Secret Sunshine Christian Review: The Violence of Cheap Grace and the Love of Holding a Mirror

Welcome, everyone to this Secret Sunshine Christian Review as we confront the uncomfortable questions of forgiveness, expose the spiritual violence of cheap grace, and discover the genuine love of quietly holding a mirror beside suffering souls. So far, we have shared a Christian worldview through several documentaries and animations.

This time, I would like to change the atmosphere a bit and deal with a masterpiece that asks the heaviest and most painful questions in the history of Korean cinema: Director Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine (2007). Song Kang-ho, who acted here, is a famous Korean actor who also appeared in Director Bong Joon-ho’s movie Parasite, which you all know well. I remember having enormous debates after watching Secret Sunshine when I was a college student. To that extent, Secret Sunshine is a truly excellent Korean movie for Christians to watch, think about, and discuss.

This film is a work that attempts the sharpest dissection of the essence of “forgiveness” and “salvation” for the Korean Christian community and society as a whole. Anyone who has seen the movie would have felt deep sighs, anger, and even fundamental skepticism about faith. However, for that very reason, we Christians must face the uncomfortable truth this movie throws at us head-on without avoiding it. Through the desperate agony of a woman who lost her husband and son, and the images of the people hovering around her, let us meditate on the true weight of the gospel we believe in.

The Pain of Loss and a Shallow Faith as a Refuge

The protagonist Shin-ae (played by Jeon Do-yeon) loses her husband in a tragic accident and comes down to her husband’s hometown of Milyang (meaning “secret sunshine”) with her young son Jun, as if running away. Her only hope to start a new life was her son, Jun. However, even that small hope is cruelly trampled by a kidnapper, and her son returns as a cold corpse.

In the agony where her world collapses and she is on the verge of going crazy, Shin-ae accidentally attends a revival meeting at the recommendation of a local pharmacist. When the pastor lays his hand on her head, Shin-ae pours out a beast-like wail from the bottom of her heart and falls before the cross. Afterward, she accepts the Christian faith and seemingly regains stability on the outside. She sings praises, gives testimonies to people, and talks about peace.

However, the faith Shin-ae accepted during this period was not so much the gospel of the cross and self-denial in the truest sense, but closer to a psychological “painkiller” to cover the wounds of the horrific reality she experienced, and a “refuge” from her suffering. That is how it looked to me. She persuades herself that she has grown spiritually mature enough to personally forgive the criminal by God’s grace, and makes the grave decision to visit the imprisoned kidnapper.

The Shock of the Prison Visiting Room: The Perpetrator’s Selfish ‘Cheap Forgiveness’

The hardest scene to endure and the one that truly brings up intense irritation while watching the movie is precisely this prison visiting room scene. To practice the Bible’s teaching to love one’s enemies, Shin-ae gathers her trembling heart and visits the murderer who killed her child. She must have expected the criminal to shed tears and bow down in apology because of the forgiveness she was bestowing.

However, the face of the murderer she faced across the glass was completely different from Shin-ae’s expectations. Reading a Bible inside the prison, he tells Shin-ae with an incredibly peaceful and gentle face:

“I also came to believe in God after coming to prison. God has already forgiven all my sins, and I am so at peace right now.”

Shin-ae went there suppressing that terrible pain in order to forgive him, but the criminal instead declares that he has already received forgiveness from God. Shin-ae receives a massive shock at these words and freezes on the spot.

I, too, could not hold back my anger watching this scene. “Where in the world is there such cheap forgiveness!” The victim’s blood-teared agony is still an ongoing reality, yet this sight—where the perpetrator blindly believes all his sins have been paid for solely through a vertical relationship with God, without even seeking a sincere apology and forgiveness from the victim—is horrific spiritual violence.

German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to this as “Cheap Grace.” An egoistic religious addiction that seeks only the peace of one’s own mind, while tossing aside the fruits worthy of repentance and responsibility toward others, is not the gospel but a curse. Shin-ae’s scream, “I, the victim, have not yet forgiven him, so who in the world could forgive him first?” is like a fierce whip directed at the Korean church today.

It happens in American churches as well, but for me, having lived in Korea from childhood until my 20s and having grown up seeing and hearing all the corruption in the church, it makes me wonder if it isn’t indeed cheap grace—though, of course, not all churches are like this.

It is sad, but let me share one story. There may be many in the US too, but shamefully, there is a lot of news in Korea about church pastors sexually assaulting their congregation members. Among them is Pastor Jeon Byung-wook. Between 2004 and 2009, Pastor Jeon habitually committed inappropriate physical contact and sexual harassment against female congregants in his pastoral offices. And then, claiming he had asked for forgiveness before God and was forgiven, he planted a new church and is still operating it proudly to this day. You can find it right away if you search on YouTube. Even looking at it now, it is a typical story showing just how cheap this grace is.

Provocation Toward God and the Struggle of Despair

In front of that selfish and peaceful face of the murderer, Shin-ae’s flimsy spiritual painkiller shatters into pieces. She feels that the God she believed in has deceived her suffering as a victim and sided with the perpetrator, and she begins to rebel fiercely.

Her rebellion is destructive. A scene that I found a bit bizarre and funny while watching the movie was when she secretly blasted Kim Choo-ja’s popular pop song “It’s a Lie” at an outdoor worship gathering of Christians. She then seduces an elder to visibly commit a hypocritical sin. Pointing her finger at the night sky, she screams viciously, “Are you watching?!”

This is not simply the crazy behavior of one woman. It fundamentally aligns with the laments and screams that Job in the Old Testament poured out to God amidst unbearable suffering, and the agonizing groan of the Psalmist crying out in Psalm 13:1:

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”

In front of the abyss of human suffering that can never be measured by shallow religious answers or doctrines, God sometimes appears to be silent.

Comparative Analysis: Cheap Grace vs. Costly Biblical Love

Secret Sunshine (Milyang) and the Love of Holding a Mirror, Jong-chan

Within this suffocating narrative of pain and despair, there is a character we must never miss. It is Jong-chan (played by Song Kang-ho), the car repair shop owner who silently stays by Shin-ae’s side.

He cannot speak the noble language of faith, nor is he a person with refined manners. He often seems like a snob who behaves tactlessly. However, even when Shin-ae goes crazy, when she points her finger at God, and even after she attempts self-harm, he unchangingly stands behind her, helping and watching over her. I slapped my knee in realization. This is true grace!

In the final scene of the movie, beside Shin-ae who is cutting her own hair, Jong-chan silently holds a mirror for her. At that moment, a small ray of sunshine reflected in the mirror he holds quietly shines on the bottom of a dirty puddle in the dark corner of the yard, and the movie ends. There were no grand miracles pouring from the sky or lightning-like responses, but it shows that the “secret sunshine” (Milyang) continues to shine on that lowest and dirtiest place.

Watching this final scene, I thought about this. Rather than trying to judge another’s suffering with hasty advice or cheap comfort, a person who just stands behind the sufferer and silently holds a mirror, like Jong-chan played by Song Kang-ho. A person who stays by their side without giving up until the end. Perhaps the true image we Christians should take toward the suffering world today is exactly this image of Jong-chan, isn’t it?

Rather than the religion of the prison that forces a correct answer, that small sunshine-like love that silently shines on the puddle together beside the wounded is truly the practice of the “true gospel” that God genuinely desires from us.

Even today, are we silently listening to the stories and helping out our families, friends, church members, and people in our communities right by their side?

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Explore More Screen Devotions:

• 🎨 Animation: Spiritual Insights in Animated Films
• 🌍 Documentaries: Biblical Perspectives on Real-World Issues

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Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.