During medieval times, theology was called the 'Queen of the Sciences', not only because of those who studied it, but also because it was the summit of all the disciplines. Theology tries to fathom and then speak of the divine or simply, 'its about effing the ineffable'.
Martin Scorsese's Silence is a theological exploration of the impact of doubt upon an individual's faith, especially when persecution challenges the believer's certainties. Academic dicta are pummelled in the surf and mud as we follow the lives of two 17th-century Portuguese Jesuits who travel illegally to Tokugawa-era Japan to find the truth about what happened to their own Jesuit theology professor, alleged to have renounced his faith under torture.
Many Christian reviewers have concentrated upon the metaphysical significance of the via crucis of these priestly innocents abroad in Buddhist and Shinto Japan. Others have criticised Scorsese for indulging in a lengthy reflection on his own maturation of faith to the neglect of the Japanese who bore the brunt of the persecution. Both views have merit.
Silence can also be considered through a missiological lens. Missiology is the study of those who leave their own cultural milieu to preach their understood version of the divine to others elsewhere (regardless of the hearer's level of receptivity), and the methods they use.
For Christians, this sense of divinely inspired purpose is known as one's mission and hence one who goes forth is a missionary, from the Latin root mittere meaning 'to send'. This mandate was based on the final verses of Matthew's Gospel (chapter 28 verses 18–20), whereby the disciples were sent out into the world:
'And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."'
Noticeably, Scorsese has his young Jesuit, Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield), utter these words early in the film. For Christians, mission was sacramental and inextricably linked with baptism, because missionaries saw heaven's gate as exceptionally narrow with entry reliant upon membership of the Church.
This view of engagement with other other religions — even with Jesus' own religion, Judaism — remained institutionally static until the aggiornamento ushered in by Vatican II and