There’s a story about a small band of 19th-century pioneers crossing the Mojave Desert to earn their fortune in the promised land of California. Unprepared for the Mojave’s harsh, arid climate and deceived by length of a desert mile, they died of acute dehydration. The tragedy of their story is not just that they died, but that their death was needless as well: just three feet below the surface of the Mojave’s cracked and dry ground were springs of fresh water. The pioneers were, quite literally, standing on a reservoir yet dying of thirst.
In his heatedly contested debut documentary, Monumental, Kirk Cameron makes a similar claim about the situation facing 21st-century America. With a government debt nearing $16 trillion and a culture that values entertainment over education, innovation over tradition, and individual preferences over moral law and virtue, it’s safe to say that we live in a theological and moral desert. In Monumental, Cameron, an outspoken evangelical Christian, argues that like that group of pioneers, Americans today are standing on a reservoir and dying of thirst.
And the springs of life for our cultural desert are the wisdom of our country’s forefathers.
Cameron’s documentary, which debuted in theaters two weeks ago, is his sincere quest to unpack how our forefathers, the Pilgrims, might help us get back on track. The Pilgrims were a tiny group of religious outcasts traveling to America in 1620 to escape religious persecution in England while still maintaining their cultural identity. Cameron traces the steps of the Pilgrims to discover the source of the principles that were used to establish the American government. “What principles did they use to ultimately wind up with a nation that has received more blessing, security, and prosperity than any nation in the history of the world?”
Cameron concludes that the strategy employed by the pilgrims—then followed by the Founding Fathers—is commemorated in the National Monument to Our Forefathers, a statue located in Plymouth, Massachusetts. On the main pedestal, a figure named “Faith” points towards heaven while clutching the Bible. Faith is buttressed by four figures that exemplify the four principles upon which the Pilgrims established their commonwealth: freedom, morality, law, and education.
According to Dr. Marshall Foster, president of the World History Institute, this “matrix of liberty” shows us how to regain liberty should we ever lose it. Foster states, “[It’s] the only successful strategy of liberty that has been carried out in the history of mankind … this strategy is what built America.”
I’ll admit that I approached Monumental with more than a little skepticism; I’m wary of a reductionism that tries to explain massive tides of human history in terms of a single movement or cause. Before seeing it, I worried that the film would diminish history by failing to take into account the full story of the “American experiment.”
As expected, by focusing exclusively on the Pilgrims, the film didn’t even mention the rich diversity of people that came to America—the landed British gentry, the convicts and debtors in Georgia, the African slaves, the poor of Europe, among others. America is, and always has been, a cultural smorgasbord of competing voices and values.
Second, Cameron could have shored up the integrity of the film by consulting experts with more training in history. The “experts” called on in this film may be perfectly legitimate voices in their respective areas of focus, but their expertise in history is dubious and weakens the film’s credibility, even if the movie’s overall message is provocative and convincing at points.
But the most glaring omission of Monumental was the failure to distinguish the motivation of the Founding Fathers for following the strategy outlined by the Pilgrims—not because they believed it but because it was useful. They distributed Bibles and endorsed the teaching of religion in school because they understood that morality “was necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind” and they doubted peoples’ ability to achieve morality apart from religion. As George Washington wrote, “And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion … Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle.”
But while the film is not exactly right, it’s not exactly wrong. Many philosophers and political thinkers have understood that a democracy that loses its religious moorings will also lose its way. In his magnificent analysis of American democracy, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville said that democracies cause tendencies towards selfish individualism, consumerism, materialism, and equality at the expense of liberty—the very kinds of tendencies that religious beliefs guard against. “The reign of liberty,” he wrote, “cannot be established without morality, nor morality without beliefs.” A democracy is governed by the will of the people, and when objective morality or virtue gives way to subjective values, a society will fail to develop people with the character needed to rule a government with wisdom.
I wish that Cameron had relied on experts with more relevant training so that these issues might have been addressed with deeper clarity. But to his credit, Cameron isn’t sticking his head in the sand and waiting for the Rapture, unlike others from his particular slice of Christendom. “Everybody’s telling me the world’s going to hell,” he says in the film. “To top it off, I have friends in church that tell me that the worse things get, the better it really is, because it means the end is near. Don’t worry that it’s going to hell … the whole thing is going to burn. Really? Because I have kids in this world and I want a great future for them.”
Cameron’s sincerity and affability make it hard for me to completely ignore his concerns. Besides, his core argument is hard to dispute: America is in trouble, and it’s going to be a “monumental” task to set things right.
Tsai Ming-liang has thrice directed films that were nominated for the Golden Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival. Face lost out on this year’s prize to Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon (more on that film this weekend), but its subject matter (a loose retelling of the Salomé story) and setting (much of it was shot at the Louvre) could attract some viewers not normally game for a 140 minute art film in French and Malaysian.
If I say then that I was completely and utterly lost while watching Face, I mean that as an indictment of my own capacity to deal with non-narrative film and not of the film itself.
The program’s summary makes the film out to be a little like a French-Asian Synecdoche, New York and I couldn’t help thinking a little of Fellini’s 8 1/2, but if you want plot summary with your subject matter description, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place.
Then again, if you are the sort of review reader who wants plot summary, I’m going to go out on a limb and say the film probably isn’t for you. I’m the first to admit that I tend to gravitate towards more narrative film, but I do like to broaden my horizons now and then. Some of the screen shots are dazzling in their beauty, while others are disorienting in that surrealistic way that special effects can’t quite mimic. There is a fair amount of nudity and sexual content, so be advised that while the film doesn’t have an MPAA rating at the moment, I’m quite certain it would be an “R” rated film were it to get U.S. distribution.
I remember three things about the afternoon my parents dragged a 13-year-old me to a famous and local golf tournament: 1.) being bored out of my mind, 2.) having to keep very quiet and 3.) learning what exclusive meant in country club speak.
I’m not sure how it came up, but when it did, when my dad explained that at this club exclusive meant Blacks, Jews, Hispanics and women were not welcome, I was appalled. I wanted to leave immediately. But my parents insisted we stay. We were merely spectators, they explained. Not members. We weren’t complicit in the bigotry. I disagreed (still do). But at least that day I learned something valuable: that wicked things weren’t always ugly and charred. That they can be lush and manicured and that Christians sometimes stood around and applauded them.
So when I read the story of Augusta National Golf Club holding firm to its ridiculous and misogynist membership rules and refusing to offer IBM’s new CEO, Ginni Rometty, the same membership they extended to her male predecessors as sponsors of The Master’s tournament, I expected a familiar furor to bubble up, to boil over. But it didn’t.
Instead something like weariness ran through me.
I suppose I’m just tired of this being an issue. Weary of Old Boys Clubs and “No Girls Allowed” signs. Weary of uber-accomplished women being told they are still not up to snuff—or up to par, I guess—because they are not men. I’m weary of companies proclaiming their misogyny by sponsoring these sexist events. Weary of people buying their products—making bigotry good for business. I’m weary of tradition and fear of change being guiding principles in clubs, in business and—if I’m being honest here—in the church.
But while I can defend Augusta’s—or any club’s—right to exclusivity till the cows come home, the Church can’t be defended for the same. We aren’t allowed to hang up “No Anyone Allowed” signs—not if we want to be like Jesus, at least. And yet we put those signs up. Again and again and again.
Before some of you tense up in defensiveness or get red-faced in your fury, allow me to explain: I’m not necessarily talking about “complementarian” versus “egalitarian” or “progressive” versus “conservative” here. I don’t care which “camp” you’re in, each camp has at least one rickety clubhouse built high off the ground, with a crookedly painted, dangling sign that declares who is and who is not allowed. The Body of Christ is notoriously divisive. Even as Christ himself was notoriously inclusive.
Of course, we all have our reasons. Just as those who support Augusta National’s exclusiveness have all sorts of justifications (there’s good old tradition—along with men needing a place of their own and having to put in women’s tees—and presumably bathrooms! Oh, the expense!), so do we church-folk justify our actions.
Some of us cite Scripture. Some of us cite biology and sexuality. Some of us cite comfort and practicality. We can come up with long lists of reasons why more women aren’t in pulpits or on finance committees and why more men aren’t rocking babies or running VBS.
while there’s always a rhyme or reason, I often wonder, is it ever very Jesusy? Sure, Jesus chose 12 men to be his disciples. But didn’t exclude women from his ministry. He stepped right over some Old Testament laws to allow women to learn at his feet. He definitely thumbed his nose at tradition and overcame biology to kick up the scandal he did to chat theology with a woman of ill-repute.
I’m pretty sure if we look to Jesus for tips on when to include and when to exclude, we see that there may be a time and a place for taping up our “No Girls Allowed” and “Boys: Stay Out!” signs (good news: since this is a blog by women writers and co-founded a writers group for women). But we need to be careful.
In Are Women Human? Dorothy Sayers writes, “We are much too much inclined in these days to divide people into permanent categories, forgetting that a category exists for its special purpose and must be forgotten as soon as that purpose is served.”
Sayers wrote that 65 years ago. And it’s still true today. Once upon a time, I’m sure prohibiting women served a “special purpose” at Augusta National (though, honestly, I’m afraid to think of what that special purpose was). But it seems to me, since the times have a’changed quite a bit, their special purpose today may leave room for women. At least, I hope it does.
Same with our church ministries or events or committees (or blogs or writers guilds!). There are special purposes—appropriate times and places—for men- or women-only in the life of the Church. But if we want to live out Jesus’ command to love God and love our neighbors, we can’t be content to live with segregation as much as do. We can’t allow fear of change or a cling to tradition to keep us from moving or worshiping or serving together as the Holy Spirit might be prompting us.
We certainly can’t be content to claim spectator status and stand behind the ropes and clap when we exclude—when we should be welcoming—one another.
Caryn Rivadeneira is the author of Grumble Hallelujah: Learning to Love Your Life Even When It Lets You Down (Tyndale, 2011), co-founder of Redbud Writers Guild and a regular contributor to Her.meneutics. Visit Caryn at http://www.carynrivadeneira.com.
So I really wanted to love this film, and it probably took me the full ninety minutes and well into the post-film Q&A to decide that I didn’t. Actress Barbara Sukowa mentioned that she had some trepidation playing the part when she first read the script because “nothing much seemed to happen,” at least in the beginning of the film. While she framed those remarks within a context of finally understanding that von Trotta was trying to make a film “more like a Gregorian chant than a Beethoven symphony,” her initial concerns struck a chord with my own uncertainties about the film.
Von Trotta herself responded to a question by assuring the audience that she had researched the subject matter thoroughly, going so far as to say she left out one incident about von Bingen’s life because she was reasonably sure it was apocryphal. That sort of commitment to fidelity is laudable, but it unfortunately tends to lead to a final script that is more choppy than episodic and a character who is more iconic than fully realized.
By way of example, von Trotta mentioned a thread late in the film where the protagonist suffers the loss of an important relationship. The director spoke movingly of how the accumulation of loss led to an “explosion” of emotion that, for her, humanized the character. The scenes she mentioned, though, would have been easier to read as a deeper revelation were a fuller sense of the character already established.
On a more positive note, the integration of von Bingen’s own music into the film was a treat. One of my pet peeves is films that tell us someone is a genius at something–writing, music, art, science–but force us to take the film’s word for it. When the nuns perform a musical opera of von Bingen’s own composition, there is a soaring harmony of spirit and drama that left me wanting to experience more of von Bingen’s art itself rather than art about von Bingen.
For those in the same boat, I asked my colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Rambo (a specialist in medieval studies) for a few recommendations. She mentioned Sabina Flanagan’s biography Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary Life (Routledge, 1989) as a good starting point. She also mentioned that the ensemble group Sequentia has recorded performances of von Bingen’s music. The film definitely left me wanting to hear more on that front.
Scheduled for tomorrow: My Tehran for Sale, All Fall Down, The White Ribbon, The Disappearance of Alice Creed.
Guest blogger Kenneth R. Morefield, an English prof at Campbell University, is writing about the Toronto International Film Festival for CT Movies.
