Page 1283 – Christianity Today (2024)

This week is the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, and we're lucky enough to have updates from the festival every day. You can read the first one here.

She's Lost Control, directed by Anja MarquardtOnly Lovers Left Alive, directed by Jim Jarmusch

Even after snagging an award from Cicae at the Berlin International Film Festival and a scheduled run at the Museum of Modern Art later this month, Anja Marquardt's She's Lost Control strikes me as a long shot to escape the festival circuit. Even if it did, its subject matter—the work of a sexual surrogate named Ronah (Brooke Bloom)—is only going to interest a fairly narrow swath of viewers.

The film does everything it can to play down the sensationalistic aspects of the subject matter, using its first act to rather leisurely educate those of us who haven't seen The Sessions into what sexual surrogates do. By the time it gets around to depicting the actual sexual encounters, the film has repeatedly had Ronah frame the interactions in clinical, therapeutic terms.

Yet as the title hints, redefining or relabeling an act doesn't necessarily materially change its essential qualities or effects. Rhetorical control—the power to name an act—turns out to be just as illusory as the power Ronah thinks she has to protect her privacy or decide when she wants to have a baby.

The film nicely portrays the psychological and emotional costs of needing control and of trying to get it by compartmentalizing all the components of your life. But it never uses Ronah's experience to ask questions about broader cultural assumptions about surrogacy or even sex in general. Did Ronah ever have control in the first place? Was her life plan flawed in conception, or only in its execution?

Speaking of premises that might be hard to sell to Christian audiences, Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive features Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, and John Hurt as vampires named Eve, Adam, and . . . Christopher Marlowe?! It turns out vampires are pretty good artists, but in order to protect their anonymity, they must get their work out through human proxies that will claim it as their own.

The idea that everything good in culture came from vampires—that humans are worthless both in their lives and production–is cynical enough, without invoking the Biblical associations that come with Adam and Eve. The vampires derisively call humans "zombies," but it turns out the joke is on them. As humans become more debauched in the modern world, it is harder and harder to find ones that have not contaminated their bloodstream with chemicals, drugs, and poisons. Turns out even a vampire has to eat healthy to stay healthy.

That twist is clever, and clever twists are hard to come by in the vampire genre. Even so, most people (myself included) don't like being told they are a member of a worthless species. I might have adored a film like this that played up its ironies by having the vampires work, like exasperated parents or harrowed heath officials, to get humans to take care of themselves. Instead, Adam and Eve come across as the idle, listless, rich, even when Adam gets his "zombie" collector (Anton Yelchin) to commission a wooden bullet cased in brass. Mia Wasikowska shows up as Eve's bratty sister, Eva, and Jeffrey Wright plays a nervous doctor who is Adam's supplier of untainted blood.

The film is admittedly gorgeous to look at. Swinton is the epitome of androgynous sexiness, and Hiddleston does the seedy musician with just enough life left to make you imagine how well he would clean up. Jarmusch's camera lingers over the beautiful and the ugly long enough to make us see elements of both in nearly everything we look at.

Has it really been thirty years since Jarmusch gave us Stranger Than Paradise? I wonder what vampire gave him that script?

Kenneth R. Morefield is an Associate Professor of English at Campbell University. He is the editor of Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema, Volumes I & II, and the founder of 1More Film Blog.

Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel is a joy to watch.

There's probably other, better opening review paragraphs that would give you context into how the movie was made, and plug it into some sort of higher-order chronology of Anderson's filmography (which has now officially tipped over into "prolific").

But actually watching the movie trumps all those concerns, especially with Grand Budapest—precisely because this is perhaps the most narratively involuted film that Anderson has crafted to date.

I'll try and present this as clearly as possible: the film opens with a girl reading a book, titled The Grand Budapest Hotel (Layer 1). TGBH is, within the universe of the film, a book written by the unnamed Author, played by Tom Wilkinson (Layer 2). Tom Wilkinson then recounts his visit as a young man to the bi-eponymous Grand Budapest Hotel, his younger self portrayed by Jude Law—this is Layer 3. Jude Law's character encounters the notoriously mysterious Mr. Mustafa (F. Murray Abraham), who then recounts to Law how he came to run the hotel—back when he was known only as Zero (Tony Revolori), and worked for the concierge-savant Mr. Gustave (Ralph Finnes)—Layer 4.

Generally, the more "meta" a narrative is—that is, the more layered, convoluted, self-aware of its own fictitiousness—the more self-indulgent the movie seems. But Grand Budapest is none of those things. It's somehow relentlessly clear (somehow the above paragraph makes much more intuitive sense when you watch the movie, not less), beautifully stylized, wonderfully executed. It's hard to explain in non-hyperbolic terms why this is such an achievement.

Perhaps the clearest explanation is that The Grand Budapest Hotel feels like the first film in years whose formal intricacies complement its content, rather than compose it. In other words: all the fancy stuff Anderson does behind the camera—the divisive stuff that I felt was almost gratuitous in Moonrise Kingdom, the meticulous self-aware artsy-ness of the whole endeavor—actually serves the story he wants to tell, not the other way around.

The first thing I heard about the movie that made my ears perk up was that the different timelines would be shot in different aspect ratios (most prominently different in Mustafa's narrative, where the camera resembles an Instagram-like square), signaling to the audience when what ishappening where. I suspected this would be just a distracting trick, or something that's just "kind of neat."

But instead of just doling out nice tricks to make the audience feel smart, Anderson has reasons for doing what he does. Each layer of the narrative succumbs to an Inception-like stylization the further down you go, starting with the fairly realistic Girl in the opening scene, progressing down to Mustafa's memory.

All of that is rendered in vivid reds and purples. Violence and action are animated with the halting unreality of Fantastic Mr. Fox. In Jude Law's character's memory, the lighting shifts dramatically every time Something Important is about to happen; Wilkinson's older variation of the same character addresses the camera head-on, mimicking cinematically the feel of reading a book.

This is easier to see when contrasted with the last two non-Batman Christopher Nolan movies, The Prestige and Inception. Nolan clearly loves film as a medium, and both films are metaphors for movie-making. They both movies announce what they're doing as they're doing it, whether it's The Prestige's overt three act structure or Inception's refusal to provide closure regarding what's "really real."

But in my opinion, both those movies (excellent movies, by any other standard) fail to be more than just About Themselves. The fact that both movies are both about movies doesn't open up the experience of watching them, but it closes it down, collapses all interpretations into a single correct one.

Against those backdrops, then, Grand Budapest is a breath of fresh air. Anderson has made a formally interesting movie that's also deeply human.

There are narrative levels, sure, and you could interpret Grand Budapest as being about movie-making. The costumes are over the top. The color palettes are hypersaturated. But these things open the film up to interpretation rather than shutting it down. By questioning the direct "truth" of memory, Anderson invites us to think about how we remember things—whether through the bright saturated haze of Instagram filters or listening to someone tell a story.

Grand Budapest is marketed as an ensemble film, but there are only three real (which is to say, human-seeming) characters in the film. Over twenty actors' roles are more or less plot-motivators, broad caricatures of human beings. And that's for the best—the three "real" characters we meet are remarkably memorable. Both incarnations of Mr. Mustafa—his older self, portrayed with almost incomprehensible warmth and sensitivity by F. Murray Abraham, and Zero, his quiet and determined time spent as a bell-hop—are deeply relatable, from Mustafa's grief over lost love to Zero's insecure insistence that Mr. Gustave not flirt with his new girlfriend.

To say nothing of Ralph Finnes' performance as Mr. Gustave—considering my penchant for hyperbole, I'm gonna have to refrain from saying almost anything. Suffice it to say: most modern feel-good movies present you with characters you can either love and enjoy, or ones whose humanity is believable; Finnes has merged the two into one insanely cheery, insecure, generous, strict, loving, combative, honorable character.

You almost can't describe Mr. Gustave without also calling him the opposite—he is brave and cowardly, strong and weak, sweet and cold—and if that isn't the definition of a human character, I don't know what is.

I'm pretty sure one of the primary functions of art is "to express something about what it means to be human." I haven't always been sold on Wes Anderson's movies—I, being the suspicious curmudgeon I am, always had trouble figuring out if his movies were about more than how good of a filmmaker Anderson himself was.

But The Grand Budapest Hotel isn't just a fantastic argument for Anderson as artist—it's probably the best formally interesting movie that's also meaningful in years.

Caveat Spectator

All this said, The Grand Budapest Hotel may be highly whimsical, but it's not devoid of teeth. It's rated R for language, some sexual content, and violence. Somewhere in the ballpark of a dozen and a half f-words, and probably about half over again as many s-words and other third-string obscenities. Different people make jokes questioning Mr. Gustave's sexuality, and one uses a derogatory term for hom*osexuals.

Mr. Gustave frequently has affairs with the older residents of the Grand Budapest—we see a brief (perhaps half-second) shot of an older woman seeming to perform oral sex on him, but it's obscured and details are (gratefully) imperceptible. Some prison scenes contain nude pin-ups, but Anderson's style and cinematography render them about as harmful as a scene featuring Greco-Roman nude sculptures in an art gallery. When two characters steal a painting, they replace it with a graphic drawing of two women engaged in sexual activity—full "nudity" is on display, but it's so shocking and offensive (intentionally) that it's rendered almost totally non-sexual.

The film has several moments of shocking—if cartoonish—violence. A man's fingers are cut off by a sliding door; a woman is decapitated off-screen (her head is removed from a picnic basket and is briefly seen); a man is shoved off a cliff. A cat is thrown through an open window; we don't see its impact, but we see its residue from afar, and see a character carry around its remains in a bloodied burlap sack.

Jackson Cuidon is a writer in New York City. You can follow him on his semi-annually updated Twitter feed: @jxscott.

This week is the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, and we're lucky enough to have updates from the festival every day. Below is the first.

Chef, directed by Jon Favreau

Every high school student knows that the ancients had three categories of conflict: man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. himself. To these, modern film adds one: creator vs. critic.

Of course, we also learned in high school that not every text should be read as veiled autobiography. But what if the protagonist (Jon Favreau) is a brilliant chef played by the writer/director himself?

What if that protagonist wants to challenge himself but is threatened with termination by his boss (Dustin Hoffman) if he deviates from the tried and true menu/formula?

What if that protagonist tells his blogger critic (Oliver Platt) not once but twice that bad reviews hurt his feelings?

What if the artist himself introduces his film by saying he is glad for the opportunity to do a smaller film because they don't have to please everyone, can be about lessons one has learned in life, and can be more than just another escape fantasy?

If we take Favreau at his movie's word, directing Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Cowboys & Aliens must have been quite a dreary affair. And apparently true geniuses are too busy innovating to figure out Twitter. Favreau told the opening night audience at SXSW that he has a lot of "eight page" scripts from ideas that generated enthusiasm but cooled before he could flesh them out. The idea for Chef stuck with him, however, refusing to be consigned to a someday-before-it's-too-late project.

The result is a film that is as familiar as the comfort food that Chef Carl Casper rediscovers when his professional meltdown goes viral and leaves him with neither joy in his work nor the security for which he compromised his passions. But fortunately for the artist and the audience, the extended metaphor between director and chef holds true in this part as well—familiar fare can be quite pleasing when it is well prepared. If the beginning of the film feels a bit like a fusion of Ratatouille and Big Night with a side of Kramer vs. Kramer, the latter half has a few twists in store. The most welcome one is that the film doesn't also knead in the sports genre and climax with some high pressure, competitive cook-off for all the proverbial marbles.

Even the best chef needs a good team behind him, and Favreau gets solid support from John Leguizamo as a loyal sous chef, Oliver Platt as the critic-nemesis, Sofia Vegara as Carl's ex-wife, and Emjay Anthony as his son. Robert Downey, Jr. has a hilarious cameo, and Scarlett Johansson and Dustin Hoffman contribute in smaller roles that don't normally attract such big stars.

Favreau the director makes food preparation look exciting and even, at times, sexy. Perhaps a greater accomplishment is that as a writer he forges a father-son relationship that feels authentic. Percy (Anthony) is a good kid who is frustrated with his dad but hasn't yet given up on him. Carl learns that he has to figure a few things out (besides Twitter) for himself before he can begin to teach his son what is really important.

The father-son scenes are sentimental and surprisingly tender without being maudlin. They are so good, in fact, that they made me notice something I usually don't pay much attention to in modern films: bad language. Early in the film, Carl expresses discomfort at the use of the excremental explicative around Percy, but as the film progresses that element of self-discipline never gets addressed—not even after dad explains to son that a really good chef who loves what he does shouldn't let even one burnt sandwich go out to the customer.

But that said, it would be a real shame if the film ended up with an "R" strictly because Carl can't control his tongue. That complaint will sound nitpicky to some, but experience tells me that if the swearing is enough for me to notice, it's enough to bother some viewers who might otherwise find the film delightful.

That element of the film is a bit like having three mouthfuls of a great entrée and then getting a salt bomb in the side dish. It might not be enough to ruin the whole meal, but it sure is disappointing when you thought you were well on your way to four stars.

Kenneth R. Morefield is an Associate Professor of English at Campbell University. He is the editor of Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema, Volumes I & II, and the founder of1More Film Blog.

Recent reports telling how Mark Driscoll's book reached the top of a bestseller list have left Mars Hill Church calling the campaign "unwise," but not "uncommon or illegal."

Driscoll has recently faced scrutiny for citation errors in a study guide. Now, his book Real Marriage, which Driscoll coauthored with his wife, Grace, is receiving intense attention concerning how it became a New York Times No. 1 bestseller.

In 2011 and 2012, Mars Hill reportedly paid a marketing company ResultSource Inc. (RSI) $210,000 in a contract designed to boost the book to the bestseller list. In a 2011 document, the deal's main purpose was:

"to conduct a bestseller campaign for your book, Real Marriage on the week of January 2, 2012. The bestseller campaign is intended to place Real Marriage on The New York Times bestseller list for the Advice How-To list."

Aggressive book-marketing campaigns raise ethical questions about the use of church resources and manipulation of bestseller lists.

The document asked Mars Hill to buy 6,000 individual orders and supply RSI with addresses to deliver the books through a third party. In addition, Mars Hill purchased 5,000 bulk copies and provided 90 different addresses for the shipment of the bulk copies, according to the document signed by Matt Miller of RSI and Mars Hill general manager (and current executive elder) John Sutton Turner.

Warren Cole Smith broke the story for World.

In a statement on the church's website, Mars Hill's Board of Advisors and Accountability declared that it "stands unreservedly" behind Driscoll and the executive elders. Among other issues, the board also responded to the church's marketing campaign for Real Marriage:

While not uncommon or illegal, this unwise strategy is not one we had used before or since, and not one we will use again. The true cost of this endeavor was much less than what has been reported, and to be clear, all of the books purchased through this campaign have been given away or sold through normal channels. All monies from the sale of Pastor Mark's books at Mars Hill bookstores have always gone to the church and Pastor Mark did not profit from the Real Marriage books sold either at the church or through the Result Source marketing campaign.

Driscoll is not the first author to use RSI to get to the top of bestseller lists. According to its website, the marketing company's campaigns are a "sequence of actions all designed to produce clearly defined objectives within limited timeframes and with limited resources."

One of those objectives: attaining bestseller status.

"Publishing a book builds credibility, but having a Bestseller initiates incredible growth—exponentially increasing the demand for your thought leadership, skyrocketing your speaking itinerary and value," the website explains.

The deal between Mars Hill and RSI did achieve its goal—at least for a week. Real Marriage landed a No. 1 spot on The New York Times bestseller list on January 22, 2012. The book was already absent in the top 10 the following week; then, two weeks later, it came back on the bestseller list at #12 for another two weeks. These short stints were enough for Driscoll's official biography to call attention to it.

Mars Hill has received more than $200,000 from sales of Driscoll's book, church spokesman Justin Dean told World.

CT reached out to Thomas Nelson, the publisher of Real Marriage, about Mars Hill's dealings with RSI.

"On occasion, authors will hire additional marketing assistance for book campaigns, apart from what the publisher provides. In this case, it was not our decision, nor were we a party to the agreement," said spokesperson Casey Francis Harrell.

Meanwhile, in a recent interview with CT's sister publication Leadership Journal, Driscoll explained why he has not left Mars Hill to write books full-time:

I'm probably at the point that I could write books and speak and hang out by my pool and coach Little League. But I don't want to do that because I really love our church. I'm a local church guy. My belief is that Jesus gave his life for the church and he honors those who do the same.

In January 2012, CT interviewed Mark and Grace Driscoll about Real Marriage.

(RSI document courtesy of Warren Throckmorton)

One of the longest-serving leaders of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) will call it quits after this year.

The WEA, which represents 600 million evangelicals worldwide, announced today that Geoff Tunnicliffe will conclude his tenure as secretary general and CEO in December instead of seeking a third term in 2015. He was elected in 2005 as the WEA's 13th leader after leading global initiatives for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

"Geoff is leaving the WEA in great shape. His contribution to the work has been outstanding," stated Ndaba Mazabane, chairman of the WEA's International Council, in a press release. "God led Geoff to us in His providence and has now led him to leave the position to younger leadership to take on the role as the WEA moves on to make a renewed contribution to a changing worldwide Church."

"I believe the future of the WEA has never been brighter as we experience unprecedented opportunities for global Kingdom impact," stated Tunnicliffe.

CT interviewed Tunnicliffe about seeking peaceful elections in Sudan. The WEA recently issued worldwide evangelism guidelines in conjunction with the world's largest Catholic and mainline bodies. It also supervised the creation of bible translation guidelines to (hopefully) end a Wycliffe controversy over Bibles for Muslims.

Launched in 1846 to "unite evangelicals worldwide," the WEA currently has 7 regional and 129 national Evangelical Alliances, as well as over 150 member organizations.

[Photo courtesy Tom Albinson – Flickr]

Streaming Picks

The beginning of a new month brings a new batch of movies to stream. Netflix has made Pokémon available—two movies and 48 episodes of Pokémon: Black and White. For those who love thrillers (or are watching Hannibal on TV), the critically acclaimed The Silence of the Lambs, with Jodi Foster and Anthony Hopkins, is also available. For romance, watch Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey fall in love on the dance floor in Dirty Dancing. Or for some good laughs with the family, try Stuart Little, one of my favorites growing up.

Critics Roundup

It's a big day at the box office—with some big names too.

300: Rise of An Empire, a sequel to 300, releases today. While there are many reviews of Rise of An Empire (and can all be found here), it seems critics are in agreement: the movie's strength is also its weakness. The Dissolve says it does what most sequels do–"doling out more of the same in even greater doses." Yet its biggest draw is the "immersive imagery and shameless spectacle."

Robin Williams makes an appearance in The Face of Love, in which recently widowed Nikki (Annette Bening) falls in love with her late husband's doppelgänger at an art museum (both are played by Ed Harris). The Dissolve praises Bening's performance but says nobody told her the film would be "a dopey-quasi thriller rather than a devastating quasi-thriller." The A.V. Club says the film presumes that a story and string score are enough to carry a movie. But one amazing performance might be all you need to take a chance on The Face Of Love.

Grand Piano, with Elijah Wood and John Cusack, is about a concert pianist and—a psychopath? Indiewire praises director Eugenio Mira for "breathlessly" combining artistic anxiety and personal desperation. But The Dissolve calls it an unabashed B-movie: the writer, Damien Chazelle, has "created the blueprint for an entertaining bad movie."

Movie News

Though it really tells us nothing of the plot, the first teaser trailer for season 7 of Mad Men is out this week, and that's enough to get excited about. Read more and watch the trailer here.

Almost a year ago we learned Veronica Mars would be returning, but this time on the big screen, funded by fans. Now it's almost time for the new film to be released and the New York Times has all the information you need.

But the funniest piece of news from the week might be the painful moment at the Oscars when John Travolta called Idina Menzel "Adele Dazeem." The best part is that you can now "travoltify" your own name. Enjoy!

Heather Cate is a spring intern with Christianity Today Movies and a student at The King's College in New York City.

Bryan College faculty overwhelmingly issued the first no-confidence vote against their president in school history after trustees clarified the creationist nature of the school's Statement of Belief.

The statement, which all faculty and staff (and some student leaders) must sign, includes a point about human origins, which trustees on Feb. 23 clarified to highlight the historical and particular persons of Adam and Eve.

The faculty outcry, focused more on how the change was done rather than what was changed, is the latest sign of how the creation-evolution debate has shifted to the search for the historical Adam, prompting a resulting crisis of faith statements.

The student newspaper, the Bryan Triangle, broke the story. World reports more details.

Bryan College was notably founded in honor of William Jennings Bryan, the lawyer who opposed evolution in the high-profile Scopes trial.

The clarification, which highlights the college's stance toward the Genesis story, reads: "We believe that all humanity is descended from Adam and Eve. They are historical persons created by God in a special formative act, and not from previously existing life forms."

The current statement of beliefs reads: "[We believe] that the origin of man was by fiat of God in the act of creation as related in the Book of Genesis; that he was created in the image of God; that he sinned and thereby incurred physical and spiritual death[.]"

Faculty supported the no-confidence vote against President Stephen Livesay 30–2, with six abstentions. At that Feb. 25 gathering, the faculty also voted 38–1 to ask the board of trustees for a one-year moratorium on signing contracts that include the clarification.

A related student government petition was signed by about half the student body, reports World.

The board of trustees responded with a statement affirming Livesay's leadership. "Bryan College's desire is to stimulate critical thinking, educating students within the framework of a biblical world and life view," stated the board. "The Board of Trustees is confident that under Dr. Livesay's leadership we are achieving that objective. "

Communication Studies professor Chris Clark told the Triangle that the vote was based on the cumulative effect of many events the college administration handled poorly in the eyes of faculty. "We also see the Statement of Belief as a symptom of a larger series of crises in leadership," he said.

Faculty opinion has routinely been ignored in college decisions, natural sciences professor Stephen Barnett told the Triangle. "Effective leadership should seek wisdom where it may be found and involve stakeholders in decisions that affect them," he said.

The new language "is in no way a change to the Statement of Belief. It is the current and historical position of Bryan, an institution founded and existing on a strong Creationist position," according to the college.

John Carpenter, a journalism professor at Bryan, told the Times Free Press that the updated language could be seen as "the narrowing of a position that doesn't need to be narrowed."

In February, Bryan hosted a chapel discussion between Todd Wood, a young-earth creationist researcher, and evolutionary creationist Darrel Falk. At the end of that talk, college president Stephen Livesay made a statement.

"Scripture always rises above anything else. Scripture rises above science," he said. "Science at some point will catch up with the scripture."

The BioLogos Foundation explores how a grant it gave two Bryan professors, as well as the visit by Falk (a BioLogos senior advisor), might have played into the clarification.

"In giving a grant to Eisenback and Turner, and in appearing in the chapel conversation, BioLogos certainly did not intend to stir up controversy," wrote president Deborah Haarsma. "Rather, we welcomed Bryan's invitation to support charitable dialogue about origins. Although Bryan's position differs from ours, we hope that this dialogue can be renewed and encouraged rather than stifled going forward."

Bryan's board of trustees is assembling a steering committee to "address critical issues about Creation" and possibly produce a position paper on the topic.

CT previously reported on the origins debate and the recent Ken Ham/Bill Nye debate on creationism and evolution. In addition, CT explored how William Jennings Bryan won the battle but lost the war against teaching evolution.

CT has reported on a number of Christian colleges where professors' views on human origins have caused controversy, including Cedarville University, Erskine College, and Campbellsville University. CT also examined whether it matters why faculty believe their school's faith statement.

In addition, CT also reported how two Bryan professors teamed up to write a textbook for homeschoolers to include more viewpoints beyond young earth creationism.

(photo by Sue Hasker/Flickr)

Early in 1994, a small church in a strip mall near Toronto Pearson International Airport had thousands of people waiting at its doors night after night—50,000 unique visitors, as we'd say today, in the first six months of the year, enough to make it "Toronto's top tourist attraction of 1994," according to Toronto Life magazine. The Toronto Blessing was falling.

Laughing, falling over, shaking, roaring like a lion, and being "drunk in the Holy Spirit"—the Toronto Blessing was a charismatic revival featuring manifestations of spiritual power more commonly associated with the Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries. Thousands registered first-time conversions to Christianity at the services. Every evening people lined up to stand or fall under shouts of "More, Lord!" while hands were laid on them in prayer.

The atmosphere felt just the same as it did 20 years ago as I made my way through a crowd that had turned up two hours early to celebrate the revival's anniversary on January 20, 2014. The services were held at Catch the Fire, formerly known as the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, which was the Toronto Airport Vineyard at the revival's inception. The church has grown from its storefront to a 3,200-seat auditorium, 8 satellite campuses, 23 church plants, and a global Catch the Fire church network.

I hadn't been back to the church for a long while, but I was drawn to this celebration. I was grateful for what I had received there 20 years before. As a side task, I had taken CT up on its invitation to write about my reunion experience.

A Mixed Blessing?

In 1994, I was a young reporter assigned to cover the Toronto Blessing. I was significantly discouraged aboutChristian ministry at the time. In spite of my angst, I was curious about the bizarre stories of spiritual manifestations coming from the airport church pastored by John and Carol Arnott. I remember going to the back of the church, phoning my sister, and complaining, "Everyone is getting this 'Father's blessing' here but me." My charismatic sister told me to put down my notepad, stop being a reporter, and just receive. What I experienced was so significant that I divide my own spiritual journey into pre- and post-Toronto Blessing eras.

My sister's advice still applies. It's hard to rationally account for the results of the Toronto Blessing over the past two decades. A few themes, though, are consistent. This revival attracted people who wanted their spiritual condition to change, and it commissioned people to live for God's service and glory. Such spiritually charged events often devolve into massive scandals—like the one that enveloped evangelist Todd Bentley in the wake of Florida's "Lakeland Revival" of 2008. Not so with the Toronto revival, which has had a remarkably scandal-free track record.

Many of the Toronto Blessing's critics have moderated their concerns in the last two decades. Dr. James Beverley, professor of Christian thought and ethics at Toronto-based Tyndale Seminary, published one of the most detailed examinations of the revival, Holy Laughter and the Toronto Blessing, in 1995. At the time he concluded that the revival was at best a "mixed blessing," with an undue emphasis on extreme and bizarre manifestations and a tendency to exaggerate claims of signs, wonders, and prophecies.

Nearly 20 years later, Beverley strikes a more appreciative tone, emphasizing the positive and lasting impacts of the revival. "Whatever the weaknesses are, they are more than compensated for by thousands and thousands of people having had tremendous encounters with God, receiving inner healings, and being renewed."

Beverley is still reluctant to identify the more extreme phenomena of laughing, crying, "birthing," or roaring as straightforward manifestations of the Spirit of Christ. He interprets them as signs of deep pain and a need for emotional and spiritual comfort. "The whole thing is an indication of how much people want to feel close to God and have a sense of his presence. This does not excuse or explain everything…. To know it in detail, you would have to inspect story after story, but there is no doubt that the vast majority of people have been helped, and there have been radical conversion experiences and radical renewal in many lives."

That renewal has had far-reaching and long-lasting effects. One of many famous visitors to the revival was Nicky Gumbel, best known as the leader of Alpha. The Guardian reported in 2000 that "a quarter of a million agnostics have found God through Gumbel." And they reported that "the Toronto Blessing was the kick-start Alpha needed."

"I don't talk about it now," Gumbel told The Guardian. "It divides people. It splits churches. It is very controversial. But I'll tell you—I think the Toronto Blessing was a wonderful, wonderful thing."

Beverley thinks the harshest criticisms of the movement were always overblown. "This has largely been a great movement because it has led people to Jesus. There are dangers, and the revival could have been even better than it has been if its leaders had controlled some of the movement's weaker elements. But overall, I have never worried about the Toronto Blessing as a dangerous cult-like movement. I am happy that the renewal has lasted two decades."

His remarks hint at something of a shift in his own evaluation of the movement. "My concerns have changed a bit. I regret saying that they did not give enough attention to Jesus. I think that was too hard. The leaders and the people—they love Jesus. We all do not give enough attention to Jesus."

Carpet Time

I ended up attending for a week in the Toronto revival's early days. On those nights I was prayed for I spent a few hours of my own in "carpet time," the Catch the Fire term for what happens when people are knocked down, "slain in the Spirit," and leave mysteriously strengthened and renewed in their love for God.

The 20th anniversary contained all those same elements. Not much has changed in the Arnotts' attitude and approach. The love of John, now 73, and Carol, 71, for their staff, congregation, and visitors seems unforced and unfeigned. They still see themselves as "stewarding what God is doing."

During the anniversary meetings, the Arnotts welcomed international Vineyard Church leader Blaine Cook to the reunion stage. In 1996, the American Vineyard Board and Council decided to cut the association's ties with the Canadian congregation. At the time, John Wimber stated that the Toronto revival needed more emphasis on "the main and plain things in Scripture."

At this reunion, the two distinct churches apologized for any hurt the separation may have caused, emphasizing their shared love and respect for God's work in their organizations. Vineyard pastors around the world now engage with the "Revival Alliance," a group that includes the Arnotts, Bill and Benni Johnson, Randy and DeAnne Clark, Georgian and Winnie Banov, Che and Sue Ahn, and Rolland and Heidi Baker—all global charismatic leaders of movements that expanded as a result of the Toronto Blessing.

To some critics, the Revival Alliance extends beyond the boundaries of mainstream Christianity. Beverley notes the connection between several Revival Alliance members and the New Apostolic Reformation, which tends to grant extraordinary amounts of power to particular "apostolic" leaders. Beverley sees Catch the Fire as largely distinct from these more radical movements, but the relationships and mutual endorsem*nt remain.

One figure who links the Revival Alliance with the New Apostolic Reformation is Randy Clark, a former Southern Baptist pastor who preached for 42 of the first 60 consecutive days of the revival in 1994. His preaching opened the 20th-anniversary revival conference, with his familiar text (John 7:37–38) and familiar theme of developing a "thirst for more" of God.

When asked about unorthodox elements or exaggerated claims of spiritual power among members of the Revival Alliance, Clark responded, "Our unity is not based on doctrinal agreement. Our unity is based on the experienced presence of God and how it renewed us and our commitment to a gospel of the kingdom."

"Our legitimate critics would say we are weak on a theology of suffering, and I think it's an appropriate critique," said Clark. "But I am convinced we have a solid biblical basis for what we teach. I believe my critics have an under-utilized eschatology. They're putting off into the millennium what God has made available for the present."

I have nothing but admiration for the leadership and members of Catch the Fire, and their ministry in our metropolis. But I do wonder how they manage the expectations encouraged by the style of prayer practiced at Catch the Fire and by Revival Alliance leaders. Hoping for a "magic touch" in prayer can manipulate people into yearning for a particular style of "anointing." They start to hunger for the visible manifestations of bodies fallen, resting peacefully, or shaking uncontrollably as if by a mysterious voltage. Their hope for physical healing is often disappointed.

And what do you do during the long seasons when you walk with little sense of experiential "anointing"? Those years of normal life when the Word made flesh, the enduring truth of the Resurrection, is all you have to go on?

The anniversary was a good time for me to reflect on these questions. I know I received a profound inner healing at the revival. We have been given beautiful gifts in the Toronto Blessing, and beautiful gifts too in those who critique it. I'm thankful that in God's wide family we have both—servants who steward Word and Spirit.

Lorna Dueck is the host and executive producer of Context with Lorna Dueck. Context's Stephen Lazarus provided additional research for this article.

Dear Church,

I trust this letter finds you sustained by your Groom as you face bombings and threats on one side of the hemisphere, and attacks of a more offhand sort on the other. By now you have likely received word of a popular blogger confessing his boredom with your recent Protestant iterations, noting that he instead connects with God by building his company. At the least, I was heartened to see it spark a lively discussion about who you are and what exactly the Spirit had in mind when he showed up in Jerusalem 1,980 years ago to kick off this whole crazy thing. (I imagine those are sweet memories for you, seeing your people giving their things away with abandon, like it was the end of the world.) As you near your 2,000th birthday, we rugged individuals in the land of a thousand denominations are wise to get reacquainted with you.

Outside your walls, of course, you continue to be derided for all manner of intolerance, backwards thinking, and political apathy. But inside your walls, at least from my narrow vantage of Christendom, you are quite the hot ticket these days. A whole generation of evangelical Christians has grown impatient with inherited ways of gathering together.

From pastors like Eugene Peterson, we have learned to question modes of worship that mimic the mall and the stadium. From theologians like Robert Webber, we have discovered a much longer and richer history than our Sunday school teachers ever mentioned. We bandy about words like ecclesiology and sacramentality to demonstrate our new, sophisticated ways of thinking about you. Just this week, we wore our ashes proud. And when the popular blogger confessed to finding you a bit hard to get through, we were quite ready to pounce with charges of individualism and narcissism, and proclaim our love for you, the institution.

You might think I'm writing to throw my lot in with your strongest defenders. After all, I've faithfully attended one of your high-church Anglican iterations for seven years, watching with disdain as peers hop from building to building, seeking an "awesome" and "powerful" worship experience (and attractive members of the opposite sex). Instead, I'm writing to apologize. While claiming publicly to have loved you as Christ does—like a spouse—in spirit I have loved you like an on-again, off-again fling. My faithful attendance suggests a radical commitment to gathering with your people. But many Sundays, my heart is still in it for me. And while I think the blogger is ultimately misguided about his relationship (or lack thereof) with you, I can appreciate his honesty. At least he's not leading you on.

Here's where I need to confess my true feelings about you, Church: The romance of our earlier days has faded. The longer I have known you, the more I weary of your quirks and trying character traits. Here's one: You draw people to yourself whom I would never choose to spend time with. Every Sunday, it seems, you put me in contact with the older woman who thinks that angels and dead pets are everywhere around us. You insist on filling my coffee hour with idle talk of golf, the weather, and grandchildren. As much as I wax on about the value of intergenerational worship, a lot of Sundays I dodge these members like they're lepers. (This is of course my flesh talking, to borrow a phrase from one of your earliest members.) Many Sundays I long to worship alongside likeminded Christians who really get me, with whom I can have enlightening, invigorating conversations, whom I'm not embarrassed to be seen with in public. I confess to many times lusting over one of your sexier locations, wondering if I would be happier and more fulfilled there.

It hasn't helped that you have made growing demands of me, something I also confess to resenting. Truth be told, it strikes me as a bit clingy. I've now served on the church board, played piano at Friday night worship services, taught Sunday school. You also want me to give you money every week—when I still have student loans to pay off? I am there not to be served but to serve, of course. But I do wonder when these investments of time and energy will pay off. A bit of appreciation from fellow members would help.

While we're at it, let me make one more confession: I resent how much you want to go out these days. I don't understand why we can't stay inside and reconnect over a cup of wine. After a stressful workweek, I want to be renewed and refreshed, to feel myself falling in love again with the Groom. I want the kind of connective mornings we had when I first met you. I admit to finding our morning routine a bit snoozy as of late, especially on Sundays led by a guest preacher. (Another sports metaphor?) And you think going out and mixing it up with refugees and orphans and homeless people is what we need? Granted, their needs are a bit more tangible than mine, but I'm starting to think mine are being ignored entirely.

Well, this letter turned out to be more negative than I wanted. But with all the conversations about your central place in the life of God's people, I needed to put all my cards on the table. And to apologize. Because even though in practice the aforementioned blogger and I are worlds apart, in spirit we are more similar than might be assumed. The difference is that I mask my Sunday morning self-centeredness with a "nuanced" theology of worship.

I believe your Head would have choice words to describe me. Make no mistake: Until he changes my heart from the inside out, stoking in it an ever increasing flame of sacrificial love for you, I'm no better than a whitewashed tomb—or, to put more fine a point on it, a worshiper who in truth longs to get back under the covers.

In remorse—and hope,

KRB

Katelyn Beaty is managing editor of CT magazine.

Whenever the media depicts God, we Christians are quick to offer our assessment, often based on the physical features of the portrayal. Too white. Too dark. Too hippy. Too sexy.

The recent blockbuster Son of God, which brought in $26 million its opening weekend, joins a long line of these on-screen Jesuses and off-screen analyses.

If we're older, we may have laughed at 1977 Oh God star George Burns. We considered charges of anti-Semitism against Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. Many evangelicals, including Billy Graham, have lent endorsem*nt to Prince of Egypt's God. Some of us have encountered a daring black God in Bruce Almighty or the female one, played by Alanis Morissette, in Dogma.

Rarely, though, do we focus on the good, the spiritual and emotional dimension, that can come from Hollywood's efforts to give God a face and voice. At this point, it's inevitable. Whether we mean to or not, we discern the contours and expressions of God's face, the tone of kindness or judgment in God's voice, and the media's portrayals can shape our imagination.

Think back to the classic 1956 film The Ten Commandments. Charlton Heston, who played Moses, pitched himself to director Cecil B. DeMille to play God's voice in the burning bush.

"You know, Mr. DeMille," Heston ventured, "it seems to me that any man hears the voice of God from inside himself. And I would like to be the voice of God." In the modern vernacular of the Hebrew Bible people, we call that chutzpah.

DeMille hedged, "Well, you know, Chuck, you've got a pretty good part as it is."

But the chutzpah got him the gig. Though not listed in the film's credits, Heston's deep bass voice is heard when God speaks from the burning bush. I'm convinced that that conversation, half a century ago, is the reason old-timers at my church insist that a previous pastor with a deep booming voice "sounded like God."

Given the recent success of Son of God, I wonder what this depiction of Jesus will have lent to our shared consciousness about who God is. What will we have gleaned from the face of Jesus that's been given flesh by Diogo Morgado?

I don't mean the actual Portuguese face—though, thank you, Hollywood, for not casting blonde-hair-blue-eyed Jesus. I don't mean the sound of the cast's proper English dialect. Rather than judging this Jesus by his physical features, what I'm searching for, what I'm listening for, is the emotional tone Morgado has given to Christ. I wonder: Is Jesus sort of worn out by people's faults and foibles? Or does Jesus show authentic affection for people? Is Jesus' voice heavy with judgment for sinners like me? Or is it light with kindness? Is Jesus rattled by our humanity? Or does his gaze communicate, "I see you. And I know who you really are"?

With the possible exception of Passion of the Christ, no popular God-image has caused quite the furor in the evangelical community as William P. Young's 2007 book, The Shack, which assigned to God the human form of an effusive full-bodied black woman.

Those who were offended rattled off a long list of reasons the unusual portrayal was "unbiblical," "heretical" and even "dangerous." Yet many found the character of Young's "Papa" God to match the God described in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures—wise, kind, loving. When tears welled up behind the eyes of Mack, the story's protagonist, Papa coos, "It's okay, honey, you can let it all out…I know you've been hurt, and I know you're angry and confused. So, go ahead and let it out. It does a soul good to let the waters run once in a while—the healing waters."

Young's imaginative representation of the first member of the Trinity allows me to connect more deeply to the God described in the Scriptures who is gracious. Who is kind. Whose mercies never fail. That's a win, in my book. God's, too, I'd expect.

And to the degree that Diogo Morgado puts authentic flesh on a God-man who moves toward those who've historically been assigned to the world's margins, who graciously welcomes sinners and who loves people as they are and not as they should be, he has given authentic face and voice to Jesus. Because of it, the eyes and ears of my heart are drawn toward the gracious Jesus I meet in the New Testament.

Charlton Heston's comment that each of us hears God's voice from inside ourselves is, in real measure, true. When the voices and images we've gathered from the culture and tucked into our deep places match the God revealed in the Scriptures—as Hollywood's portrayals, on occasion, actually do—we're closer to, not further from, encountering the God who is true.

Margot Starbuck invites readers to consider the face they've given to God in her new book, Not Who I Imagined: Surprised by a Loving God. Connect at MargotStarbuck.com or on Facebook.