Lord, Save Us From Your Followers

On Wednesday night I went with Cheryl, my mother-in-law, to see a screening of Lord, Save Us From Your Followers. A film in which Dan Merchant goes on a mic-and-camera journey to answer the question, "Why is the Gospel of Love dividing America?"

There are a number of things about the movie that are intriguing. I talked with Cheryl briefly after we finished the movie. Now that I have had a few days to ruminate on it, I feel better prepared to respond thoughtfully. Things that I appreciated about the film:

- Dan's journey seems to be an authentic one. This especially came through in the "talk back" with him following the film. he was very honest about his own struggles and doubts before, during and after the film. I, for one, didn't feel preached at but shared with.

- The film highlights the power of relationships that are truly based on love and not just a desire to "evangelize" people. Traditional track evangelism has always been something I've been wary of, especially after doing it with Campus Crusade. It's great to get someone to say a prayer, but, on the other hand, so what? They aren't growing in Christ, living in Him or His church, and aren't producing fruit. It seems like that method is based way too much on the view of salvation as an "intellectual assent to a propositional truth claim."

- The film points out how we are spending way too much time on the wrong things instead of the right things: namely loving people.

- The message of the film is hopeful. Dan points out that there are many Christians in America who are loving people well and sharing Christ effectively. It seems to be that the problem is the way Christians are represented and represent themselves through media. One of the most interesting questions in the talk back was about how Christians could use media and if media was inherently a problem (I don't remember the exact wording). I wish that had been explored more in the talk back. Dan's answer was very tangential. I don't think he understood the question.

- I was personally convicted to engage in more loving relationships with people who aren't like me. The segment about going to hang out at a gay festival was particularly challenging. One person in the audience asked afterwords, "But why would a Christian go to such an event?" I think that question really highlights how disconnected we are from Jesus' method of reaching out. He hung out with sinners and tax collectors. I don't imagine he met them just because they randomly walked into synagogue for prayer. He had to go to them. The people ARE the reason we would to go the gay festival. What other reason could be better?

Things I didn't appreciate about the film:

- In one segment, Dan is engaging in hyperbole about removing religion from the public arena. He points out that many towns, such as St. Paul, Minneapolis, are named after key religious figures. So he suggests renaming them. I think this was a brilliant point to make about some of the inherent ridiculousness of taking religion out of everything. What bothered me was that he proceeded to suggest the name "New Leningrad." He also proceeded to rename all the cities in America named after religious figures after other controversial political figures. The point her was, as I mentioned, hyperbole. Implicitly, though, he was engaging in ad hominem argument by implicitly comparing the other side to mass murders and dictators.

- The movie is not put together in such a way that it would convince people in the extreme fundamentalist/far right positions to change their mind. Maybe that's not his point. He did say he would rather have the audience that was drawn to the film title than the one that was put off by it. I would be really interested to see the response to the film from a non-Christian and, especially, from the people he interviewed.

Anyways, those are my initial thoughts. If you've seen the movie, tell me what you think. If you haven't, it's definitely worth checking out.