Thursday, August 7, 2014

The Best Christian Film of 2014 is....

Comment sections are the best. Honestly, sometimes the comments on a website or news story are better than the original content itself. I was browsing on a movie website recently, and I saw a reader mention how he thought Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a better Christian film than Heaven is for Real, which was released around the same time. Being an avid Marvel fan myself, this set the wheels turning in my head.

I'm an advocate of looking for spiritual truth in unusual places. Too often, Christians view the world through lenses that parse everything into neat "Christian" and "Secular" categories. Movie studios and record labels leverage this in their financial favor by making films that fit into the highly marketable Christian niche. This year, we've seen a high number of faith-based films released in particular, but I believe we can mine out so much value from everything we view and hear.

The fact is, a movie can't be Christian -- only people can claim beliefs. Many so-called secular films contain elements of spiritual truth, if only you have the eyes to see them. With all that being said, I believe that Captain America: The Winter Soldier displays outstanding representations of the Christian faith through its main protagonist, the star-spangled warrior himself. Sounds crazy, I know, but hear me out. Here's three reasons why ol' Cap can teach us a lot about the faith.

1) Steve Rodgers (Cap) embodies Christ-like virtues.


Without a doubt, the hero of this film is a noble man. He fights for the innocent, never abuses his physical superiority and maintains a humble attitude despite his accomplishments. I don't have a man-crush on Steve Rodgers, I promise, but if you really examine the character, you will see much of what any Christian man wants to be. He was brave before he was strong. He's selfless enough to sacrifice himself for others. He believes that good can triumph over evil. Curiously enough, his weapon itself speaks volumes. Strategically speaking, why carry a shield? Why not a gun or sword or something else? Because he is a defender of the weak and innocent, not an aggressor.

2) He sees morality in absolute terms.


Rodgers was frozen in the 40's and thawed out in modern times. He awakes to find a cynical and jaded world, far from the moral clarity he knew from his past life. He is surrounded by people that see life in shades of grey, although he views justice in terms of black and white. Wrong is wrong, it is not relative to the situation at hand.  We see this juxtaposition clearly as he hangs alongside Black Widow (played by Scarlet Johannson), who seems to view her work in amoral, relative terms. Absolute truth has fallen out of style in our society, but Cap embraces it regardless.

3) He embraces the saving power of grace.


Okay, if you haven't seen the film, you might want to stop here. SPOILER ALERT, big time. In CA:TWS, we find our protagonists pursued by a deadly assassin called The Winter Soldier. We soon discover that this is Rodgers' old friend Bucky, who was captured, brainwashed, and experimented on to turn him into a rabid killing machine. When faced with the task of fighting his old friend, Cap questions his ability to kill Bucky. In the final battle of this film, Rodgers actually allows his old friend to defeat him, refusing to destroy Bucky for his own self-preservation. This display of grace actually breaks the fever of Bucky's brainwashing, and he saves Cap's life in return before wandering off to re-discover his identity. Cap defeats evil through grace, not violence.

CA:TWS is scheduled for release on DVD as of September 8th. Watch it, and more importantly, open your eyes to the lasting values you can find. Search for a revelation of Christ and you will discover it. Heroes come and go, but this film in particular shows us a character worth emulating in such a simple and universally palatable way.