November 12, 2024 • 49 mins
Todd was the producer of Elf, writer of Sully, and is the producer, writer, and director of the upcoming film Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a normal pastor who had the courage to stand up to Hitler, rescued Jews, joined a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, and was ultimately hanged for his defiance.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
And on this maybe third to last day, we're shooting
the gallop scene and tears are just streaming down his face,
and I'd never seen him cry. He's very, very close
to the vest and he starts to talk and he says,
if only, if only the Allies had come a week
earlier to if only, And as he was grieving what
(00:25):
we were about to film, it dawned on him and
he stopped himself and he said, but wait. If Dietrich
had gone on to live a full life, he probably
would have wound up in the black forest somewhere with
his wife and children and written six or seven books,
and the impact of his courage would not be felt.
(00:49):
But because of this thing we're about to film, his
impact will never end.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
inter city Memphis. And the last part is somehow led
to an oscar for the film about our team. That
movie is called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems
(01:24):
will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people
and nice suits talking big words that nobody understands on
CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks,
US just you and me deciding Hey, maybe I can help.
Today we bring you our second ever live interview, and
(01:45):
it's with the incomparable Todd Komernikki. He's the producer of Elf,
the writer of Sully, and the producer, writer and director
of the upcoming film with Angel Studios that's titled bon
Hoffer Pastor Spy Assassin, and it's about Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
(02:08):
a normal person who stood up to Hitler, rescued Jews,
joined a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, was in prison, and
ultimately was hanged for his defiance. I cannot wait for
you to meet Bonhoeffer through Todd's powerful storytelling. Right after
these brief messages from our general sponsors, Todd Kermer Nicky,
(02:44):
welcome to mephis Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
So.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
You're You're special in a number of ways, but your
special in one real way. In the thirteen or fourteen
months that an Army of normal folks has been out,
we've only done two live events and the first one
was the Dancing ups Man and now you So you're special,
(03:14):
I mean, live event, and these folks are here for you.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
When I heard about that, I was pretty troubled because
highlighting a ups man in a FedEx town sounding kind
of bold, kind of daring.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
It's a really good point. We actually talked about that.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So I'm going to finish with some spectacular dancing. Don't
leave early.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So for our listeners. You were a producer with On Elf,
which I think is one of the greatest Christmas movies
of all time. I watch it every year no matter what.
My kids watch it with me. You wrote Sully, directed
by Clint Eastwood and obviously Sharon Tom Hanks. That did
(03:55):
beautiful as a story of the bird strike plane that
landed in the Hudson and nobody died. Phenomenal story, great screenplay.
And your latest project is, while you're here, a movie
called bon Hoffer Pastor Spy Assassin, and well, I definitely
want to get into for a few minutes, touch on
(04:16):
the making of the movie and all of that, because
I think that's interesting to most people. What's really poignant
is Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a normal guy who served and
saved lives and changed minds and led in an unbelievably
(04:36):
difficult time and served to death. And the research you
had to have done on him to make this movie,
and the lessons we have to learn from this normal
guy I named Dietrich Bonhoeffer that changed people's lives in
this world. That's the story we want to hear, that
you told, and that's what we want to talk about.
(04:57):
And I can't wait to get into it. But before
we do, for those of you hadn't seen it. For
those listening now, here's just a quick clip the trailer
to bon Hopfer and a great movie. And the trailer
gets me jazzed up. So here we go.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Something's coming, something else talking? Look around and my friend,
how much light do you see?
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Hello?
Speaker 5 (05:30):
Talk that smile? Come to talk with you because of vision?
Something lifted scenes.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
On it comes in africalor and this usuon.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
We have devised a plot to assassinate the fure.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
You will go to England as I spy.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Churchill seized Germany as a whole. He's afraid that upon
trace to England would be invasion.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Of or invasion invasion.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
My country was invaded.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Trunk with.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
People Bob inside Funerner.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Science romance somewhere with her, I'm.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
To meet my destiny.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
That sound of silent iteration with that guttural music doesn't
get you on the edge of the seat. You just
need to go home. Now, that is phenomenal. When I
first watched it and then your folks sent me the screener,
there's so there's so much in this film that just
I felt, which speaks to your writing, you're directing, you're casting,
(07:48):
and the work that you did and the research and
so briefly share with everybody because we don't get a
glimpse into what it is to make a movie Cradle
to grave and when you write it and you produce
it and you direct it, it's your baby. So give
us a glimpse into that world and how that works.
(08:08):
And then let's get into Bonhaf for himself.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Well, there's three words that are the answer to all
those questions, and that is Jesus is King. The only
way I'm able to do anything in my start with
a blank page life, which I've been doing since I'm
twenty two, is to get out of the way, to
(08:35):
pray and to work on my craft every waking moment.
And I think that's an angel calling in the story
of making a film is exactly the same every kind
of film. You give all of your heart, whether anybody
sees it or not, you have no control over results.
(08:58):
When we made Elf, we had a great time, but
we certainly didn't know that all these other folks we're
going to have a great time sitting in the theater
with it, and they're still twenty one years later going
to sing alongs and it brings families together. But that
wasn't the plan. And living a surrendered life is so
fundamental to being a good artist that I actually think
(09:24):
that for a Christian my life is so much easier
than for a person who doesn't have faith, or a
person whose life is filled with routine. Because we're asked
by Christ to not worry about tomorrow, to not worry
about what we're going to eat, and we're not to
not store up in barns. We're asked to do all
(09:45):
these things that our culture tells us we must do.
We must say, we must prepare, we must count the cost.
The only cost that Jesus asks us the cost is
drop everything and go follow him. And so for an
artist having to start with that blank page every day,
that's a lot easier advice to follow, because I have
nothing without him, and I know that. So it's actually
(10:09):
taught me tremendous compassion for a person that is faced
with the rigors of what the day to day asks.
So what I try to speak into when I'm telling
stories is to really examine each individual's rigor the things
that Bonhoeffer had to do, not in a spectacular way,
(10:31):
but how to talk to his family, how to play
the piano, how to learn with his best friend Frank
Fisher in Harlem, how to take in the details of
a life that form a man. Because I think if
you get those details right, that it's captivating to an
audience and you understand him when he makes the bold chance,
the bold choice to really put his life on the
(10:53):
line to save and he did save thousands of Jewish lives.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
So let's pick it up with Frank for those who
are listening that may or may not know something about
the Bonhoeffer story. As he became a young man and
decided to study and seminary have become a theologian, he
came to the United States to study, and he was
(11:19):
really disturbed. He was unhappy with what he found in
the traditional seminary in the United States at that time,
and then he met a guy named Frank tell us
about it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, it's interesting. He was a star in Germany. He
wrote his doctorate at sixteen. He was targeted for academic success,
and he was from a very prominent family and the
German Church, the Lutheran Church sent him to Union Seminary
as their star pupil. And when he got there he
felt like I studied all this when I was fifteen,
Like he just he and he had a one particular
(11:54):
professor you see in the movie that just bored him stiff,
and he just thought, what am I doing here? And
I'm going to be here for a couple of years. Fortunately,
he had a roommate and a friend, Frank Fisher, a
black American, who took him into the world of Harlem,
not just as you see here.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
With the jazz, but also what ye are we talking?
Speaker 6 (12:11):
We're talking nineteen thirty, nineteen thirty, So not only consider
nineteen thirty, just consider nineteen thirty Harlem and a German
dude hanging around with Frank.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, I mean music was the bridge.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Because because Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an amazing pianist, he was.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
A child prodigy pianist. He easily could have been a
professional pianist, and so music was the bridge. But really
what Frank did was he just had a friend who
happened to be from Germany and he invited him into
the world of jazz. He took him to Abyssinian Baptist Church,
where Dietrich was the only white member. Dietrich taught Sunday
school and what Dietrich found at that church was something
(12:56):
shocking to him because German theologians at that time they
didn't go to church. Karl Bart, one of the most
famous theologies of all time, did not attend church. They
wrote about they didn't live within. And what Dietrich saw
at the Abyssinian Baptist Church was living, breathing faith and
(13:16):
it woke him up. And it says that his two
favorite things were Jesus and jazz, and his life was
filled with joy. And that's what he took back with
him to Germany in nineteen thirty three. One he took
about the joy of his new found faith because he
really met Jesus in Harlem. And two outside of Harlem,
(13:36):
he had seen that his friendship with Frank Fisher was
not convenient and in fact brought violence and fear because
of the racial issues. So Dietrich went back to Germany
with a completely different lens to see the world through.
So early on, when Hitler started othering the Jewish population,
it was so homogeneous in Germany that no one really
(13:58):
took notice. It was very much. It wasn't in the newspaper,
it wasn't disgusted at parties. It was just, oh, this Hitler,
he's really raising up the nation, and oh he might
be doing something. Oh but that's okay, that's he's doing great.
But Dietrich noticed right away because of the language of othering.
No matter where you go in the world, no matter
who is othering somebody else, the language is always the same.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I found it as I was watching the movie. Now
I'm gonna get all artsy here for a second, Okay.
I found it when I was watching the movie interesting
that in nineteen thirty this prodigy, the star of the
Lutheran church in Germany, is sent to the United States,
and he goes to the seminary Mecca right and is
(14:46):
yawning through it. And then he goes to an African
American church in Harlem, where he has awakened. And I
just thought, what an interesting metaphor for Christ. That Christ
didn't surround himself with the people in the Mecca. He
surrounded himself with fishermen and prostitutes and the downtrodden and
(15:08):
the social outcast. And that is where Christ's work was done.
And ironically, in nineteen thirty, that's where Dietrich Bonhoffer got
his social awakening that ended up having him go to
Germany and serve yet another race of people who are
being wronged.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Your friend that we met tonight at dinner said something
really beautiful. She said, in serving people in great need,
people kept asking her did you get a chance to
teach them about Jesus? And she said, well, actually they
taught me about Jesus.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Beautiful and it is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And also, just this notion. The way I try to
live my life, and I do this with all human
effort that I have, is to remember that the only
way to live is to give. So live to give
and give to live. If we're doing that in all
our relationships, if we're doing it, I mean, it's end
(16:08):
of year tax season, right. We can write a check
and we can give, and we can impact lives and
that's awesome. But we can also give every day in
front of us, to our children, to strangers. Sometimes it's
as simple as opening a door. It's just looking out
at the world. Not where is mine? But who needs something?
(16:29):
Anyone in this room needs something? Because that's what Jesus
would do when he sat with the woman at the well,
or he called Sakias down from the tree. He was
always looking there must be somebody that needs something. That's
not because he wanted us to be laboring or disappointed
(16:53):
or never have enough for ourselves. No, it was because
we are built to give, and we are only truly
happy when we give. Actually, having becomes an affliction and
life is adhesive. Look around at your house. Unless you're
a Marie Condo disciple, you have too much stuff. We
(17:15):
live in seventeen hundred square feet in New York City
in our apartment, my wife and two kids, and we
don't have room for anything, and we have too much stuff.
Life just like we're rolling slowly and it's just Adhering
to us is like we're the refrigerator covered in so
many magnets you can't even open the refrigerator. So we
(17:38):
maybe don't need to be acquiring all the time, and
if we really want to be fulfilled, which is why
we bought that crock pot and that sweater, you know,
we're trying to scratch an itch we can't reach. We
really want to be fulfilled, kind to do less of
that and a lot more of living to give.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
I hope you'll consider signing up to join the army
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in case you happen to miss an episode, or if
you just prefer reading about our incredible guest. We'll be
(18:21):
right back. So Bonheffer comes back from Harlem with this
(18:45):
renewed sense of faith and fullness, but also a mental acuity,
a mental understanding of social justice because of what he
witnessed his members of the church he joined deal with.
And then he's faced with Hitler's Germany. I'm jumping ahead
(19:10):
a little, and I would like you to fill in
the blinks from your historical study perspective of his life.
But he spoke out against what Hitler was trying to
do with the church, which is basically make the church
his church, abandoned the Old Testament. He spoke against making
(19:36):
the fear basically Christ. He was eventually banned from writing,
banned from speaking, banned from Berlin. Yet while all of
the people that taught him, all of his all of
his peers, all of his core, even even even the
(19:59):
people that he looked to as mentors, we're changing everything
the way the state wanted it. He had the temerity,
in the face of all of that kind of take
us through that part of the story and who bon
Hoffer was and why in your estimation from writing script
(20:22):
and making a movie about him, what was going on
with him at that time.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Well, the first thing that happened is and why we
don't know this is because in America we really don't
study anything about World War Two until we got involved.
And I'm not judging that, but that's really if you
want to know the stories, everyone's like, oh d Day
and Pearl Harbor, we all everybody knows those stories intimately.
But the reason we were in that war is because
(20:48):
what was happening from nineteen thirty three on. So Hitler
comes to power, he only has thirty three percent of
the Paula Buro, and he knows that he needs more power,
and he goes right to the church. And now this
was a real thing. Like currently people talk about the
American Church, but I think there's American Christians, and there's
many stripes of American Christians, but there's not really a
(21:09):
monolithic American Church. Back then, in Germany, the Catholics had
half the power, the Lutherans had the other half, and
it was a real thing. So Hitler was savvy. He said,
if I fill these churches, I'm going to have these
clergy on my side. And that's what happened. And within
the first year, crucifixes were coming out and swastikas were going.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
In above the altars.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Above the altar, Bibles were coming out. Mind camp was
going in, and by thirty five they had rewritten the
Bible and announced it boldly, very famously. It's in the
movie at the Sports Palace to this huge event where
they have rewrote the Bible, taking all traces of Jewishness
(21:55):
away from.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Jesus, including the Old Testament, the whole.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Old Testament, and then anything what they call Jewish weakness.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Didney add two commandments or three?
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Two commandments got added honor your master and furor, and
always make sure that you keep the blood pure and holy.
And they weren't talking about Jesus.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Now, remember, listeners, this is the government doing it, but
they can't do it without the church going along with it.
That's the danger of the sound of silence.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Go ahead, amen to that, brother. Yeah, I mean, complicity
is just part as part of it. If you look
at anything in our own lives. And I always try
when I feel strongly that something has been done wrong,
I always look in my own heart, how am I
doing that? How am I complicit? And so think you
don't have to come up with it right now, but
in the quiet of your life, think, okay, I feel
(22:51):
very strongly about this issue. I hate that the ocean
is being polluted. Let's just say, I mean, nobody wants
the ocean to be pout. I think in general people
say I hate that the ocean is being polluted. It's
bad for the fish I'm eating. It's But the person
who says that is usually on their seventeenth plastic water
bottle of the day, right, So that's we wouldn't think
(23:13):
that's complicit, that's it's convenient, like, oh, he just handed
it to me. There's nothing I can do. I have
to I'm really thirsty. I better drink. This will be
my last plastic bottle ever. So we're doing that all
the time, So we shouldn't be shocked when we see
(23:33):
complicity when it's writ large lead to devastation. And that's
and that's what happened and early on, and it's bon
Huffer says in the movie that the German church has
traded full pews for full hearts, and so they were
just so excited to have people finally coming back to
these cathedrals. They missed the fact that those cathedrals had
(23:54):
actually been stolen from right under their feet by Adolf.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Hitler, and which part the clergy was the most complicit.
So he sees it happening and he against everyone else
Texas stand.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Yeah, it's it's beautiful. His heroism is so relatable because yes,
he was a normal guy. He's a he's a normal guy.
He's very cocky. I love that he was so cocky.
He was always certain that he was right, and it
led him to some dangerous situations. But he when he
stood up against advice and threw the Nazis out of
(24:36):
church and said, Hitler is not the head of the church.
That was he painted a target on his chest that
never went away. For the last twelve years of his
life he was essentially on the run, but he didn't
question for a minute that that's what he was supposed
to do. Later, when things got very difficult and he
was in prison for a long time, he lost everything.
He had the humanity to say to God, did I
(24:57):
get it wrong? Am I you know? Should I have
done something different? Is this a punishment? Where's the victory?
But always every time he despaired, he pushed through with faith,
and he found even though the ending was not an
ideal Hollywood ending, he was at the ending that he
(25:17):
knew as a man of faith was the real beginning.
So that I say that he had a garden of
Gethsemite faith, and he loved the Sermon on the Mount,
and he loved the story of the garden, and I
love the story of the garden. For me, that was
really the beginning of my faith when I was in
my early twenties, that there would be a savior who
had come to do one thing, and on the eve
(25:39):
of getting to do that one thing, asks not to
do it. This is singular in history. Who would invent
a character a hero that tries to bail nobody. Now,
this happened, this prayer, this three prayers that Jesus did
in the garden happened thirty to fifty to sixty years
(26:03):
before the gospel's written down. Even more of a reason
even if that you know, well we know that he
kind of tried to bail, Well, don't put that in
because nobody will, nobody will follow him. He's gonna be
He's gonna be resurrected in a couple of days. That's
we got to, you know, make sure he doesn't look
weak or something like if you're crafting something, if it's
(26:25):
not the truth, you would go that way. But the
truth was that Jesus was fully human and fully God,
and so on our behalf. This prayer is prayed, and
in his anguish as a human being, he feels it
deeply not my will, your will. And I want to
I want to connect this to another story that I
feel is richly bonded to it in scripture, this notion
(26:48):
of three. You know, Peter's denied him three times, he
wants out three times, and then he meets Peter on
the beach in the Gospel of John, and I love
this so much. Peter jumps out of the boat. He
swims to him. I've heard a ton of sermons about
Peter abandoning the other fishermen, you know, in a Martha
(27:09):
Merry moment, and just like doing the needful thing. But
he gets to the beach with Jesus and Jesus says
the following, Peter, do you love me? You know I
love you? Feed my sheep? Says it three times in
the Aramaic. Jesus says to Peter, Peter, do you love
(27:31):
me unconditionally? And Peter says, Lord, you know I love
you conditionally. Feed my sheep. Second time, Peter, do you
love me unconditionally?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
You know I love you conditionally. I just trade you
three times. Don't rub it in. Feed my sheep. Third time, Peter.
And this is asked of all of us, Peter, do
you love me conditionally?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yes, Lord, I love you conditionally. That is where Jesus
meets us, and he builds his church on the cat
who can't do it right. He builds the church on us.
And we need to be okay with the fact that
we can't get it right. That getting it wrong is
(28:33):
fundamental to living under grace and being so obsessed not
only with our own lives getting it right, but telling
everybody else how to get it right. Like I've been
paying attention to this at home. I've traveled so much
this year, so I've seen my kids a lot less
than usual, and really for the first time I've been away.
(28:53):
And what I find when I get home is I
tend to focus on put down the phone, go to bed,
brush your teeth, do your homework. Did you get it right?
Did you get it right? Did you get it right?
And Jesus Christ has not done that to me one
time this whole year or my whole life. He said
to me, did you get it wrong? He just wants
(29:16):
me to admit it, and then he says, it's okay,
I got it right.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
So you're thinking all of this when you're writing and
making the scene for Bonhoeffer in prison, that's the soul
of those saints.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Absolutely, his desperation, his ache, his garden moment is begging
in prison to be taken home because he knows he's
going to be killed, and he says, in prison, it's
just like take me now. He doesn't want to face
who would want to face exec And he feels like
he's done the work, He's made the sacrifice. Lord, just
take me, just me now. Yeah he learned it. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
(30:09):
And we're and we're so transactional with with our relationships
with people, and we're you know, very transactional our relationship
with God.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
So before he gets arrested, he's speaking out. He's he's
been banished from Berlin. But even after that, tell us
what you learned, and you're making the movie about. I mean,
he basically was running an underground railroad of teaching theology
(30:41):
to young people because he recognized I've lost all these
old people and they're gonna kill me if I talk
and write anymore. So now he literally is basically doing
an underground railroad, which is interesting if you think about
the Harlem connection. Sure, an underground railroad of teaching young
impressible theologians biblically sound theology when the Bible had been replaced.
(31:09):
Tell us about how all that went well.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, the Confessing Church was a splinter off the German
Lutheran Church, and this group was the underground railroad. They
were a lot of them were seminary students. It was
a handful of pastors that were speaking out against Hitler.
But if you spoke out against Hitler, you got the
heave ho very quickly. So they had smuggled these students
(31:33):
to a place called Fink and Valda.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
And he which is which is where it's in?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Uh in Germany? Okay, it's in Bavaria.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Well no, I actually didn't know if it was an
Austria or not.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
No, no, I don't know. No, No, it's in, it's in,
it's in Germany. I was like, I knew there were
gonna be tough questions on this test.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
I actually thought, all right, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So and and he didn't want the job when it
was first offered to him because he didn't feel equipped.
He didn't feel like he studied enough or new enough,
and he was not much older than these young men.
But the guy, I won't give away the spoiler, but
the one who gave him the job said like, Samuel,
you were called for such a time as this. This
(32:16):
is your baton to carry. And it was happened to
be the Bible. And so that was a deep, beautiful
time for him. He wrote a book called Life Together
about his time at fingure involved, which I highly recommend.
If that's in the story, that's a good one to get.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
We'll be right back. It's important for us to understand
we've seen and you're right, our perspective of World War
Two really starts in nineteen forty one. The truth of
(32:57):
the story of World War Two starts at nineteen thirty
one and evolves to nineteen forty one.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
But it really starts in nineteen eighteen with the treaty.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
After World War One because Germany had no sport right.
But as it pertains to Bonharfer's life, that's his perspective,
with the exception of losing his brother in World War One.
But the question I'm trying to get to is he
he Jews were being rounded up and the common people,
(33:30):
like the folks in this audience, would recognize that there
were Jews being put on a bus, but they just
gone to the bakery and ignore it because it was
just kind of happening. But that was their problem, and
nobody thought to ask, where are they going, what are
they doing with all their stuff? What are they taking
(33:50):
out of their house? People just they were complicit, maybe
they weren't Nazis and involved in it. But they were
just as complicit because they wouldn't stand up. Now he did.
And then he started this thing where somehow he was
taking Jews to Switzerland and buying off the Swiss like
border guards to save Jewish people. What's tell us that part.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Well, you get to give away the whole movie, Manta go.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
You gotta go see none of this chronological So you
have to watch the movie.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
To say watch the whole movie.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
No. Ultimately, this Swiss transaction is what got him arrested.
The money he was arrested for money laundering, and then
later they tied him actually to another assassination plot, not
the one that he was involved with. Hitler just did
this broad stroke because he wanted Hitler wanted Bonhoffer dead
(34:44):
from the time Bonhoeffer was twenty seven for twelve years,
and he kept being told by his inner circle, you
can't kill this guy. Everybody loves him, like everybody on
both sides.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
He'll be a martyr.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
He'll be a martyr. And so he got close, he
got almost to the end, he almost got out. I've
had an amazing conversation with John matheson my DP. I'm
sorry we had the lights up with a trailer ran,
so it's really hard to see the beauty of the movie.
The movie has been shot by John Matheson, who was
(35:14):
nominated for an Oscar. I'm next to an Oscar winner
over here, and John was nominated for an Oscar for Gladiator,
and he's just shot Gladiator too, which is actually opening
on the same day, November twenty second, So it's Matheson
versus Matheson.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
The Gladiator verse. Bonhoffer, Yeah, that's like a sequel to
both of them.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, I Gladiators, Okay, opening weekend, pop into our movie theater.
You can see Gladiator the next weekend Thanksgiving. But it's
it's it's so divinely shot and so beautiful. So when
you get to look at the movie. But we were
standing by the gallows while the gallows were being built.
(36:04):
That scene was shot in Ireland on top of a hill.
And John is a spectacular human being and he's very
British and he comes from groovy, groovy rock and roll
the Clash David Bowie. He's you know, done five hundred
(36:24):
music videos, he's done sixty films, and he's super cool,
like without any effort, he's.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Just that guy. He's just that guy like not like
fat redhead of guys like me.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
It's yeah, but he's he's a beautiful human being. But
he doesn't have a faith. And his father had a faith,
and he kept talking about his dad throughout the making
of the movie. And on this maybe third to last day,
we're shooting the gallows scene and tears are just streaming
(36:58):
down his face and I'd never seen him cry. He's very,
very close to the vest and he starts to talk
and he says, if only, if only the Allies had
come a week earlier to if only, And as he
was grieving what we were about to film, it dawned
on him and he stopped himself and he said, but wait,
(37:22):
if Dietrich had gone on to live a full life,
he probably won't have wound up in the black forest
somewhere with his wife and children and written six or
seven books, and the impact of his courage would not
be felt. But because of this thing we're about to film,
(37:44):
his impact will never end. And so that's the power
of the sacrifice. And it doesn't always require our actual life.
Most of the time it doesn't, thank God. But the
power of the sac is the way we raise our
children and never telling them. Now your kids are here,
(38:08):
so I'm telling you, Mama, and this sweet man what
they did so that you're here, So that you have
oxygen in your lungs, You're alive, you're fed. You know, Jesus,
there's a sacrifice in what it is to be a
(38:29):
human being. And the more we live close to the
sacrificial Christ, the more joy and knowledge and wonder that
is available to us. So this thing that feels like
it's too expensive to do is actually the greatest gift.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Beautiful, A couple more questions, then we're going to open
it to our participants out here staring at us. One thing.
(39:15):
I don't want to spoil it too much, but go
to commercial but where I started crying, literally tears coming
down my face, and I had to watch the end
of it in my computer in my office, so I
had salespeople coming by. I'm wondering why I was sitting
(39:36):
at my desk crying, And it was not because of
the price they were getting for the lumber that I've needed.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
So more for.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Was the relationship that manifested itself with a guard, which
once again metaphorically is very interesting to me that Bonheffer
created a relationship with a non believer, a guard, a
Nazi German guard who right before Bonhoeffer met his death
(40:12):
changed What does that tell you about the strength of
faith and giving and the temerity and the courage to
meet that faith.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
It's the aroma of Christ. This is a real guy,
not the aroma of Christ. That's interesting, well, it it's scriptural.
It's just if you're living with the Holy Spirit and
you're close to Jesus, you give off the aroma of Christ.
That's what people see. When people see, like when you're
really beaming with light and people say, oh my goodness,
(40:46):
what what is it like? The only the only answer,
because you know you can't see yourself, the only answer
is it's Jesus Christ. It's just, you know, we're called
to be a light on a hill, a lighthouse. This,
this is who we're meant to be. So what was
happening when he was in prison in Tagel in Berlin
before he got moved closer to his death in Flausenburg,
(41:08):
was that he was there for a year and a
half and this relationship with this guard developed, and Nablock
drew so close to Dietrich that he offered to help
him escape and that's all true. Nablock survived the war
and wrote all this down.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
And when he offered Dietrich to escape.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
You got to see the movie.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Got to see the movie. It's it's phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
I can tell you the ending of Gladiator two.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Very soon.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Somebody's going to have the courage to come up here
and help me ask questions at one of these mics.
But first, I am going to read something. I'm not
going to tell you where this happens, but I'm going
to read it. I got emotional writing it, and I'm
going to try not to get emotional reading it. Bonhoeffer's
(42:11):
life inspired these words. These are not his. But y'all,
CNN and Fox are not going to fix what's going
on in our communities. And I don't care which side
of them you like to watch. We have to understand
(42:34):
our world and the power that comes out of the
media is incented by an enormous amount of power and
wealth to divide us. And it doesn't matter which side
of that spectrum you're on, you're victim to it. The
narratives that come out of DC. There are good, well
(42:58):
intentioned people in DC. See, I'm not painting with a
broadbrush saying they're all bad and evil. But I am
saying there is a system in place and scentered by
an enormous amount of power and wealth to divide us
so that we pledge ourselves to one or the other,
so that they maintain power and control. That is a system.
(43:24):
And the sooner we wake up to the fact that
that system, in those laws, if they govern us, we
are very equal. We're very very likely to end up
at some point looking for a Bonheffer.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Look for him, now, be a Bonheffer. Come on, I
know there's Bonheffers out there in the audience. I know it.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
The lessons of the movie that this man has written
and made about an extraordinary, average man's life. This phenomenal.
It has so many parallels to the beginning of Christianity
all the way till today's life. I just can't wait
for you folks in three short weeks to be able
(44:14):
to see it. These are the words I'm going to
leave you with before I open it up to other questions.
And again these words are not written by Bonheffer, but
about Bonheiffer after his death. This was written six months
after the war ended, which was only seven months after
Bonheffer's death. It appears in the movie I Will not
(44:36):
tell you where through us, meaning the vast majority of
the German clergy, through us and the church, infinite wrong
was done. We accuse ourselves of not standing to our
beliefs more courageously, for not praying more faithfully, for not
(45:01):
believing more joyously, and not for loving more completely. That
was written in nineteen forty five about Bonhoeffer, and I
just wonder are we guilty of that? Today? We have
a lot to learn from your movie, my friend.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Oh thank you. It's listen, Jesus in Charge. And whatever
is true and beautiful that exists in that movie, may
it land in your heart. And anything that's not burn
away like chaff and the thing. I want to finish
our little section about because what you just read I
really appreciate that, and about the church, and earlier I said,
(45:42):
I don't really think there's an American church. I've been
I've seen so much fighting over first politics, now in
some ways Bonhoeffer just fighting from people that profess Jesus Christ.
They share that and then share almost nothing else. It's
(46:02):
like the church, what is the American church? This church that? No, no, no,
what are we called to be? We're the body of
Christ and beautifully Paul in the Epistles says, can the
eye say to the ear, I don't need you? Can
(46:24):
the arm say to the leg go away? We can't
be a body of noses. We can't be a body
of only ears or elbows or knees. We need each
other and we don't have to agree on everything. But
if we say we agree on Jesus being the savior,
(46:45):
we have to stop gathering all the noses and saying
we got to get rid of all the ears. We
have to say, what do you smell? Why are you
feeling this way?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Oh? Wow?
Speaker 1 (46:55):
If I smell that? Are you picked up on that?
Because you what do you hear?
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (47:00):
I never heard that. Oh that makes so much more sense.
And then the last thing we should open is our mouth.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
So with all of that said, that is this seeing
and in fox aren't going to fix us. If social
media is not going to fix us, if the political
system isn't going to fix this thing that ails us.
Maybe it's just a guy like Bonhoeffer, or hundreds of them,
four thousands or a million. Maybe it is just an
(47:34):
army of normal folks see an area need a wrong
in their community, a spot where their passion and their
discipline can engage in a moment of opportunity and change
their peace of the world. And with millions of us
doing that, we don't need to worry about what comes
(47:55):
out of New York and DC anymore, because we are
the masters of our own culture.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Whatever is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever
is of good, report think on these things. You're talking
about the culture that it's just clicks, it's just money.
Love of money is the root of all evil. We
talked about at dinner right before tipping. And I'm joking,
but this is the real thing. We are in this
(48:24):
election cycle. And now some are celebrating and obsessed, some
are lamenting and obsessed, but we're still obsessed. We're not
looking at what is beautiful and true and honest and pure,
and therefore we suffer. And guess what, when we're soaking
in these screens, we got less time to love each other.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Todd Komernikki,
and you guys do not want to miss part two.
It's now we're able to listen to guys, go to
the audience with a Q and A from the live interview,
and it's awesome. There were a ton of really great questions,
including about Todd's personal redemption story. During that you could
(49:13):
not hear a pin drop as he answered, together, guys,
we can change this country starts with you. I'll see
you in Part two.
And on this maybe third to last day, we're shooting
the gallop scene and tears are just streaming down his face,
and I'd never seen him cry. He's very, very close
to the vest and he starts to talk and he says,
if only, if only the Allies had come a week
earlier to if only, And as he was grieving what
(00:25):
we were about to film, it dawned on him and
he stopped himself and he said, but wait. If Dietrich
had gone on to live a full life, he probably
would have wound up in the black forest somewhere with
his wife and children and written six or seven books,
and the impact of his courage would not be felt.
(00:49):
But because of this thing we're about to film, his
impact will never end.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
inter city Memphis. And the last part is somehow led
to an oscar for the film about our team. That
movie is called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems
(01:24):
will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people
and nice suits talking big words that nobody understands on
CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks,
US just you and me deciding Hey, maybe I can help.
Today we bring you our second ever live interview, and
(01:45):
it's with the incomparable Todd Komernikki. He's the producer of Elf,
the writer of Sully, and the producer, writer and director
of the upcoming film with Angel Studios that's titled bon
Hoffer Pastor Spy Assassin, and it's about Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
(02:08):
a normal person who stood up to Hitler, rescued Jews,
joined a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, was in prison, and
ultimately was hanged for his defiance. I cannot wait for
you to meet Bonhoeffer through Todd's powerful storytelling. Right after
these brief messages from our general sponsors, Todd Kermer Nicky,
(02:44):
welcome to mephis Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
So.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
You're You're special in a number of ways, but your
special in one real way. In the thirteen or fourteen
months that an Army of normal folks has been out,
we've only done two live events and the first one
was the Dancing ups Man and now you So you're special,
(03:14):
I mean, live event, and these folks are here for you.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
When I heard about that, I was pretty troubled because
highlighting a ups man in a FedEx town sounding kind
of bold, kind of daring.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
It's a really good point. We actually talked about that.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So I'm going to finish with some spectacular dancing. Don't
leave early.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So for our listeners. You were a producer with On Elf,
which I think is one of the greatest Christmas movies
of all time. I watch it every year no matter what.
My kids watch it with me. You wrote Sully, directed
by Clint Eastwood and obviously Sharon Tom Hanks. That did
(03:55):
beautiful as a story of the bird strike plane that
landed in the Hudson and nobody died. Phenomenal story, great screenplay.
And your latest project is, while you're here, a movie
called bon Hoffer Pastor Spy Assassin, and well, I definitely
want to get into for a few minutes, touch on
(04:16):
the making of the movie and all of that, because
I think that's interesting to most people. What's really poignant
is Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a normal guy who served and
saved lives and changed minds and led in an unbelievably
(04:36):
difficult time and served to death. And the research you
had to have done on him to make this movie,
and the lessons we have to learn from this normal
guy I named Dietrich Bonhoeffer that changed people's lives in
this world. That's the story we want to hear, that
you told, and that's what we want to talk about.
(04:57):
And I can't wait to get into it. But before
we do, for those of you hadn't seen it. For
those listening now, here's just a quick clip the trailer
to bon Hopfer and a great movie. And the trailer
gets me jazzed up. So here we go.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Something's coming, something else talking? Look around and my friend,
how much light do you see?
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Hello?
Speaker 5 (05:30):
Talk that smile? Come to talk with you because of vision?
Something lifted scenes.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
On it comes in africalor and this usuon.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
We have devised a plot to assassinate the fure.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
You will go to England as I spy.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Churchill seized Germany as a whole. He's afraid that upon
trace to England would be invasion.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Of or invasion invasion.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
My country was invaded.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Trunk with.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
People Bob inside Funerner.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Science romance somewhere with her, I'm.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
To meet my destiny.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
That sound of silent iteration with that guttural music doesn't
get you on the edge of the seat. You just
need to go home. Now, that is phenomenal. When I
first watched it and then your folks sent me the screener,
there's so there's so much in this film that just
I felt, which speaks to your writing, you're directing, you're casting,
(07:48):
and the work that you did and the research and
so briefly share with everybody because we don't get a
glimpse into what it is to make a movie Cradle
to grave and when you write it and you produce
it and you direct it, it's your baby. So give
us a glimpse into that world and how that works.
(08:08):
And then let's get into Bonhaf for himself.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Well, there's three words that are the answer to all
those questions, and that is Jesus is King. The only
way I'm able to do anything in my start with
a blank page life, which I've been doing since I'm
twenty two, is to get out of the way, to
(08:35):
pray and to work on my craft every waking moment.
And I think that's an angel calling in the story
of making a film is exactly the same every kind
of film. You give all of your heart, whether anybody
sees it or not, you have no control over results.
(08:58):
When we made Elf, we had a great time, but
we certainly didn't know that all these other folks we're
going to have a great time sitting in the theater
with it, and they're still twenty one years later going
to sing alongs and it brings families together. But that
wasn't the plan. And living a surrendered life is so
fundamental to being a good artist that I actually think
(09:24):
that for a Christian my life is so much easier
than for a person who doesn't have faith, or a
person whose life is filled with routine. Because we're asked
by Christ to not worry about tomorrow, to not worry
about what we're going to eat, and we're not to
not store up in barns. We're asked to do all
(09:45):
these things that our culture tells us we must do.
We must say, we must prepare, we must count the cost.
The only cost that Jesus asks us the cost is
drop everything and go follow him. And so for an
artist having to start with that blank page every day,
that's a lot easier advice to follow, because I have
nothing without him, and I know that. So it's actually
(10:09):
taught me tremendous compassion for a person that is faced
with the rigors of what the day to day asks.
So what I try to speak into when I'm telling
stories is to really examine each individual's rigor the things
that Bonhoeffer had to do, not in a spectacular way,
(10:31):
but how to talk to his family, how to play
the piano, how to learn with his best friend Frank
Fisher in Harlem, how to take in the details of
a life that form a man. Because I think if
you get those details right, that it's captivating to an
audience and you understand him when he makes the bold chance,
the bold choice to really put his life on the
(10:53):
line to save and he did save thousands of Jewish lives.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
So let's pick it up with Frank for those who
are listening that may or may not know something about
the Bonhoeffer story. As he became a young man and
decided to study and seminary have become a theologian, he
came to the United States to study, and he was
(11:19):
really disturbed. He was unhappy with what he found in
the traditional seminary in the United States at that time,
and then he met a guy named Frank tell us
about it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, it's interesting. He was a star in Germany. He
wrote his doctorate at sixteen. He was targeted for academic success,
and he was from a very prominent family and the
German Church, the Lutheran Church sent him to Union Seminary
as their star pupil. And when he got there he
felt like I studied all this when I was fifteen,
Like he just he and he had a one particular
(11:54):
professor you see in the movie that just bored him stiff,
and he just thought, what am I doing here? And
I'm going to be here for a couple of years. Fortunately,
he had a roommate and a friend, Frank Fisher, a
black American, who took him into the world of Harlem,
not just as you see here.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
With the jazz, but also what ye are we talking?
Speaker 6 (12:11):
We're talking nineteen thirty, nineteen thirty, So not only consider
nineteen thirty, just consider nineteen thirty Harlem and a German
dude hanging around with Frank.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, I mean music was the bridge.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Because because Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an amazing pianist, he was.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
A child prodigy pianist. He easily could have been a
professional pianist, and so music was the bridge. But really
what Frank did was he just had a friend who
happened to be from Germany and he invited him into
the world of jazz. He took him to Abyssinian Baptist Church,
where Dietrich was the only white member. Dietrich taught Sunday
school and what Dietrich found at that church was something
(12:56):
shocking to him because German theologians at that time they
didn't go to church. Karl Bart, one of the most
famous theologies of all time, did not attend church. They
wrote about they didn't live within. And what Dietrich saw
at the Abyssinian Baptist Church was living, breathing faith and
(13:16):
it woke him up. And it says that his two
favorite things were Jesus and jazz, and his life was
filled with joy. And that's what he took back with
him to Germany in nineteen thirty three. One he took
about the joy of his new found faith because he
really met Jesus in Harlem. And two outside of Harlem,
(13:36):
he had seen that his friendship with Frank Fisher was
not convenient and in fact brought violence and fear because
of the racial issues. So Dietrich went back to Germany
with a completely different lens to see the world through.
So early on, when Hitler started othering the Jewish population,
it was so homogeneous in Germany that no one really
(13:58):
took notice. It was very much. It wasn't in the newspaper,
it wasn't disgusted at parties. It was just, oh, this Hitler,
he's really raising up the nation, and oh he might
be doing something. Oh but that's okay, that's he's doing great.
But Dietrich noticed right away because of the language of othering.
No matter where you go in the world, no matter
who is othering somebody else, the language is always the same.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I found it as I was watching the movie. Now
I'm gonna get all artsy here for a second, Okay.
I found it when I was watching the movie interesting
that in nineteen thirty this prodigy, the star of the
Lutheran church in Germany, is sent to the United States,
and he goes to the seminary Mecca right and is
(14:46):
yawning through it. And then he goes to an African
American church in Harlem, where he has awakened. And I
just thought, what an interesting metaphor for Christ. That Christ
didn't surround himself with the people in the Mecca. He
surrounded himself with fishermen and prostitutes and the downtrodden and
(15:08):
the social outcast. And that is where Christ's work was done.
And ironically, in nineteen thirty, that's where Dietrich Bonhoffer got
his social awakening that ended up having him go to
Germany and serve yet another race of people who are
being wronged.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Your friend that we met tonight at dinner said something
really beautiful. She said, in serving people in great need,
people kept asking her did you get a chance to
teach them about Jesus? And she said, well, actually they
taught me about Jesus.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Beautiful and it is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And also, just this notion. The way I try to
live my life, and I do this with all human
effort that I have, is to remember that the only
way to live is to give. So live to give
and give to live. If we're doing that in all
our relationships, if we're doing it, I mean, it's end
(16:08):
of year tax season, right. We can write a check
and we can give, and we can impact lives and
that's awesome. But we can also give every day in
front of us, to our children, to strangers. Sometimes it's
as simple as opening a door. It's just looking out
at the world. Not where is mine? But who needs something?
(16:29):
Anyone in this room needs something? Because that's what Jesus
would do when he sat with the woman at the well,
or he called Sakias down from the tree. He was
always looking there must be somebody that needs something. That's
not because he wanted us to be laboring or disappointed
(16:53):
or never have enough for ourselves. No, it was because
we are built to give, and we are only truly
happy when we give. Actually, having becomes an affliction and
life is adhesive. Look around at your house. Unless you're
a Marie Condo disciple, you have too much stuff. We
(17:15):
live in seventeen hundred square feet in New York City
in our apartment, my wife and two kids, and we
don't have room for anything, and we have too much stuff.
Life just like we're rolling slowly and it's just Adhering
to us is like we're the refrigerator covered in so
many magnets you can't even open the refrigerator. So we
(17:38):
maybe don't need to be acquiring all the time, and
if we really want to be fulfilled, which is why
we bought that crock pot and that sweater, you know,
we're trying to scratch an itch we can't reach. We
really want to be fulfilled, kind to do less of
that and a lot more of living to give.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
I hope you'll consider signing up to join the army
at Normalfolks dot us. By signing up, you'll receive weekly
email with updates about the army and short episode summaries
in case you happen to miss an episode, or if
you just prefer reading about our incredible guest. We'll be
(18:21):
right back. So Bonheffer comes back from Harlem with this
(18:45):
renewed sense of faith and fullness, but also a mental acuity,
a mental understanding of social justice because of what he
witnessed his members of the church he joined deal with.
And then he's faced with Hitler's Germany. I'm jumping ahead
(19:10):
a little, and I would like you to fill in
the blinks from your historical study perspective of his life.
But he spoke out against what Hitler was trying to
do with the church, which is basically make the church
his church, abandoned the Old Testament. He spoke against making
(19:36):
the fear basically Christ. He was eventually banned from writing,
banned from speaking, banned from Berlin. Yet while all of
the people that taught him, all of his all of
his peers, all of his core, even even even the
(19:59):
people that he looked to as mentors, we're changing everything
the way the state wanted it. He had the temerity,
in the face of all of that kind of take
us through that part of the story and who bon
Hoffer was and why in your estimation from writing script
(20:22):
and making a movie about him, what was going on
with him at that time.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Well, the first thing that happened is and why we
don't know this is because in America we really don't
study anything about World War Two until we got involved.
And I'm not judging that, but that's really if you
want to know the stories, everyone's like, oh d Day
and Pearl Harbor, we all everybody knows those stories intimately.
But the reason we were in that war is because
(20:48):
what was happening from nineteen thirty three on. So Hitler
comes to power, he only has thirty three percent of
the Paula Buro, and he knows that he needs more power,
and he goes right to the church. And now this
was a real thing. Like currently people talk about the
American Church, but I think there's American Christians, and there's
many stripes of American Christians, but there's not really a
(21:09):
monolithic American Church. Back then, in Germany, the Catholics had
half the power, the Lutherans had the other half, and
it was a real thing. So Hitler was savvy. He said,
if I fill these churches, I'm going to have these
clergy on my side. And that's what happened. And within
the first year, crucifixes were coming out and swastikas were going.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
In above the altars.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Above the altar, Bibles were coming out. Mind camp was
going in, and by thirty five they had rewritten the
Bible and announced it boldly, very famously. It's in the
movie at the Sports Palace to this huge event where
they have rewrote the Bible, taking all traces of Jewishness
(21:55):
away from.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Jesus, including the Old Testament, the whole.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Old Testament, and then anything what they call Jewish weakness.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Didney add two commandments or three?
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Two commandments got added honor your master and furor, and
always make sure that you keep the blood pure and holy.
And they weren't talking about Jesus.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Now, remember, listeners, this is the government doing it, but
they can't do it without the church going along with it.
That's the danger of the sound of silence.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Go ahead, amen to that, brother. Yeah, I mean, complicity
is just part as part of it. If you look
at anything in our own lives. And I always try
when I feel strongly that something has been done wrong,
I always look in my own heart, how am I
doing that? How am I complicit? And so think you
don't have to come up with it right now, but
in the quiet of your life, think, okay, I feel
(22:51):
very strongly about this issue. I hate that the ocean
is being polluted. Let's just say, I mean, nobody wants
the ocean to be pout. I think in general people
say I hate that the ocean is being polluted. It's
bad for the fish I'm eating. It's But the person
who says that is usually on their seventeenth plastic water
bottle of the day, right, So that's we wouldn't think
(23:13):
that's complicit, that's it's convenient, like, oh, he just handed
it to me. There's nothing I can do. I have
to I'm really thirsty. I better drink. This will be
my last plastic bottle ever. So we're doing that all
the time, So we shouldn't be shocked when we see
(23:33):
complicity when it's writ large lead to devastation. And that's
and that's what happened and early on, and it's bon
Huffer says in the movie that the German church has
traded full pews for full hearts, and so they were
just so excited to have people finally coming back to
these cathedrals. They missed the fact that those cathedrals had
(23:54):
actually been stolen from right under their feet by Adolf.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Hitler, and which part the clergy was the most complicit.
So he sees it happening and he against everyone else
Texas stand.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Yeah, it's it's beautiful. His heroism is so relatable because yes,
he was a normal guy. He's a he's a normal guy.
He's very cocky. I love that he was so cocky.
He was always certain that he was right, and it
led him to some dangerous situations. But he when he
stood up against advice and threw the Nazis out of
(24:36):
church and said, Hitler is not the head of the church.
That was he painted a target on his chest that
never went away. For the last twelve years of his
life he was essentially on the run, but he didn't
question for a minute that that's what he was supposed
to do. Later, when things got very difficult and he
was in prison for a long time, he lost everything.
He had the humanity to say to God, did I
(24:57):
get it wrong? Am I you know? Should I have
done something different? Is this a punishment? Where's the victory?
But always every time he despaired, he pushed through with faith,
and he found even though the ending was not an
ideal Hollywood ending, he was at the ending that he
(25:17):
knew as a man of faith was the real beginning.
So that I say that he had a garden of
Gethsemite faith, and he loved the Sermon on the Mount,
and he loved the story of the garden, and I
love the story of the garden. For me, that was
really the beginning of my faith when I was in
my early twenties, that there would be a savior who
had come to do one thing, and on the eve
(25:39):
of getting to do that one thing, asks not to
do it. This is singular in history. Who would invent
a character a hero that tries to bail nobody. Now,
this happened, this prayer, this three prayers that Jesus did
in the garden happened thirty to fifty to sixty years
(26:03):
before the gospel's written down. Even more of a reason
even if that you know, well we know that he
kind of tried to bail, Well, don't put that in
because nobody will, nobody will follow him. He's gonna be
He's gonna be resurrected in a couple of days. That's
we got to, you know, make sure he doesn't look
weak or something like if you're crafting something, if it's
(26:25):
not the truth, you would go that way. But the
truth was that Jesus was fully human and fully God,
and so on our behalf. This prayer is prayed, and
in his anguish as a human being, he feels it
deeply not my will, your will. And I want to
I want to connect this to another story that I
feel is richly bonded to it in scripture, this notion
(26:48):
of three. You know, Peter's denied him three times, he
wants out three times, and then he meets Peter on
the beach in the Gospel of John, and I love
this so much. Peter jumps out of the boat. He
swims to him. I've heard a ton of sermons about
Peter abandoning the other fishermen, you know, in a Martha
(27:09):
Merry moment, and just like doing the needful thing. But
he gets to the beach with Jesus and Jesus says
the following, Peter, do you love me? You know I
love you? Feed my sheep? Says it three times in
the Aramaic. Jesus says to Peter, Peter, do you love
(27:31):
me unconditionally? And Peter says, Lord, you know I love
you conditionally. Feed my sheep. Second time, Peter, do you
love me unconditionally?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
You know I love you conditionally. I just trade you
three times. Don't rub it in. Feed my sheep. Third time, Peter.
And this is asked of all of us, Peter, do
you love me conditionally?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yes, Lord, I love you conditionally. That is where Jesus
meets us, and he builds his church on the cat
who can't do it right. He builds the church on us.
And we need to be okay with the fact that
we can't get it right. That getting it wrong is
(28:33):
fundamental to living under grace and being so obsessed not
only with our own lives getting it right, but telling
everybody else how to get it right. Like I've been
paying attention to this at home. I've traveled so much
this year, so I've seen my kids a lot less
than usual, and really for the first time I've been away.
(28:53):
And what I find when I get home is I
tend to focus on put down the phone, go to bed,
brush your teeth, do your homework. Did you get it right?
Did you get it right? Did you get it right?
And Jesus Christ has not done that to me one
time this whole year or my whole life. He said
to me, did you get it wrong? He just wants
(29:16):
me to admit it, and then he says, it's okay,
I got it right.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
So you're thinking all of this when you're writing and
making the scene for Bonhoeffer in prison, that's the soul
of those saints.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Absolutely, his desperation, his ache, his garden moment is begging
in prison to be taken home because he knows he's
going to be killed, and he says, in prison, it's
just like take me now. He doesn't want to face
who would want to face exec And he feels like
he's done the work, He's made the sacrifice. Lord, just
take me, just me now. Yeah he learned it. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
(30:09):
And we're and we're so transactional with with our relationships
with people, and we're you know, very transactional our relationship
with God.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
So before he gets arrested, he's speaking out. He's he's
been banished from Berlin. But even after that, tell us
what you learned, and you're making the movie about. I mean,
he basically was running an underground railroad of teaching theology
(30:41):
to young people because he recognized I've lost all these
old people and they're gonna kill me if I talk
and write anymore. So now he literally is basically doing
an underground railroad, which is interesting if you think about
the Harlem connection. Sure, an underground railroad of teaching young
impressible theologians biblically sound theology when the Bible had been replaced.
(31:09):
Tell us about how all that went well.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, the Confessing Church was a splinter off the German
Lutheran Church, and this group was the underground railroad. They
were a lot of them were seminary students. It was
a handful of pastors that were speaking out against Hitler.
But if you spoke out against Hitler, you got the
heave ho very quickly. So they had smuggled these students
(31:33):
to a place called Fink and Valda.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
And he which is which is where it's in?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Uh in Germany? Okay, it's in Bavaria.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Well no, I actually didn't know if it was an
Austria or not.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
No, no, I don't know. No, No, it's in, it's in,
it's in Germany. I was like, I knew there were
gonna be tough questions on this test.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
I actually thought, all right, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So and and he didn't want the job when it
was first offered to him because he didn't feel equipped.
He didn't feel like he studied enough or new enough,
and he was not much older than these young men.
But the guy, I won't give away the spoiler, but
the one who gave him the job said like, Samuel,
you were called for such a time as this. This
(32:16):
is your baton to carry. And it was happened to
be the Bible. And so that was a deep, beautiful
time for him. He wrote a book called Life Together
about his time at fingure involved, which I highly recommend.
If that's in the story, that's a good one to get.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
We'll be right back. It's important for us to understand
we've seen and you're right, our perspective of World War
Two really starts in nineteen forty one. The truth of
(32:57):
the story of World War Two starts at nineteen thirty
one and evolves to nineteen forty one.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
But it really starts in nineteen eighteen with the treaty.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
After World War One because Germany had no sport right.
But as it pertains to Bonharfer's life, that's his perspective,
with the exception of losing his brother in World War One.
But the question I'm trying to get to is he
he Jews were being rounded up and the common people,
(33:30):
like the folks in this audience, would recognize that there
were Jews being put on a bus, but they just
gone to the bakery and ignore it because it was
just kind of happening. But that was their problem, and
nobody thought to ask, where are they going, what are
they doing with all their stuff? What are they taking
(33:50):
out of their house? People just they were complicit, maybe
they weren't Nazis and involved in it. But they were
just as complicit because they wouldn't stand up. Now he did.
And then he started this thing where somehow he was
taking Jews to Switzerland and buying off the Swiss like
border guards to save Jewish people. What's tell us that part.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Well, you get to give away the whole movie, Manta go.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
You gotta go see none of this chronological So you
have to watch the movie.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
To say watch the whole movie.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
No. Ultimately, this Swiss transaction is what got him arrested.
The money he was arrested for money laundering, and then
later they tied him actually to another assassination plot, not
the one that he was involved with. Hitler just did
this broad stroke because he wanted Hitler wanted Bonhoffer dead
(34:44):
from the time Bonhoeffer was twenty seven for twelve years,
and he kept being told by his inner circle, you
can't kill this guy. Everybody loves him, like everybody on
both sides.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
He'll be a martyr.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
He'll be a martyr. And so he got close, he
got almost to the end, he almost got out. I've
had an amazing conversation with John matheson my DP. I'm
sorry we had the lights up with a trailer ran,
so it's really hard to see the beauty of the movie.
The movie has been shot by John Matheson, who was
(35:14):
nominated for an Oscar. I'm next to an Oscar winner
over here, and John was nominated for an Oscar for Gladiator,
and he's just shot Gladiator too, which is actually opening
on the same day, November twenty second, So it's Matheson
versus Matheson.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
The Gladiator verse. Bonhoffer, Yeah, that's like a sequel to
both of them.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, I Gladiators, Okay, opening weekend, pop into our movie theater.
You can see Gladiator the next weekend Thanksgiving. But it's
it's it's so divinely shot and so beautiful. So when
you get to look at the movie. But we were
standing by the gallows while the gallows were being built.
(36:04):
That scene was shot in Ireland on top of a hill.
And John is a spectacular human being and he's very
British and he comes from groovy, groovy rock and roll
the Clash David Bowie. He's you know, done five hundred
(36:24):
music videos, he's done sixty films, and he's super cool,
like without any effort, he's.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Just that guy. He's just that guy like not like
fat redhead of guys like me.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
It's yeah, but he's he's a beautiful human being. But
he doesn't have a faith. And his father had a faith,
and he kept talking about his dad throughout the making
of the movie. And on this maybe third to last day,
we're shooting the gallows scene and tears are just streaming
(36:58):
down his face and I'd never seen him cry. He's very,
very close to the vest and he starts to talk
and he says, if only, if only the Allies had
come a week earlier to if only, And as he
was grieving what we were about to film, it dawned
on him and he stopped himself and he said, but wait,
(37:22):
if Dietrich had gone on to live a full life,
he probably won't have wound up in the black forest
somewhere with his wife and children and written six or
seven books, and the impact of his courage would not
be felt. But because of this thing we're about to film,
(37:44):
his impact will never end. And so that's the power
of the sacrifice. And it doesn't always require our actual life.
Most of the time it doesn't, thank God. But the
power of the sac is the way we raise our
children and never telling them. Now your kids are here,
(38:08):
so I'm telling you, Mama, and this sweet man what
they did so that you're here, So that you have
oxygen in your lungs, You're alive, you're fed. You know, Jesus,
there's a sacrifice in what it is to be a
(38:29):
human being. And the more we live close to the
sacrificial Christ, the more joy and knowledge and wonder that
is available to us. So this thing that feels like
it's too expensive to do is actually the greatest gift.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Beautiful, A couple more questions, then we're going to open
it to our participants out here staring at us. One thing.
(39:15):
I don't want to spoil it too much, but go
to commercial but where I started crying, literally tears coming
down my face, and I had to watch the end
of it in my computer in my office, so I
had salespeople coming by. I'm wondering why I was sitting
(39:36):
at my desk crying, And it was not because of
the price they were getting for the lumber that I've needed.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
So more for.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Was the relationship that manifested itself with a guard, which
once again metaphorically is very interesting to me that Bonheffer
created a relationship with a non believer, a guard, a
Nazi German guard who right before Bonhoeffer met his death
(40:12):
changed What does that tell you about the strength of
faith and giving and the temerity and the courage to
meet that faith.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
It's the aroma of Christ. This is a real guy,
not the aroma of Christ. That's interesting, well, it it's scriptural.
It's just if you're living with the Holy Spirit and
you're close to Jesus, you give off the aroma of Christ.
That's what people see. When people see, like when you're
really beaming with light and people say, oh my goodness,
(40:46):
what what is it like? The only the only answer,
because you know you can't see yourself, the only answer
is it's Jesus Christ. It's just, you know, we're called
to be a light on a hill, a lighthouse. This,
this is who we're meant to be. So what was
happening when he was in prison in Tagel in Berlin
before he got moved closer to his death in Flausenburg,
(41:08):
was that he was there for a year and a
half and this relationship with this guard developed, and Nablock
drew so close to Dietrich that he offered to help
him escape and that's all true. Nablock survived the war
and wrote all this down.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
And when he offered Dietrich to escape.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
You got to see the movie.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Got to see the movie. It's it's phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
I can tell you the ending of Gladiator two.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Very soon.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Somebody's going to have the courage to come up here
and help me ask questions at one of these mics.
But first, I am going to read something. I'm not
going to tell you where this happens, but I'm going
to read it. I got emotional writing it, and I'm
going to try not to get emotional reading it. Bonhoeffer's
(42:11):
life inspired these words. These are not his. But y'all,
CNN and Fox are not going to fix what's going
on in our communities. And I don't care which side
of them you like to watch. We have to understand
(42:34):
our world and the power that comes out of the
media is incented by an enormous amount of power and
wealth to divide us. And it doesn't matter which side
of that spectrum you're on, you're victim to it. The
narratives that come out of DC. There are good, well
(42:58):
intentioned people in DC. See, I'm not painting with a
broadbrush saying they're all bad and evil. But I am
saying there is a system in place and scentered by
an enormous amount of power and wealth to divide us
so that we pledge ourselves to one or the other,
so that they maintain power and control. That is a system.
(43:24):
And the sooner we wake up to the fact that
that system, in those laws, if they govern us, we
are very equal. We're very very likely to end up
at some point looking for a Bonheffer.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Look for him, now, be a Bonheffer. Come on, I
know there's Bonheffers out there in the audience. I know it.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
The lessons of the movie that this man has written
and made about an extraordinary, average man's life. This phenomenal.
It has so many parallels to the beginning of Christianity
all the way till today's life. I just can't wait
for you folks in three short weeks to be able
(44:14):
to see it. These are the words I'm going to
leave you with before I open it up to other questions.
And again these words are not written by Bonheffer, but
about Bonheiffer after his death. This was written six months
after the war ended, which was only seven months after
Bonheffer's death. It appears in the movie I Will not
(44:36):
tell you where through us, meaning the vast majority of
the German clergy, through us and the church, infinite wrong
was done. We accuse ourselves of not standing to our
beliefs more courageously, for not praying more faithfully, for not
(45:01):
believing more joyously, and not for loving more completely. That
was written in nineteen forty five about Bonhoeffer, and I
just wonder are we guilty of that? Today? We have
a lot to learn from your movie, my friend.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Oh thank you. It's listen, Jesus in Charge. And whatever
is true and beautiful that exists in that movie, may
it land in your heart. And anything that's not burn
away like chaff and the thing. I want to finish
our little section about because what you just read I
really appreciate that, and about the church, and earlier I said,
(45:42):
I don't really think there's an American church. I've been
I've seen so much fighting over first politics, now in
some ways Bonhoeffer just fighting from people that profess Jesus Christ.
They share that and then share almost nothing else. It's
(46:02):
like the church, what is the American church? This church that? No, no, no,
what are we called to be? We're the body of
Christ and beautifully Paul in the Epistles says, can the
eye say to the ear, I don't need you? Can
(46:24):
the arm say to the leg go away? We can't
be a body of noses. We can't be a body
of only ears or elbows or knees. We need each
other and we don't have to agree on everything. But
if we say we agree on Jesus being the savior,
(46:45):
we have to stop gathering all the noses and saying
we got to get rid of all the ears. We
have to say, what do you smell? Why are you
feeling this way?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Oh? Wow?
Speaker 1 (46:55):
If I smell that? Are you picked up on that?
Because you what do you hear?
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (47:00):
I never heard that. Oh that makes so much more sense.
And then the last thing we should open is our mouth.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
So with all of that said, that is this seeing
and in fox aren't going to fix us. If social
media is not going to fix us, if the political
system isn't going to fix this thing that ails us.
Maybe it's just a guy like Bonhoeffer, or hundreds of them,
four thousands or a million. Maybe it is just an
(47:34):
army of normal folks see an area need a wrong
in their community, a spot where their passion and their
discipline can engage in a moment of opportunity and change
their peace of the world. And with millions of us
doing that, we don't need to worry about what comes
(47:55):
out of New York and DC anymore, because we are
the masters of our own culture.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Whatever is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever
is of good, report think on these things. You're talking
about the culture that it's just clicks, it's just money.
Love of money is the root of all evil. We
talked about at dinner right before tipping. And I'm joking,
but this is the real thing. We are in this
(48:24):
election cycle. And now some are celebrating and obsessed, some
are lamenting and obsessed, but we're still obsessed. We're not
looking at what is beautiful and true and honest and pure,
and therefore we suffer. And guess what, when we're soaking
in these screens, we got less time to love each other.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Todd Komernikki,
and you guys do not want to miss part two.
It's now we're able to listen to guys, go to
the audience with a Q and A from the live interview,
and it's awesome. There were a ton of really great questions,
including about Todd's personal redemption story. During that you could
(49:13):
not hear a pin drop as he answered, together, guys,
we can change this country starts with you. I'll see
you in Part two.
Host
Bill Courtney
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