A Good Look in the Mirror
A new documentary, Lord Save Us From Your Followers, helps Christians to see what we really look like to those on the outside looking in.
by Brandon Fibbs | posted 7/15/2008
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Dan Merchant has an agenda, and he doesn't care who knows it.
"I want us all to have a conversation," he said while weaving his car through traffic, sandwiched between events promoting his new film, Lord Save Us From Your Followers. "My agenda is for people outside the faith to come away with a more complete picture of who Christians are, or are at least are trying to be.
Dan Merchant directs and stars in his film
"My agenda is for Christians to understand how we sound to others and actually listen to those who disagree with us or who don't understand us, instead of being so quick to fight. I think that some of the basic fundamentals of the gospel—love your enemy as yourself, love one another—have somehow been lost."
Merchant's documentary turns on a deceptively simple question: Why is the gospel of love dividing America? Christianity, he contends, is far more interested in the "gospel of being right" than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Fed up with the strident language and angry rhetoric that have come to define modern Christendom, Merchant, a veteran of the entertainment industry, set out to explore the flashpoint of faith and culture in America.
Merchant is ready with a quick answer for what he sees as Christianity's principal failings. With a nonchalant manner that miraculously never comes across as judgmental, Merchant zeroes in on politicians who use God to win elections, Christian organizations who bait the world and then cry foul when the world fights back, religious leaders who set themselves up to interpret global events as God's wrath, and the church's attitude toward abortion and homosexuality as its pet sins.
"We're not good at living the truth," he says. "I just want us all to live up to it instead of making excuses for why we can't. What grieves me the most is our ability to judge, dismiss and separate from other people, whether because of race, denomination, sexual orientation, divorce. We do a really good job of saying God came to save everyone—except you and you and you. We need to take a page from Jesus' radical compassion. The Lord's bar is as high as you can get: Love your enemy as yourself. I would just love the church to be better known for what it is for rather than what it is against."
Talking to strangers
To get to the heart of the debate in his documentary, Merchant dons a white jumpsuit plastered with bumper stickers both for and against religion and wanders around Times Square seeking conversations with complete strangers.
Merchant in his 'bumper sticker suit,' interviewing folks at Times Square
Wherever he goes, Merchant runs into the same situation—non-believers who don't have a problem with Jesus, but vehemently dislike many who claim Him. For Merchant, their ability to separate faith from founder with such ease indicates a disastrous PR problem for Christianity.
"People say, 'Well, the truth divides,' and yeah, it does," he says. "But I think we've done most all the dividing already before anyone ever gets to any 'truth.'"
Merchant is quick to admit that his film is directed first and foremost at himself. And it is precisely this humility—Merchant's awareness of his own profound faults and a sly, self-deprecating humor—that separates Lord Save Us from other films like it.
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