Martin Luther's Ideas Of Faith In The Mission

In the late 18th century, Jesuit priest Father Gabriel enters the Guarani lands in South America with the purpose of establishing a mission, provoking the natives to convert to Christianity. He is joined by Rodrigo Mendoza, a reformed slave trader seeking redemption, who is later converted into a Jesuit. A treaty transfers the land that the natives are living on from Spain to Portugal, and the Portuguese government wants to capture the slaves for labor. Gabriel and Rodrigo conclude that defending the mission is the right course of action to take, but disagree on how to do so. The Mission is jam-packed of three renaissance and enlightenment thinker’s ideas: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Martin Luther, and Niccolo Machiavelli. Out of the three brilliant minds of these historical periods, the philosopher that was best represented in The Mission is Martin Luther.

Even when Machiavelli’s ideas of faith make their way into Rodrigo’s character, Luther’s are still an underlying theme throughout the film. Towards the beginning of The Mission, Luther’s ideas of faith were best represented throughout Rodrigo’s transition from slave trader to Jesuit missionary. As the movie progresses, Rodrigo is faced with issues that conflict with his newly-instilled religious beliefs, and rather acts in a way that reflects Machiavellian standards of faith and power in a society’s ruler. The evolution of faith throughout the movie is much like the evolution that Rodrigo experienced throughout his spiritual maturation, with Luther’s influence prevailing from beginning to