In Theaters Now

Amazing Grace (2018)
Recently we were talking with a friend who sings in our church choir. She wishes people wouldn’t applaud at the conclusion of an anthem in church because it's worship rather than performance.

I have sympathy with this view. Mindy mentioned that she appreciated a church in Nashville where the musicians played off to the side of the sanctuary, where they couldn’t be seen. But this week we saw a movie that wouldn't exist if you ruled out performance in churches altogether -- a wonderful “new” concert film called Amazing Grace.

I put the quotes around the word "new" because this film now in theaters was filmed back in 1972. At that time, Aretha Franklin decided to make an album of Gospel music and to record it in a church. Director Sydney Pollack was brought in to record the event, apparently for television, but mistakes were made. 

The film crew didn’t use clapper boards to mark sequences in the film, so they lost track of which audio tracks went with the film. The Queen of Soul's performance at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church was released as an album, but the film never was. Computer technology allowed the film to finally be put together and released.

And what a performance it was.

Franklin possesses one of the greatest voices to ever sing blues, rock, pop, and soul. She was featured in the best Blues (and car crash) movie ever made. And she has an amazing voice for Gospel music. She sings classic songs such as the title tune and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” but she also sings James Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend” as Gospel. She gives her all, sweat glistening on her brow. She is backed up by a full choir.

The choir's leader, the Rev. James Cleveland, makes it clear that this is a “religious service,” not just a performance. The name of Jesus is continually raised and praised. Aretha’s father, the Rev. Carl Franklin, came to the event as well. He mentioned how a woman had told him she hoped Aretha would come back to the church, and Franklin assured her, “Aretha has never left the church.”

The music is wonderful, and for that alone I’d urge you to see this film. But there is one more bonus to watching Amazing Grace. The choir's assistant director is named Alexander Hamilton. I don’t know if he was named after the founding father, but I do know you that Amazing Grace affords you the opportunity to tell people, honestly, “I’m going to see Hamilton at the theater” without spending $1000 for a ticket.

This is a church service I (like Mick Jagger) would very much like to have attended. This movie church earns our highest rating of 4 Steeples.

The Play's the Thing at Movie Churches Act One: (Because you want More...)

A Man for All Seasons (1966)
We're kicking off the year here at Movie Churches with a new theme: “The Play’s the Thing.” During January, we'll be looking at plays adapted to film (as always, they're films with clergy and/or churches). This week’s film, A Man For All Seasons barely qualifies though. It’s about a layman, Sir Thomas More, who was a politician during the time of Henry VIII of England. Even though he wasn't a clergyman, he had plenty to say about the church, and though he tried to avoid it, he gave his life for the Church. Eventually, the Roman Catholic Church made him a saint, so I guess that counts for something.

Robert Bolt’s first telling of More's story was in the form of a radio play in 1954. Then it was a teleplay for the BBC in 1957. It took to the stage at the Globe Theater in London and went on to Broadway, where it was a hit that ran for a year. It was adapted for the screen in 1966 and won the Academy Award for Best Picture along with an Oscar for Bolt, director Fred Zinnemann, and Best Actor for Paul Scofield for his performance of as Sir Thomas More.

In our first view of More in the film, he’s laughing as others mock the priests of the church (in England at the time, the Roman Catholic Church was the only church). A man jokes,  "Every second bastard is fathered by a priest.”

Another man makes a reference to More’s classic book, Utopia, “Why, in Utopia that couldn’t be.” 

“But why?” 

“Well, there the priests are very holy.” 

“Therefore, very few.” 

Sir Thomas seems to find the whole conversation rather amusing.

More lived in a turbulent time. Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other reformers were leading movements to break from the Roman Catholic Church in various parts of Europe. More’s critical writings about the Church inspired some of these men, but ultimately, More remained faithful to the Catholic Church.

When a good young man, Matthew Roper, came to ask if he could marry More's  daughter, Alice, More refused. Roper was sympathetic to the Reformers. More, who liked Roper, still wouldn't allow his daughter to marry a “heretic.” The situation leads to family tension.

But it's nothing compared to the tension that begins when the King, Henry the VIII, wants to break from the Roman Catholic Church. The other Reformers had theological differences with the Church regarding faith, works, grace, and salvation. Henry’s disagreement was over whether he’d get his own way.

Henry had been given a special papal dispensation to marry his brother’s wife after his brother’s death. But that wife, Catherine of Aragon, gave Henry no sons, so Henry wanted to divorce Catherine to marry a younger woman, Anne Boleyn. The pope would not grant the divorce, so Henry decided that England would leave the Catholic Church. He would create a Church of England --  the Anglican Church.

Of course, Henry tried to put his decision in a holy light. He said he should never have been allowed to marry Catherine in the first place. God was punishing him for this sin by denying him an heir.  Since the king's was correcting his earlier error, anyone who opposed his course of action was opposing God as well. King Henry (Robert Shaw) says, “I have no queen! Catherine’s not my wife! No priest can make her so! They that say she is my wife are not only liars but traitors!”

At this turbulent time, More was the King's Chancellor. Naturally, all who served the king were expected to endorse and support the King’s policy, so More resigned from his position without saying anything against the king. More, a lawyer, argued that the law -- technically -- takes "silence" to mean consent. 

The people of England, though, know that More believes the king to be wrong in his decision to leave the Roman Catholic Church (and to marry Anne). Forces within the King’s administration, particularly Thomas Cromwell (Leo McKern) attempt to require More to choose between supporting the king in verbal or written form -- or being executed for treason. 

More uses every trick and twist he can find in the law to keep himself alive. In the end, he refuses to violate his own conscience and stays true to the Church. And loses his head to the executioner.

I probably should admit why I included this film even though More isn’t a clergyman. This is one of my favorite plays and screenplays, and More is one of my heroes.

Come to think of it, there is one clergyman presented prominently in the film: Cardinal Wolsey, a slippery fox of a politician in a red church robe. People say he’s “a butcher’s son, still a butcher.” Like most of the clergy in England of the time, he is more than willing to sell his soul to the king and those in power when it is to his advantage to do so.

As More says of Richard Rich, a man who betrays him, “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for Wales?”

The church in this film -- both the Roman Catholic and the Anglican -- doesn’t come off too well. I’ll give it a rating of Two Steeples. As for Sir Thomas More? I’m sure he wouldn’t care what I rated him.

When More tried to persuade Richard Rich to stay away from politics for his own good, he said, “Why not be a teacher? You’d be a fine teacher; perhaps a great one.”

Rich asked “If I was, who would know it?”

More replied, “You. Your pupils, your friends. God. Not a bad public, that.”

Let's Netflix and...discuss theology?

Come Sunday (2018)
The plot summary for the Netflix film Come Sunday, the blurb that helps viewers decide whether they want to watch it, gets something crucial wrong. It reads, “A crisis of faith sets renowned fundamentalist preacher Carlton Pearson on a new spiritual path that jeopardizes everything he holds dear.” Pearson is a real person and the film purports to tell his true story, but the summary calls him a “fundamentalist” when he was, in fact, a Pentecostal. This may seem like a minor point, but the film is about a man’s change in theological belief, so points of theology are not minor. Netflix would deserve a little more grace in the descriptive error if they weren’t also the creators of the movie (in conjunction with the NPR program This American Life).

Pearson was a prominent pastor, leading a megachurch, Higher Dimensions, in Tulsa and a preacher on Trinity Broadcasting Network. He was a counselor for presidents, both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He went to Oral Roberts University and was mentored by Roberts himself. He was ordained in the Church of God in Christ. The film touches on all of these facts.

Pearson came to believe that God told him that the victims of 1994 genocide in Rwanda would go to heaven without fear of hell. He came to believe that there is no hell and no need for salvation. This change in theology and the effect this change had on Pearson’s life and ministry is the subject of the film.

From watching Come Sunday, I believe Pearson (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) had some real problems in his theology and ministry long before the changes that brought down his ministry.

In the film, Pearson’s Uncle Quincy (Danny Glover), who’s in prison, says he wants to be saved. He also asks Pearson to write a letter to the parole board. Pearson questions his motives and leaves.

One of my problems with Pearson here? He should be visiting prisoners, as Jesus called us to, especially his uncle, whether or not his uncle asked to be saved. It isn’t his job to judge Quincey’s motives.

When Quincey dies, Pearson conducts his funeral, where he speaks of his uncle being in hell. His mother talks about other relatives of theirs that are in hell. I happen to believe in hell, but I have no idea who is there. It takes a certain arrogance to believe you know the eternal destiny of other individuals.

We also see a scene of Pearson meeting with Oral Roberts, who calls Pearson “his black son.” Roberts turning his back on his son when that son came out as gay. Pearson’s silence seems show agreement with Roberts’ choice. Is that how a father should treat his children? Not taking a stand here about whether homosexuality is a sin, but even if you think it is, is there a Scriptural basis for denying your child? I don’t see it.

Pearson doesn’t seem to treat his family particularly well. He doesn’t spend much time with his wife, Gina (Condola Rashad), and she makes it clear she doesn’t believe he cares about her opinions. When he talks to a woman on a plane, Pearson refers to his childrens “a pain in the a**”. And when his associate pastor, Henry (Jason Siegel), tells him he’s always put Pearson before his own family, well, Pearson seems to have no problem with that horrible decision.

What I’m saying here is, the Bishop Pearson we see at the beginning of the film does have room for change and growth. In the opinion of Movie Churches, the direction he chooses is worse.

He goes before his congregation on a Sunday morning and tells them that God told him in a vision that there is no such place as Hell, and there is no need to share the Gospel because everyone will be saved anyway. This upsets people in the congregation -- and all of Pearson’s associates in ministry.

Henry is upset and asks Pearson to clarify his message the next Sunday. Oral Roberts urges him to preach on Romans 10:9 (“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”) But he refuses to read that Scripture and instead has Henry read I John 2:2, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but the sins of the whole world.”

He goes on to say that much of Scripture contradicts much of the rest of Scripture. He says that if the Bible passages about God’s judgement and hell are true, then God is no better than Hitler. Bishop Pearson seems surprised that Bible believing people in his congregation are bothered by this and walk during his sermon. (It is interesting that in this mixed race congregation, it is chiefly the white people who walk out.)

Pearson argues before the African American Conference of Bishops that we wouldn’t send people to hell -- “are we more merciful than God?” He doesn’t talk about justice. Jesus said, “If anyone causes a little one to stumble, it would be better if a millstone tied around his neck and thrown into the ocean.”

These questions about the balance between love and justice have been debated for centuries. I remember discussing and arguing about the justice of hell back when I was in high school youth group. Pearson seems to be thinking about these issues for the first time after decades in ministry.

In recent years there has been much discussion about whether Hell is real, particularly in the ministry of Rob Bell. I have good Christian friends who have made many of the same changes in their theology in accord with Pearson and Bell. But those who want a place of leadership in a church must realize they can’t teach doctrine that conflicts with the official doctrine of that church.

A Socialist who came to a realization that Capitalism was a good thing that led to prosperity for the greatest number of people would be foolish to expect to remain prominent in the Party. A chef wouldn’t expect to keep their job in a vegan kitchen after serving bacon to customers. The film seems to present the people who left Pearson’s church and the council of bishops who expelled him as acting outrageously and unjustly. Pearson should admitted he no longer held to the beliefs of his church and the denomination he was ordained in and resigned from it, rather than putting many people through such difficult choices.

In the end credits we see that Pearson is now a minister in the Unitarian Church, at All Souls in Tulsa. His beliefs are consistent with the teaching of that denomination and in integrity he should have made that change years sooner rather than waiting while the church he founded crumbled around him.

(Beside knowing people who’ve moved from conservative theological positions to more liberal positions, I also know people who have moved from more liberal theology to more conservative theology. I don’t expect Netflix to be making films about such people anytime soon.)

We’re giving the Bishop Carlton Pearson and his ministry as presented in the film Come Sunday a Movie Churches rating of Two Steeples.

In Theaters Now: Mission Impossible: Fallout

Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018)
Mission Impossible: Fallout, the sixth film in Tom Cruise’s popular series (based on the over fifty-year-old TV show), has been #1 at the box office the last two weeks and may be again next week. There’s not a lot of church in the film, and the little that’s there has nothing to do with the star’s church of choice, Scientology. No clergy are featured in the film.

I’d wager most film goers wouldn’t recall that an important theme of the film is religion -- one scene takes place in one of the world’s most iconic sanctuaries. That’s fine. Reminding people of such things is one of the reasons Movie Churches is here.

The film begins, as these stories do, with a mission that IMF (Impossible MIssions Force, not the International Monetary Fund) leader, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) must decide whether to accept. As often is the case, he’s asked to stop a terrorist plot. The terrorist is described as an anti-religious zealot whose first targets are the Vatican, Jerusalem, and Mecca; the gang of terrorists call themselves “the Apostles.” Not much is made of this motive as the film goes on, as the terrorist seems to become more fixated on a personal vendetta against Ethan Hunt.

I wondered what the filmmakers thought of the terrorists’ cause. Is being “anti-religious” like this terrorist a bad thing? Is his cause just, but his methods are bad? The film never really wrestles with issue.

A thanksgiving service at St Paul's Cathedral CREDIT: PA

As for the scene in the church… Sorry about this spoiler, but there’s a scene where Hunt is chasing a bad guy through the streets of London while being chased himself by other bad guys. (Hope I didn’t give too much away there.) Hunt runs into St. Paul’s Cathedral while a service of some kind is in progress. Maybe it’s a state funeral, since all the seats of vast sanctuary are filled with an elegantly dressed crowd that includes representatives of the military and perhaps some of the royal family. When Hunt barges into the proceedings, followed by armed thugs, everyone remains politely seated. Hunt apologizes to the congregants before dashing off.

One of the selling points of these films, like Bond films before them, is the opportunity to see some of the world’s most beautiful sights. St. Paul’s is certainly a gorgeous edifice, and it’s a cute little scene, if not at all realistic. I know, it’s shocking there would be something in these films that doesn’t achieve perfect verisimilitude, but here it is: in one of England’s great national landmarks, no one has given a thought to security.

In the wake of church shootings in the United States, most congregations have paid some attention to plans in case of a shooter scenario. Surely, in one of the most famous churches in the world, the leadership has given this some thought, and their plan would not be to have everyone sit quietly, looking polite but perplexed when a group of threatening men enter the building and go to the altar. Even aside from security plans, surely the military officers in the congregation would instinctively take action.

The film is a great summer action ride, with marvelous stunts and set pieces. As for the church in the film, until the cinematic St. Paul’s improves its security, the best we can give it is Two Steeples.

Christian Film Month: In Theaters Now! Paul, Apostle of Christ

Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018)
We don’t often do Biblical films at Movie Churches. The only film of that genre I remember writing about is Risen, the story of a Roman soldier charged by Pilate with finding the body of Christ, one of the films we saw in 2016 when we went to the movies (along with going to bars and churches) in a different state every week. For the most part, the films thought of as “religious” or “Christian” have no place on this blog.

You might think that doesn’t make sense, but here’s why. As a rule, this blog is about films that have Christian churches and/or Christian clergy. Internet lists of the best religious films tend to include movies like The Ten Commandments or The Prince of Egypt (both of which I loved), and those will probably never be featured here at Movie Churches because Moses was not a Christian clergyman (neither was his brother, Aaron). The many films about the life of Jesus, from 1927’s King of Kings to 2004’s The Passion of the Christ, don’t feature churches. Jesus’ disciples, the Apostles, are generally part of those movies; they’d go on to be church leaders, but they weren’t yet.

In the case of Paul, Apostle of Christ  (I think you can guess which Biblical character it’s about), we see an unquestionably Christian clergyman who founded Christian churches. The film also features a Christian church. A portion of the Bible (everything after the Gospels in the New Testament) is about the Christian Church, so this film -- a Bible-era story with Biblical characters -- works for Movie Churches. Yay!

Andrew Hyatt, the writer and director of Paul, Apostle of Christ, decided to tell a fictional story using historical characters. I think it was a good choice. Sometimes, when Biblical text is used for a script, arguments about whether the film accurately depicts the text, distracting from the film itself. It’s not a problem if you start with a fictional episode.

The film is set in Rome in 67 AD, during the final years of Paul’s life when he was imprisoned in the Mamertine Prison awaiting execution. In this historical setting, Hyatt sets his fictional story. The Gospel writer Luke (Jim Caviezel) comes to visit Paul (James Faulkner) in prison. The film depicts Luke writing the Acts of the Apostles while with Paul. (Luke is the author of Acts, but we have no idea when he wrote it.)

Luke is greeted by Priscilla and Aquila, portrayed as the current leaders of the church of Rome. Priscilla (Joanne Whalley) and Aquila (John Lynch) were, according to what we know from Scripture, a married couple who were co-workers with Paul in Corinth, where they, along with other Christians, lived after being exiled from Rome by Emperor Claudius. The film posits that the couple returned to Rome. It’s possible P & A were in Rome at the time, but we don’t know. (Contrary evidence; Paul wrote II Timothy while he was in Rome, and he sends greetings to the couple in that epistle.)

In the film, the church of Rome is under assault from Emperor Nero, who accuses the Roman church of burning the city at Paul’s instigation. The fires killed thousands and left thousands more homeless. Historically, it’s likely the fires were probably set by Nero’s orders, but he made Christians the scapegoats. So part of the film’s story focused on whether P & A should stay in Rome or find a way to flee the city.

Led by a young man named Cassius, some in the church want a violent rebellion against the Romans as a result of the persecution. They eventually storm the prison to rescue Paul (and Luke, who is also imprisoned at the time). They kill a guard, but Paul and Luke refuse to leave the prison, wishing to honor authorities appointed by God. Priscilla denounces the rebellion, “We do not wage war as the world does…. Love is the only way.”

There’s another subplot in the prison. The prison warden, Prefect Mauritius (Olivier Martinez), has a sick daughter, and his wife is convinced the illness continues because husband treats the Christians kindly, offending the Roman gods. Instead, Mauritius comes to believe that perhaps Paul and Luke are actually his daughter’s only hope. (A tangent: following a long-standing Hollywood tradition, most of the Roman officials have British accents, except Mauritius. He has a French accent.)

Throughout the film, Paul quotes from his own many epistles, especially his greatest hits -- like the Love Passage of I Corinthians (also used in a many a wedding). At one point Paul says, “To live is Christ and to die is gain,” and Luke lauds the phrase. Paul urges him to write it down.

The film portrays a time of great persecution for the Church. Christians are thrown to the lions in Nero’s Circus. Christians are burned in the streets as “Roman Candles” (depicted in the film). We see a young woman bloodied with her own child’s blood, killed by a Roman soldier. And yet, in spite of Cassius, the church treats the Romans with love, taking in Roman women and orphans suffering from the fires. (Mauritius mocks them for caring for the “ugly.”)

Priscilla proclaims that as the Romans devolve into depravity, the Christian Church is the “only light in the city.” So how does the Church come out in the film? I’m giving the church and church leadership 4 Steeples, Movie Churches’ highest rating. (To be honest, if the Apostle Paul couldn’t get our highest rating, the whole system would have to re-evaluated.)