I watched some faith-affirming movies last week. Today, I will
comment on the first one that I watched: the 2014 romantic comedy Christian Mingle. Christian Mingle is a Christian dating site.
Gwyneth Hayden is disappointed with the dating scene and is looking
for a relationship that has substance. Although she is not a Christian,
she goes onto the dating web site, Christian Mingle, and pretends to be
one. She meets Paul, a goofy, likable guy. She tries to imitate the
evangelical lingo, and that can get pretty unconvincing and awkward.
Paul’s mother Lacie, played by Morgan Fairchild, suspects that something
is wrong.
Gwyneth joins Paul’s family in Mexico on a mission trip. They are
installing a church bell after disaster had struck the Mexican
community. At a Bible study with the Mexican children, a Mexican child
asks why God allowed that destruction to hit her community. Lacie,
knowing by this point that Gwyneth is only pretending to be a Christian,
volunteers Gwyneth to answer that question. Gwyneth says that is a
good question, and that there must be some answer to it somewhere in
that beautiful book, the Bible. Lacie responds, “How about James
1:2-4?” We learn later in the movie that the Mexican little girl was
actually satisfied with the answer that people experience trials to
become stronger.
Paul later confronts Gwyneth and asks her if she is a believer. She
is curious about what exactly that means. After all, she says, she has
been baptized, and she believes in God. Paul attempts to define where
she is spiritually—-to paint her a picture, and to see if that resonates
with her. He proposes that she realizes that there is something
bigger, and she gives it the name “God” to conceptualize it. But she
has heard negative things about religion and has seen and experienced
bad things in life, and then she doubts God. She vacillates between
belief and non-belief.
Gwyneth tries to be religious after her break-up with Paul: she
starts attending an enthusiastic church and serves in the soup kitchen.
She begins a dialogue with God. She has been working for an
advertising agency that tries to make things look good (by the way,
Peterman from Seinfeld is on this movie, playing a
Peterman-like character!), and, in the midst of that, she develops a
genuine desire for truth. Notwithstanding all of that, her Christian
co-worker tells her that she still has a long way to go. What more does
she need to do? It seems that she needs to tell Jesus that she wants
him in her life. But didn’t she already indicate that, by going to
church, talking to God, serving in the soup kitchen, etc.? She still
needed to make that formal commitment. She needed to want Jesus in her
life.
On that scene about the Bible study in Mexico, I am not sure how I
would have responded had someone asked me about the problem of evil.
Most likely, I would have replied that it is a mystery. Because I did
not care for the Morgan Fairchild character’s smug attitude in that
scene, I would have probably even gotten belligerent: “Unlike some
people here, I am not going to parrot some evangelical pat-answer to one
of life’s biggest mysteries, from a hilltop of white privilege.”
At the same time, the scene did sensitize me to something that I
knew, and yet it was not in the forefront of my mind as I was watching
the scene: the Bible does have things to say about why people experience
trials. It is not as if the Bible leaves it a total mystery. Granted,
no answer is a one-size-fits-all, but it does provide something to
think about, to grasp onto.
On Paul’s speech to Gwyneth, I can somewhat identify with where Paul
suggested that Gwyneth was spiritually: vacillating between belief and
non-belief. I do not think that is entirely bad, per se, since we’re
all human. No one believes perfectly. My hope is that God loves us,
even when we waver. At the same time, there should be room for
commitment, for having a mission in life as opposed to sitting on the
fence, for actually doing something with that sense of the transcendent
and numinous, beyond just being inspired temporarily. That is the only
way to take it seriously, and for it to shape a person.