Last night we went to see a free screening of "States of Grace" by Richard Dutcher. It's billed as the sequel to "God's Army", and really is only a sequel in the sense that it's about Mormon missionaries in Los Angeles. Overall, the movie was very well-done (though occasionally the pace was a bit slow), and I personally found it to be moving and thought-provoking. Before I go any farther, I must thank Nate & Sara McNeil profusely for providing babysitting so we could attend --- and they had to stay an hour later than we told them for reasons detailed below. They truly went above & beyond the call of duty and we are VERY grateful.
One big disappointment was that because we only got to the movie 10 minutes before it was scheduled to start, we had to wait over an hour to get into a second theater and then wait another 30 min for them to finish dubbing another copy of the movie (hello??? preparation anyone???). So, we missed the panel discussion slated to follow the movie (it was over when we finished watching), which was (for me) at least half of the reason to go. Fortunately, Richard Dutcher did address us before the movie, and hosted an informative Q&A that at least somewhat made up for missing the panel discussion.
I'm NOT a movie reviewer or huge movie buff (though my husband is!), so I'm not going to structure this like a review. It's not. I just want to ramble a bit about things I liked/didn't like/things that made me think/questions I have.
Things I liked:
1. Dutcher really puts a lot of thought and depth into the characters. As he explained to us before the movie, he doesn't shy away from Mormon characters who have flaws more serious than "feeling down sometimes". He's not into presenting a falsely squeaky-clean image of Mormons, but rather portrays them as real human beings that (gasp!) non-Mormons can relate to.
2. (Closely related to the previous point.) I learned more about why Mormons are so darn worried and amazingly insecure about what everyone thinks of Utah. I've been here 6 1/2 years now (so maybe I should have learned some of this before???) and have noticed that the image the LDS church puts out is always this pristine, perfectly-scripted, masterpiece of PR. Not only that, but articles in even the "independent" (non-church-owned) Salt Lake Tribune are continuously focusing on what other people think of Utah/Utahns/Utah issues. World events cannot be covered here w/o a recap of how it relates to Utah or to Utah's image or something. TV news is even more fanatic about this. Granted, I've seen this elsewhere, but not to the extent I've seen it here. Anyway, during Dutcher's Q&A I came to realize more fully that because Mormonism is so missions-minded, members are really anxious about presenting the best face possible to attract converts. Duh! Of course. (WHY did it take me 6 1/2 years to figure this out?). This theologically-based evangelical zeal has translated, culturally, into an imperative to make everything look perfect on the surface, even when it's not. (And of course it's not - Mormons are human like the rest of us - and being human means being deeply flawed (dare I say "sinful"?) by nature).
Previously, I had thought of other reasons that contribute to this cultural imperative, but they were more theological in nature. Popular Mormon theology (which is almost certainly NOT orthodox Mormon theology, according to my reading of it) seems to espouse the belief that if you perform well, God will reward you with earthly blessings and will make your life a happy and materially blessed life. If you have problems, it may be because you are slacking. So, appearing happy and perfect on the surface means that God is blessing you and that you are doing the right things. Add this to cultural pressure in Utah of living geographically close to your fellow church members (so close that they can really keep tabs on you), and there's a lot of pressure to make sure things look good. Now, granted, much of this is cultural, and not theological orthodox, as I've said, but I have personally observed it in many instances since moving here.
The bottom line is that I've added a new reason to my list for the perfect image zeal. Interestingly, it's a problem that is not limited to Mormons - any faith which espouses proselytizing is vulnerable to it, mine included. I admit there have been times when I have tried to put on a good front to make my faith look better. But ultimately, a lot of that comes from seeking man's praise rather than God's, so I have tried to focus more on loving God and neighbor and leaving it go at that. Image consciousness never works very well. It's really the opposite of truly believing in grace; the grace of God often works through us better when we're weak, showing God to be strong.
This was a long point, but this is what I liked about the movie and the Q&A - it made me think a lot about important stuff.
3. The movie did make me think about grace, an important theme in the movie. Regardless of whether one thinks Richard Dutcher or Mormons have a correct understanding of grace or not (see discussion below under "Thinks I disliked"), the theme here was undeniable. No matter what one has done, no matter how bad ("sinful") you have been, you are never beyond the reach of the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ (and some of the movie's characters really blew it!).
4. I really liked that the movie had as one of its major points that Mormons and non-Mormons have a lot to learn from each other. As a non-Mormon Christian, I often feel like Mormons think that their faith is just my faith plus more stuff. (I disagree... I think that our faiths are pretty different at the core). I don't often feel like they are really interested in what I believe, or feel they have much to learn from my beliefs. The movie had several key moments in which Mormons learned some important concepts/truths from non-Mormons. Especially interesting was the use of a cross necklace at one point in the movie - when asked about it in the panel discussion (heard this from a friend since I couldn't go), Dutcher said that he really appreciates the symbolism of the cross and wishes Mormons would appreciate it more.
Things I disliked:
1. Sometimes the plot got a bit slow. Maybe a bit more editing might have helped things move along at points. Mostly it wasn't a problem, just sometimes. It's not like you'll be bored watching this movie.
2. Some scenes seemed a bit contrived or overly sentimental to me. The scene of Carl's confirmation intertwined with the murder of another character was in some respects very artfully and beautifully done - but I found myself thinking about the artistry during the scene, and it took away a bit from the drama/emotion of the moment. At the same time, I did like that scene, because it was very artistic. I wonder if there is a way to keep the artistry more subtle? Maybe not. The final scene seemed overly sentimental - a lot of audience members obviously really liked it, and I liked the idea behind it (don't want to spoil the film so can't say much more here), but the way it was carried out was a little too gooshy for me.
3. The movie seemed to imply as one of its major themes (didn't think about this until later when Loren pointed it out to me) that the Jesus worshipped by Mormons, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Baptists, Catholics, etc. is the same Jesus. Honestly, I would love to believe that Mormons believe in the same Jesus I do, but given my earlier book review of Bob Millet's book "A Different Jesus?", I just can't go there. The movie studiously avoids any controversial issues which would distinguish the Mormon Jesus from the Jesus I believe in. The ultimate nature of who God is and who man is never comes up, and neither does the central Mormon doctrine of eternal progression. Clearly, Dutcher wants to unify and not to divide, and this is why he does this. The problem is that you can't unify people without discussing the issues that they believe divide them.
4. The concept of grace cannot be divorced (in my opinion) from the nature of God and the idea of eternal progression in Mormon thought. This means that even though I really liked the presentation of grace in the movie, I am not ready to say that the Mormon concept of grace matches my own. To me, the worldview that humans are "gods in embryo" and are on earth as a time of mortal probation takes away from the idea of grace as undeserved, unmerited favor. If anything you do at all is contributing to your justification (or whatever you want to call it), then grace is not grace. I know Mormons believe they are powerless w/o the atonement of Christ, but nesting this in the concept of eternal progression ruins it for me. I could write pages on this and probably not articulate it clearly enough, so I'll stop here.
Would love to write more, but am really out of time. Please do comment!
2 comments:
I would agree with most of Tammy's thoughts about the movie. I am probably less of a movie critic than even she is and so I didn't notice some of the problems she points out, such as the movie moving slowly at points. Thinking back on it, though, I think I do remember some points where that was the case. I didn't have any problem with the "Carl getting confirmed, etc." scenes being too artistic. I thought that was excellently done. The scene at the end might have been a bit too gushy, but it did fit the and make sense in its context in the movie, and I didn't notice it being too gushy when I was watching it.
Moving on to deeper issues, I agree with Tammy's comments pretty much. There is a very different worldview between Mormonism and biblical Christianity, and that greatly affects the doctrine of grace. I think Tammy is right also to point out that it is impossible to bring people together in unity without addressing the issues the parties believe to be the reasons why they are divided. Dutcher, in this respect, reflects a typical LDS tendency not to take the concerns of Evangelicals seriously, to act as if they are not important and to be surprised when Evangelicals don't go along.
I think the LDS concept of grace, including that of Richard Dutcher, is far removed from the biblical concept. Although the movie went farther than most LDS presentations I have seen to bring out the failures in human beings, and almost went antinomian in its attempts to bring in grace, there was still the common LDS underlying theme that these people, whatever their flaws, are not bad people. They are basically good and worthy of the love of God. Dutcher wanted to promote the idea that all human beings are worthy of God's love and ours because they are good children of God at heart. Their flaws don't make them bad people. The only bad people in the movie were the characters who were off screen, such as the girl's parents and the missionary's father (I have forgotten their names at this point). They were "jerks." And even these people might have been proven not to be really bad if Duthcer had gotten around to dealing with them. In spite of Duthcer, the gospel is not that "God loves all his children, in spite of their mistakes, because of who they really are on the inside." The biblical gospel is God's loving real rebels and traitors, those who are not worthy of his love in any sense, whom he could REALLY have left in hell without any diminishing of his goodness, whom it would be perfectly fair for him to have left in the damnation they willfully chose. REAL bad guys have no hope in Mormonism. As Stephen Robinson put it in Believing Christ, "Above all else, God wants out hearts. Imperfect performance can be corrected, sins can be remitted, mistakes can be erased--but God can do nothing with an unwilling and rebellious heart until it repents. Weakness can be saved, rebellion cannot. 'Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind.' (D&C 64:34.)" Although Dutcher perhaps goes even further than Robinson in lessening God's requirements, it is still clear that it is because of our worth as God's children at least that God sets his eternal love upon us. Woe to those who are TRULY unworthy, who TRULY deserve hell!
I fear that many Evangelicals make the same mistake about the gospel that Richard Dutcher does, and that what Dutcher presents will seem to some Evangelicals to be a Mormon rediscovery of the biblical gospel of grace. (Of course, other Evangelicals, even if they have a similar gospel, will reject the film simply because of prejudice because it is "Mormon".) Hopefully, we will hold to the biblical gospel and reject all unbiblical gospels, no matter how sweetly coated or seemingly emotionally irresistible they are. "If I or an angel from heaven . . ." I enjoy movies a lot. But artistic works pretty much all share a very real danger. They can make anything look good and can seem a substitute for rational reasons for belief in an idea. The LDS Church relies heavily on emotional content in its films, music, etc., to help the non-Mormon "feel" his/her way to the LDS Church. This was a powerful movie, and I enjoyed it partly because of that. But it definitely has that very real danger.
At any rate, I enjoyed the movie as entertainment and also because it provided a good view into one strand of current LDS thought. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand LDS thinking today.
Mark, thanks for your comments. I see that I did not take my remarks on the concept of grace in the movie far enough. I agree with what you say, and appreciate you pointing out taht "the common LDS underlying theme that these people, whatever their flaws, are not bad people. They are basically good and worthy of the love of God." There's the rub... we ARE rebels and traitors, enemies of God, unworthy of his love. Grace is not grace if we are deserving or if anything we do contributes in any way to our justification (and I did say this... but didn't go far enough). So, to the extent that Dutcher implies that the characters in the movie are basically good and worthy of God's love, I disagree w/his portrayal. And in hindsight, he is pretty darn sympathetic to every character to the extent that it does seem that that is what he's implying. I'm a bit embarrassed that I missed that, but I do appreciate your pointing it out, Mark!
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