In America



This evening I went and saw "In America" with four people I hardly know. It was a great experience because we all got to share those rare moments that come from a truly breathtaking movie that just leaves you speechless at the end. In fact, I feel as if I'm commiting the worse kind of profanity just mentioning how wonderful the movie was.

But let me just say this. Numerous were the times throughout the film when I was on the edge of my seat, literally, and waiting for when my next breath might be able to occur. The anticipation pregnant within every scene was almost unbearable. To what end, this anticipation? What was my breath waiting for?

Life.

That's it, life. In all of it's tenderness and resilience and capacity for wonderful moments and tendencies toward moments in which we shut ourselves off from feeling-- life was the thing most spectacularly and extravagantly depicted in this film.

That's all I feel at liberty to say about the movie. Please go see it.

Mel Gibson's Passion



When I got home from the movie I watched the last part of Diane Sawyers interview with Gibson. I won't go into it much now, since the next few weeks will be saturated with it. But I was thinking this.

At the end of the interview, Sawyer made a little commentary that said we are all about to be discussing Jesus now, and it's helpful that we enter into a respectful dialogue. And I couldn't agree more.

Here's a frustrating thing-- The evangelical Christian community has unofficially crowned Mel Gibson as the great prophetic hope of pop culture. They will say it is because Mel Gibson made "The Passion" that people will be talking about Christ.

I couldn't disagree more. I say, if it weren't for Bravehart people wouldn't be talking about Christ. If it weren't for the Lethal Weapons people wouldn't be talking about Christ. If it weren't for Conspiracy Theory and The Patriot and Mad Max and What Women Want people wouldn't be talking about Christ.

If it were just any Christian with millions to spend producing a movie on the Passion, this film would go down in the annals of history as just another Christian circus freak show on par with Left Behind, WWJD bracelets, Christian T-Shirts, The Prayer of Jabez, and megachurches. But because it is made by someone who is fully ingrained within our cultural consciousness, it has value and legitimacy and people are taking notice... and the greatest story ever told is on the screens of our minds and the radios of our conversation. People are thinking about Christ because of Mel Gibson, and I think that's a good thing.

And here is where the problem lies, in my opinion. Too many evangelicals now are going to tell themselves "We need to capitalize on this. We need to make more movies about Jesus and the Bible." To which I say, they have lost their minds. We don't need Christians capitalizing on the "Jesus Movie" market, we need Christians making more "Braveharts" and "The Patriots" and "Lethal Weapons." We need more Christian youth to go into filmmaking with thier eyes set on the top. Otherwise we are in a danger of losing what we have mostly already lost-- legitimacy.