Kingsman: The Secret Service -- In theaters now!

For quite a few years now, Hollywood has had a villain shortage. I’m not saying there aren’t bad guys in movies anymore. But the screenwriter's challenge has been to find villainous groups.

    

Back in the day, Westerns had Indians (no, they were never called Native Americans then) as the bad guys. So there could be action sequences where dozens of Indians were shot off their horses by our heroes, the Cowboys, with reasonable assurance the audiences would cheer their deaths. But now that we think of them as Native Americans (and, you know, people), cheering their deaths just doesn’t seem like the American thing to do.

The Nazis made great villains, from a little before World War II to well beyond. When the Dirty Dozen (made in 1967) attacked a ballroom full of Nazis, no one was too concerned that some of them were pretty women in gowns. As Indiana Jones said, “Nazis, I hate those guys.” But Nazis now are a little pathetic; sure they’re villains in The Blues Brothers, but comic, mockable villains.

    

Communists provided fine villains throughout the Cold War, but that’s been done for decades now. Terrorists would be the go-to villains, but since the terrorists we’re concerned with are Islamic terrorists, that causes a problem. Hollywood has a concern about not portraying all Muslims as bomb-happy; a reasonable concern.

         

 So what does a screenwriter do when they want to have a set-piece with a lot of human carnage that won’t upset audiences unduly? The makers of the spy film, “Kingsman: The Secret Service” found their solution in the church.

         

SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS

         

To talk about the movie church in this film, we need to give away major plot points. This shouldn’t greatly disturb some of our readers because “Kingsman” is hardly a film that will be used on a church’s family movie night. There is extreme violence and gore in the film, but some of it is animated and stylized to show it’s all in good fun. There is a crude gag used at the end of the film that might lead James Bond himself use the word "misogynist."

         

But as always, we aren’t here to review the film, but the church and clergy in the film.

         

As I said, the filmmakers had a problem. The arch villain in the film, Valentine, has developed technology to make people viciously attack and kill each other. He must find a group of people to test the tech on. Since he sees himself as a sweetheart (played by Sam L. Jackson) he’s not going to test it in a kindergarten class.

         

So we are introduced to the South Glade Mission Church. This fictional church is obviously based on the sadly real Westboro Baptist Church, which gained fame by protesting at military funerals with the twisted rationale that the government supported homosexuality.

         

In the film, South Glade Mission Church is preaching against Jews (the preacher uses this word), workers in the sex industry (he uses a different word), Catholics (he uses this word), gays, and African Americans (alternate words for the latter two). The super spy, Galahad, played by Colin Firth attends this service as part of his investigation.

         

During the service, Valentine activates his device and everyone in the congregation attacks one another. Apparently, knives and even guns are brought to this church only a little less commonly than Bibles. Bloody chaos ensues, but since Galahad has more experience at hand-to-hand combat than the average usher, he eventually stands alone over a sanctuary full of corpses.

         

It seems that filmmakers are saying, in this world full of division, isn’t this a group we can all hate together? In the past, there have certainly been individual clerical villains (Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter comes to mind), but now apparently whole congregations can be the bad guys.

         

If this hateful congregation, far from the teachings of Jesus, is the image anyone has of the church of Christ, then it seems Christians have some P.R. to do.

         

(Bonus clergy bit in the film. One can see a tabloid with the headline, “Naughty Nun Touched My Bum.” And theological bonus, Valentine argues that he isn’t a villain for wanting to cull the world’s population any more than Noah or God in the story of the Flood.)

-- Dean

Why Do We Have Fake Churches Along With the Real Ones?

If you're a curious (or should I say inquisitive?) person, you may have asked this question. We’ll try to be as faithful every week posting about a church from a movie as we are posting every week about a real church we visit. And there’s a reason for that.

In the Western world, it's pretty easy for a person to go through life without going to a church or meeting a member of the clergy (for better or worse, you've met me), and it's also easy for a person to think they know all about the church and pastors and priests and nuns because they’ve seen it all in the movies. But all some people know about church is what they get from the media, and more often than not, the movies do a lousy job depicting churches; not just the negative portrayals, but inaccurate portrayals as well. 

It isn’t necessarily a bad thing when churches are portrayed negatively. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing when a member of the clergy is portrayed as crook or a fool or a pervert. Because there are bad churches. There are members of the clergy that are pretty awful. 

But often these negative portrayals are created by people who seem to have no idea what they are talking about. They get all the little details wrong, leading to getting the big picture wrong. And if all the churches and clergy are shown in a negative light, then they aren’t getting things right. Because though Richard Dawkins would not agree, there are some really good churches and really good clergy people out there. Seen it for myself.

If we are a part of the church, and want to introduce people to the real church, we may find it useful to deal with the expectations people have from seeing Bing Crosby as a crooning priest and Robert Mitchum as a homicidal preacher and even Whoopi Goldberg as a phony nun if we consider these things for ourselves.

So we’ll keep traveling to churches at work in the real world. But we’ll also keep visiting the fake ones, because they’re working in the imaginations, hearts and minds of people who need the God who is worshipped in real churches.

Movie Churches, Oscar Division -- "Going my Way"

Is there anything more riveting than church finances? I guess there are a million things or so. But really, that's what Best Picture Oscar winner "Going My Way" (1944) is all about. Like every melodrama of the 19th century, the film is about paying the mortgage.

The film opens with Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald) begging the president of Knickerbocker Savings and Loan for an extension on their mortgage AND money for a new furnace. Fitzgibbon established the church 45 years before and yet still has a mortgage, which the church is six month behind in paying.

There are subplots in the film only tangentially related to the money thing. Bing Crosby, as hep young priest Father "Chuck" O'Malley, comes to the church to help out. He turns a gang of young turkey thieving, slang spouting hoodlums into a boys choir (with happening tunes like Three Blind Mice). Both priests try to counsel an 18 year old "runaway" woman that she shouldn't pursue a career in show business, but rather settle down as a wife and mother (spoiler, she eventually takes their advice). And there is a gossiping elderly woman in the church named Mrs. Quimp. The priests never give her biblical counsel about the sinful nature of gossip, but instead listen to the gossip, then call her a biddy behind her back. But really, the film is about the Benjamins.

To start with, not knowing the history of the finances of St. Dominic's, a church hasn't paid off the mortgage after 45 years has probably been irresponsible with their resources. In fact, though O'Malley insists that "every respectable church has a mortgage," there are many congregations that with planning, wisdom and foresight, and God's grace, avoid debt.

I've been in churches in financial straits. They usually take the following steps:

1) Pray. This has always been the first thing done; bring the church's cares to the One who "owns the cattle on a thousand hills". Doing this never discussed by the priests in the film.

2) Look for places to cut. But no, when O'Malley comes to the church, he starts spending. He takes his boys' choirs to movies and ballgames (To be fair, the baseball tickets are free. For some inexplicable reason, the New York Yankees seem to give unlimited tickets to Chuck because he used to work out with the Cleveland Browns).

3) Look for other sources of revenue. This could include things like renting out the facilities or selling off property. Father O'Malley does this. He tries to sell a song he wrote to music publisher. This is a financial act roughly on the level of buying lottery tickets to get out of debt. I can just imagine if I'd gone to church trustees saying, "I've got a plan for making the budget work! I'm going to write a best-selling novel." But since this is a movie, the selling-a-song thing (spoiler) works.

4) Bring the problem to the people. At the beginning of the film, the Savings and Loan president suggests to Fitzgibbon that he should do a sermon encouraging giving. The priest scoffs at the idea, saying he's not going to preach the mortgage agreement. (The president also suggests he could speak on being a "cheerful giver", a reference to II Corinthians 9:7, which may be more reference to Scripture than either of the priests makes during the film.) At the end of the film, Fitzgibbon does preach about giving, and O'Malley tricks him into thinking the sermon works --even though it's money from the song that saves the church. Deception is a fairly regular practice for these priests.

The thing that annoyed me most in the film is the way the money lenders are portrayed as bad for wanting to the church to meet its payments. This kind of arrogance and assumed privilege is what gives the church a bad name in the world.

But let me conclude on a more "spiritual" note. We learn that Father O'Malley became a priest so he could show that religion isn't a drag, but can be fun. His theology can be found in the lyrics of the title song, which he writes as his testament of faith. In conclusion, I invite you to exegete the lyrics:

            This road leads to Rainbowville

            Going my way

            Up ahead is Blue Bird Hill

            Going my way

            Just pack a basket full of wishes

            And off you start

            With Sunday Morning in your heart

            Round the bend you'll see a sign

            "Dreamers Highway"

            Happiness is down the line       

            Going my way

            The smiles you'll gather

            Will look well on you

            Oh, I hope you're going my way too.

May I just say to that, "Amen" or "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo" or something.

-- Dean

What's Happening in 2015

Mindy and I (Dean writes) will be starting an adventure in the year 2015. We will be visiting churches throughout California on a thematic basis (megachurches/home churches, urban churches/rural churches) and we would like you to join us. Just for fun, we'll also be writing about our visits to churches in films, churches in history (real and imagined) and will be writing about church trends, quirks and peeves.

All this is in preparation for an even bigger adventure in 2016 when we plan to visit a church in every state. Bookmark or follow this site now and join our church pilgrimage.