3026 THE GIFT OF EARS is more important than ELLIOTT TN1NKSNEETS THE GIFT OF TONGUES 300 L. Eliz . Dr. , Cralgville MA 02636 A meditation on Robt.Duvall's (1997) film "The Apostle" Phone /rax 608.775.0008 11.11.00 in light of our church's film-group discussion of it last evening Noncommercial reproduction permitted

1 Something RD so wanted to do that, when he couldn't find funding/studio, he personally funded it & was its producer as well as its director. And to get the authentic feel of Pentecostalism, he spent months experiencing P. churches. The protagonist says, when asking an ailing black preacher for his vacant church-building (so a church could be called into being), "I have a holiness background." (In America, the Holiness movment preceded by three generations the Pentecostal movement [1913-]. I am a graduate of a college of the former movement, & at NYTheol.Seminary had many stu- dents who were pastors in the latter movement. The film did not seem at all foreign to me, though it did to many in the film-group last evening.) 2 The STORY: A Holiness-Pentecostal-Evangelical preacher (since age 12) is estranged from his wife, gets fired from his church, strikes (with a child's baseball bat) & accidentally kills his wife's lover, runs, successfully revives an interracial church (supporting himself as a cook & an auto-mechanic), &--after a worship in which, at the "altar call," his (apparent) successor-to-be & inheritor of his Bible is convert- ed--is apprehended "for first-degree murder." In Sinclair Lewis' ELMER GANTRY, we know from the start that the preacher is a fraud. In "The Apostle," we know throughout that the preacher is not a fraud (except possibly for promising, on the radio, that good things will happen to you if you send in $7.95 for "one of these scarves to put under your pillow"). Hollywood was not interested in a film presenting a preacher as not a fraud (but remember Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry?). 3 The film's religion is, like Billy Graham's before 1966, orphic orthodox. Orth- odox: the classical Christian gospel of creation-incarnation-atonement-repentance-faith- communion (with God & fellow-believers)-witness. Orohic: getting the soul to heaven is the religion's object: his successful church's vertical sign, the entire height of the exterior front, read, in bulbs spelling out the letters, "ONE WAY ROAD TO HEAVEN." Canonical Christianity (i.e., the religion which takes the "canon," the whole Bible, seriously, with all parts having places at the interpretive-decisional table) is this-worldly/other-worldly, not other-worldly (as are all forms of orphism). This was my first criticism of Billy's religion in my 1966 National Council of Churches Triennium debate with him. Christian conversion, I said, is more than souls escaping hell & ob- taining heaven; it is also persons accepting the discipleship of cruciform living in this- wr worldly ministries of love & justice. Coming to Jesus includes going where Jesus went & goes, to the suffering & yearning world--a note Billy's preaching struck more often after the debate, especially in his "giving the invitation." The orphic note of conversion anxiety (active voice: anxiety to convert) runs throughout "The Apostle." RD (i.e., the film's protagonist), in the film's 2nd scene, refuses to leave a dying car-accident victim before urgently saying "Do you want to go to heaven? Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord & Savior?" & eliciting the answer "Yes." So with a number of other 1:1 conversions. The liberal church has gone to the opposite extreme: little or no concern about unbeliever's repentance-faith-- afterlife. "Golden-Rule churches," as they're now being called, are content with "living their religion instead of talking about it" (i.e., doing verbal evangelism). Both, please! (Gabrief Fackre surprised me by saying I gave him his book-title DO AND TELL EVANGELISM.) 4 For this Thinksheet's title, I took my clue for the film's 1st scene: a black blind preacher, after exhausting himself in the pulpit, gropes for a seat: the film is about seeing with your ears. (Said Luther about listening to sermons, "Stick your eyes in your ears." So, out of this Protestant emphasis, we got the likes of Bach & Milton.) "Fides ex auditu" (Ro.10.17), the Reformation accent. Ironically, words sometimes impede hearing: some in our group were so turned off by the words (partic- ularly by RD's running communion with God/Jesus -- Paul's "pray without ceasing"), that they could not see/observe-in-detail the action/characterizations. We "see" what we are inclined (by preference/biasadisfliking) to see, & so with hearing. 5 Knowledge is only an instrument, but love is a destination & fulfilment. So

faith is a form not of knowledge but of love, which is its own form of knowing parallel with, but superior to, all other forms. "The Apostle" (as RD dubbed himself after by-immersion baptizing-ordaining himself) was a truly & bumblingly loving person C,1 • (the truly human goal, in my opinion, being to become a skillfully loving person). (.0 rs, On the run from the police, everywhere he slept (puptent, shed, etc.) he pinned c) on up a photo of his wife & two children (once tearing out her picture, then returning it): the love/hate relationship which all have with the universe & its parts, with contin- uous prayer that love will outwit & outwill hate. The group agreed that the preacher's flaws made him neither insincere nor unproductive, & someone added "So too for Clinton." And another: "And all the rest of us." A great film can help a church group to improved perception of self, others, & our tasks as the Body of Christ. Confession, acceptance, courage to witness/work. 6 The Bible was prominent for ear & eye. Some in the group saw biblical sym- bolism, e.g. characters as rep the apostles. RD asked a black fisherman "What are you catching?" The man was so Peter-like he might accurately have said "You." The only verse both quoted & referenced was Jn.3.34 (God sends the preacher to - speak His Word) ....A bulldozer come to flatten the church wouldn't run over the Bible. 7 As in Ga1.3.28, the preacher's bilevel consciousness (distinctions of gender & race transcended by being "all one in Christ Jesus") redeems his other-worldly orphism: his upper-level continuous communion with God ("What should I do, Jesus? This is Sonny talkin' now.") has implicit beneficent this-worldly consequences. Some wondered if he was crazy: said 1, "Rather, perhaps it's crazy to have only the lower level of consciousness." (Tom Wolfe's latest calls Silicon Valley "the triumph of Protes- tanism minus God.") Heb.12.2 in Gk.: "looking-away-from-the-world" to Jesus. 8 Discussion: "Why can't we have some of that joy in our church?" Maybe not less cerebral, but more room for feeling (with greater verbal & bodily expression). Internalized hymnal, as (at altar call near end of film) "Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling." "Jesus in you," said the Apostle, along with this on grace (the incarna- tion for our salvation) : "It's free, but it's not cheap."

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