The profundity of director Kevin Smith’s movies can be charted in the evolution of his recurring drug-dealer character, Silent Bob (a part Smith himself plays). In Smith’s first two and most juvenile films, Clerks and Mallrats, Silent Bob’s quietude was a mix of Zen detachment and stoned disinterest. Then Bob broke his silence in Smith’s more intelligent third film, Chasing Amy, to deliver a monologue driving home the movie’s point; at last he had something important to say. If that’s the case, then Silent Bob’s transformation in Dogma from zoned-out observer to full-fledged participator—he still doesn’t talk but he communicates frantically in mine-like pantomimes—gives us an indication that now Smith has something really important to say. In fact, Christians would agree it’s really the most important thing anyone can say: God is sovereign and Jesus is Savior.
Not Afraid of LifeFew 20-year-olds write memoirs. Fewer still see their books on The New York Times bestsellers list. But Bristol Palin has turned her three years in the national spotlight into a publishing success. Like many public figures, Palin employed the help of a professional writer, in this case Nancy French, a writer and activist who co-founded Evangelicals for Mitt (EFM) in 2005. Today, French and EFM continue to campaign for Mitt Romney among evangelicals, many of whom are wary of supporting a Mormon candidate.Palin told Christianity Today that French’s backing of Mitt Romney was not a problem, even if Palin’s mother, Sarah, ran for president, too. “Regardless of who she votes for politically or anything like that we’re still going to be really close,” Palin said.French is no stranger to memoir writing. She has two of her own. Her latest, released less than two weeks after the Palin’s Not Afraid of Life, is Home and Away, written with her husband about his decision to enlist. Nor is this her first co-authored memoir about someone in the political spotlight: In 2007, she was hired to help Ann Romney write her memoir on life in the Romney family. That project remains an as-yet unpublished manuscript.French started campaigning for Romney’s first try at the GOP nomination through EFM. French, her husband (who is senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund), and others formed EFM. Their first target was the 2006 Southern Republican Leadership Conference. The SRLC is a gathering for Bible-belt conservatives, just the type of social conservatives who look sideways at Romney because of his religion and his record as Massachusetts governor. Supporters sported t-shirts that read “Yankee Governor, Southern Values.” EFM helped Romney win second place behind Sen. Bill Frist (who was the home-state favorite).After the SRLC straw poll, French and other founders of EFM were named as vice-chairs of the Romney campaign’s National Faith and Values Steering Committee. Later, French was hired by the Romney campaign to help it get on the ballot in Tennessee (French’s home state).Today, EFM remains a small but effective group. It describes itself as a “first and foremost, group of friends.” On Facebook, it has around 900 supporters (compared to over one million for the main Romney page). Last year, Romney again won the SRLC presidential straw poll even though Romney skipped the event. That support could be traced directly back to the work of EFM. Like most straw polls, voting is not free. Voting is open to attendees only, who pay at least 9 to go to the conference. According to The Washington Post, EFM gave away 200 tickets for free to Romney supporters. As a cosponsor of the event, EFM also gave out merchandise and hung banners in the exhibit hall. The time, effort, and over ,000 in tickets paid off. Even though Romney skipped the conference, he won the straw poll by one vote over Rand Paul. It was a win that The New York Times, The Washington Post,Fox News, and other media took as a sign of Romney’s possible support among southern conservatives.
Cleanliness is less than godliness
Dogma is a kind of comic fable that centers around a lapsed Catholic (Linda Fiorentino) whose faith is gradually restored when God calls her to stop two fallen angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) from trying to reenter heaven, thereby negating all existence. Along the way she trades humorous theological banter with those who gradually join her party: messenger angel Metatron (Alan Rickman), a thirteenth apostle named Rufus (Chris Rock), who was left out of the Bible because he was black, former muse Serendipity (Salma Hayek), and Smith mainstays Silent Bob and Jay (Jason Mewes), who are raised to the status of prophets in this film. If it sounds like a jumbled mess, that’s because to some degree it is. From a pure filmmaking standard, Smith’s story is overlong and disjointed, he’s drawn uneven performances out of his cast, many of his punchlines fall flat, and his special effects are horribly cheesy. Really, only a glimpse of who God is gets through the bluster.But again, consider his audience is one that would more likely pick up a comic book than a novel about the Tribulation, or tune in to South Park instead of a TV movie about Mary. A glimpse of God coming from a peer’s honest wrestling with religion might wake a spiritual hunger more effectively than a lecture of a thousand pat answers could. Smith’s complex depiction of God—powerful, patient, righteous, joyful, wise, merciful, and utterly beyond our comprehension—tells audiences that perhaps they haven’t thought enough about who God is to dismiss him so casually. And by all reports it’s working: USA Today‘s Susan Wloszczyna writes in her review, “I personally haven’t thought this deeply about the religion of my birth since being confirmed,” and Charles Taylor of Salon.com says, “if Dogma can move an old agnostic like me, it can move anybody.”
Our God is an awesome God
Does the movie have anything to say to the community of believers? I believe so, although the message arrives more like an indictment than encouragement. For example, Cardinal Glick (George Carlin) unveils a promotional campaign called “Catholicism Wow!” in order to attract parishioners, which includes retiring the crucifix and replacing it with “buddy Jesus”—a cartoonish Jesus giving a big wink and a thumbs-up sign. Nothing in the film made me laugh harder than the absurd buddy Jesus, and nothing convicted me so forcefully. I know that I struggle, in an affluent America where I rarely feel need, to rely on Jesus as the bread of life, to see him as the awesome savior and majestic king instead of a ticket toward well-being. I forget sometimes that the Christian life isn’t about my needs but others’. There’s a scene later in the movie where Metatron tells Bethany about the time he had to tell the 12-year-old Jesus who he really was. Smith humanizes Christ here, letting us see him as a person instead of just an icon.If Smith is criticizing the church at all (he characterizes it as “ribbing”), he’s saying that icons of God, church dogmas (plenary indulgences take a big hit in the film), and ritualized practices of faith are not the complete picture of God and our relationship to him. Any time we think we understand who God is and know his will, Smith argues, we are shortchanging God’s immensity, his sovereignty over all creation. Now, I could make pointed rebuttal arguments championing creeds and dogmas as sustainers of faith and boundaries of community; the film ignores that side of church doctrine. But I would rather take his overarching assertion to heart: Let God out of the box I keep him in.
Watch where you step
Probably no one would dispute that there’s some truth in Dogma; the controversy is focused instead on the mixture of that truth with theological inaccuracies and just plain surreal components. (The gang fights off a monster made out of feces, for instance.) Some of the inaccuracies are obviously—and probably intentionally—wrong, such as the inclusion of muses, who are part of Greek mythology. Some are incorrect but probably due to sloppy writing more than anything: One character says it doesn’t matter what you have faith in as long as you have faith (pluralism alert!), but little else in this pro-God film would support that idea. Some are incorrect only according to Catholic beliefs, such as Mary having more children after Jesus, but do not run against Protestant beliefs. Still others are statements which Christians still disagree on, such as the assertion that the Bible was supposed to be written gender-inclusively, but not necessarily wrong. And then there are some that are only barely inaccurate, like Rufus’ background. A black man named Rufus does appear in Mark 15:21. He was probably a disciple, since Mark’s mention of him by name only implies the early church’s familiarity with him, although chances are he wasn’t one of Jesus’ inner circle, as the film suggests.Now, to some people’s way of thinking, this mixture of truth and falsity makes the movie dangerous, since viewers could have a hard time separating the wheat from the chaff. But my guess is that Kevin Smith never intended for the audience to swallow the movie whole; he’s trusting viewers to understand that much of the film is tongue-in-cheek. (Casting himself as a prophet is clue number one.) I think his intention is to prod audiences to think and search and seek instead of looking to be spoonfed easy answers. And despite his ribbing of Catholicism, I think he points viewers toward the church at the end of the film by depicting the building as the dominion of God. As far as primers for modern American Catholicism go, this one is raucous, naughty, and somewhat scrambled, but it’s the only one that has dared to reach out to the Beavis and Butthead set. In front of an audience that’s cynical about everything, Smith questions his own faith with no restraints and finds that when the dust settles his God still stands.Steve Lansingh, who writes the weekly Film Forum department for ChristianityToday.com, is editor ofthefilmforum.com, a weekly Internet magazine devoted to Christianity and the cinema.Related ElsewhereIn yesterday’s Film Forum, Lansingh looks at what Christian critics are saying about Dogma, as well as The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, Pokemon: The First Movie, and other top films.The official Dogma site includes a “Hate Letter of the Week,” still photos Kevin Smith shot while filming news about the film’s reception, a diary from the set, message boards, and other stuff.Ted Olsen, online editor for ChristianityToday.com, had a preview article (click here, then scroll down) of Dogma in the November/December 1998 issue of our sister publication, Books & Culture. (After seeing the film, he has changed his mind on a couple of points.)
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