Hollywood after the Passion, Pt. II

The Rev. Mac Brunson recently took his kids out and, while the movie was forgettable, the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas was hooked by one of the coming attractions.

It was a trailer for the comedy "Raising Helen," in which Kate Hudson plays a hot New York City fashion star whose life changes when she has to raise her sister's three children. Five-hankie chick flicks require hunky love interests and, lo and behold, this time the blonde falls for a handsome, charming pastor.

"I thought, 'No way Hollywood will get that right,' " said Brunson, senior minister of the 12,000-member Southern Baptist superchurch. "You see a pastor in a movie today and he's almost always going to be an idiotic, dangerous, neurotic pervert or something."

Brunson aired some of these views when interviewed for a People magazine cover story called "Does Hollywood Have Faith?" What happened next was a parable about studio insiders trying to do their homework in pews and pulpits. It's a trend that predates "The Passion of the Christ," but is surging along with Mel Gibson's bank account.

After reading Brunson's remarks, publicists working for Disney called and made the preacher an offer he couldn't refuse. Before long, Brunson was sitting in the Tinseltown multiplex in suburban Dallas, watching an advance screening of "Raising Helen" with 200 church members.

The tough Baptist crowd was pleasantly surprised, said Brunson. Yes, the Lutheran pastor was played by John Corbett of "Sex & the City." Yes, this is the rare pastor who never mentions Jesus, faith, church and the Bible with a woman who has three children in his Christian school. But it's clear that Helen is seeking moral stability and she ultimately decides to embrace her children, rather than worship her career. And the romance was clean.

"It was just a normal movie, or what people used to call normal," he said. "This pastor is a moral guy. He falls in love. He gets to be natural. He's romantic and he kisses the girl. ... At the end it's clear that he's helped stabilize things and they're becoming a real family.

"So hurrah for Disney, on this movie. They got something right and we ought to praise them for that. Let's hope and pray that they do it some more."

But bridge-building efforts like this are tricky. While Disney is making progress with one powerful Baptist – remember that the Southern Baptist Convention has been boycotting Disney for seven years – MGM is traveling a rocky road trying to evangelize church groups on behalf of its edgy satire called "Saved!"

An online mini-guide for youth leaders says the movie presents "Christian teens who make poor choices, have a crisis of faith, seek answers and ultimately emerge with a genuine faith." Studio executives say it contains a pure Christian message of tolerance and love. Meanwhile, producer Michael Stipe – the androgynous REM lead vocalist – has said it's a high-school vampire movie, "only here the monsters are Jesus-freak teen-agers."

The movie's American Eagle Christian Academy has a giant plastic Jesus figure (in running shoes) and born-again gunners practice at the Emmanuel Shooting Range ("An eye for an eye"). One girl has a vision to sleep with her boyfriend to cure his homosexuality. The pseudo-hip Pastor Skip has an affair with a troubled mother (the area's top Christian interior decorator). The villain is a true believer who rules the popular girls ("The Christian Jewels") with an ironclad Bible.

The executives behind "Saved!" simply haven't done the "cross-cultural homework" required to reach religious believers, said Walt Mueller, head of the national Center for Parent/Youth Understanding in Elizabethtown, Pa. While much of the movie's satire is accurate and even constructive, it's the actual theological message that will offend most Christians.

"If you're into a real postmodern, smorgasbord, all-tolerant blend of Christianity and every other conceivable faith in the world, then you're going to love this movie," said Mueller. "What is amazing is that the people marketing this movie don't seem to realize that they are attacking lots of people's beliefs. ...

"The bottom line is that there are good Christians and then there are bad Christians and Hollywood gets to decide which is which. We're supposed to buy that?"

Movies after the Passion, Part I

When it comes to judging Hollywood, critics in pulpits and pews have been chanting the same mantra for decades.

All together now: There's too much sex and there's too much violence. Amen.

Then a strange thing happened. An evangelical named Randall Wallace wrote "Braveheart," which a Catholic named Mel Gibson turned into an Oscar-magnet about freedom, faith, sacrifice and truth. It was bloody violent and its wedding was followed by a nude wedding night. Many conservative believers cheered and began to have second thoughts about their R-rating phobias.

Then Gibson made "The Passion of the Christ."

"A movie comes along that is, in the words of one Los Angeles critic, 'a two-hour execution,' and people of faith everywhere are embracing it and being moved to compunction, repentance and spiritual renewal," said screenwriter Barbara Nicolosi, speaking at a global cinema conference last week in Valencia, Spain.

"What we are learning from all this is that the problem is not with violence on the screen. It is meaningless violence that is wrong in entertainment. The Passion reconnects violence to its source in rebellion against God. It never objectifies the subject of the violence, nor does it dehumanize the perpetrators of violence. It shows the effects of violence in all its horror."

Aftershocks continue in the marketplace and in churches, while Gibson's epic keeps climbing toward the $370-million mark at the U.S. box office. Meanwhile, Hollywood is trying to learn how to mine this bizarre demographic Gibson has discovered – Middle America.

Nicolosi has argued that the big lesson is that masses of the faithful will buy tickets when a talented, name-above-the-title superstar finances, produces and directs a theologically sophisticated movie. But there's the rub. How many celebrities make that A-list?

Meanwhile, debates about the Passion may help traditional believers learn more about the craft of making movies for the modern marketplace, she said, in her written text. Questions about the film's shocking use of violence were highly symbolic.

"This movie will challenge future filmmakers to make the violence in their films just as meaningful," said the former Catholic nun, who leads the Act One screenwriting project. "It will also open the people of God to a broader artistic sensibility. ... My young filmmaking students are very concerned about the place of the artist in the world. They want to talk about an ethics that would go along with the power of the mass media.

"They want to know what is good for people to watch and what might harm people to watch. This is very good."

Anyone can make violent movies, she said. It takes talent, skill and vision to show violence that means something. The same thing is true of sexuality, after 40 "shameless years" in which "cinema has shown us every possible permutation of two naked bodies writhing around." The same thing is true of symbols and themes of faith and spirituality.

There are signs of change in Hollywood. Nicolosi called it the "Don't Show How Things Look, Tell Us What They Mean" movement. Are religious leaders paying attention?

Nicolosi is not the only conservative arguing that filmmakers must stop assuming that safe, squeaky-clean predictability is the same thing as artistic quality.

Even Christian consumers would rather watch "Spiderman" than "Left Behind – The Movie" and they would choose "Toy Story" over another "Touched By and Angel" rerun on a family cable channel, according to Dallas Jenkins, president of Jenkins Entertainment. He created the company with his father, Jerry B. Jenkins, who is best known as co-author of the bestselling "Left Behind" novels.

At some point, religious critics must humbly study the art in films such as "Taxi Driver," "Traffic" and "Pulp Fiction" as well as criticize their moral content, he said. It is even more important to study edgy films that combine personal storytelling with issues of faith, such as "Schindler's List" and "The Pianist."

"Why can't we make movies like that about our faith? ... Great films, no matter how specific their subject matter, have universal appeal," said Jenkins, writing in Relevant Magazine.

"Where are the thought-provoking, morally important rated-R films? Every year there are dozens of big, successful family films, but only two or three landmark, important films for adults. Can't at least one be made by a Christian?"

NEXT WEEK: Hollywood struggles to understand the church.

United Methodists do the math

From coast to coast, United Methodists are doing the math.

America's third-largest flock just survived another quadrennial General Conference rocked by media-friendly fighting over sex. Now it's time to dissect the numbers.

Delegates voted 570-334 to affirm the historic doctrines of the Christian faith.

Efforts to back laws defining "marriage as the union of one man and one woman" passed on a 624-184 vote. Same-sex union rites fell – 756-159. Should the church delete its "faithfulness in marriage and celibacy in singleness" standard for clergy? Delegates voted 806-95 to say "no."

The big news was a 579-376 vote against weakening the Book of Discipline's law that self-avowed, practicing homosexuals cannot be clergy because homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching." Delegates also rejected a resolution from gay-rights supporters that said: "We recognize that Christians disagree on the compatibility of homosexual practice with Christian teaching." That vote was 527-423.

After three decades of pain, it seemed the numbers were stacking up for United Methodist conservatives, whose churches are thriving in the American Sunbelt and the Third World.

But a final plot twist remained in Pittsburgh. A key leader caused fireworks by saying it's time to end the war over the Bible and sex – by separating the armies.

"Our culture alone confronts us with more challenges than we can humanly speaking confront and challenge. That struggle, combined with the continuous struggle in the church, is more than we can bear. Our people, who have been faithful and patient, should not have to continue to endure our endless conflict," said the Rev. William Hinson, retired pastor of the 12,000-member First United Methodist Church of Houston, at a breakfast for conservatives.

"I believe the time has come when we must begin to explore an amicable and just separation that will free us both from our cycle of pain and conflict. Such a just separation will protect the property rights of churches and the pension rights of clergy. It will also free us to reclaim our high calling and to fulfill our mission in the world."

To understand the roots of this move – which parallels divisions looming in other oldline Protestant churches – it helps to dig a little deeper into the United Methodist numbers.

Hinson is president of the "Confessing Movement," with 1,400 churches with 650,000 members. Gay-rights supporters have a Reconciling Ministries Network of 192 churches, with 17,000 members.

But there are 35,000 congregations in all, with 8.3 million members. Sickened by decades of decline – membership was 11 million in 1970 – the last thing Methodists in the institutional middle wanted to hear was the word "schism." Before the conference closed, delegates linked hands, sang a hymn and passed a symbolic call for unity, 869 to 41.

And there was another number that deserved study. General Conference voted by a narrow 455-445 to clarify which Discipline violations can lead to a trial. The list of chargeable offenses now includes failing to be "celibate in singleness or being unfaithful in a heterosexual marriage; being a self-avowed practicing homosexual; conducting ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions or performing same-sex wedding ceremonies."

But leaders on both sides noted that about 20 percent of the delegates this year came from Africa, Asia and Latin America – where churches are more conservative. Efforts to enforce the Discipline's teachings might fall short, if left to delegates from North American churches. United Methodist progressives also continue to dominate the church's bureaucracies and seminaries.

So be it, said theologian Thomas Oden, a former United Methodist liberal who now is a conservative strategist. The key during the next four years is for local church leaders to weigh options for how to end the national warfare over the Bible and sex.

"We don't particularly care about the powers that be. What we care about is the doctrine and the Discipline in our church," he said. "That's were our focus is and that's where it will stay. ... But the actual enforcement of those teachings remains a problem for us, as it is for most Protestant churches today.

"We know that we will be struggling with that issue for decades. That's the question: We know what our church teaches, but do we have the will to enforce it?"

Stalking the anti-fundamentalist voter

Any Top 10 list of slogans for abortion-rights signs would include "Curb your dogma" and "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."

At the recent March for Women's Lives, one nurse weighed the tensions between Sen. John Kerry and the Vatican and proclaimed: "I'm a Catholic, I take Communion ... and I'm Pro-Choice." She could have added: "And I vote."

George W. Bush will receive few votes from these voters. They're not fond of Pope John Paul II, Jerry Falwell and other conservative religious leaders, either.

Political scientists Gerald De Maio and Louis Bolce call them "anti-fundamentalist voters" and their rise has been a crucial – yet untold – story in U.S. politics. Many are true secularists, such as atheists, agnostics and those who answer "none" when asked to pick a faith. Others think of themselves as progressive believers. The tie that binds is their disgust for Christian conservatives.

"This trend represents a big change, because 40 or 50 years ago all the divisive religious issues in American politics rotated around the Catholics. People argued about money for Catholic schools or whether the Vatican was trying to control American politics," said Bolce, who, with De Maio, teaches at Baruch College in the City University of New York.

"That remains a concern for some people. But today, they worry about all those fundamentalists and evangelicals. That's where the real animus is."

In fact, Bolce and De Maio argue that historians must dig back to the bitter pre-Great Depression battles rooted in ethnic and religious prejudices – battles about immigration, public education, prohibition and "blue laws" – to find a time when voting patterns were influenced to the same degree by antipathy toward a specific religious group.

Prior to the rise of Bill Clinton, "anti-fundamentalist" voters were evenly divided between the major parties. Now they're more than twice as likely to be Democrats, forming a power bloc with secularists that the researchers believe has become as powerful as the labor vote.

Bolce, an Episcopalian, and De Maio, a Roman Catholic, have focused much of their work on the "thermometer scale" used in the 2000 American National Election Study and those that preceded it. Low temperatures indicate distrust or hatred while high numbers show trust and respect. Thus, "anti-fundamentalist voters" are those who gave fundamentalists a rating of 25 degrees or colder. By contrast, the rating "strong liberals" gave to "strong conservatives" was a moderate 47 degrees.

Yet 89 percent of white delegates to the 1992 Democratic National Convention qualified as "anti-fundamentalist voters," along with 57 percent of Jewish voters, 51 percent of "moral liberals," 48 percent of school-prayer opponents, 44 percent of secularists and 31 percent of "pro-choice" voters. In 1992, 53 percent of those white Democratic delegates gave Christian fundamentalists a thermometer rating of zero.

"Anti-fundamentalist voter" patterns are not seen among black voters, noted De Maio. Researchers are now paying closer attention to trends among Hispanics.

What about the prejudices of the fundamentalists? Their average thermometer rating toward Catholics was a friendly 62 degrees, toward blacks 66 degrees and Jews 68 degrees.

To no one's surprise, the "anti-fundamentalist voter" trend is linked to the emergence of energized fundamentalist voters in post-Woodstock American life.

"The subculture of the evangelicals was a pretty safe place to live until the 1960s," said De Maio. "Then everything started changing. They have been fighting a rear-guard operation ever since. Once they mobilized, there was this huge counter-mobilization on the left – which only built on the counter-cultural trends that affected the Democratic Party so much in the 1970s."

It's hard to learn about this political reality in elite media.

Between 1990 and 2000, Bolce and De Maio found that the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post published 929 stories about the political clout of conservative Christians and 59 about that of secularists. Only 18 stories addressed the religious disconnect between the major parties. They searched abstracts at the Vanderbilt University television news archive for similar stories in 2003 and 2004 and found zero.

"What we have found is a prejudice that is not taboo in our educational, political and media elites," said Bolce. "Anti-fundamentalist attitudes are sanctioned at the highest levels of American life."