Begin Again, Born Again

It was a lazy weekend at the Cineplex. The biggest movie was Transformers: Age of Extinction, but it hasn’t been nearly the profit juggernaut of its predecessors. Melissa McCarthy’s R-rated Tammy did OK. The faith-flavored frightflick Deliver Us From Evil kinda bombed. Historically, the Fourth of July holiday has meant some seriously big business for Hollywood, but this Independence Day, most folks didn’t see much that interested in what was playing.

Maybe if they’d heard about Begin Again—a tiny indie movie playing in just 175 theaters—they might’ve had a change of heart.

Part of me would like to think so, anyway. Weird of me, a Plugged In reviewer, to say that about an R-rated romantic dramedy, I suppose. But outside the f-words and whatnot, this flick was pretty sweet—a moving, well-told story about the beauty of family and friendship and music.

And it even had a hint of faith, too. Let me explain.

Dan (Mark Ruffalo) is a down-on-his-luck music producer—a one-time Grammy-winning dynamo who’s about two bars away from his coda. His marriage has crumbled. He barely knows his teenage daughter. He spends his time and cash on booze, and he’s rapidly running out of all three. And one dark night, after losing his job in the record company he helped create, he’s ready to get drunk and die. 

On what might be his last subway ride, smashed out of his pumpkin, he sees and hears an annoying evangelist, handing out pamphlets and encouraging wary riders to seek God. "God may not be on our time," he tells the passengers in that sincere, clueless way you’d expect, "but He's always on time." Dan takes a pamphlet and grins a drunken grin, mostly in mockery. "I'm gonna have a little talk with God,  tonight, all right," Dan says, sloshing off the train. He turns back to the closing doors. "But what if He doesn't answer? What if He doesn’t answer?” The train speeds away, not acknowledging Dan’s question.

He staggers into a bar and slumps down, just as a woman named Greta (Kiera Knightley) begins to sing. She’s suffered her own miserable day: She just learned her long-time boyfriend has been cheating on her, with both another woman and the mistress called fame. She’s ready to go home to England and put her life back together, but a friend of hers dragged her to the bar. Now, he called her up on stage to sing—the last thing she wants to do. But sing she does. And her song includes the words, “Don’t pray to God ‘cause He won’t talk back.”

There, in the lowest of lows, the two bemoan, in startlingly similar ways, how God has forsaken them. It reminds me of one of the most famous angry laments in all the Bible, Psalm 22, verses 1 and 2:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me,

so far from my cries of anguish?

My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,

by night, but I find no rest.

And yet, maybe God does answer. For in that moment of anguish, these two lost souls find each other.

“I was ready to kill myself until I heard your song,” Dan admits. He admits to her how washed up he is, but Dan … a little miraculously, still wants to sign her to a music contract. And Greta, perhaps even more miraculously, decides that she wants to be signed.

The Psalm goes on, of course. The lament turns into a cry of faith. Check out verses 23 and 24:

You who fear the Lord, praise him!

All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!

Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!

For he has not despised or scorned

the suffering of the afflicted one;

he has not hidden his face from him

but has listened to his cry for help.

We don’t hear about God for the rest of the movie. Both Dan and Greta do some things that aren’t all that pious. And yet, you can’t tell me that these cries to the Almighty were accidents. There’s intentionality on the part of the moviemakers, here. A nod to God. Two lost souls are found again through amazing grace, and through a sweet sound to boot.

Marcus Mumford and the Christian Clique

Marcus Mumford isn't a Christian. So he says.

The lead singer for the Grammy-winning Mumford & Sons talks about God, faith and whatnot in the April issue of Rolling Stone. And even though he's the son of the founders of Great Britain's evangelical Vineyard movement, and even though the group's lyrics are saturated with themes of faith and redemption, sin and salvation, Mumford avoids the whole "Christian" label.

He says:

I don't really like that word. It comes with so much baggage. So, no, I wouldn't call myself a Christian. I think the word just conjures up all these religious images that I don't really like.

Those three sentences have already stirred quite the reaction from Christians who love both Jesus and Mumford & Sons. A couple of thoughtful reactions can be found here and here, but it seems that most Christians are saying something like this: Marcus, I get it. I really do. Christians can be kinda lousy at showing the world what Jesus was all about. But you can't just hang out with Jesus and ignore all his sometimes inconvenient followers. It doesn't work that way. As Matthew Linder wrote in his nice piece on patheos.com:

It is much easier to take the route of “I just love Jesus” or “Jesus is a cool dude” in a culture that would mostly concur with that sentiment. Accepting the label of Christian is difficult, especially when we inhabit a post-Christian culture, but one that I will gladly take on, as should all of us who love Jesus.

I get, and I agree, with Linder's point. For years, I was a lot like Mumford--loving Jesus (in my own stunted way) but reluctant to associate myself with the other "Christians" that I knew (or thought I knew). It just wasn't a group I wanted to be associated with. I wanted to get to heaven. But kinda hoped that, once there, I'd be able to hang out in my own little heavenly neighborhood--away from the sorts of Christians who annoyed me.

And, honestly, I haven't quite outgrown that arrogance. There are days when I might hear somebody say something I disagree with and I think, "do I really share a faith with this person?"

On the surface, I think most of us Christians (particularly in protestant, evangelical circles) view Christianity as a kind of club. It's not a particularly picky club: You don't have to pay dues or do community service or anything (though all that, of course, is appreciated). As long as you accept a few basic premises--that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the grave is a biggie--you're in. And from then on, no one can revoke your membership.

But in practice, sometimes we Christians can treat Christianity more like a clique. Or, rather, a collection of them. And  those of us who hang out in one clique point to the others and whisper snide comments to our friends. Because our clique, naturally, must be more Christian than the others.

I've heard that you can't possibly be that Christian if you vote for a Democrat, or a Republican, or if you drink, or if you see R-rated movies, or if you or prefer hymns or don't keep a prayer journal or like reality television or commit any number of ethical, intellectual or social sins. I'm irked by this attitude. And yet, the very fact I'm irked can push me into a clique of my own. I'm not like those Christians, I might grumble deep in my gut somewhere. I'm different. Less judgmental. Better.  Which naturally, makes me just as judgmental and no better at all. It seems that many of us are forever carving heaven up into cliquish neighborhoods

And yet, when you mingle amongst these various cliques--as I've had a chance to do in my career--you find that in every one of them there are folks who love God and Jesus passionately.

I think that Marcus Mumford is critiquing our cliquish culture--even as he forms a bit of a clique of his own. And here's the funny thing: I think most Christians would feel like they'd fit in just fine in Mumford's little circle. Of all the Christians I've talked to, almost every single one has lamented the hypocrisy seen in Christianity--the baggage that our glorious faith has been so burdened by.

I don't know where Mumford's faith stands. I have no way of judging his or anyone else's relationship with God or Jesus. Sometimes, it doesn't feel like I'm in a great position to judge my own. But I do believe that, whatever religious cliques we affiliate with within Christianity, we're also part of the same messy family. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Hanging Out With Mat Kearney (Virtually Speaking)

Holidays are murder for blogging.

Oh, you'd think it'd be easier to blog around Christmas and New Year's, and so I thought, too. I'm not working! I reasoned. It'll be cold outside! Nothing else to do but huddle at the computer monitor and type to keep my fingers warm!

Yeah, fat chance of that happening. Not with all the new games and books and Santa candy at arm's length. If you missed me, understand that I was likely spending my blogging time stuffing my face with little red licorice bites.

But now that I've dragged myself away from the candy (temporarily) and to my computer, I might as share with you my time chillin' with Mat Kearney.

Now, Mat (the hip, pop-indie musical artist) and I aren't exactly close. In fact, before this weekend, I had no idea who he was.  But my son showed me this pretty original video for his new single, "Ships in the Night":

He visited 165 locations for this video (he must've gotten really sick of this song before he was through), and it seems as though about a third were from Colorado Springs--where I live. The nice red rocks? That's Garden of the Gods, just south of here. The football stadium? That's at the Air Force Academy, just north of here. The house with the snowman? My son swears he saw that exact snowman  in front of a house downtown. 

So, naturally, my son and I showed it to my wife, Wendy. She didn't pay any attention to the background pictures at all. Instead, she just said, "Hey, I love this song!" Turns out, Mat Kearney is not only a hip indie musician, he's also a Christian one--the only possible way that she could've discovered a musical artist before my Ska/punk/indie/rap-loving son. 

And as I've learned more, it seems Mr. Kearney and I have a lot in common. Sort of. He attended college at Chico State in California (my daughter-in-law lived the next town over!) and studied literature (hey, I studied literature!) and played soccer (hey, I've watched soccer!).  He became a Christian right in the throes of his college days, which naturally reminded me of my own soul-searching in college. 

 "I discovered the depth of depravity, the bleakness of that lifestyle," he allegedly told someone sometime, according to his Wikipedia page. "It just wasn’t working. I finally started understanding there must be more to life. God found me when I was at my lowest point. That was the first time in my life when I really felt like I understood who Jesus was--it was more than knowing about Him, I felt like He met me in that time and place."

A few days ago, I had no idea who Mat Kearney was (which probably brands me as a musical philistine, but so be it). Now, I kinda want to download all of his albums and invite him to dinner. Or, if he's not available, at least his publicist. And it's all because he sang a pretty neat tune in front of a pretty familiar landmark. 

It's funny how we embrace new things, isn't it? It's rare for me to become a fan of anything after listening to one song or reading one book or doing one of anything. It might open the door, but I'll rarely go farther. Normally, it's a culmination of things that entices me further into fandom. It took me three books and a dozen quotes to fall in love with Kurt Vonnegut; two books, several pithy sayings and a recommendation to embrace G.K. Chesterton. We're won over in pieces, I think. We look for the familiar in the new, and when we find it, we give it a chance. Bit by bit, our loves grow into us.

Christianity's probably a little like that, too. I don't know too many people who fell in love with the faith because of one sermon or one perusal through Luke. It's a process: Each conversation, each allusion, each faint image of God we see in the world around us has the potential to bring us closer to Him. One won't do it. A dozen might not, either. But as we travel and see God in a hundred, a thousand, a million things, we begin to understand His love for us. And we can't help but love Him back.