Several have asked me if I have seen the movie, The Life of Pi, and what I thought of it, if I had. It is a logical question to ask a pastor. The movie tells a story that it claims “will make you believe in God.”

On some levels I found the movie to be entertaining, but on the whole, I didn’t like it, primarily because I disagreed with its message.

The boy, Pi, is a very religious young man. He likes all religions. He was born a Hindu and practiced Islam. After becoming acquainted with the gospels, he offers up a prayer, “Thank you, Vishnu, for introducing me to Christ.”

His rational father, a zoo owner, gives Pi a word of caution, “If you believe in everything, you will end up not believing in anything at all.”

The father has to close his zoo and move the animals. This he does via ship. The ship is caught in a storm and sinks. Pi ends up on a lifeboat alone with a Bengal tiger. They journey together for 227 days. Of course, these are challenging circumstances. The biggest challenge for the boy is not to be eaten by the tiger.

This is a fascinating story. Of course, it is not the only interpretation of Pi’s journey. There is an alternative account which does not include a tiger. When Pi is asked which story is real, he answers, “Which do you prefer?” The questioner responds, “The one with the tiger.” Pi answers, “Then that’s the real one.”

The point is that every religion offers a different story as an interpretation of the meaning of the universe and of life. The movie, and the book upon which it is based, would offer that religion is just a matter of which story you prefer, not which one is true.

Of course, the billions of adherents of many religions would disagree, including me. The Apostle Paul would certainly never agree with this theory. The story of the resurrection of Christ was not something the Apostle Paul believed because he preferred it, but because he believed it was true. In fact it can be argued that Paul might have preferred that it might not be true. His believing it made his life much more difficult. He wrote, “If Christ was not raised, then our gospel is null and void, and so is your faith,; and we turn out to be lying witnesses for God,” and “we of all men are most to be pitied.” He goes on to say, “But the truth is, Christ was raised to life…”

Or as the hymn writer puts it: “I love to tell the story Of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, Of Jesus and His love: I love to tell the story Because I know ‘tis true…”


©2013 C. David Hess

One of the most religious experiences I had during the holiday season was watching the film, “Letting Go of God” on Showtime (watch  a 17 minute video clip). The film is a one woman show by Julia Sweeney in which she describes her long pilgrimage from being happily raised in a strong Catholic family to her becoming an atheist. Her sharing was always thoughtful, moving, and even funny. When she told her mother she could no longer believe in the existence of God, her mother asked, “Are you telling me that you are no longer going to church?” At another point her mother told her that it was okay for her to believe whatever she wanted, but asked if she had to tell everyone about it? 

The most striking moment in the film was when she addressed God near the show’s end: “It’s because I take you so seriously that I can’t bring myself to believe in you. It’s a sign of respect.” 

Ironically, the one thing that comes through in her monologue is how seriously she takes God. I know a lot of people who “believe” in God who don’t take Him nearly as seriously. They believe in the existence of God but never give any serious though to what that belief means or should mean in their lives.  

Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote: “There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.” 

Ms. Sweeney also has a healthy sense of mystery. She confesses that she still wonders at the awesome question of why there is something and not nothing. This awe in the face of mystery is not far from God. This sense of mystery is something that far too often we Christians jettison. We give the impression we have everything figured out, that we don’t see “through a glass darkly” (I Corinthians 13:12) 

Maybe sometime we can look at this film together, so that we can be better able to share our own pilgrimages and give a reason for the hope that is in us. (I Peter 3:15)


 ©2009 C. David Hess

I have been enjoying Ken Burn’s new documentary on World War II on PBS. He displays in it the same arresting style as he did in his earlier documentary on the Civil War.

Burns says that his documentaries are all about "waking the dead" and that this stems from his mother's death when he was 11.

He said he did not see this link until he was telling a friend how for years whenever he got a birthday cake, "I'd blow out the candles and wish that she'd be alive. He said, 'What do you think you do for a living? . . . You make Jackie Robinson and Abraham Lincoln and Louis Armstrong come alive. Who do you think you're really trying to wake?'"

There is value in “waking the dead.” We have much to learn from them. The Bible condemns those who practice divination and try to communicate with the dead. This did not stop King Saul from having the witch of Endor call up the ghost of the prophet Samuel (I Samuel 8:24-25). On the Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples saw Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah.

Halloween was the church’s not too successful attempt to baptize a pagan holiday, but the attempt was a worthy one. In church, we sing about the “mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won.” Their presence and influence are still felt powerfully among us. It comes to mind even as we remember their names: Mary Rissew, Ann Lambert, Eunie Farrington, Wilma Jarrett, Frank Hilton, Ralph Harper, and many, many more.

In church, we are continually about “waking the dead” for they are not really dead. Jesus said of God, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." ---and to us as well.

 
©2007 C. David Hess

Sometime this week I’m going to go see the movie, Superman Returns. 

In a review in  the New York Times, Manohla Dargis  compares Superman to Jesus and suggests that the movie’s producers are trying to tap into the same market that was reached by Mel Gibson’s, The Passion of the Christ. Dargis writes, “Where once the superhero flew up, up and away, he now flies down, down, down, sent from above to save mankind from its sins and what looked like another bummer summer.”

As I have often pointed out, the popular culture offers us a window into ourselves, our fears, our hopes, our dreams. I think this is particularly true of science fiction films. Sometimes they project our fear of the outsider. Someone from “out there” is going to come and destroy us as in The War of the Worlds. Then there are those other movies which seem to come out when we are feeling hopeless and salvation seems beyond our grasp. Then we wish for a savior to come “from beyond.” Then we get movies liked ET, Cocoon, and now Superman Returns.    

The move has received mixed reviews thus far, but I am going to go see it. I’ve missed Superman. There is something in this movie that I already know that I will find touching, Superman’s heart is broken. He finds that during his absence from Earth, Lois Lane has acquired a significant other. No one has ever accused me of being a romantic, but I like a Savior like that---one whose heart can be broken. That’s certainly the kind of Savior we have in Jesus---the original “bleeding heart.” May he save us all from our sins.

©2006 C. David Hess

I remember attending a showing of The Last Temptation of Christ at a movie theatre in Manhattan in 1988.  Dozens of policemen were watching over a large crowd of protestors with bullhorns. I remember thinking at the time: “Jesus, you can sure still draw a crowd!”

He still can. On it’s opening weekend, The Da Vinci Code sold $230 million worth of tickets worldwide.  I saw no protestors at the Henrietta theatre where I viewed the move, but there were protestors in some places.

The move is based on the bestselling book by the same title. The book is a fictional account of a conspiracy to hide the fact that Jesus had had a child by Mary Magadalene and their descendants continued until this day.

As for its entertainment value, I only found the movie (and the book) mildly interesting. I don’t really know why the movie was worth protesting. There is nothing here of any serious historical worth.

I kind of like the cartoon that showed a parishioner in a confessional booth saying to his priest, “I know it’s just an adventure yarn wrapped around a few tired old conspiracy theories, Father, but this book has me really wrestling with my faith!”

The priest answers, “I’d say faith that weak could use the exercise--”

Of course, there is value to getting people to talk about Jesus anytime. When he walked the earth 2,000 years ago he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” and then the more pointed question, “Who do you say that I am?”

Who is Jesus? The most important question any person can ask in life. If The Da Vinci Code gets anyone to seriously think about that, I am thankful.

 
©2006 C. David Hess

I went to see the disaster movie, The Day After Tomorrow, this past weekend. As disaster movies go, it was great fun. The special effects are amazing. Los Angeles is largely destroyed by tornadoes. New York City is hit by a huge tidal wave and then is largely buried under ice and snow. Hundreds of millions of people die, and most of the northern hemisphere is no longer inhabitable due to a new ice age.

One of the funniest parts of the movie is when inhabitants of the United States flee south to Mexico to escape the catastrophe. The influx of Americans is so great that Mexico has to close its borders. Of course, this does nothing to stop the flow of “illegal immigrants” from the United States. The U.S. government has to flee Washington  and set up house keeping in the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. In a broadcast over the Weather Channel, the president of the United States, thanks the nations of the “so called” Third World for taking in the refugees from the United States and other First World countries.

Even though I thought this part of the movie was hilarious, I noticed that I was the only one in the theatre who laughed. Maybe the rest of the audience didn't have the same appreciation for humor and irony that I have. I must admit, my appreciation for this particular bit of irony has been nourished by Bible reading. One of the recurrent themes of scripture is that those on top will not stay there and that those on the bottom will not stay there either.

Take for example these lines from the song of Mary: “[God] has shown the might of his arm, he has routed the proud and all their schemes; he brought down monarchs from their thrones, and raised on high the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:51-53)

Jesus often warns: “But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” (Matthew 19:30)

Many of us also know from personal experience that life is full of unexpected reversals. Those on top are not guaranteed to stay there. Those on the bottom often don’t stay there either. (Ever hear the story of J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books?)

When Paul was collecting an offering for Christians in Judea who had been victims of a famine, he writes to the Corinthians: “At the moment your surplus meets their need, but one day your need may be met from their surplus.” (I Cor. 8:14b)

Or to say it another way: Help those in need now for you never know what The Day after Tomorrow will bring. By the way, we are receiving the One Great Hour of Sharing offering this month. I hope you are thinking of those victims of flooding in the Dominican Republic and Haiti?


©2004 C. David Hess

As  I was going to the theatre to view Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, I couldn’t help but think back to the last controversial “Jesus movie” I went to see, The Last Temptation of Christ. I viewed that film in a theatre in Manhattan in 1988. The film was very forgettable. If it hadn’t been for the controversy, I doubt that few would have seen it. The scene around the theatre was not at all forgettable. There were protestors with signs and bullhorns. There were 40 policeman (I counted them) to control the scene. People’s handbags were searched for weapons as they entered the theatre. Armed guards were stationed conspicuously around us as we watched the movie. All I could think of at the time was “Jesus, you still sure know how to attract a crowd!”

The crowds have certainly gone to see The Passion of the Christ, although I was surprised to see that only a small handful in our service on Sunday indicated that they had seen it. Perhaps it is because the movie is so violent. I had dreaded viewing it for that reason as well.

Overall, I thought the movie was very well done. I cannot say that I “enjoyed” the movie (who could?), but I was glad that I saw it. I found the experience very meaningful.

I would not suggest that anyone take young children to see it. As I indicated Sunday, one mother told me that she took her 13 year old son. Afterwards, he cried in the car. He told his mother that he was glad he got to see it but told her, “Never make me do that again.”

Was the movie anti-Semitic? Not in my view. Mel Gibson clearly indicated his view of who was responsible for the death of Jesus with his only appearance in the film. It was his hands which nailed Jesus to the cross.

The real value of the movie is that it once again gets us thinking and talking about “Who is Jesus?” and “What does his death mean?”

 
©2004 C. David Hess

Like a lot of other people, I went to see the movie Seabiscuit this summer. The movie is based on a true story of a horse that captivated the American public in the 1930s. Seabiscuit provided people hope because, even though the odds were against him like they were for so many of that era, he emerged victorious. He was not the only unlikely victor. As Charles Howard, the horse’s owner put it: “Our horse is too small. Our jockey is too big, and I’m too dumb to know the difference.”

There was one line in the movie that I found particularly meaningful. It was spoken first by Tom Smith, the trainer, when he convinced some men who were about to shoot a horse with an injured leg to give the horse to him instead. Tom explained his actions by saying, “You don’t throw a whole life away just because it’s banged up a little bit.”

Later in the movie, when Tom wanted to fire Seabiscuit’s jockey, Red Pollard, after he had lost an important race because he was blind in one eye and had failed to reveal that to the trainer and owner. The owner refused to fire Red and repeated Tom’s words: “You don’t throw a whole life away just because it’s banged up a little bit.”

That is very much the attitude of God which is revealed in scripture. Over and over again God effectively uses lives that have been “banged up a little bit” (even more than a little bit). God didn’t give up on Jacob the cheater, or Abraham the murderer, or David the adulterer and murderer, or Peter who denied his Lord, or Saul, the persecutor of Christians, who became Paul the great Christian missionary. He gave all these a second chance and used them effectively in His service. God doesn’t throw a life away just because it’s banged up a little bit. Or as Oscar Wilde put it: “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.” Thank God for the gospel of a second chance.

©2003 C. David Hess

This is one of the most powerful movies I have seen in recent years. Ben Affleck and Samuel Jackson play two men who are both decent and flawed. In short, they are very much like you and me and everybody else. Both are on their way to important appointments for which they cannot afford to be late. They have a fender-bender. After the accident, they are both courteous and inquire of the other’s welfare. Doyle Gipson (Jackson) wants to “do it right” and exchange insurance cards. The lawyer in the other car, Gavin Banek (Affleck), doesn’t have time for all that and offers Gipson a blank check (which he refuses) and drives off leaving him stranded with a disabled car. In his haste, Banek has dropped some important papers that Gipson retrieves. Their run-in results in Gipson losing his family and Banek facing the loss of a lot of money if he can’t get his papers back.

For the rest of the day, the men are locked in a struggle of strike and counterstrike. Both men are wronged and wrong. Ultimately, both men don’t just have to face one another but themselves. Each has to come to grips with his own values and his own life. This is not a pleasant experience.

All of this happens on Good Friday. At one point Banek asks, “What’s good about it?”

Ah, there’s the rub! The film is not an explicitly religious film, although Banek asks the above mentioned question and even has a conversation with a priest in a church to which he has ducked in hopes of finding some “meaning”. But the question of Good Friday hangs all over the film. How can a world populated with seemingly decent people be so filled with hatred and violence and suffering. Despite the best intentions (or at least pretty good ones) the world has gone terribly wrong. It is the question which confronts the world on Good Friday, on September 11, with the D.C. area sniper, and the seemingly endless struggle in the Middle East. For most of the film (and indeed as we face the real world), things just seem to get more and more hopeless. Solutions are offered but found empty. (There’s a great scene in which Banek interviews a prospective lawyer for his firm. The interviewee indicates that he wants to be a lawyer because he views the “law” as the ultimate hope in saving humanity. Banek, who is all too familiar with lawyers and the law, laughs derisively and sadly.

But the movie does not end in despair. Both men’s souls and values are stripped bare. Each comes face to face with himself. Salvation (not easily or cheaply) comes when both men are scared more by themselves than the other guy. Each recognizes that the road he is on is leading him to destruction. They recognize that their only hope is in “changing lanes.” Of course, the Bible’s word for that is “repent.” The men found that their salvation lay not in the law of “tit for tat” and that brand of justice, but in repentance and mercy. Our world, and you and I, need that message as much now as on Good Friday. Indeed, that is the message of Good Friday.

 
©2002 C. David Hess

I recently purchased the DVD of the film, We Were Soldiers. It is based on a book written by Hal Moore describing the first major land battle between the Americans and the North Vietnamese. Moore (played by Mel Gibson) was the leader of the U.S. troops. It is a powerful movie. A. O. Scott, the New York Times film reviewer has written: “Like the best war movies — and like martial literature going back to theIliad — it balances the dreadful, unassuageable cruelty of warfare and the valor and decency of those who fight.”

Even though the American troops are victorious in this battle, one cannot help but be struck by the fact that the lives of many wonderful young Americans (not to mention the Vietnamese) were lost in an ultimately futile cause. Moore’s book itself ends with a quotation from the Prussian military strategist Clausewitz: "No one starts a war — or, rather, no one in his senses ought to do so — without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to achieve it." (Something we should certainly contemplate as the possibility of an American invasion of Iraq looms).

One of the coolest things about DVDs is that they often contain scenes that were deleted from a film’s original release. The scenes are usually deleted to shorten the movie and/or improve its pacing. The scenes deleted from this film are truly amazing. I don’t know how the director, Randal Wallace, could have cut them. (Actually, I admire Wallace’s ability to cut such good material. I’ve preached many a sermon that would have been better if I had left some stuff out, but some things are just hard to cut.)

The deleted scene over which Wallace admitted that he grieved the most depicts a Sunday worship service (the battle began on a Sunday) at a protestant chapel at Fort Benning, Georgia. Many of the soldiers’ wives are present at the service. They had put on a brave face in front of their husbands as they left for battle, but now their brave façades were beginning to crack. One of them stands in front of the congregation and begins to sing a solo, “On Christ the Solid Rock.” She falters after she sings the opening lines: “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame…” She apologizes and attempts unsuccessfully to start again. Finally, Julie Moore (Col. Moore’s wife) begins to sing the chorus, “On Christ the solid Rock, I stand—All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand.” She is joined by others in the congregation. This give the soloist, the strength to go on with the verse: “When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace; When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.” The scene is made even more powerful because among the actors in the congregation are the real Hal and Julie Moore and the real Barbara and Cami Geoghean (Barbara’s husband, John, was a young lieutenant killed in the battle. Cami was their daughter).

As I contemplated this deleted scene, I realized that much of our lives is like that. Many of the scenes of our lives are open to public but there are those other scenes that the public does not see. It is there that our true selves are often revealed. Some scenes we would be embarrassed for others to see. But it is also out of public view that often a person’s true struggles are revealed and also the faith that enables them to face life’s challenges. As in the movie’s deleted scene, it is often in the context of church that we allow our public faces to drop and we become “real” to one another. Such times are moments of grace and power.


©2002 C. David Hess