Who are they?
A majority of Americans identify themselves as belonging to a particular faith – Catholic, Christian, Jewish, Evangelical, Baptist, even Non-Denominational. Few of us live it. You’ve probably heard people talk about the “Christmas and Easter Catholics” or something like it. But I think there are many people who attend Mass or some other form of worship on a regular, weekly basis and still fall into this category. In fact, many of us who strive to practice our faith are guilty of this far too often. The bottom line is this: these are people who nominally identify with a faith but do not allow their religion to interfere with their daily lives. God is for Sunday. Or maybe Saturday evening. Depends what time the Chargers are playing.
What is a reasonable Christian theme?
The goal here is not to get this crowd to believe as too many filmmakers attempt to do. Many well-intentioned Christians think that their movie idea is somehow going to MAKE people believe. Convincing them that it actually won’t make people believe and that if they make those movies, then they aren’t really creating a film so much as creating propaganda is a challenge, to say the least. An artist can, however, encourage people to allow what they believe to affect the way they live. The message should be that God really does matter, and not just on Sunday. We want this audience to recognize that simply knowing Truth is not enough. Truth needs to be lived because the beauty that Truth brings to life needs to be seen by others. Think of the lives of those you know who truly live their faith. If you don’t know any, maybe that is part of the problem.
Why is this reasonable?
Like the Uninterested crowd, RINOs are primarily concerned with entertainment when they watch a movie. They don’t really want to watch saint movies either, and movies about Jesus are for Easter. Maybe. They will watch movies that have direct references to God and Jesus, but that’s not what they are paying to see – they are paying to be entertained. The direct reference had better be authentic to the story and not a cheesy or forced insertion to the story (I’ll refrain from examples here).
How do we reach our goal?
The story must come first – something both entertaining and true. We can start including direct references to God and faith that are authentic to the plot and to the characters. Notice I said references and not sermons. We’re not here to preach. But we can offer characters who show us how to live in the light of faith, characters who are striving to put their faith into practice in tangible ways.
Jesus offers a story in this vein in response to a question about who our neighbors are. I suspect you have heard it before – the story of the Good Samaritan (see Luke 10:25-37). In the story, priests and Levites who know the faith and probably attend worship regularly pass by the robbers’ victim on the road. But a Samaritan, whom the Jews despised, stopped to help. Jesus doesn’t tell us about the Samaritan’s habits of worship, but the point of the story is clear – it’s not enough to say we believe, for “faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17), but we must also live what we believe (See also Luke 6:46-49).
A recent film that demonstrates this kind of storytelling is The Blind Side. The storytellers are not shy about telling the audience that the heroine, Leigh Anne Tuohy, is Christian and that her actions are a result of her faith. And there’s one particular scene that echoes the themes of Jesus’ Good Samaritan story: a scene where Leigh Anne Tuohy meets her Christian friends for lunch, and they practically ridicule her for her good deeds. These women are supposed to believe the same things Leigh Anne does – they all go to church together, worship the same Christ – but Leigh Anne is the only one who allows her faith to direct her life.
But that’s only one scene in the whole film. Leigh Anne doesn’t spend the rest of the film proselytizing. If she did, that would not be entertaining or true. The rest of the film is about family, friendship, and football. And that’s why it works. In practice, almost any film with a hero that demonstrates authentic self-sacrifice can be worthy of admiration.
Next week: Active Seekers.
P.S.
I need to clarify a point here. Classifying people as I have in these posts can give the impression that I am being holier than thou. That is not the intention. I am not trying to say anything about these arbitrary categories of people. I am rather focusing on building an aspect of the prudence that should inform the Christian artist, a point that will be elaborated in the final post in this series.
