The Nobility of Twisting Scripture

It has become a regular thing now to have a Monday Movie Night with my girlfriends. We take turns cooking and picking movies. Great way to battle the Monday Blues. The movie that was chosen most recently was "Machine Gun Preacher". I know, I laughed at the title too until I realized Gerard Butler was in it - then I took it more seriously. Though strangely I had the opposite reaction when I saw that Patrick Dempsey played Jeremiah in the movie cleverly titled "Jeremiah".

I didn't know what to think of the movie at first. Even now I don't know if I like the main character. What is disconcerting to me as how much I relate to him. Essentially in the movie he is a new Christian who ends up taking an interest in missions. He goes to a war-torn part of Sudan and witnesses events that change him.

He invests more and more of himself in what's going on there. At this point, subtle changes in his approach take place. Eventually he begins to shoot back at those of the rebel army who are trying to capture the children and destroy the villages that he is trying to protect. More time passes and he is less active at his home in the states, becoming less and less involved in his own family. When he preaches from the pulpit, he preaches from anger. Slowly the messages he preaches begin to change as he becomes more and more enraged at the great divide between his own culture and the culture of those he lived among in Sudan. Trying to stir up action among his church congregation in the U.S., he preaches, "God doesn't want sheep; he wants wolves to fight his fight, men and women with teeth to tear at the evil out there."

And it all seemed so noble. It seemed right. All the other people from his hometown were wrapped in their "regular lives". His daughter was concerned about getting a limo for some high school dance while he was concerned about how to buy a truck to transport more children to safety so they would not face mass murder. His associates hosted lavish parties while only contributing chump change to his cause.

I found his character so easy to relate to. After my time in Mission Year (www.missionyear.org), I became easily embittered. People talked about their normal lives and I could only remember stories, glimpses of moments I was a part of in Englewood. I remembered my friends who were targeted by systemic injustice. I remembered the neighborhood that I had considered my own - a neighborhood that was gripped by fear. I remembered my friend who lost a family member to a stray bullet through the window at her very own birthday celebration. I remembered a vast array of stories that seemed worlds away from the lives of my close friends.

I relate to the almost schizophrenic mindset that at one moment talks about Jesus as a Shepherd and us being his sheep, only to quickly shift to the language of dominance and forcing change no matter the cost. And it feels so damn noble. We don't do it to make ourselves look good. We really don't. We do it because if we don't, who else will? The thing about believing in a God who is living and active in this world is that we become quickly disillusioned when 1) We see true suffering, and 2) We recognize that we are God's physical presence on earth now as the Body, the Church, and we see inaction on the part of others when we feel so impassioned.

As we continue in those feelings, fighting the battle seemingly alone, we become deeply bitter. We know longer see the people we serve, we see the principles that we are fighting against, and we enact justice as we define it rather than how Jesus would define it. And the words we speak "on behalf of God", change dramatically till they reflect our own bitter, broken hearts rather than bearing the presence and image of Jesus, who was the lamb of God.

It can be so easy to make scripture bolster our agendas, even without realizing we are doing it. It is easy to make justifications for our way of coping with injustice that sound scriptural and noble. This movie moved me on a deep level. It concerns me how much I connected with the main character, especially given that I still don't know whether I like him or not. I disagreed with many of his methods, all while feeling kinship with him.

We are all inconsistent in our beliefs and actions. We are all prone to preach our own version of the gospel while thinking what we preach is the One True gospel. We all tend to surround ourselves with a tight-knit group of like-minded friends who affirm what we already believe (even when it's wrong). I hope and pray that I am a part of a community that is varied enough to challenge me where I need to be challenged. That I am exposed to people with differing understandings of who God is, how God works in the world, and how God works through us. I pray that I would hold what I "know" with open hands, allowing some ideas to be sifted between my fingers. And I hope that love remains, no matter what.

May we not grow weary and cynical. I pray this for myself and for us.