I admit that recently, when I came across the headline, “A Christian Movie Review,” I winced. The headline itself is somewhat ambiguous. It could mean a review of a “Christian movie” or it could mean a Christian review of a movie.
I remember a headline from a newspaper that was called Christian Info. The headline, which was I assume intended to identify an article about a work of compassion, was “Christians Help Sex Offenders.” So, chalk up another call for clear communication.
Back to the movie review. My assumption is that the review is to consider the worth or value of a movie according to what the reviewer would identify as Christian moral and spiritual (mostly moral) principles. I do not think that the reviewer had ill intent. That is, they would assume they are doing something good. Also, I carry no ill will myself toward the reviewer and, yet, I still wince.
I wince because very many times, though I myself claim Christian faith, I have disagreed with almost every point in so called “Christian movie reviews.”
Most of the ones that I have seen are based from a philosophical, spiritual way of seeing the world. This can be summed up in one word - separation. The reviews exist to mostly tell us what is wrong with the movie and why, as Christians, we should separate ourselves from such things.
This way of seeing faith and the world primarily by separation is endemic in evangelical culture and my contention is that if your primary lens of faith is a lens of separation, then you cannot understand Christian faith.
We might assume that the people who major in such understanding mean well. They have a way of seeing and propagating faith that is defined by caution and fear and warning and a sense that most things are terrible but, thank God, Christians and Christian faith are not. I have seen otherwise fantastic people and organizations working primarily from a separation framework. It is dominated by a way of seeing how we are “not like them.”
I have recalled before a conversation with a lovely person who worked in a church. This was a number of years ago when the transgender bathroom issue was being used by Christian conservatives to coalesce political clout. This person, commenting on the issue, said that she just wished that society cared more about Christian values. She was very loving and compassionate, but seemed upset about the drive for transgender bathrooms. I replied to her that I think those working for such an outcome might actually be demonstrating Christian virtue, even though some or many of them might not identify as Christians. After all, didn’t Jesus call us to care for those who feel left out, judged, and condemned? Maybe educators and others wanted to show people who felt marginalized that they matter just as much as anyone else.
There is an alternative to separation. It is solidarity. Solidarity is the only framework in which we can understand the character of God and the renewal of all things in Jesus Christ. Separation does not help you understand Jesus, solidarity does. This is one of the reasons that so many people have moved away from the faith that was taught to them. If faith was primarily expressed in separation, then turning way from such faith might be construed as turning away from God. It might be the furthest thing from this. Much of my evangelical upbringing was guided by the apparent need for separation. As a young Christian, I could easily have assumed that discernment primarily meant the ability to identify where I was to take up separation - from the world, from those values, from that music, from those people. This is an understanding of discernment that is, at best, adolescent developmentally. This kind of mindset, while having a valid sensibility in a world which includes danger and immorality (danger and immorality are just as present in the church), can not ever lead to real faith. Here is why.
God chose not to be separate.
God chose to not be God without humanity. This is the heart of incarnation. You understand hopeful Christian faith in solidarity, not in separation. God has turned towards us in Jesus. That is the Christian claim. We cannot, then, ever understand faith to any depth by turning away from people. Instead, we ought to aim to discern our solidarity with others. It turns out that even in some of the least obvious cases, there is more solidarity, then separation. In this solidarity, we will find our humanity and we may find faith.
Many of you have walked some distance away from the faith of your upbringing because, whether you articulated it or not, it was a religion of separation. Perhaps you wanted something better than that.
Solidarity is better - and it is a virtue in Christian faith. If it were not such, there would be no incarnation. Incarnation is not about showing us how to be separate, it is about how God, in sovereignty, has chosen solidarity. I am glad for that.
Now, onto watching that movie that I was just warned about.
I taught “Christian Counselling” at Regent College for many years. After many years of written and verbal complaint, I could not get the administration to change the course title to “Counselling as a Christian” or some other description, even though there is no such thing as “Christian Counselling” and never has been. (Jay Adam’s with his “nouthetic counseling” thought otherwise.) The assumption was that Christians do it better (as you say) and what Christian counsellors offer is somehow safer and truer for church folk. However, my experience with the best therapists of whatever religious persuasion, is that they loved people and joined with their clients in a shared pilgrimage toward health and wholesomeness.