I watched a couple of Christian movies yesterday. The first was Lukewarm, which was a 2012 Christian movie. The second was What Would Jesus Do?, a 2010 movie that was based on Charles Sheldon’s 1896 classic, In His Steps. John Schneider from the Dukes of Hazzard and Smallville was in both movies. Here are some of my thoughts:
1. There was a lot going on in the first movie that I saw, Lukewarm.
Luke Rogers, a Christian (ha ha, LUKEwarm!), is working at a bar with
his friend and is calling himself spiritual rather than an old-fashioned
Christian on his drunken joy-rides with his friend and some attractive
ladies. Luke’s friend drinks and drives and accidentally runs over a
homeless man one night. One of Luke’s neighbors, an older gentleman
named Thomas, is handing out Christian tracts and is annoying a
non-Christian neighbor, who wants Thomas to leave. Luke’s girlfriend,
Jessie, is being pursued by a New York lawyer, who thinks that he can
love and support her better than Luke can, but she still loves Luke, as
much as Luke disappoints her. Meanwhile, Luke is dealing with
resentment because his father (played by John Schneider) walked out on
him and his mother when Luke was a kid and failed to pay consistent
child support. Luke has fond memories of his father, yet cannot bring
himself to forgive him.
The movie was rather enjoyable, I guess, but the character I liked
most was Thomas. Thomas had lunch with a homeless man and told him
never to underestimate the power of prayer. When the homeless man said
that he never accepted Christ because he figured that his card had
already been punched for hell, with all of the sins he had committed,
Thomas encouraged him that God could forgive him. What was remarkable
was not that scene, as much as the fact that Thomas continued to
maintain a relationship with the homeless man—-to have lunch with him
regularly. Thomas didn’t just witness to the man, figure that his job
was done, and walk away, but he sought to maintain a relationship with
him and to offer him prayers, friendship, and support.
Thomas also prayed with Luke, asking God to take away Luke’s anger
and to give Luke the strength to forgive his father. Thomas knew about
the destructiveness of anger, for he saw it in his father, who (as an
African-American) deeply resented the injustices he suffered in the Jim
Crow South. Thomas also told his persecutor, George, that George must
be filled with anger, and he told George that he would be praying for
him. The reason that this stood out to me is that I’ve felt in the past
as if Christians expect me to carry the burden of my anger alone—-it’s
my problem and responsibility to forgive. But I could have used prayers
and moral support. Evangelical men often support one another when the
issue is sexual lust, but I have not seen that type of support among
evangelicals when it comes to anger or unforgiveness. Perhaps they are
reluctant to admit such things because they believe that they convey
weakness: Sure, they’ll talk about their struggles with lust when a
nice-looking lady hits on them, but they want to come across as the
strong, Stoic types, the sorts of people who do not get angry. Maybe I
am off base here, but I am just communicating my speculations.
2. In What Would Jesus Do?, John Schneider plays a drifter
who drifts into an economically depressed town. He is looking for work,
but he is turned away, even by people who go to church. One lady, a
real estate agent, tells her secretary not to give leftover sandwiches
from a meeting to him because he would then keep coming back, but she
should throw the sandwiches in the trash instead. Another lady does not
want to hire him at her newspaper place because he has no experience,
plus she does not know him.
Meanwhile, people are struggling. A shady politician is promising
jobs through the replacement of a church with a casino. The real estate
agent and newspaper editor are supporting him. The pastor of the
church is mourning the loss of his family and finds himself jaded and
unable to pastor his congregation. A young man writes Christian songs
and is offered a lucrative contract if he will sing the company’s songs,
and he and his mother need the money because otherwise they will be
thrown out of their home. People are pressured to compromise, morally
and spiritually.
The drifter challenges the people about their failure to follow
Jesus, right before he dies. After that, the movie gets a bit cheesy:
the cold real estate agent is now a committed Christian and becomes a
candidate to challenge the shady politician. The rest of the movie
still had some redeeming moments, however, as when the real estate
agent’s even colder mother finds within herself the compassion to reach
out to a homeless runaway.
Overall, the movie was good because it challenged me to think about
how people can go to church every Saturday or Sunday yet fail to live
according to Christian ethics the rest of the week. Why are so many of
us like this? Are we afraid to do what’s right because of possible
negative consequences? And can we reach out to people or do what is
right, while being realistic? Should we throw realism out of the window
for the sake of principle, or is there a way to be principled and
realistic at the same time? I am sure that people on the front lines of
helping others have wrestled with these questions.