After the turkey had been carved and the pie had been sliced, my family concluded this year’s Thanksgiving celebrations in an unexpected way: We sat together and watched the 1961 Spencer Tracy drama Judgment at Nuremberg.
The film follows Spencer Tracy’s Chief Justice Haywood as he presides over the Nuremberg trial of four German judges who are accused of complicity with the Nazi regime’s forced sterilizations, internments and murder. One judge in particular, Ernst Janning as played by Burt Lancaster, is repeatedly portrayed by the defense as a good, honest and upright man who should not be held responsible for the crimes of his government. After all, judges do not create unjust laws; they can only adjudicate the laws they have been given.
Rebecca Johnson
Time after time, Chief Justice Haywood meets friendly and welcoming Germans who insist they had no idea what the Nazis were doing to prisoners at the concentration camps. The film interrogates the concept of individual versus collective guilt and what good men ought to do when injustice is enshrined in law.
I’ll confess: All too often, when I read about current events, my first inclination is to throw my hands up in despair. I’m just one person. What can I do to fix any of this? My second inclination is to point fingers. Our country is in this position because of Donald Trump, because of the MAGA movement, because of Christian nationalism. Those people are godless and it’s their fault.
Neither reaction is biblical. Neither reaction is based wholly in truth.
Fortunately, God has given us the gift of repentance, not only individually but as the body of Christ. We can and must cry out to God on behalf of our own sin and that of our nation, for the things we have done and the things we have left undone.
In his Advent devotional over the first chapter of Amos, Walter Brueggemann writes, “Such texts assure that our preparation for Christmas is not a safe, private or even familial enterprise but is preoccupied with great public issues of war and peace and issues of economic justice that concern the worth and bodily well-being of human persons. Our Advent preparation may invite us to consider the ways in which we ourselves are complicit in the deep inhumanity of our current world.”
Toward the end of the film, German judge Janning finally decides to speak in his own defense, and his words shock the courtroom: He confesses: “It is not easy to tell the truth. But if there is to be any salvation for Germany, we who know our guilt must admit it — whatever the pain and humiliation.”
“Church, the reckoning must begin with us.”
Church, the reckoning must begin with us. As we prepare our hearts for Advent, I must ask myself how my own sin and hard-heartedness has contributed to our national brokenness. I have not loved God with my whole heart. I have not loved my neighbor as myself. May God forgive me for assuming the cause of all this wreckage lies entirely outside of myself.
At the same time, I have the responsibility to intercede on behalf of my country, for a president I believe to be evil, for a system I believe to be corrupt, for neighbors who are dogged by suspicion and hatred. It is so easy to be critical of the fact that a majority of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. It is so much harder to pray for those brothers and sisters in Christ who have exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator.
I believe the Holy Spirit convicts, corrects and chastens his people. Why have I been so lax in petitioning the Spirit to do those very things? May God forgive me for my laziness and apathy in fulfilling my prophetic role among my faith community.
When the film draws to a close, the German defense attorney insists the rest of the world is just as responsible for the horrors of Nazism as the defendants themselves. The rest of the world turned a blind eye or profited from Nazi power.
Repeatedly, Chief Justice Haywood is told by other American officials to tread lightly in condemning the accused because the goodwill of the German people has become a necessity in the fight against the Soviet Union. By allowing the judges to walk free, Haywood could shore up support in the coming conflict against Communism.
The temptation to despair or to a cynical realpolitik world of back-room deals is enticing. Instead, Haywood insists each individual is a moral agent responsible for his own actions, in spite of any political pressures at play. He finds each man guilty, while ceding that his judgments may very well be overturned or commuted.
A postscript after the movie ends tells the audience the judges and others did, in fact, have their sentences commuted. This doesn’t negate the truth of Haywood’s verdict.
In his closing speech, Haywood asserts, “There are those in our country too who today speak of the ‘protection of the country’ — of ‘survival.’ A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient — to look the other way.”
As Christians, we know this is a false dichotomy, a scarcity mindset that appears wise but is really just hopelessness masquerading as realism. We have the hope of a God whose kindness leads us to repentance, a Savior who listens to our prayers, a Spirit whose kingdom is as quiet but as relentless as yeast through dough.
Christ provides us with a better way. This Advent, let us grieve. Let us repent. Let us intercede. Let us hope.
Rebecca Johnson has been an educator across three states in both public and private schools. She is currently a member of a Baptist church in Northern Oklahoma where she serves with her husband, Matt, in young adult ministry.