Embodiments of competing visions of the Christian faith

 I have always wanted to read the classic novel The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, but have been deterred by its length. I am attracted by the way it weaves deep philosophical and theological debates into a narrative about murder. Each of the characters presents competing positions.

Well, popular culture just presented me with something similar: the movie, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.

On one level, this is a classic murder mystery, being the third in the Knives Out franchise featuring the eccentric detective Benoit Blanc.

Note: if you have not seen the movie, this post does not contain any spoilers.

Four distinct competing philosophical and theological positions are associated with the movie.

Atheistic rationalism. This denies any spiritual realities (naturalism), elevates reason, and claims that Christianity is "just a story" that provides comfort to desperate people. This view is espoused by the detective Benoit Blanc.

Culture war Christianity. The world is divided into good and evil. Sexual immorality is destroying society. Increasing secularisation in the Western world has led to the decline of Christendom. The USA is no longer a Christian nation. Christians need to fight back. Desperate times require desperate measures. The end justifies the means. The dominant emotions expressed and used to control people are fear, anger, judgment, power, and shame. This vision of Christianity is embodied in the priest, Jefferson Wicks. Another character, a social media influencer, sees this culture war as the basis for a successful political career.

Jesus-centric Christianity.  That term is a tautology, as surely the word "Christianity" means it is centred on Jesus Christ! But I use the term to contrast it with "Culture war Christianity". Significant elements of Jesus life and teaching were love, forgiveness, compassion, mercy, and hospitality. He was a friend of sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes. In fact, his biggest opponents were the Pharisees, religious leaders who were exclusive, angry, self-righteous, legalistic, and desperately wanted to reclaim the power and status of their nation. In the movie, the character who is all about Jesus-centric Christianity is the young priest, Jud Duplenticy.

In the clip below, Jud debates Benoit.

There are also some powerful scenes where Jud debates Jefferson. Unfortunately, I could not find a clip of those. You will have to watch the movie. There is a good one beginning around 27 minutes into the Netflix version.

There is another competing vision of Christianity.

A generic humanistic spirituality. This espouses the values of love, forgiveness, grace, mercy, and compassion. Jesus is seen as a nice example of this, and the church as a community that can practise these values. It is described as "faith", but the object of the faith is not clear. It seems to be a belief that if people just look into their hearts, they will find a goodness that will enable them to live out the values. The historical basis for Christianity and traditional doctrines are overlooked or seen as outdated or irrelevant. In particular, the divinity of Jesus, the sinful nature of humanity, the significance of Jesus death on the cross, repentance, and the power of the Holy Spirit to transform people are not considered fundamental. Jesus does provide an amazing and inspiring example of human compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. However, he does so much more. He calls on his followers to repent of their sin. His death is the basis for us to forgive others. We forgive because he forgave us. We love because he loved us.

I did not see this vision represented by a character in the movie. However, many reviews of the movie seem to see Jud as representing this vision.

The video below presents a nice analysis of the movie [including spoilers], but presents Jud's faith as generic, rather than Jesus-centric.

 

This article has helpful background on the writer and director of the movie.

Rian Johnson’s Explains How His Religious Upbringing Inspired ‘Wake Up Dead Man’

Why choose forgiveness rather than bitterness?

My wife and I enjoyed watching the movie The Light Between Oceans

Against a backdrop of beautiful and wild scenery, it deals with deep issues about trauma, parenthood, infertility, honesty, justice, and forgiveness.

One of the most powerful and central dialogues of the film is a dialogue between a wife and her husband, Frank. The version below is taken directly from the novel on which the movie is based.

 “But how? How can you just get over these things, darling?...You've had so much strife but you're always happy. How do you do it?'

'I choose to...I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget.'

'But it's not that easy.'

He smiled that Frank smile. 'Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things...I would have to make a list, a very, very long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount. That I did a proper job of hating, too: very Teutonic! No' - his voice became sober- 'we always have a choice. All of us.”

― M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

Cooking up meaningful relationships

Last weekend my wife and I went to the movie theatre to see, The Kitchen Brigade, a feel good French movie. A gourmet chef loses her job because she cannot get along with others, particularly a pretentious and demanding restaurant owner. The only job she can get is in a canteen, cooking for a group of young African men, who are in France with precarious legal status. The movie is quite funny, the characters are endearing, and it builds empathy for the plight of refugees and immigrants. Some might consider there are elements of the "white saviour" genre trope. On the other hand, the redemption that occurs is mutual.

A while back we also enjoyed watching the movie Mostly Martha. It is also quite funny, celebrates food, makes you hungry, and highlights that relationships matter.

I had a feeling of deja vu watching the movie. I was pretty sure I had seen it before. Well not quite, my daughter pointed out that there is a Hollywood version, No Reservations. I had seen that one.

Capturing neighbourhood life in a civil war

Belfast is a beautiful and touching movie, that seeks to capture what life must have been like for just one family living in a Belfast neighbourhood as "the troubles" unfolded in the late 1960s. It captures the tragedy, stupidity, and humanity of civil war, violence, prejudice, and religion in its most divisive form.

The scene that I found the most poignant was when Ma and Pa (the wife and husband) argue about leaving Belfast for a better life in England. Ma says

"You an me, we have known each other since we

were toddlers. We’ve known this street, and every

street round it, all our lives, an every man, woman, an’

chil’ that lives in every bloody house, whether we like

it or not.

I like it.

An’ y’ say you’ve a wee garden for them boys? But

here they can play where the hell they like, cos

everybody knows them, everybody likes them, and

everybody looks after them.

If we go over the water, them people’s not gonna

undestan’ a word we say, an’ half o’ them’ll take the

hand outta us for soundin’ different.

The o’r half, they’ll hate us cos men here are killin

their young sons on our streets, an’ they think we

couldn’ give a shite.

Y’ think they’ll welcome us with open arms, an’ say

‘Come on in, an’ well done for stealin a house off of

us?’"

The movie is a great testimony to the value of community and of family. 

The story of just one homeless man

 My wife and I watched the movie, The Soloist, based on a true story of how a journalist for The Los Angeles Times became friends with a homeless man, who was a gifted musician and plagued by mental illness.

Several important things were captured by the movie.

Every homeless person is a human, just like anyone else. Each has a story: both before homelessness and during it. Each has gifts, struggles, and aspirations. They need to be treated with dignity and respect.

The privileged should not try to "rescue" the homeless, particularly out of a sense (conscious or unconscious, stated or unstated) of superiority, virtue, guilt, or desire for validation.

Homelessness is a tragedy.

Homelessness is a complex issue with many dimensions: personal, political, economic, social, health, spiritual, ... 

Just because simple solutions do not work does not mean that we should give up.

The tragedy of family and economic failure

Why do some people end up poor and broken while others are prosperous and flourish? No doubt, family of origin and local economic circumstances each play a large role. The relative importance of these different factors is contentious and is often at the heart of (often divisive) political debates.

This debate was promoted in the USA by the book, Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance, published five years ago. Four years ago I blogged about the political issues raised by the book.

I recently watched the movie version of the book.

The main value of the movie is that it allows one to feel more directly the pain and tragedy of growing up in a family that is rife with violence, verbal abuse, conflict, poverty, substance abuse, hopelessness, and a deficit of accountability, affirmation, and opportunity. In spite of the dysfunction, there is still love and hope, particularly embodied in Vance's grandmother and the tenderness and mutual support in J.D.'s relationship with his sister.

It is probably unrealistic to hope that such a movie can capture some of the discussion of economic and political contexts and issues discussed in the book. Time magazine has a helpful article, putting the movie in context.

Redemption from words

My wife and I enjoyed watching the movie The Professor and The Madman. It is based on the fascinating story of the origins of the Oxford English Dictionary, focusing on the contributions of and the relationship between the editor James Murray and William Chester Minor. Minor is in a prison for the "criminally insane" as a result of a murder he committed.

I found it quite striking and beautiful is how the issue of forgiveness and redemption thread through the story. How can a murderer find redemption? Can his victim's family forgive him?

My favourites from 2019

Belated best wishes for the New Year!

Here are a few things that I particularly enjoyed in 2019.

Favourite Movies
Green Book
The Two Popes

Favourite TV series
Occupied
Young Sheldon

Favourite novel
The Day of the Lie

Favourite books
Sociology through the eyes of faith
Why Nations Fail

Favourite football game
Liverpool 4 Barcelona 0

How should churches relate to the world?

My family enjoyed watching the movie, The Two Popes. It focuses on a speculative history of the personal relationship between the two most recent popes, Benedict and Francis. It highlights their contrasting backgrounds (Germany vs. Argentina, Rich world vs. Majority world), theologies (traditional and conservative vs. less traditional and flexible), lifestyles (ostentatious vs. simple), and leadership styles (aloof vs. personable), ...
In spite of these significant differences, they are able to build a personal relationship built on mutual respect, appreciation, and companionship.


I found the following four things about the movie most striking and valuable.

First, there is a strong message of how personal failure and regret can be redeemed by the grace and mercy of Christ, following the confession of sin.

Second, the Western world is so different from the Majority World. The West is characterised by prosperity, political stability, peace, secularism, and declining churches. In contrast, the Majority World is characterised by poverty, political instability, violence, spirituality, and growing churches. This is powerfully portrayed by flashbacks that Pope Francis has about his past, particularly the violent repression that occurred during the military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s. Here I beg to differ with A.O. Scott, the New York Times critic who said

If “The Two Popes” had consisted entirely of two old men talking, it might have been a masterpiece. But the conversation is interrupted by flashbacks that chronicle Bergoglio’s early life, as a young scientist called to the priesthood and as head of the Jesuit order in Argentina during the military dictatorship of the 1970s.

Third, the humanity of both men and their relationship is moving, and even endearing. This occurs in spite of their differences, which begin with harsh words for each other.

Finally, the movie captures many of the tragic failures of the churches through history, both Catholic and Protestant: seduction by wealth, power, and pomp; worship of church leaders by their members, anachronisms (talking in Latin!), sexual abuse of children, covering up scandals, being more concerned about public image than integrity, ....

Highly recommended!

War is Hell. 7.

I enjoyed watching the movie, Tolkien. It represents the early life of the famous fantasy writer. The main elements of the story are his difficult childhood as an orphan, the close bonds he formed with a group of high school friends with a common interest in creating literature, the trauma and tragedy of his experience in the trenches of World War I, his romance with his wife-to-be, and how these all shaped his creative imagination.

For me, the over-riding impression was ``war is hell.'' All Tolkien's friends die in the war, except one who is never the same again. Tolkien only survives because he is evacuated due to illness.



Arguably an important part of Tolkien's education and personal formation was that his school provided the opportunity for him to be part of a small group of friends with a common passion and vision. This highlights several overlooked aspects of most educational institutions, particularly in this neoliberal age, where the focus almost exclusively on measurable outcomes such as test scores, graduation rates, and starting salaries of graduates.

Sometimes the most significant part of education is the informal, not the formal aspects.

Real learning happens in the context of relationships, of students with one another, and with a teacher.

Western culture and thinking are individualistic. Consequently, most leading educational institutions claim to create significant individuals. However, perhaps a goal should also be to create significant informal communities or life-long bonds between students. I really like the book, Five Minds for the Future and am currently re-reading it. However, it is striking to me that the total emphasis is on individuals.

Reconciliation: one personal encounter at a time

On saturday night my wife and I went to see The Green Book. Today I heard that it got Academy Award for best film!
 I thought it was excellent and would highly recommend it. It is the heart-warming story of a very unlikely friendship, that between a coarse Italian American nightclub bouncer and a refined African-American pianist. As they travel through the Deep South of the USA in the 1960s they encounter blatant racism, harassment, and discrimination. This provides the backdrop for them to bond, learn from each other, change and adapt.

The movie has many lessons about human nature and aspirations. We all yearn for close personal relationships, for identity, for justice, and for righteousness. Yet we are capable of incredible cruelty and violence, particularly when we encounter those different to us, and/or those who threaten our power and lifestyle. We ourselves are also sometimes the obstacle to our aspirations.


One of the criticisms/controversies about the movie is the claim that it is in the white saviour genre trope, where a white person saves a black person/community. There are certainly too many movies in this genre, such as one I recently saw. However, I would not characterise Green Book that way. In contrast, the two characters have a mutually beneficial relationship.

Some of this is discussed in an article in Variety, Is Green Book woke enough? by Owen Gleiberman.

Those who are woke claim, through their very wokeness, to have allegiance to one thing: the transcendent morality of their cause. Yet woke culture, as practiced in America in 2018, also carries an undercurrent of competition. As in: How woke are you? Not as woke as me! I’ll see you one courageous, self-lacerating woke insight and raise you two! In this atmosphere of a never-ending contest of righteous one-upmanship fought out on Twitter, the middlebrow Hollywood liberal attitudes on display in “Green Book” can look like something from a vanished world of movies that pretend to liberate but really just pander. “Green Book” has been condemned, in certain circles, as if it were a racially stodgy and unenlightened embarrassment — the “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” of 2018 awards bait. It has been called a white-savior movie — though, in fact, it is not. (The two characters save one another, which is a very different thing.) 

Again we see the yearning for justice and righteousness.

Slow living in black and white

My wife and I watched (endured?) the movie Roma, which chronicles the life of a maid living with an upper-middle-class family in Mexico City in the 1970s. It is hard to know what to say. On the one hand, the photography (in black and white) is amazing. It encourages the viewer to slow down and engage with the moment, whether water going down a drain or the pain of betrayal. On the other hand, it is very slow! There is a social justice dimension but this was not as strong as I hoped. There is a certainly a message about how women cannot depend on men!
Perhaps for me, the most interesting thing was learning about the Corpus Christi Massacre; a black operations army group (trained in the USA) killed more than 100 student protesters. This was part of Mexico's "Dirty war".

Anger and isolation in the city

I enjoyed watching the movie Can you ever forgive me? based on the life of Lee Israel, a struggling writer who found "success" by forging and selling personal letters from famous authors.

 

The lead character is played well by Melissa McCarthy, who I am more used to seeing play buffoons.
It is a great story. But the movie also catches some of the angst, internal struggles, alienation, and anger of someone who is so alone because they just cannot get along with others.
God's ideal is that we live in community but we are too often our own worst enemies. We yearn for this too but others disappoint us and hurt us and so we lash out in anger and the spiral continues...
The cycle is only broken when grace, mercy, and forgiveness breaks through.

Dirty political tricks

On a recent flight I watched the movie Our Brand is Crisis. It chronicles the inward and outward battles of a burned out American political consultant who is drawn into a presidential election campaign in Bolivia. It is inspired by a documentary of the same name about the real election in 2002. On the one hand the dirty tricks, cynicism, and immorality are depressing. On the other hand, I fear it is pretty close to the truth.

Pele and the beautiful game

On a recent flight I enjoyed watching the movie Pele: Birth of a Legend. It does many things well: pays tribute to the greatest footballer of all time, chronicles his life as a child in poverty, shows the role of Ginga (a unique creative style of play) in Brazilian history and identity, highlights issues of racism and social class, shows the value and influence of families, illustrates the passion of football, ... 
It is a beautiful game!



I think some of the negative reviews are too harsh.  Albeit, my view of movies is certainly coloured if I watch them on a long flight, when I am somewhat bored and half brain dead.

The highs and lows of Christian history

A valid criticism of Christianity is that it has been used to justify, to condone and to ignore all kinds of evil: war, genocide, slavery, poverty, discrimination, oppression, abuse, ...
On the other hand, over the past two thousand years some Christians have sometimes played a leading role in many noble initiatives in health care, education, human rights, poverty alleviation, ....
A challenge in any public discussion is to present a balanced perspective of these lows and highs.

The Centre for Public Christianity in Australia has produced a new documentary that aims to present a balanced perspective on this mixed history.
It is now showing in Australia. Unfortunately, I won't get to see it for a while because I am overseas.

For the Love of God. Trailer from CPX on Vimeo.

The collateral damage of evil

On a recent flight I watched the recent movie remake of Murder on the Orient Express, based on the classic mystery novel by Agatha Christie.



On the one hand it is "harmless" entertainment; an interesting murder mystery with some unexpected twists. On the other hand, it strongly brings out how a single act of evil (murder of a child) has a disturbingly large "ripple effect" deeply touching (and ruining) the lives of many others, even those who might be considered to be on the periphery of the event.

The inevitable entanglement of sport and politics

I enjoyed watching the movie Race, which recounts the story of Jesse Owens and his presence at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.



The movie does a nice job of recounting significant historical events while exploring issues of racism, anti-Semitism, hypocrisy, propaganda, and the tortured relationship between politics and sport.

Like good historical movies it had the desired effect of causing my family to race to Wikipedia to see how much of the movie was historically accurate. It seems almost all of it is. Perhaps the main debatable point was it gave a sympathetic portrayal of the film-maker Leni Riefenstahl, who was a propagandist and apologist for Hitler. But, the most disturbing fact I learnt was that although Hitler did not congratulate Owens, President Roosevelt did not invite him to the White House.

[Aside. It took me a while to get the double meaning of the title].

Why societies need a free press

I really enjoyed the movie, The Post, which is based on the role that the Washington Post, and particularly the Publisher Katharine Graham, played in publishing the Pentagon Papers after the Nixon White House obtained a court order stopping the New York Times from doing so.

One intriguing aspect of the movie was it showed how much the world has changed since 1971, particularly with regard to technology and gender issues.

Newspapers and secret military documents were all hard copies. This made stealing, copying, and distributing the latter difficult. Articles were written on typewriters and newspapers were mechanically typeset. Photocopies were done page by page. The only phones were land lines and pay phones.
It is a long way from today's fast-paced and highly connected world of the internet, email, Wikileaks, and mobile phones.

The journalists and politicians were largely middle-aged white males. The movie shows what a pioneer Katharine Graham was and how hard it was for her to be taken seriously. She had the added obstacle that she had been belittled as a child and as a wife and so struggled to overcome her low self-confidence. Meryl Streep brilliantly shows this increasing confidence. The movie also shows how Graham became much admired by younger women.



The movie briefly mentions how Graham's husband died by suicide, leaving her to take over the newspaper. It does not discuss the associated mental health issues.

The main issue in the movie is resolved by a 6-3 ruling of the US Supreme Court, which allows further publication of the Pentagon papers. Justice Black wrote:

In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.

Some of this is quoted in the movie. I also recommend the earlier movie, The Pentagon Papers, which focuses on the role of Daniel Ellsberg who was the source of the leak to the New York Times and the Post.

A classic movie confronts anti-intellectualism

During the holidays my family watched the classic 1960 movie, Inherit the Wind, loosely based on the infamous Scopes trial, held in 1925 in the USA.

Only after I watched the movie and read the associated Wikipedia page did I learn that the movie was not meant to be so much about the issue of Evolution vs. Fundamentalism. But rather was meant to cast a poor light on McCarthyism, which was happening around the time the movie was made.

There is much in the movie that one could be concerned about, particularly from a Christian point of view. First, it is not historically accurate. This problem and all the nuances of the trial were discussed in detail in the Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Summer for the Gods, by Edward J. Larson.

Second, the Christians in the movie are "red-necks" who come across as unthinking and unfeeling. On the other hand, unfortunately, there are Christians who do act like some of the characters in the movie.

The title of the movie is based on Proverbs 11:29

Whoever brings ruin on their family will inherit only wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise.

This is quoted during a powerful and tragic scene when a fundamentalist preacher verbally attacks his own daughter.