Movie Review: "Letters to God"

I love to watch movies. Last Friday night, (“Friday Night in the Big Town“ for us Elledge’s), we watched a movie called “Letters to God.” It is this movie I’d like to address.

Over time I’ve noticed that my blog has moved from a weekly account of what new adventures we have embarked on to whatever I feel the Lord has laid on my heart. I know writing is a tool to communicate. I know this tool has been entrusted by me … at least for this season in time. More and more I get a sense that this blog has become a means of expressing more than just my life. It’s a way to communicate a bigger picture, a bigger way of life, a bigger angle at looking at God.

I really enjoyed the movie. I liked that I could sit and watch something with a positive Christian message with my girls. I laughed; I cried. It was the best of times … and I fear the worst of times. Why? My perspective has shifted without me realizing it. This movie illustrates the perspective change.

Living in a post modern culture, a culture that morality is self dictated and religion old-fashioned, the concept of Grace is seldom seen and less seldom experienced, another believer is rarely encountered because less than 1% of the population have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ … I found the movie to be … fluff.

Let me define fluff.

Fluff = idealistic, a break from reality, in a word – untrue.

The movie has predominantly “Christian” characters. In this movie world, the immediate family, the neighbors, the co-workers are all Christian. The post man discovers God through a series of hardships and embraces a new life. The main character dies, but dies a death that is noble and followed by a legacy of change, hope, and leaves the world a better place than when he entered it. Good.

I’m not being a synic, but I’m bothered. I’m bothered that this cut and dried image of Christianity is so welcomed and accepted in America. If most of my friends were to watch this movie, they would see it as a modern day fairy tale. It illustrates the “come to us - we the Christians - and find God“approach we have taken to show a dying world the grace found in living an abandoned life in Jesus Christ. When the seeking come to the church, to the right Christian people, live their lives right, things go as they should. Yes, there is hurt, but it’s covered up by the love and hugs of friendly Christians that make all things better.

Wake up. If we be neither hot nor cold, God spits us out. I fear, dear friends, we are in the throat of our Creator, getting ready to be spewed out. Our lack of hot or coldness has given a bad and incorrect taste in the mouth of the lost world.

Where are those that live out a life of radical difference? Where are those that stand for something? Where are those that wear their faith on their foreheads?
Most “radicals” come tattooed, pierced, heads shaven and beards unshaven. They may not stand for the truth, but they stand for something. What does that “church” stand for?

I love the “church”. It’s the full expression of God’s love for human kind. What I don’t like is the way man has adulterated the way the “church” expresses itself: clean, well—groomed, full of hugs and fake inquires and lunch invitation that never get fulfilled. What does the “church” stand for? How is the “church” different from the world?

If we stand for nothing, we are exposed to everything. That is what I fear the “church” has embraced. We are full of good people and good intentions, but we’ve turned a blind eye to the true reason we exist … to embrace the darkness, the lostness … to be a beacon on a hill … to go out and touch the hurting not stand clean and pressed and ask the hurting to come to us.

Our “Letters to God” lifestyle is on the way out, friends. If we be wise, we would fall on our faces and ask God to show us what to do next. Maybe we abandon the next Bible study where we make plans for our next tea and get on our well groomed knees and cry out before a holy God to clean our hearts and open our eyes. What if we skipped the next Bunko party with our Christian friends and asked the Wal-Mart clerk how her day was going … and really listened? What if our post man was struggling to find meaning in life … would we notice? What if we quit expecting the lost to find their way into our hallowed halls of church life and went to them?

Calculate the times we’ve been afraid to speak of Jesus at work. Ponder the times we didn’t speak about our faith in God, creator of the universe, because we were afraid the PTA would find it offensive. There are plenty of messages being thrown out today, the least one being thrown is the truth.

In my quest to be real with God, I find myself more and more on my face, asking forgiveness for being too unwilling to be a spokesperson for the truth of Jesus Christ. Would you join me in being real with God? Would you have the courage to let it all hang out, be cleaned and made new … and open your voice? The stakes are high if we do. The stakes even higher if we don’t.