Why We Can't Have Nice Things

I am a movie buff to some extent, although I probably read about them more than I watch them. I have a particular type of movie that I’ll see in a theater, another that I’ll wait to watch on a streaming service, and another that garners my interest because it’s culturally significant, for good or for ill. Sound of Freedom, the surprise hit of the summer movie season, falls into the latter category, and while I may read about it, I probably won’t go to see it.

Before anyone accuses me of being indifferent to the scourge of human trafficking, especially of children, I have no issue condemning the practice and donating money to causes that seek to eradicate it. Our church and many others in central Virginia support Freedom 4/24, a local charity dedicated to preventing and raising awareness of human trafficking and restoring people rescued from trafficking.

However, I haven’t been inspired to see the film, even as it became an international sensation. The first reason is broad and personal; I’m not particularly eager to watch films about man’s inhumanity toward man. I don’t need to visualize it to know its horror, and I am so emotionally invested in what I watch that it hurts me to witness human trauma.

I love history, but some parts claw at my soul; I didn’t watch 12 Years a Slave when it came out because even the thought of that true story was unbearable. I could picture myself in Solomon Northrup, a free man who made a life for himself in society but was suddenly dragged into 12 years of chattel slavery. I would have died of despair long before the 12 years were up because of losing my dignity and liberty, and I am in awe of Mr. Northrup’s resilience and faith. I haven’t watched Till despite its historical significance for a similar reason. I should point out that I’m not suggesting these films don’t have great cultural or artistic significance and, therefore, shouldn’t be made. Human trauma has a profoundly painful effect on my psyche; there is enough of it in history and the present day to disturb my soul without willingly subjecting myself to it on a movie or television screen. Portrayals of black trauma hit particularly close to home.

Likewise, I don’t want to spend two hours in a dark movie theater watching children abused and exploited. I’m sure the movie focuses more on the heroics of the protagonist rescuing the children, and there’s nothing more inspirational than a hero coming to save the day and protect the innocent from evil. Still, the depictions of human trauma would be too much for me. That brings me to the second reason I’ve no desire to watch the film.

Jim Caviezel was once one of my favorite actors. The movie Frequency is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi thrillers, and I was a faithful fan and viewer of the television series Person of Interest, in which he played a vigilante who protected people from harm in partnership with a computer scientist whose machine gathered and correlated data to predict crimes before they happened. His monotone voice, calm and confident manner, use of stealth and shadows, and skilled fighting techniques, along with his dapper attire, earned him the moniker from the local police, “The Man in the Suit;” it had a Batman vibe to it that appealed to the Dark Knight fan in me.

However, he is arguably most famous for his portrayal of Jesus in the movie The Passion of the Christ, which I watched with a contingent of congregants from my church, not unlike what many churches are doing today with Sound of Freedom. However, I wasn’t prepared for the scenes of torture and execution, and while others have added it to their Easter viewing rituals, I haven’t watched it since it came out. Jim Caviezel would have us believe that his role in the Mel Gibson-helmed film made him untouchable in Hollywood circles. It is probably more accurate to say that he shunned parts that would reflect poorly on his beliefs as a conservative Catholic. His conditions for employment made it very difficult to cast him.

Still, none of that addresses the second reason I’ve no desire to watch Sound of Freedom. While Caviezel was once a favorite actor, he has disappointed me with his full embrace of QAnon, described as “the umbrella term for a set of internet conspiracy theories that allege, falsely, that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles.”

While I concede that I often have to wear blinders when indulging in modern entertainment to distinguish between the art I enjoy and the artists who behave outside of their performances in ways that don’t appeal to me, the alignment of his outlandish beliefs and the film’s topic is too precise for me to ignore.

It wasn’t until I read a recent interview with the director, Alejandro Monteverde, that my views began to moderate somewhat. Contrary to the link many in the media and center-left ideological circles have made between QAnon child abuse conspiracies and the film, the director says he began working on the story before QAnon emerged and that a network news segment in 2015 inspired him. In the interview, he stated, “We shot in 2018. In 2019, it was a completely finished film [before QAnon became a phenomenon].”

While he commended Jim Caviezel for his personal commitment to the role, he regrets that a film and a topic that should generate a broad multi-partisan consensus has become a flashpoint in the culture wars because Caviezel and Tim Ballard, the real-life figure on whom the film is based, brought a political taint to his passion project because of their association with QAnon and right-wing causes. He also laments how the relationship with Angel Studios, the film’s distributor and the sponsor of faith-based shows and movies like The Chosen and His Only Son, plus the enthusiasm of the evangelical community toward the film, have led to his movie being called “a Christian thriller,” among other things. He insists there are only a few references to religion in the movie and desires that it will be seen by “people of faith, people without faith, and everyone in between.”

Conversely, fans of the film claim a concerted effort by Hollywood liberals to prevent the film from being shown, which the director also debunks. He said the film was delayed initially due to Disney's purchase of Fox, the original rights-holder, in 2019. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and people were looking for escapist, feel-good entertainment, and a film about child sex trafficking didn’t fit the bill. He made a deal with Angel Studios post-pandemic, and the film was finally released. Sometimes, the truth isn’t particularly dramatic or controversial.

Still, the compulsion to manufacture a persecution or suppression narrative where none exists has prompted breathless videos on social media purporting to show theaters shutting down screenings of the film using faux emergencies or malfunctioning equipment as the culprits. I don’t have the time or patience to evaluate every one of these viral videos, but considering how desperate the theater industry is to get people to come back to the cinema after their near-death experience during the pandemic quarantine, the notion of them driving off paying customers defies common sense. The studio and cinema owners denied the conspiracy claims and expressed their pleasure at the movie’s financial success.

So here we are in 2023 when everything is evaluated and judged through a partisan political lens, and how we feel about a topic, event, work of art, or anything is determined more by which side we embrace than what the evidence shows. Songs are immediately scrutinized for their political meaning, even if none was intended, and breathless op-eds are written from differing perspectives. Frankly, it’s exhausting and a sign, in my opinion, of our nation’s imminent demise as a united democratic republic. Consider these words, written 234 years ago:

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

It’s as if George Washington had peered into our future in the late 20th and early to mid-21st century and saw precisely what’s happening to us today.

Did we not “Seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual” who “turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty”?

Haven’t our divisions, reflected in the behaviors of our elected officials toward one another, served to “distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration”? Friends, that is the precise description of today’s government gridlock!

Are we not plagued by “ill-founded jealousies and false alarms” leading to “the animosity of one part against the other,” which “foments occasionally riot and insurrection”?

Hasn’t the belief within each tribe that the opposing tribe, individually and collectively, is an existential threat to the republic's existence made us susceptible to “foreign influence and corruption”?

As I read these words written over two centuries ago, I got chills down my spine. As a student of history, I am amazed at the collective wisdom and foresight of the men assembled together in one place to create the United States of America. One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Acts 17:26:

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.

By God’s hand, these exceptional men were placed here at a particular point in history to establish a great nation based not on a common culture, language, or ethnicity but on an idea that all people are equal as image-bearers of God and are inherently worthy of liberty and dignity. Because of this, it disturbs me deeply that so many of them were either unable or unwilling to acknowledge the yawning chasm between their ideals and the horrendous practice of chattel slavery or the subjugation of the land's indigenous inhabitants. That is a topic requiring greater exposition than this post allows.

George Washington’s Farewell Address is considered one of the nation’s most remarkable documents and was once held in the same esteem as the Declaration of Independence. Over time, it has been largely forgotten except by historians, and we have failed to benefit from its extraordinary prescience. Like many of his contemporaries, Washington studied history and read the Bible, so he was well-versed in the dangers of tribalism, a malady to which free nations are particularly susceptible. While acknowledging that partisanship can keep governments in check, he warned that, without vigilance, its excesses could lead to it “bursting into a flame” and “instead of warming, it should consume.”

Jesus said, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls” (Luke 11:17). Sixty-nine years after Washington presented his Farewell Address, senatorial candidate and future President Abraham Lincoln gave his famous speech constructed around Jesus’ words, “A House Divided,” speaking to the fractured state of the union in his day. Less than three years after he gave that speech, the nation was embroiled in a civil war that eventually killed or maimed more Americans than any conflict in our nation’s history. Moreover, we are still wrestling with the questions and consequences of that war in the present day.

Is civil war our destiny, and is the fifth and final stage of the life cycle of empires truly upon us? The fact we can’t be civil about and come together over a movie depicting deplorable crimes against children doesn’t inspire hope. Our discourse is dominated by people intent on causing division regardless of the topic, and as Paul told his companion in ministry, Titus:

As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned. (Titus 3:10)

However, the spirit of division has permeated even our churches. It goes beyond the historical divisions by denomination; congregations are divided over politics, culture, art, even beer. As such, they offer no sanctuary from the ways of the world.

Where are the peacemakers?