Hollywood's Heaven

As much as I enjoy the yearly influx of people who realize they believe in Jesus overnight and google directions to the nearest place of worship, this weekend's Easter celebrations left more to be desired.

There was a big hub-bub surrounding the feel good movie of the month, Heaven is for Real, which conveniently released within days of Resurrection Sunday. A lot of people, like Molly and myself, went on opening night to see the movie. Unlike many of those people, however, we didn't go out of some obligatory sense of Christian duty to support non-secular film. We went because it looked interesting and, more importantly, the tickets were free.

Because to be brutally honest with myself and everyone else...faith-based movies generally suck. I know that doesn't make me the most popular Bible-reader on the block, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. They suck.

While the message may be great, the acting is consistently sub-par and restricted to a very limited range of extreme emotions. There's only so much I can take of Kirk Cameron rapidly alternating between rage and a seemingly drug-induced state of bliss. And eventually, they're bound to run out of blonde-haired, blue-eyed children and attractive middle-aged women to cast for supporting family roles that require the extensive quoting of scripture.

But what ticks me off the most about "Christian" movies isn't that the actors are laughably poor. What ticks me off is how they don't even come close to accurately representing Christians.

Flicks like Heaven is for Real don't convey the true gravity of what it means to be a Christian in an ever-declining society, to cling to a dying faith. The directors consistently fail to capture how exceedingly controversial it is to have a relationship with God in a world where toxic levels of individualism and political correctness discourage religion all together.

Believers are portrayed as a cloudy-eyed stereotype. Their lives are perfect, their picket fence is a pristine egg shell white, and every new day is full of abundant blessings. In Christian movie world, the only struggles that exist involve trust issues with God. I hate to break it to you and possibly ruin the big surprise, but none of that is realistic. 

Granted, God does bless His people, and Christians do struggle with their faith, but our lives are very much still entwined in earthly matters, and as much as we would like everyone at church to believe life is all rainbows and puppies, that's simply not the case. Believers are not immediately placed in a reality-nullifying bubble upon accepting Christ into our hearts. We aren't granted immunity from human nature and society and this imperfect world we live in.

The internal battle for those movie characters may end in a passionate prayer while gripping a cross necklace, heads bowed at the altar. But the harsh truth is that, when real Christians are on their knees, we're just calling for backup. Because in the real world, the altar is just one of many places where the battle rages on.

The church you see pictured on the big screen is full of smiling faces with "amen"s and "hallelujahs" echoing up into the rafters and triumphantly bursting forth from steeple, but what the cinematographers fail to get in the shot is all the pain in those pews. They can't film every instance where those men and women have been looked down upon because of their faith or judged because some radicals ruined their nation's predisposition about them, despised for every drawn breath and subsequent exhalation of Jesus' name. 

They'll never be able to capture the ache etched in the bones of God's battered children who long for home, their real and eternal home.

"Christian" has become a label synonymous with "virgin," with "sober" and "drug-free," with "happily married," with "innocent," with "holy." I cannot express how very misguided the notion that Christians are somehow better than anyone else is. We are not exempt from iniquity or the suffering that goes along with it. We are just as unpardonably sinful, just as irreparably broken, and just as inexcusably human as everyone else on this earth.

But the difference? The thing that sets us apart? The reigning truth that makes it all worthwhile?

We have a perfect lamb to pardon us, a master healer to repair us, and a loving God to forgive our imperfections.

Perhaps, that's why Hollywood just can't get it right. Because there's no drama or documentary or actor or writer or speaker who could ever fully explain what makes believers different. Why, you ask? Because no drama or documentary or actor or writer or speaker will ever be able to fully explain the awesomeness of our God.

Pink Shirts

I don't want to get started off on the wrong foot by posting a melodrama revolving around "engaged life" (as my female peers fondly refer to it) and have everyone who reads this thinking they've stumbled across yet another website for a starry-eyed young couple to gush incessantly over their budding romance.  You'll very rarely see me use the term "soul-mate," and if you do, just realize I'm probably being held at gunpoint.

That being said, however, a good friend once told me to never apologize for writing about things I wanted to write about because, if I wanted to write about them, then they must be worth writing about.  At the moment? I actually do want to talk about my relationship.  Sorry 'bout it.

I'd be lying if I pretended that my relationship with Molly was the perfect paradise of sunshine and mutual, unyielding affection towards one another.  Rarely a day goes by that we don't argue about something.  It doesn't have to be important, and most of the time, it wouldn't even make "The Top 100 Arguable Topics Pertinent to Molly and David's Life" list, assuming that list actually existed.

Take for instance our conversation the other day at Molly's happy place, known as Target by those who don't know her.

Molly, holding up two blouses: "Babe, do you like this one or this one better?"

"You already have enough pink shirts. Why don't you pick out something in a different color?"

"So, you're saying I don't look good in pink?"

"That's not what I'm saying! I'm saying you always wear the same color."

"So, you're not happy with the way I dress?"

That's just one of many examples where a discussion over something completely benign resulted in me losing the right to ride in the front seat of the car. Now, I could go into some spiel about how communication is essential to the health of a relationship, but I'm gonna be straight up.

I love arguing with Molly.  Absolutely, 100% love it.

Before every woman reading this, including my own, grabs the nearest appliance to throw at my clearly chauvinistic head, hear me out.

Arguing with my fiance, to me, means stability.  It means that we've got a good thing going on.  It's the equivalent of her looking me in the eye and saying, "I don't agree with you right now. I even don't like you right now. But I sure as heck love you right now."  You're still thinking I must be crazy, right?  I don't necessarily think so.

If Molly didn't love me and, more importantly, if she didn't think that I loved her, she certainly wouldn't have her hand on her hip giving me one of her infamous laser-guided glares over the color of a $12 shirt.  A woman, or a man for that matter, who feels his or her relationship is on thin ice is going to think twice about picking a fight and think twice more about picking a fight over something so frivolous.

Couples in jeopardy choose their battles wisely.  They argue over BIG stuff, and they hold back while they're fighting because neither really knows if the next thing that comes out of their mouth will be the last thing they ever say to the other.  Molly and I, we don't have that problem.  We don't bite our tongues when the other says something we don't like.  When a disagreement arises, big or small, we make it a point to figure out why we disagree.  And why wouldn't we?  Doesn't it make sense to seize every opportunity we have to get to know more about the thing we love most on this earth?  We strive to learn more about each other every single day.

That's a beautiful thing.

If we're in the car, fuming at one another, we don't conceal it.  We go at it.  Molly dreads car rides when we're in the middle of an argument because she knows I will pull over, lock the doors, and refuse to move until we've hashed it out.  We've always disagreed with the mentality that splitting up and taking time apart to brood is an acceptable way to deal with problems, despite being advised to do so by many older couples.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking anyone's relationship.  Maybe taking time for yourselves to organize your thoughts and come back with a clear, viable argument works for you.  For us, organizing our thoughts, formulating our arguments, that's all part of the process.  Sometimes, we have no idea what the heck we're thinking.

And for us, that's okay.  Our mentality?  "Let's figure it out together."

So yeah, I love fighting with Molly.  I love it when we butt heads.  I love it when she rolls her eyes at me, when she shoots me those glances that could knock a vulture off roadkill, and even when she nails me with a laughably girly punch to the arm.

Because when it's all said and done, she knows I love her more than anyone ever loved another person, regardless of what color shirt she's wearing.