Only your weaker eye

by Frank Turk

Those of you not following me on Twitter may have seen my link to "I AM" in the sidebar sometime in the last two days, with the threat that I'm going to blog it. The blog entry follows here, but some preface is necessary.

The first part of the preface has to be this: I think the church, overall, is in trouble. The church is not actually very careful these days about being the church or even knowing what it means to be "the church." I think it's generous to call what passes for Christianity these days "moralistic, therapeutic deism" because "moralistic, therapeutic deism" indicates that the people who practice this stuff think there is actually a moral standard, there is actually a difference between being well and being unwell, and that there is actually a Deity rather than just an invisible rabbit we can talk to or just a vague sense that duckies and puppies are nice. The church is in trouble because its ability to define itself is really as bad as its ever been, but probably not any worse than the worst it has ever been.

So in that sense, with the church in trouble, the second part of my preface here is this: somebody ought to do something about it. Many people look like they are trying, but let's be honest: with all the trying, it's not getting any better. The church is not actually any better off because of the Gospel Coalition; it's not any better off because of Together for the Gospel. The church is not any better off, btw, because of Crossway Publishing or Harvest House or Zondervan; it's not any better off for TBN, CBN, or even our beloved friends at Wretched. So let me suggest something in that vein: continuing to do what we're doing when it's yielding the same ineffectual results is, as it says on the coffee cup, the definition of insanity. We ought to do something, but how about we try something that isn't what is already not working.

So the end of my preface is actually the beginning of my post, which is this video excerpt from an interview with the creators of the movie "I AM".



Now look: the place where that blonde guy loses me entirely is when he starts talking about "the faith world". Personally, I have no interest in "the faith world," as that's perhaps the most nondescript way of saying anything about anything that I can imagine. What is "the faith world"? Is it all religious belief? Is it all merely-optimistic belief? If this fellow, John Ward, wanted to suck all the substance out of the possibility of "conversation" -- conversation being his primary motivator -- from his movie, I think he couldn't have done better than to make this movie for "the faith world".

See: I think the irony is that this video, which claims to be the mission statement behind this movie, has a lot of things right.



That trailer actually gets the plight of the unbeliever exactly right, psychologically if not spiritually. But the problem is that the movie itself doesn't have a different view of God than the unbelievers in that clip.

Look: this movie is a symptom of what's wrong with the church. The problem is not that people think little of church -- that's a symptom, and it's a symptom that the church itself doesn't do anything to overcome. The Problem is that the church is going to wrap itself around this thing which has nothing to do with the church (take notice Lifeway and SBC) and then hope that this vacant, contextless, undeclarative 86 minutes of inconclusive sentimentality will bring people to some closer idea of who and what God is.

And then after that, the people whose hobby it is to care about the church are going to complain that this is not the church, and this is not the Gospel, and this is not Christ -- and nothing will change.

But why? Why, do you think, nothing will change even though some people will engage the subject with theology and apologetics?

This is what I'm thinking: arguments are not going to change the mind of people like the ones who made this movie, and they are also not going to change the minds of those who are in the clip about the empty chair. I know: it's a disaster and it must be a sign of the times that even if van Til and Machen were here to tell these people off, they wouldn't change their minds.

But here's the thing -- it seems to me that if Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scripture, and was buried, and then raised on the third day in accordance with Scripture, our primary job is not to argue with people who think that the primary objective of church is to make it go poorly for those who are gay; our job, if Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, is not to convince others that we don't have defective and submissive genes which force us to seek out a reward for doing good things; our job, if Christ is coming again to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end, is not to start a conversation.

Our job is to tell them that Christ is Real, and show them that Christ is Real.

It's stunning to me that we can show everyone we think the politics of our nation is real by always and in every way being on about it -- the debt is too high, our freedom is in jeopardy, the Constitution is violated, and so on. We can make much out of making sure Harry Reid doesn't get re-elected.

But how, exactly, do we make much out of Christ? By making the service on Sunday longer or shorter, more or less boring or more or less emotive? Or showing a movie? Or by starting arguments with nitwits who don't really understand that their creative efforts are filthy rags?

Really -- that's how we demonstrate that Christ is the most precious thing in all creation?

Listen: I know you want TeamPyro to blog this movie and tell you that your version of Christianity is better than this version of "the faith world", but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the script-writers and Producers, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven -- and that goes for all manner of Script-writers, and all manner of Producers, including the ones you think you like and are like.

You are not more faithful because you can see the flaws in this movie from a mile away using only your weaker eye. You are more faithful when you bring the actual Gospel to actual people who are actually dying because it's real, and because they need it as much as you do.

If you will do that rather than sort of huffily object to this movie, you will suddenly be doing something more important than apologetics: you will be preaching the Gospel to all living things, and making disciples of them.

That would be something new to try for all of us. I wonder if you're up to it?

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