My wife and I try to catch at least a couple of films every year at the Nashville Film Festival and this year was no exception. I wanted to let you know about two very interesting documentaries I saw.
The first was Prophets Rising - a film made by 2 (very liberal) New York Jewish ladies about several charismatic prophets who call Nashville home. This movie was surreal, and often quite funny, and made you wonder what God thought about all this. It had its poignant moments as well. There was a scene in one of the prophets was praying to heal a cancer victim and you wonder what happened to this person after the filming. But what made the experience especially interesting was getting a chance to hear from the film makers and have some q & a time with them. And, to make it even more interesting, most of the prophets highlighted in the film were at the screening - along with their followers. In fact, Wendy and I sat only a couple seats away from Sandy Powell, the most flamboyant of the prophets in the film. (If you see the trailer at www.prophetsrisingfilm.com she is the one dressed in white like 80s era Stevie Nicks.) It was fascinating to hear the film makers talk about their struggle to remain non-judgmental and find a way to tell this story without passing judgment. And in fact, he prophets at the screening seemed quite pleased with the portrayal - even though at many times they appear quite ridiculous. Tim Keller says in his new book that fanaticism is one of the greatest barriers we have to overcome in telling people about Christ in our culture, and you will know what he means when you see this film! I highly recommend this film - it will surely lead to some interesting discussions.
The 2nd film also had a religious theme. It was called “Join Us” and was a documentary of a small group of people trying to come out of a little cultic church in SC. This movie documented their time in an in-patient treatment center and was truly heart-wrenching at times. I think every church leader should see this to understand the kind of things abuse of pastoral authority does to people. The interesting thing about this film, as compared to Prophets Rising, was the film maker made no attempt to be non-judgmental. And this made it a better, more true, film for me. Trying to be truly non-judgmental is actually impossible, and thus the makers of the first film were forced to conclude (as they said in the q & a) that we are all the same, and all have religious expression of some sort. But trying to impose such a bland kind of pluralism on this film really didn’t work. Why make documentaries unless you are interested in documenting truly interesting things? While we must be humble in our interactions with those who differ from us, submitting all value judgments to the new ultimate value of being non-judgmental, doesn’t really make sense of life. I’m glad the maker of the 2nd film was free to say some things are right and some are wrong. This made sense of life as it actually is.
Last year I found myself just marveling as I sat around with so many of my heroes on Friday night. Dr Old, Reggie Kidd, Keith and Krysten Getty, Eric Wyse, James Ward, Bob Kauflin and more all at one time! This year I am really looking forward to hearing my friend Mako Fujiura and parable expert Kenneth Bailey. I also am really looking forward to hearing from Doug Gay whose seminar last year was a real highlight for me.