In considering the content of the gospel in movies, let's take a look at "Chariots of Fire," which won the Academy Award for the best picture in 1981. The movie is a British production with an inspirational story of the training and competition of two great athletes, Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell, climaxing with the 1924 Olympics in Paris. The film has no church connection and was not classified as a "Christian movie" per se, but church people flocked to it, since it told the story of Liddell who later became a missionary to China and died in a Japanese interment camp on February 21, 1945, just months before the end of WWII.
An odd fact about the movie is that it was originally rated "G" in America, which would have been its kiss of death at the box office, since people would have assumed it was a children's movie. To remedy the situation, the director and the scriptwriter inserted an obscenity early on and that gave the film what they wanted:"PG."
In the film, Eric Liddell speaks often of God, as he tells his sister, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. When I run, I feel His pleasure." In a scene at the Olympics before his important race, someone slips Liddell a piece of paper on which is written I Samuel 2:20. Eric carries the piece of paper with him and wins the race. Furthermore, there's a brief scene of Liddell speaking to a group of people in the rain where we hear him quoting of Isaiah 40:3, and a scene at the conclusion of a Christian youth meeting where Liddell is holding a hymn book and tiding up after the meeting.
THE SABBATH
Liddell is famous for refusing to compete in the Olympics in his strongest race because the competition fell on a Sunday. To him, Sunday was the Sabbath and therefore sacred. If he had only understood dispensationalism, he would have run and probably won the gold. What he did was to import law into grace, Judaism into the church, and fold up like a tent on Sunday, erroneously thinking it's the "Christian Sabbath," an abhorrent term, if ever there was one, sort of like "a Halloween Christmas tree."
Unfortunately, the film made it likely that the non-Christian would leave the theater thinking that Christianity was all about "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy." But it gets worse.
THE EXPLOSION OF CONFUSION
As part of his talk to a small group standing in the rain, Liddel says,
"You came to see a race today. To see someone win. It happened to be me.
But I want you to do more than just watch a race. I want you to take
part in it. I want to compare faith to running in a race. It's hard. It
requires concentration of will, energy of soul. You experience elation
when the winner breaks the tape - especially if you've got a bet on it.
But how long does that last? You go home. Maybe your dinner's burnt.
Maybe you haven't got a job. So who am I to say, "Believe, have faith,"
in the face of life's realities? I would like to give you something more
permanent, but I can only point the way. I have no formula for winning
the race. Everyone runs in her own way, or his own way. And where does
the power come from, to see the race to its end? From within. Jesus
said, 'Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. If with all your
hearts, you truly seek me, you shall ever surely find me.' If you commit
yourself to the love of Christ, then that is how you run a straight
race."
We can easily spot the problematic sentences: he says that each runs the race in his or her own way, from which some might conclude that all roads lead to God; then he says that he can't offer them something permanent [yes we can], and that a person needs to commit himself to the love of Christ. For some, they may conclude that salvation is the committing of oneself to the love of Christ or running life's race having faith, but faith in what? This speech is confusing.
Eric Liddell's life was heroic, inspirational, and commendable. Since the movie ends with the 1924 Olympics and the return home of the British athletes, the movie-goer doesn't know of his missionary work in China, his winding up in a Japanese interment camp and his refusal to leave when a number of prisoners were exchanged, deciding to let an expectant mother go in his place, although Churchill had arranged for the famous athlete to be freed in the prisoner swap. A written statement appears on the screen which tells the viewer some of the above, but not all.
However, it's impossible to evaluate the accuracy of the gospel content in "Chariots of Fire" because there's no gospel in it. There is the quotation, "They shall mount upon wings as eagles," the I Samuel text, the refusal to run on Sunday, and there are short scenes of Christian meetings, but no gospel presentation. If a Christian left the theater thinking the gospel was in the film, it was because he imported it into it. It was inspirational, it was moral, it was wholesome, it was entertaining, but that was all she wrote.
YET THE GOOD PART
But "Chariots of Fire" shows us what a movie can do--it leaves the viewer with a stone in his shoe, a nagging question of purpose and meaning in life. Harold Abrahams wins the gold, but at the end of the day, ponders the meaning of his life: "I'm forever in pursuit and I don't even know what I am chasing. . . And now in one hour's time I will be out there again. I will raise my eyes and look down that corridor; 4 feet wide, with 10
lonely seconds to justify my whole existence. But will I?"
The movie has raised a question which it doesn't answer, but leaves the viewer to think about it. This is an example of the "slant" spoken of in an earlier article. It's an example of the message not being allowed to overwhelm the story. Who would have thought that a secular film about a Jewish athlete, to whom the audience is sympathetic, would end with that question?
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
What about he Christian movie of all Christian movies, the one hailed as THE Christian movie of all time, 'The Passion of the Christ"? The Barna Research Group did extensive polling of those who saw the movie and the results of their poll, their words, "stunned them."
They found that "despite marketing campaigns labeling the movie the 'greatest
evangelistic tool' of our era, less than one-tenth of one percent of
those who saw the film stated that they made a profession of faith or
accepted Jesus Christ as their savior in reaction to the film’s content."
They reported that "equally surprising was the lack of impact [the movie had] on people’s determination
to engage in evangelism. Less than one-half of one percent of the
audience said they were motivated to be more active in sharing their
faith in Christ with others as a result of having seen the movie."
This demonstrates an inherent danger with Christian movies, but no fault of their own: they lead to an attitude of, "If I can just get people to see 'Fireproof,' 'God is Not Dead,' 'The Passion of the Christ, 'Left Behind,' and 'Persecuted,' the movies will do evangelism for me." No fuss, no muss.
To be continued.
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Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both available on Amazon.com.
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