modified":"2024-05-11T06:49:55","modified_gmt":"2024-05-11T11:49:55","slug":"you-must-be-gentle-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/religiousmind.net\/?p=1488","title":{"rendered":"You Must Be Gentle, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexander in Ingmar Bergman\u2019s<\/a> film \u201cFanny and Alexander<\/a>\u201d encouraged the ghost of his \u201cgood\u201d father (who looks disconcertingly like Adolf Hitler) to stop haunting him, to go on to heaven and convince God to kill his stepfather.\u00a0 The ghost of his \u201cgood\u201d father counseled, \u201cYou must be gentle with people, Alexander.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been enjoying a mini-Ingmar-Bergman-film-festival on DVD. \u00a0First, I watched \u201cPersona<\/a>,\u201d Bergman\u2019s reflections on his own guilt and hypocrisy raising children, told through a mute actress who had a child reluctantly to complete herself as a woman, and the nurse who cares for her.\u00a0 Then I watched \u201cWild Strawberries<\/a>,\u201d a sober consideration (if not a lament) of a life spent solely for one\u2019s work and personal achievement.\u00a0 I think of these as Lutheran films, not because they are propaganda for the Lutheran Church, but because Bergman considered his films a dialogue with his childhood and that childhood was dominated by his Lutheran minister father Erik.<\/p>\n

I looked forward to \u201cFanny and Alexander,\u201d because it was the film where he dealt most intimately with the problem of his father.\u00a0 I was disappointed when the first copy arrived broken in the mail.\u00a0 Then with the second copy I was put off a bit by the plot.\u00a0 It seemed to me like Bergman avoided the issue with his father rather than confronting it directly.\u00a0 The problem was not that Erik Bergman was an evil stepfather who married Ingmar\u2019s mother after his \u201cgood\u201d father died.\u00a0 The problem was that Erik was both the \u201cgood\u201d father and the evil stepfather.\u00a0 The sumptuous joy and luxury and the grey austerity are recollections of one home, not two.<\/p>\n

I got over the plot in time and simply enjoyed the imagery.\u00a0 Though Alexander was not really as close to his \u201cgood\u201d father as he was compelled to be close to his evil stepfather, he was ultimately haunted by both.\u00a0 And his desire to kill the evil stepfather is also God\u2019s desire<\/a>, if I may reunite the evil stepfather and the \u201cgood\u201d father as one man born of the flesh and of the Spirit<\/a>.\u00a0 That\u2019s why the \u201cgood\u201d father\u2019s advice touches me so, \u201cYou must be gentle<\/a> with people, Alexander.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone born of the Spirit, born from above, is liable to the situation Paul described in Romans 7:15 (NET), For I don\u2019t understand what I am doing.\u00a0 For I do not do what I want \u2013 instead, I do what I hate<\/em>.\u00a0 My father could go from happily singing a hymn to screaming hysterically at us in no time at all.\u00a0 I thought I could be a foster parent.\u00a0 I thought I could help someone.\u00a0 An autistic child defeated me in the most fundamental way a man can be defeated.\u00a0 He shattered my self-image as a kind and loving man.\u00a0 My wife lost confidence in me and, I think, in God to a certain extent.\u00a0 I certainly lost confidence in God for at least the remainder of our marriage.\u00a0 And my children witnessed it all.<\/p>\n

I am thinking about forgiveness<\/a> here as a way of being gentle with people.\u00a0 But I\u2019m trying to reach something beyond my ordinary conception of forgiveness.\u00a0 When I have a bad encounter with the sinful flesh of someone born of God I shouldn\u2019t think, \u201cSo that\u2019s what you\u2019re really like.\u201d\u00a0 This is false.\u00a0 What the person born of God is really like is the new creation, washed, cleansed, buoyed-up, and carried along by the Spirit of God, not the sinful flesh I happened to experience.\u00a0 So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin,<\/em>1<\/sup><\/a> Paul concluded with gratitude to God.<\/p>\n

\n
You Must Be Gentle, Part 2<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n
Back to Romans, Part 28<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n
Romans, Part 29<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n
Back to Romans, Part 30<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n
Back to You Must Be Gentle, Part 3<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n
Back to Romans, Part 44<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n
Back to Atonement, Part 3<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n

1<\/sup><\/a> Romans 7:25b (NKJV)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexander in Ingmar Bergman\u2019s film \u201cFanny and Alexander\u201d encouraged the ghost of his \u201cgood\u201d father (who looks disconcertingly like Adolf Hitler) to stop haunting him, to go on to heaven and convince God to kill his stepfather.\u00a0 The ghost of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1064,6],"tags":[857,775],"class_list":["post-1488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gentle","category-section-two","tag-romans-715","tag-romans-725"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/religiousmind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/religiousmind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/religiousmind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/religiousmind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/religiousmind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1488"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/religiousmind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23762,"href":"https:\/\/religiousmind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions\/23762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/religiousmind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/religiousmind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/religiousmind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}