All Together Separate,All Together Separate (Ardent)

My pick for new Christian group of the year, this California foursome blends funk, jazz, blues and rock with reflective lyrical depth for a mature and original debut. You’ll spot traces of Seal, Bob Marley, Phish and Average White Band, but these guys own a groove all their own. Album highlights include “Eternal Lifestyle,” a hot little number worth the price of admission, and “Something Electric,” the musical equivalent of chocolate mousse. Guitarist Andrew Shirley has something electric when he catches fire on that song and “Truth about God”—the solo is back, ladies and gentlemen. Twentysomethings all, the boys of ATS have a head-turning first effort and a promising future.

Carolyn Arends,This Much I Understand (Reunion)

If you’re not opposed to happy, hooky songs that occasionally get a little sappy or a bit sentimental, you’ll dig Carolyn Arends’ latest. The Canadian singer/songwriter has an uncanny ability to take on the weight of the world with a smile—and in today’s bleaker-the-better pop music scene, that’s nothing to sneeze at. In fact, the first song on This Much I Understand is titled “Happy.” “The Day Will Never Come” affirms Arends’ commitment to her husband without sidestepping the real world (“I may get selfish/I might get sad/I will forget sometimes just what I’ve had” she sings). “Life is Long” has a serious block party vibe going, a la Sheryl Crow. A thoroughly uplifting record from start to finish, This Much stands far above most “inspirational” music.

Jonatha Brooke, Live (Bad Dog)

Jonatha Brooke is among the finest contemporary folk artists around. You’ll see how fine on Live (uh, that’s “live” as in “live performance”), a composite of some of her best-loved songs and a few brand-new ones. Brooke has an exquisite ability to move her listeners into the bittersweet expanses of their own memories—and who can resist taking that trip? “Annie,” a cut off Brooke’s Ten Cent Wings (MCA), has an absolutely haunting melody, and “In the Gloaming” spreads an aching sense of loss. Live is perfect for those rainy afternoons when melancholy is the mood of choice.

Kenny Chesney, Everywhere We Go (BNA)

If you’ve been anywhere near country music lately, you’re sure to have heard Kenny Chesney: “How Forever Feels,” a cut off Everywhere We Go, gets played, oh, about every other song, and then sometimes twice in a row. With an ever-present cowboy hat and a good-natured grin, Chesney looks like the boy-next-door (the one you’re slightly worried might take a shine to your daughter). Looks aside, Chesney has a great album on his hands. While every song could be a hit single, “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy,” cowritten by ersatz Christian country artist Paul Overstreet, and “Baptism,” a duet with Randy Travis, are knockouts.

Bruce Cockburn,Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu (Rykodisc)

The ever mystical and prolific Bruce Cockburn has been drifting along the edges of Christian music for years now, never quite Christian enough to be acknowledged in CCM (his best-known line: “Everything is bulls__t but the open hand”), but often profoundly Christian nonetheless. Breakfast in New Orleans Dinner in Timbuktu visits Cockburn’s usual subjects—women, exotic locales, “aha” moments—but with a world music flavor; his songs drift in and out like scents from an open-air market. Especially appetizing are Cockburn’s three instrumental pieces and his meandering song intros, but most everything on Breakfast will leave you craving more.

Lyle Lovett, Live in Texas (MCA)

Lyle Lovett, most widely known for his brief marriage to Julia Roberts and his distinctive jaw line, is an extraordinarily gifted singer, songwriter (and indie actor) who most often mines hard luck, tough love, and Lutheran roots for subject matter. Unlike 1998’s subdued Step Inside This House (MCA/Curb), a graceful tribute to Texas musicians, Live in Texas is energetic, brassy and more carefree. Lovett’s got a stage full of talent in his “large band,” performing greatest hits like “Penguins” and my personal favorite, “That’s Right (You’re Not from Texas)”—”But Texas wants you anyway.” Texan or not, you’ll have a hard time disliking Live.

P.O.D. (Payable on Death),The Fundamental Elements of Southtown (Atlantic)

After slinking around the Christian underworld for a few years and building a loyal following, P.O.D. finds its stride with a major-label release on Atlantic records. And with the rapcore revolution in full swing, this hard-hitting group is likely to share in the success of artists like Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit. But get this: While Bizkit frontman Fred Durst rants about sex, P.O.D. is all God. Rapper/screamer Sonny leads the charge—”Jah people ride on!”—and it’s never been so convincing. With a blazing remake of U2’s “Bullet the Blue Sky” and the crowd-pleaser “Rock the Party (off the Hook),” Fundamental‘s the Spirit-filled way to thrash.

Switchfoot, New Way to Be Human (re:think)

Introspective lyrics and Christian history references aren’t what you’d expect from three surfing buddies. But that’s what you get with Switchfoot. Brothers Jon and Tim Foreman and pal Chad Butler first revealed their distinctive brand of modern rock a couple of years ago with their debut, enigmatically named The Legend of Chin (re:think). On New Way, they put away the silly titles (though good friend Willis Chin still gets mentioned in the thank yous) and bring up serious subject matter. Try “Sooner or Later,” a song about Søren Kierkegaard’s so-called “leap of faith.” Or “Something More,” a quickie bio of St. Augustine. Pretty weighty, but Switchfoot packages it all into a record that’s a heck of a lot of fun.

Various Artists, Streams (Word)

The best compilation of 1999 also happens to be the most ambitious: take some of the top artists in Christian music, add Michael McDonald (Doobie Brothers), Jon Anderson (Yes) and the Irish Film Orchestra, throw in a classic Peter Gabriel tune and a host of songs written by producer Brent Bourgeois, Michelle Tumes and others—still with me?—and plug it as “A Soundtrack of Hope” for dried-up, broken-down and disappointed people. Somehow, Bourgeois and friends pull off a work that’s astonishingly beautiful and truly cathartic. There is a healing water that courses through Streams, as real as the cracked lives it’s meant to refresh.

Tom Waits,Mule Variations (Epitaph)

Tom Waits has been around long enough to become an institution, but oddly enough, nothing about the man suggests status quo. For starters, Waits is on a label full of street-level punk bands (his style isn’t remotely punk). The songs on Mule Variations are offbeat, with percussion Waits might have found lying around the garage. The spoken poem “What’s He Building?” is a spooky and side-splitting take on reclusive neighbors. “Chocolate Jesus” pokes fun at pop Christianity, and “Big in Japan” should have been dedicated to Richard Carpenter. Waits has a crass, gnarled voice, so you’ll either love him or hate him, but Mule Variations is worth the chance.

The Worst of 1999:

Romans Downey and Phil Coulter, Healing Angel

This album wouldn’t be bad—it’s meditative Celtic music, featuring some outstanding vocalists—if Romans Downey didn’t keep interrupting. TV’s Touched by an Angel star talks over each and every song (even the ancient hymn “Be Thou My Vision”), delivering mostly pseudo-spiritual mumbo jumbo in that patented Irish accent. Granted, she has a pleasant, even mellifluous voice; but who can stomach an album full of lines like this: “Be aware before embarking on your heart’s voyage of discovery that there will be stormy seas and troubled waters before you reach the island paradise of your dreams” (“Loving”)? Yeah, whatever. All I know is, I never want to take a voyage through Healing Angel again.Martin Cockroft is Assistant Editor for Campus Life magazine.

Related Elsewhere

For a second opinion, read today’s other article on the top recordings of 1999, by Dwight Ozard.

Copyright © 2000 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Despite the triumph of vapid (but danceable!) bubble-gum pop, lolita-tart nymphets and manufactured boy-bands on radio, if you invested the energy to spin the dial or scour the record stores, grownup fans of popular music could still find reasons to be exultant in 1999. The following are ten of my favorites, one surprising also-ran, and the two worst I heard this year.

Buddy Miller, Cruel Moon (Hightone Records) Julie Miller, Broken Things (Hightone Records).

This husband and wife team are quickly becoming the heroes of America’s burgeoning alt-country scene, and these two records offered all the reason in the world why. Cruel Moon delivers some of the best twangy, gut-wrenching country playing you’ll ever hear—only Buddy offers it with a playful rock and roll underbelly that punches his songs beyond simple front-porch charm into an energy and urgency rarely found on the rhinestone circuit. Buddy explores the classic country themes on Moon (lovin’, leavin’, bein’ left), but never slips into Nashville cliché—rather, he brings a soulfulness, kindness and generosity to his vocals that made me a true believer in the power of country.Julie Miller’s seventh album, Broken Things, is an equally good disc, but delivers a less-traditional country sound than her husband’s—one that suggests equal parts Appalachia and the Greenwich Village. Julie, who released four records to the Christian market in the early ’90s, has a frail, waifish voice that always sounds ready to break, and that’s its strength—her power doesn’t come from vocal gymnastics or orchestral swells. Rather, Miller’s power is in the transparency she brings to the delivery of her exquisitely crafted songs; listening, one gets the sense that even in a whisper you’re getting all of her in every sound. Add to that the consistent theme of the reach of grace to the weakest that runs through the entire record, and you’ve got not only a breathtakingly lovely disc, but an important one as well.

Manic Street Preachers, This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours (Virgin)

Don’t get fooled by the band’s name: this Brit-pop trio is not a Christian band. Not even close. What they are is astounding: Truth is the most powerful, complete sounding disc I’d heard since Radiohead’s OK Computer, with huge, defiantly produced songs hung together by strong melody, enormous guitars and searing rhythm layered under soaring, unnervingly beautiful singing that is something like Freddie Mercury’s, but minus all the sock-in-the-pants bravado. Truth’s power, however, transcends its sound. MSP’s songs offer as disturbing and bleak a picture of the disintegration of European postmodernity as I can imagine. But don’t let that scare you away; for every terrifying morbidity in the lyrics (there are songs about mass murderers, confused sexuality, creeping fascism, longing for redemption and, of course, lost love) there is twice as much musical grace—making the record, in fact, surprisingly transcendent. Easily my favorite record of the year.

Tom Waits, Mule Variations (Epitath)

Waits’ voice can only be described as the sound of a whiskey-soaked, chainsmoking, grizzled vagrant. Coupled with the stunning, surprising depth of his songwriting and the dizzying complexity of the sounds he creates around them, and his singing takes on a mythic, nearly biblical, quality that at once has the perspective of a back-alley brawl and angelic overseer (a la Wim Wenders). In the gutter Waits discovers kindness and passes it along to us.

Billy Crockett, Simple Plans (Walking Angel Records)

I’ll confess to a conflict of interest right away in suggesting this collection inspired by the CCM veteran’s work with Habitat for Humanity. But even if I didn’t work for the homebuilding ministry, I’d still recommend this disc to anyone who loves finely crafted, clever, and moving songwriting, flawless guitar-playing, and great vocals. Moreover, Crockett’s songs take the task of storytelling and theology in equal stride, offering anecdotes and observations that simply and profoundly make a point: if there’s grace to be found (or shared) in this life, it will be in the moments when the unlovely are offered love. A great record.

Beth Orton, Central Reservation (Arista)

Orton’s second solo disc, Central Reservation (Arista), is a postmodern triumph. The English songwriter has found a way to blend traditional folk-pop song structures with a production that borrows from techno, electronica, and “jungle” schools of dance music, all without losing that sedate, coffee-house vibe. Orton’s sweet husk of a voice, her decidedly off-the-beaten-track look at the world, and a huge dose of attitude result in a haunting, penetrating, somber record that once you let in, won’t go away. My wife listened the first time and said simply, “This is a record I want to get to know.” Me too.

Emmylou Harris/Linda Ronstadt, Western Wall/The Tucson Sessions (Asylum)

Two of the best voices of the last 30 years in pop music unite for a collection that covers of some of the best songwriters working today (including Rosanne Cash, Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen, and Bruce Springsteen). The disc is notable not only for Harris’ and Ronstadt’s near-perfect singing (there is something truly heavenly at work in their version of Sinead O’Connor’s “This Is To Mother You”) or their continued preoccupation with things spiritual (their cover of Cash’s title track offers a stunning confession of spiritual need and yearning) but also for their daring production choices. Western Wall is a genuine “alternative” record, proving that both of these 50-something women could teach the kids a thing or two about “cutting edge.”

Moby, Play (V2)

Who’d a thunk it? A self-proclaimed vegan/environmentalist/Christian/porn-loving/techno-dance guru makes a decidedly modern record of disc of old blues and gospel songs and it turns out to be the most unified, compelling, and genuinely uplifting disc of the year? Who says chaos can’t make order?

Bruce Cockburn, Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu (TrueNorth/Rykodisc)

After 30 years you’d expect something stale from this Canadian Christian social activist and songwriter. But no, Cockburn keeps creating literate, stunningly musical, and disarmingly intimate music that manages to fire passion—for lovemaking, peacemaking and tableturning. While Breakfast won’t have a radio hit (the songs are looong) it sheer melodicism will grow on you with each listen.

Lone Justice, This World is Not My Home (Geffen)

When metalhead hair bands ruled the rock scene, Lone Justice, fronted by the lovely and dynamic Maria McKee, was the great hope for 1980s fans of real rock and roll. Emerging from the fringes of the Sunset Strip street scene, McKee et. al forged a sound that morphed the brash energy of punk with the soaring melodies of folk and country and a streetwise faith that was more restless in church than it was in a tavern, all seared together by the perfect heat of Maria’s Janice Joplin meets Dolly Parton vocals. This year, a full 15 years after this band’s first record barreled onto our turntables, this CD collection gives us the best of Lone Justice’s two albums, and a few live tracks, one new cut, and enough pure energy to make me turn my stereo up too loud for the first time in years.

The Ragamuffins, Prayers of a Ragamuffin (Myrrh)

The individual members of The Ragamuffins had critically acclaimed solo careers and bands for most of the ’90s, but it was in coming together to support and serve their friend, the late Rich Mullins, first as his band and then as his legacy, that this quartet found its stride. If the Rags’ first post-Mullins disc, last year’s The Jesus Record, set the bar for thoughtful, passionate, intimate and compelling Christian pop music, this followup, released the last week of the decade, meets or exceeds it on every level. The songs on Prayers include huge, radio-friendly ballads, rollicking singalongs, and telling, introspective and arty folk-rock, all of which offer a starkly biblical—and subversive—response to the health/wealth triumphalism that masquerades as Christian pop culture in America.

Jars of Clay, If I Left the Zoo (Essential)

I was one of the few Christian critics who admitted to abject boredom in the face of Jars’ meteoric rise to superstardom, so I feel compelled to acknowledge that in Zoo, the boys have found a genuinely interesting, perhaps even exciting sound. The reinvigorated Jars are just as pious as on their first two discs, but this time they offer a Sgt. Peppers-heavy sound that suggests a future in music, not just in church.

The Worst of 1999:

The McCaughey Septuplets,Sweet Dreams (Word)

I didn’t listen to the whole thing, and the songs weren’t horrible—certainly they were no worse than most other schlocky CCM. But the unmitigated shamelessness in selling this product (the press preview came with a baby’s ribbon) makes this far and away the worst record of the year.

Gary Chapman, “Daddy Cut My Hair,” from the album Outside (Reunion)

Some songs are sentimental old fools, and some songs take sentimentalists for fools. A song that makes “Butterfly Kisses” seem streetwise, “Daddy Cut My Hair” is definitely in the latter category. The song tells the story of a boy growing up to be cared for by, then hate, then reconcile, then care for his father in old age (and eventually cut his hair). It is far too typical of Christian music’s failsafe sentimentality. Fundamentally cynical, this song doesn’t trust its listeners, their experiences, or their emotions, and so rather than evoke genuine feeling from them, it manufactures it for them, and leaves them no choice how to feel, react or think. Too bad, too, from an artist whose previous records have been as raw and real as polished pop allows.

Dwight Ozard is music critic forPrism magazine and Director of Public Affairs for Habitat for Humanity.

Related Elsewhere

For a second opinion, read today’s other article on the top recordings of 1999, by Campus Life magazine’s Martin Cockroft.

Copyright © 2000 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Indonesian religious violence claims at least 2,000 with no end in sight

The violence is spreading to other islands, reports the Associated Press, as Muslim mobs torched seven more churches over the weekend. And calls for a jihad (holy war) are gaining momentum among Muslim groups.

Southern Baptist leader opposes Vatican honoring King as martyr

Martyr title “should be reserved for those who die for the cause of the gospel itself,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told the Washington Post. He’s careful to note that he really likes King and that the school has a student fellowship named after him, but he doesn’t see “theological significance” in the Vatican’s reported plans.

Spirituality more dangerous than political subversives to Chinese government, says AP

“A religious and spiritual upsurge in China … threatens to surpass political dissent as a corrosive force on Communist Party authority,” says the Associated Press, noting that the Dalai Lama’s autobiography is more popular than Mao’s little red book and that unauthorized house churches are springing up faster than authorities can shut them down.

Orthodox Church ‘ reacquiring its position as the state religion,’ says Baltimore Sun

“With communism gone, Russia’s leaders see the church as an instrument of validation. In most cases, faith has little to do with it. In the absence of many other viable institutions or deeply held beliefs, ceremonial Russian Orthodoxy lends legitimacy to the government of the day,” the paper says in an unsigned editorial.

Congress’s newest intern is head of country’s largest Episcopal diocese

M. Thomas Shaw, bishop of Massachusetts, will serve as intern for a month to “discover something of what the role of the church should be in public life.” Most other interns are college students, but have included Bill Gates and Carolina Panthers kicker John Kasay, reports a Boston Globe front-page story. Still, no one can remember a member of the clergy serving as intern before.

Church down, Spirituality Up

“Although church attendance is declining in nearly all advanced industrial societies, spiritual concerns more broadly defined are not,” says a new study from the University of Michigan international study on faith and values. Is there an echo in here, or am I just experiencing déjà; vu? It seems another study says this every week.

One-man church project finally done—after 17 years

Dragisa Radivojevic designed, built, and decorated an Orthodox church in Grcac (a town 45 miles from Belgrade) by himself. It would have taken less time, he says, but Communism got in the way.

Galloping Gourmet continues life quietly, spiritually

“I’ve done enough for the body. It’s the soul I’m more interested in these days,” Graham Kerr tells the Toronto Star. The paper reports that the star of Canada’s most successful television show has traded the rich foods and “fast lane” for Christianity and a slower, healthier lifestyle.

Cox News Service looks at shifting center of Christianity

In a three-part series, the news service looks briefly at what the rise of Third-World Christianity means, especially in Asia and Africa.

Related Elsewhere

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First, I must define my parameters. I live in Vancouver, British Columbia, and it is quite common for worthy films to be released here months after they were given a limited release in the major American markets; I am therefore counting films, including foreign and independent films, which may have technically qualified for the American top-ten lists of 1998 but did not come to my attention until later. Second, this is a list of personal favorites; this is not a list of the ten “best” films, as if such things could ever be objectively decided, nor is it a list of the “most Christian” films, because I have no idea what such a label would mean—the most family-friendly? the most explicitly theological? the most compassionate? the most holy? I will say, however, that being a Christian means that the films which excite me most tend to be those which touch on some aspect of my faith. Finally, C.S. Lewis once said that no book was any good to him until he had read it at least twice, and that’s how I often feel about films. I have seen a few of these films more than once; with others, I am running on distant memories of first impressions, bolstered by whatever thoughts I may have jotted down at the time. But if I saw any of these again in a day, or a week, or a month, this list could be very different.

1. The Dreamlife of Angels (dir. Erick Zonca; R). Life is anything but beautiful for two young women as they look for work and companionship in the south of France. Isa (Elodie Bouchez), we discover, is a generous soul who is able to look beyond the bleak realities surrounding her with hope and love; but her roommate Marie (Natacha Regnier) is caught in a downward spiral of shame and self-loathing. Zonca articulates the differences between the other-centered life and the self-centered life, between compassion and pride, with uncompromising strength.

2. The Sixth Sense (dir. M. Night Shyamalan; PG-13). This extremely well-crafted film requires a second viewing to be fully appreciated. In a year full of overhyped ghost stories, this one is unique in that it pays proper attention to character; Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment, as a child psychologist and his latest patient, strike up an engaging and perfectly believable rapport. Some Christians objected to the film because it supposedly promoted the occult, but they missed the point: among other things, it affirms the biblical idea that perfect love casts out fear.

3. The Matrix (dir. Andy & Larry Wachowski; R). The climax revels in nihilism, and the cybergnostic heroes are dangerously elitist—anybody who doesn’t share their secret knowledge may as well die—but this film taps into so many urgent cultural, religious, and meta-technological issues, it’s hard to know where to start dissecting it. The key thing, for me, is that the film ultimately casts its lot with reality, however bleak, over and against fantasy, however pleasurable. Prophecies come true even in the “real” world—and thus the film points to an even higher reality.

4. The Insider (dir. Michael Mann; R). Flawless performances all around and an unexpectedly exotic soundtrack help this film to transcend the real-life events on which it is based. Mann’s film is a fascinating morality tale that emphasizes, with conviction, the value of such virtues as integrity, courage, and being true to one’s word.

5. Run Lola Run (dir. Tom Tykwer; R). German existentialism on amphetamines, chaos theory set to a driving techno beat. Tykwer charts three possible outcomes when Lola makes a split-second decision to rescue her boyfriend; each time, we get flash-forward glimpses of the effect her mad dash down the street has on the lives of those she bumps into. Not particularly deep, but fun and thought-provoking just the same.

6. Central Station (dir. Walter Salles; R). A cynical ex-schoolteacher reluctantly takes an orphaned boy deep into the heart of Brazil on a journey to find his long-lost father. The naturalistic settings are increasingly permeated with Catholic symbolism, and the film works very well as an allegory about the rediscovery of faith, hope and love.

7. Rushmore (dir. Wes Anderson; R). An enjoyably quirky, offbeat little flick in which adults, teens, and young children all treat each other as equals. These characters exhibit a fairly comprehensive array of naive hopes and petty jealousies, but in the end, they find reconciliation. Anderson’s joie de cinema just leaps off the screen.

8. The Celebration (dir. Thomas Vinterberg; R). A man attends his father’s sixtieth-birthday banquet and, when it comes time to make a toast, begins to air the family’s dirty laundry in front of all the guests. And it doesn’t come much dirtier than this. Seriously unsettling yet oddly hilarious, this Danish tour de force is all about the need for justice, yet there’s a strangely compassionate edge to it, too.

9. Toy Story 2 (dir. John Lasseter, Ash Brannon, and Lee Unkrich; G). Not quite as good as the first film, but in its exploration of abandonment and similarly dark issues, it’s moving in a way the original was not. The love between the toys and their owners—at least the more benevolent ones—is a wonderful analogy for the love between God and his creations.

10. SlamNation (dir. Paul Devlin; unrated). Slam poetry is an intriguing mix of art and sport, earth and spirit, glib humor and passionate idealism. Devlin’s documentary covers a national slam-poetry competition, and it leaves you wondering just how much is really communicated by these poets, and how much of their work is really just put on for show.

And then there’s the other end of the measuring stick. This year had its share of dreck. Rather than mention films which were merely bad (such as the dull-beyond-belief Simply Irresistible, which barely rates a mention), these were two of my biggest disappointments.

1. 8MM (dir. Joel Schumacher; R). Nicolas Cage, as a private detective investigating the world of snuff films, squanders his talents on a film that has absolutely no redeeming value. It climaxes with some appallingly brutal revenge scenes, then tacks on an unlikely happy ending, just because that’s the way audiences like it. It also reeks of some pretty tired cliches, such as the murderer who lives with his churchgoing mama.

2. The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc(dir. Luc Besson; R). What a wasted opportunity. The first big-screen mounting of the Joan of Arc story in years is a chaotic mess that fails both as a rousing war film and as a would-be deconstruction of the Joan legend. And it ends on a dreadfully trite note: Was Joan guided by God, by a desire for revenge, or by a complex of fractured religious impulses? None of the above, according to the Celine Dionesque theme song: “It’s my heart calling.” Ick.

Peter Chattaway is a regular writer for Christianity TodayandBooks & Culture, as well as other publications in Canada and the U.S.

Related Elsewhere

For a second opinion, read today’s other article on 1999’s top films, ” Ten Films that Made my Year,” by Steve Lansingh. Peter Chattaway’s reviews of The Dreamlife of Angels, The Insider,.Central Station, and Toy Story 2 can be found at the ChristianWeek Web site.

Copyright © 2000 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

For the record, what you are about to read is not a top ten list. I’m offering a slightly different take on the old standard because, for me at least, going to the movies isn’t always about digesting the most lauded picture I can. I spend the time at the multiplex, rather, in hope that my experiences there might challenge and inspire me to live how I intend. So, with that in mind, here’s a list of films that helped shape and mold me in 1999—ten movies that made my year.

Heart of Forgiveness

My struggles in living the Christian life rarely stem from a lack of biblical instruction, but from a lack of understanding how to live by God’s principles. I suspect I’m not alone in this condition; Jesus often followed up his teachings with parables that illustrated his message so people like me could grasp what he said more easily. To feed this hunger, I often find myself reading the journals of Henri Nouwen or the memoirs of Kathleen Norris, to see how faith and passion can survive the day-to-day grind. And occasionally, I’ll find stories like these at the movies. This year, The Straight Story helped instruct me on the nature of forgiveness.

David Lynch’s film tells the true story of Alvin Straight, an old man who drove a lawnmower from Iowa to Wisconsin to meet with his estranged and dying brother. In experiencing his slow and painful journey, I caught a glimpse of the Herculean feat that forgiveness really is. My physical obstacles in the way of forgiveness are not nearly so great, but the emotional vulnerability the act requires is just as painful, and just as slow. I’m fantastic at forgiving people in my heart, at releasing grudges, but for me to tell the person I’ve forgiven that I’ve done so is wrenchingly difficult. Perhaps it’s fear of being trampled on again, or of revealing how dark my heart’s really been. Somehow, though, in acknowledging how difficult the process can be, and allowing it to remain difficult (as Straight does by refusing any rides), I’m allowed the freedom to stay the course. To me, Straight is a worthy model; as the film progresses it’s clear that his attempt at forgiveness is not simply a last-minute chance to validate his life, but simply something that must be done because of who he is.

Forgiveness is also at the heart of Magnolia, a film of interwoven parables and morality plays. Here, the focus is on the power of forgiveness—the life-giving quality at its core—embodied in the character of LAPD officer Jim Kurring, one of the most human and multifaceted Christian characters seen at the movies lately. On his first date with a drug addict, she asks that they not lie to make themselves sound more impressive, and he agrees. In listening to one another’s most vulnerable selves, they are able to offer a measure of forgiveness. It’s clear that subtraction of blame lifts a great burden from both their hearts and helps them see again their own worth. As Kurring returns to his day job he begins to see the place for mercy in his profession of justice, finding the opportunity to hand back a criminal’s life to him—not necessarily a cop’s action, but a Christian’s. As I struggle each day with attitudes of judgment or offense, it is worth remembering Kurring’s story and the forgiveness that I, as one already forgiven, am told to give.

Part of the Past

Two films this year transported me back to my youth, alternately bringing joy and guilt, both of which were important to me. For a kid who grew up eating Chewbacca cookies and drinking out of Darth Vader Dixie cups, Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace delivered spastic waves of giddiness, not only in the actual film but in the months of eager anticipation: scrounging for truthful rumors, exploring the back stories of characters in insider guides, chatting about the movie with every other movie fan my age. Granted, this movie wasn’t quite as exciting as the previous trilogy, but that’s to be expected when you’re tracing the very beginnings of a conflict than when you’re in the full throes of it. Actually, by avoiding the focus on good versus evil that the original trilogy details, The Phantom Menace adds nuance and depth to the series by showing how a person at the most innocent and selfless moment is never far from following the dark side—that the fight between good and evil is more often an internal battle than we recognize.

Three Kings also confronted me with the past, but in a less pleasant manner. War movies are nothing new to me, but since I’m young, I’ve always dissected the wars from the vantage point of someone who didn’t live through them. In the case of this Gulf War picture, though, I saw my own actions incriminated by its scathing commentary. I had treated the war as not much more than an international Super Bowl, rooting for the home team. (I even had a set of trading cards featuring military leaders, weapons, vehicles, and patch designs.) It was agony to witness the devastation on the Iraqi people in this movie while I remembered buying souvenir magazines about the conflict. Even if the Gulf War was a just one, my actions were not. I had thought of Iraqis as less than full human beings—the kind of attitude that makes war possible. Three Kings works to erode the very heart of war by giving full human dimension to virtually every character, and by showing what a fired bullet does to the human body, to families, and to ideals. Walking away from this film, I had a renewed sense of compassion for the crowds of anonymous people I used to look beyond.

Action!

Often, even the movies that really affect me don’t translate into outward action in any immediate way. When I am given a renewed sense of compassion or an understanding of forgiveness, it often results in a incremental shift in my attitude that only over time will lead to healed relationship or act of service. (“God’s not finished with me yet” could be my slogan.) But three movies this year actually pushed me to concrete action of significance.

The Story of Us, which traces the 15-year marriage of a couple on the verge of divorce, opens with a family at a dinner table participating in a routine they call “high-low.” Family members give a high point and low point to their day as a means of sharing. A minor detail, to be sure, but I decided it would be fun to try the routine with my wife. It started as a novelty, but over the past several months “high-low” has given me a new understanding of her. Her answers often revolve around physical input like a great dinner or getting too little sleep, whereas mine tend to be emotional stimuli like a kind word from someone or being worried about a project. This has helped us understand and care for one another in ways we never considered before. For me, too little sleep is inconvenient but inconsequential; knowing it’s more important to her has helped me be more alert to making sure our schedule allows for that time. We know better what’s of value to the other, and that offers clearer ways to show devotion.

Historical inaccuracies plagued The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, yet it’s exactly that quality that made the film important to me. Before seeing the movie I knew only sketchy details of Joan’s life, so I couldn’t ascertain which events were factual and which were fabricated in the film. It seemed a shame I knew so little about such a famous saint; before long it dawned on me that I didn’t know much about any heroes of the faith prior to the 20th century. This realization sparked in me an interest to discover more about the lives of saints, whether through historical novels like Frederick Buechner’s Godric and Brendan or through simple biographies. I’m excited to have found these stories of God’s work in many places and times. Yet the lives of the saints tend to get obscured under layers of reverence and oversimplification. In these cases I find myself following the example of The Messenger, trying to discover a real person behind a legend, not taking for granted their holiness but instead searching for where God might have been at work in them.

There’s a scene in Fight Club in which Tyler Durden forces a store clerk at gunpoint to follow his dream of becoming a veterinarian. I identified with this clerk; sometimes I need the gun to the head to make the bold choice rather than drift along with the rest of society. To me, this scene made the movie’s point: Choose this day whom you will serve. It also got me thinking: If I was forced to name what I wanted to do with my life, could I identify one particular thing I hope to accomplish, without which the trigger might as well have been pulled? So I decided to write, in essence, a mission statement. My mission is “to look for God’s hand in the everyday and help others see it.” The question Fight Club asks me, and that I will probably constantly struggle with, is why I’m afraid to leave behind what makes me unhappy in order to pursue that goal wholeheartedly.

Corrective Vision

Three films this year were influential in helping me achieve that goal of seeing God’s hand in everyday life. This is important to me because too often I find myself looking through American eyes, Gen-X eyes, capitalist eyes—blinded eyes rather than godly ones. I am too often a creature of the time and place that define my station in this world. When I have no eyes for the small signs of God’s presence in life, I find myself anchorless. God used these three movies to help align my eyesight more closely with his, so I see not as the world sees but with deeper perception.

After watching The Matrix, in which the world is revealed to be nothing but a virtual reality downloaded into our brains, I walked around for days doubting my senses. This period gave me an idea how much I trust my senses to perceive my existence, when in fact I know they tell me little about spiritual reality. For a short time, I was given different eyes with which to view the world. The Matrix also delivered a more lasting perception shift by creating a web of prophecies and miracles that surround the main character. Watching the movie through my 20th-century eyes, I was immediately skeptical of prophecies and miracles in this present age. My cynicism shocked me; it shouldn’t belong to someone who believes in God’s intervention in human history. In the end, the movie helped wake my interest in the supernatural that helped lead to my interest in saints and searching for God’s hand throughout the A.D. era.

In a movie year packed with daring and original material, it’s ironic that the film that left me most wowed with what’s possible in moviemaking was a sequel. Toy Story 2‘s stunning animation and pitch-perfect story (even more resonant than the original) gave me a visceral sense of wonder and surprise. Surprise is important to me in seeking godly eyes, because I need to be reminded that the people around me are more complex than I believe, and are capable of surprise. It helps me to stop categorizing or even pigeonholing others but instead view them as whole people. Toy Story 2 goes a long way to reinforce this perspective for me, since this sequel reveals more facets and depth to characters I thought I was familiar with. Most sequels work against this, offering the same stagnant characters in a different situation, but a handful like this one let you know their characters are more complex than meets the eye. This reminder prompts me to seek fuller definitions of the people around me.

While Fight Club prompted me to write my mission statement, American Beauty was more forceful in shaping its content. If I had to choose one movie on this list, I would pick this one, because it was in the context of American Beauty that I made many of the discoveries I’ve talked about here. Rather than just providing a small shift in perspective, this film was transformative. At the core of the film is the comparison between human beauty and God’s beauty. The Burnhams are, like many American families, obsessed with appearances, doing all they can to put on happy faces to hide from everyone the rotted reality of their lives. Human attempts to create ordered beauty ring false because life isn’t always pretty. But the next-door neighbor Ricky Fitts reveals true beauty—God’s beauty—that is visible in the chaos of everyday life. Looking through the lens of his camcorder, he searches through the random and broken pieces of life until he finds “the eye of God staring back” at him. The mundane becomes the edge of glory, just as a carpenter’s son became a healer. This shift in perspective was so complete that during the brief scenes of nudity I did not see the bodies as sex objects, as they are often intended, but rather as God’s creation. I saw in the image of a dead bird God’s control of life and death. His hand was so clear in the minutiae of life that I left the theater with a hunger to recapture that perspective. The key to getting back there—which I believe is the lesson God hoped to communicate to me this year—shows up in so many of these ten films that it’s beginning to finally sink in: put aside artifice and live vulnerably.

Steve Lansingh, who writes the weekly Film Forum department for ChristianityToday.com, is editor ofthefilmforum.com, a weekly Internet magazine devoted to Christianity and the cinema.

Related Elsewhere

For a second opinion, read today’s other article on 1999’s top films, ” My Favorite Films of 1999,” by Peter Chattaway. Steve Lansingh’s reviews of The Straight Story, The Phantom Menace, Three Kings, The Story of Us, The Messenger, Fight Club, The Matrix, Toy Story 2, and American Beauty are available at TheFilmForum.com.

Copyright © 2000 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

MLK’s church continues the dream

The church where Martin Luther King Jr. joined his father as co-pastor moved across the street last year into a new $8 million building, but it is very consciously maintaining its role as what the Dallas Morning News calls “arguably America’s most historic black church.”

Gore attacked for his pro-life past

Bill Bradley has attacked him for inconsistency, and Planned Parenthood member Lucy Karl is quoted in a New York Post editorial as saying, “We do not need fair-weather friends.” Still, notes the Post, Gore has never said why he changed his mind on the issue.

Whitby Abbey about to fall into the sea, says UK Independent

The ruins of Whitby Abbey, where Roman and Celtic Christianities clashed over their differences in A.D. 664, is under threat from cliff erosion. A £1 million rescue effort is under way. (For more on Whitby’s significance in church history, see the article ” Culture Clash” from our sister publication, Christian History)

Catholic House Chaplain candidate ‘was not the overriding choice,’ say GOP lawmakers

As storms continue over the selection of a new House chaplain, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Richard Armey are denying that they nominated a Protestant over a Catholic because of religious discrimination.

Pope and Anglican Archbishop meet to discuss differences

George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, says he’s been “singled out” in John Paul II’s ecumenical efforts, says a report in London’s Times.

Washington Post explains front-page Christmas photo

We weren’t trying to cause trouble, explains E. R. Shipp. We just wanted a Christmasy photo. Still, readers were angered by the caption, which pitted Christians against Orthodox Jews in Israel.

Jane Fonda’s conversion still making headlines

It’s now a major article in the Washington Times, which discusses the media frenzy around the church Fonda has been attending, speculation that Ted Turner “might soon follow his wife in a search for his own discarded faith,” and notes “She has not publicly talked about her political views, or whether she has changed any of them” (a new litmus test for true conversion?)

Nigerian government working against religious tensions

President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Committee on Inter-religious Harmony has been very busy lately, reports All Africa New Agency

Related Elsewhere

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January 14 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10

January 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3

December 30 | 29

Copyright © 2000 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

In September 1968, five months later, Glen Kehrein, a white senior from Moody Bible Institute, was on a student retreat at the Green Lake Assembly Grounds, an American Baptist camping and convention in central Wisconsin.

Sharing the huge convention grounds with Moody that year were Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, and other leaders from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC had been turned upside-down since the murder of King, and it was time to pause and take account of the organization’s future.

Kehrein was familiar with a few of the SCLC’s surviving leaders, but King had intrigued him the most. He had heard about King’s reputation as a “Communist” and troublemaker, and Christian leaders had warned him about the dangerous theology contained in King’s “social gospel.” Kehrein didn’t know what to believe. After King’s murder, the streets of Chicago had turned into a war zone. The sounds, sights, and aromas of sniper fire, burning buildings, and armed National Guardsmen were fresh in his mind. Even the relationships between black and white students at Moody seemed to carry some underlying strain. “I saw the racial divide vividly in the dorm when King’s shooting was announced,” Kehrein recalls. “There was a completely different reaction between the blacks and whites. It was not that dissimilar from the conflicting reactions that came after the O. J. Simpson verdict. We definitely were not on the same page.”

In Wisconsin, Kehrein wanted to put those disturbing memories out of his head. But he somehow knew they were matters he needed to confront. He was hopeful when his professor announced that Ralph Abernathy had agreed to share a few words with the Moody students, that perhaps King’s closest colleague would be able to put some context to his confusion about race in America. “Dr. Abernathy completed his talk and entertained questions from my class. But with all that history in the room, and all that had transpired in the civil-rights movement over the last 10 years, the majority of questions we ended up asking him were about his personal salvation and his understanding of the conservative tenets of evangelical doctrine.” Kehrein was stupefied. “Dr. Abernathy was gracious and attempted to accommodate all our questions, but we were clueless. I think our narrow focus said a lot about the evangelical mindset during that era.”

Thirty years after the incident at Green Lake, Glen Kehrein is the executive director of Circle Urban Ministries on Chicago’s West Side. Through years of ministry in the inner city and committed relationships across racial lines, Kehrein has worked out much of the angst he felt as a Moody student. “I now understand the black community’s huge public catharsis of anger and frustration and hopelessness that followed King’s assassination,” he says. “While I knew the white community’s response to King was not a good measure of the man, back then I wasn’t astute enough to fully grasp what was going on among African Americans. And I think many white evangelicals have been on a similar journey since King’s death.”

“White evangelicals were, for the most part, absent during the civil-rights struggle,” admits National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) president Don Argue. Since assuming the NAE helm three years ago, Argue, a white Assemblies of God minister, has worked hard to forge relationships between black and white Christians, spearheading joint meetings between his group and the National Black Evangelical Association (NBEA), and assigning blacks to key positions in his organization. But he realizes the road to strong relationships will be a long and delicate one. According to Argue, white evangelicals missed their golden opportunity the first time. “When African Americans had their Moses in the person of Martin Luther King, we were either indifferent or, in some cases, critical and hostile toward what was happening.”

Congressman J. C. Watts agrees. “We should have had more evangelical churches willing to be involved in the civil-rights movement during its heyday,” says Watts. “Evangelicals should have been involved simply because it was the right thing to do. If there’s an injustice against my fellow man, I have an obligation to say it’s wrong, not as a politician but as a Christian.”

Watts, the only black Republican in Congress (R-Okla.) and an ordained Baptist minister, speaks freely of his affinity for King, which is indicative of the evolution of King’s legacy since his death. Today, conservatives from both the political and religious realms talk unashamedly of the positive contributions of the slain civil-rights leader. However, in King’s day, his nonviolent resistance and ambiguous theology were considered suspect. Even evangelist Billy Graham, who since 1953 had worked to desegregate his crusades and had recruited Negro evangelist Howard O. Jones to his team in 1957, was reticent to cast his wholehearted support to King’s movement. “Some extreme Negro leaders are going too far and too fast,” Graham wrote in 1960. “Only the supernatural love of God through changed men can solve this burning question.”

But King saw his “social gospel” as a natural outworking of God’s “supernatural love.” He told Playboy magazine in 1965, “The essence of the Epistles of Paul is that Christians should rejoice at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believe. The projection of a social gospel, in my opinion, is the true witness of a Christian life. … The church once changed society. It was then a thermostat of society. But today I feel that too much of the church is merely a thermometer, which measures rather than molds popular opinion.”

In today’s hostile climate of clashing ideologies, King would be considered “politically incorrect,” says Congressman Watts. “Today people would say to Dr. King, ‘No, no, keep your religious beliefs out of politics—remember the separation of church and state.’ But everything Dr. King stood for was because of his faith. His faith transcended race and politics.”

On the other hand, at least a few Christian thinkers are not convinced of the religious purity of King’s public message. According to the late Spencer Perkins, King’s theme of nonviolence and love was probably more a matter of pragmatism than faith. “Like Gandhi, King used it as a strategy to win a battle when the power and numbers were not on his side,” said Perkins. “King talked about love overcoming hate. But in my own experience, when we were taking part in marches and demonstrations, it was not love that was making us do it; it was our desire to win.”

Eugene Rivers, pastor of inner-city Boston’s Azusa Christian Community and an outspoken black voice on matters of race in America, believes King’s nonviolent methods were outcroppings of the man’s political savvy. “King understood that you could not successfully win the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act by appealing to the historical grievances of black people,” he says. “So the moral pageantry of the ‘beloved community’ was tactically the only way to secure those victories.”Dolphus Weary is less cynical about King’s motives. For Weary, Martin Luther King was precisely the kind of preacher southern blacks needed. “I used to see many preachers being exploitative of the black community,” he says. “They would say stuff like, ‘It’s OK that you’re going into the back door of restaurants. It’s OK that you’re going to second-class schools. It’s OK that you’re the last hired and the first fired. Because one day you’re going to heaven, and everything will be all right.’ But then King came along and said, ‘No! You’re not a second-class citizen. God is concerned about you right now. Go vote. Go stand up for your rights.’ It was what we needed to hear.”White evangelicals should have borne witness to the truth of the gospel by standing with their black brothers and sisters and opposing racist terrorism against black churches, observes Rivers. He adds that conservative evangelicalism can only blame itself for the liberalism in King’s theology since in his day blacks were not welcomed at evangelical colleges and seminaries. “White evangelicals blew an opportunity to shape the intellectual and moral development of King and an entire generation of church-based civil-rights leaders,” says Rivers.

Despite their tardiness, Kehrein knows evangelicals have matured in their view of King. “For the most part, evangelicals today no longer have the ‘social gospel’ concern. They have come to see that the gospel must have social implications and have recognized the great contributions of King and other civil-rights pioneers.”

Clearly it is a new day among white evangelicals. This decade alone has witnessed groups as diverse as Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, and the Promise Keepers offering public repentance for past racial transgressions. Nonetheless, NAE’s Argue believes there remains a persistent inability among white evangelicals to comprehend the race issue.”

Whenever I go to a black Christian gathering, I find that the subject of racism is always on the agenda, and it’s near the top. They’re not whining or complaining, but they are deeply concerned,” explains Argue. “On the other hand, you go to a white meeting and very rarely, if ever, is racism on the agenda. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because African Americans deal with racism on an ongoing basis. They have to justify who they are when they cash a check more often than a white person does.”

What of the Dream?

In 1963 on a jetliner zooming from Atlanta to Los Angeles, Martin Luther King sat quietly, peering outside from his window seat. He was drinking in the view of the serene Appalachian Mountains below when the plane suddenly bounced and jerked in a fit of turbulence. King looked up from his pillow, flashed a smile at the Time magazine reporter seated beside him and said, “I guess that’s Birmingham down below.”

Birmingham was turbulent territory then. King called the city the greatest stronghold of Jim Crow in the South.

Today, if King were to fly over Birmingham, he would experience friendlier skies. In a city once governed by white supremacists, there is now an African-American mayor. In the downtown district, not far from where attack dogs and fire hoses once assailed nonviolent protesters, there stands the Civil Rights Institute. Inside this sobering memorial of a not-so-distant America, visitors can review the artifacts of the Birmingham revolution and actually explore the jail cell that housed King during his famous imprisonment.

A few miles northeast of downtown, in a low-income neighborhood near the Birmingham airport, stands a small church building, surrounded by rows of public-housing projects. The sign out front reads: DOERS OF THE WORD CHURCH. And the members of the interracial congregation of 150, on any given day, can be seen side-by-side serving the hungry and homeless from their church-run soup kitchen. On Sunday mornings, the half-black, half-white body of believers celebrates their common bond in Christ during an exuberant, cross-cultural worship service. The little church seems a million protest marches away from the Jim Crow spirit that stifled the community in Martin Luther King’s day. According to Arthur Johnson, the African-American senior pastor of Doers of the Word, his church is a testament to the enduring power of King’s vision.”

Dr. King’s dream of his children ‘not being judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character’—we’re living that out every day,” says Johnson. “Eleven o’clock Sunday morning at Doers of the Word is definitely not ‘the most segregated hour in America.’ “So if Martin Luther King’s Dream of an integrated and benevolent society is the ideal by which Christians and the nation should measure their progress in race relations, how are we doing?

Johnson’s congregation seems to be an exception. Though an increasing number of U.S. congregations have become intentionally cross-cultural, in many ways local churches are America’s final frontier of segregated institutions. “The church is segregated now because that’s what we like,” said Perkins. “In King’s era, churches were segregated because whites didn’t want to be around blacks. Now it’s two-sided. Today we both choose to be separate.”

But Rivers doesn’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, Rivers, who regularly raises eyebrows with his unsympathetic views regarding King, argues that King’s perspective on integration was too idealistic. He explains: “King’s theological and racial liberalism gave inadequate attention to the primacy of culture, tradition, and history. The truth is, both blacks and whites identify with their particular traditions—and that’s not wrong. It only becomes wrong when it promotes injustice.” For Rivers, the “remarkable irony” is that King never sought to desegregate black churches. “How is it that the apostle of integration never did this?” Rivers asks. “My sense is that he understood that it was not in the best interest of black preachers to surrender their power by desegregating black churches.”

Perkins, late son of racial-reconciliation pioneer John Perkins, disagreed with Rivers. “Being segregated is a weakness of the church. Everybody is comfortable being around their own kind. But that type of thinking puts comfort and culture over Christ.”

Robert Franklin, of the Interdenominational Theological Center, says he is “cautiously optimistic.” However, Franklin thinks the most pressing racial matters lie in the “institutional” domain. “When one looks at the expansion of the black middle class and the ongoing dismantling of racist legislation and customs throughout the culture, we have to acknowledge that we’ve come a long way in a short period of time,” he says. “But when one looks at the disparate economic culture between blacks and whites and at corporate boardrooms where there is a relatively small number of people of color and women, it’s clear that we’re still lagging.”

Rivers is less generous: “Much of the current race-relations discourse, like what happens at Promise Keepers, substitutes fundamentalist hugfests for the kind of deep, substantive dialogue that has a genuine impact on institutional decisions and public policy. Too much of the reconciliation rhetoric of white evangelicals focuses on interpersonal piety without any radically biblical conception of racial justice.”

Oberlin College religion professor Albert G. Miller believes the church has a watered-down understanding of King’s vision. “I think we are stuck in our image of King at the 1963 March on Washington,” he says. “The ‘I Have a Dream’ King was a kinder, gentler King. There was a more complicated man that evolved after that point who was very frustrated with what he saw with the limited progress of blacks. In his latter days, King was not just protesting for blacks to eat at the lunch counter, but for blacks to have employment at the lunch counter and to own it.”

Cheryl Sanders, professor of Christian Ethics at Howard University and senior pastor of Washington’s Third Street Church of God, concurs. “The problem with the Dream language is that it draws attention away from the reality of what King was speaking about throughout his life. There’s a danger of only seeing him as a dreamer, and if we only see him as a dreamer, we too easily let ourselves off the hook from dealing with the realities that he was dealing with.”

Toward the end of his life, King returned to his Baptist theological roots, “stripping himself … of Protestant liberalism’s pieties,” writes Willy Jennings in Books & Culture ( March/April 1998), emphasizing the words of Jesus and the coming judgment.

Denver Seminary’s Malcolm Newton adds: “King and the other Christians of the civil-rights movement put their lives on the line. Protesting, marching, getting bombed and lynched and thrown into jail hundreds of times for the sake of biblical justice. That’s a legacy that King left for us, and the church hasn’t grabbed on to it yet.”

Still, others are guardedly encouraged. “Compared to where we were, I think we’ve done very well,” says Mission Mississippi’s Weary. “People are talking today who haven’t talked in a long time. There’s still a long way to go, but at least we’re talking about it.”In the meantime, away from the din of philosophical debates and unfulfilled hopes, the everyday business of coexisting together must go on. And one senses there might be something to learn from unheralded efforts like Arthur Johnson’s Birmingham contingent. Says Johnson: “I know we’ve still got a lot of issues to work through, but as long as we’re pursuing the Dream, I believe God is pleased.”

When this article was originally published in the March 2, 1998 issue of Christianity Today, Edward Gilbreath was associate editor of New Man magazine. He is now associate editor of Christianity Today.

Related Elsewhere

See today’s other articles celebrating Martin Luther King Day:Confessions of a Racist | It wasn’t until after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death that I was struck by the truth of what he lived and preachedMartin Luther King, Jr.: A History | No Christian played a more prominent role in the century’s most significant social justice movement than Martin Luther King, Jr.The March to Montgomery | Christianity Today‘s coverage of King’s historic voting rights march, from our April 9, 1965 issueOther Christianity Today articles by Ed Gilbreath include:Redeeming Fire | The ambition and avarice of Henry Lyons could save the National Baptists (Nov. 1, 1999)Why Pat Boone ‘Bad’ | His controversial mission to interpret pop culture for cranky Christians. (Oct. 4, 1999)The ‘Jackie Robinson’ of Evangelism | When Howard Jones broke the race barrier on Billy Graham’s platform, he faced rejection from both sides. (Feb. 9, 1998)Billy Graham Had a Dream | American revivalist preachers have been evangelical Christianity’s most visible spokesmen over the centuries. What does their record on race relations show? (Jan. 12, 1998)A Prophet Out of Harlem | Willing to tell the hard truth, evangelist Tom Skinner inspired a generation of leaders (Sept. 16, 1996)

Copyright © 2000 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

The son, grandson, and great-grandson of Atlanta preachers, King was raised under the religious pieties of the black Baptist church. “King came out of a very fundamental, evangelical church,” explains H. Malcolm Newton, director of urban studies at Denver Seminary. “They taught the Bible at Ebenezer Baptist Church [in Atlanta]. That was his roots.”

King’s intellectual curiosity and desire to understand the very unchristian race situation in the South (combined with his education at liberal northern seminaries) compelled him to ask questions that would stretch his theology far beyond fundamentalism. Nonetheless, on a practical level, King’s Baptist heritage always shone through. “In the quiet recesses of my heart,” he often said, “I am fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher.”It was no accident that an effort as socially positive as the civil-rights movement began in the church, says noted New York pastor Suzan Johnson Cook, a member of President Clinton’s Racial Advisory Board. “Martin Luther King proved that our faith and our struggle should never be separate. Faith and struggle—when coupled—make us more effective leaders.”

“Dr. King taught us that Christianity could be a vigorous voice for conscience in this nation,” adds Robert Franklin, president of the Interdenominational Theological Center, an ecumenical coalition of mostly African-American seminaries in Atlanta. “He showed us that the church did not have to marginalize itself. That it could play a major and necessary role in the public square.”In August 1963, King’s movement organized its massive March on Washington, the event that begat the legendary “I Have a Dream” speech and represented the pinnacle of his fame. A Nobel Peace Prize came in 1964. And there were rousing legislative victories as well, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

King’s political efforts received criticism from white religious leaders from both conservative and liberal circles. His famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was actually a passionate response to eight “moderate” clergymen in Alabama who saw King’s continued use of nonviolent resistance as “unwise” and encouraged him to let the fight for integration continue in the local and federal courts. Unlike those clergymen, King could not fathom a separation between his faith and politics. He wrote:

In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, “Those are social issues with which the gospel has no real concern,” and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely otherworldly religion which made a strange distinction between body and soul, the sacred and the secular.

The Price of Protest

On a steamy July evening in 1967, James Earl Massey’s plane touched down at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Massey, then the senior pastor of Detroit’s Metropolitan Church of God, had been attending a clergy convention when one of the worst urban riots in U.S. history erupted in the Motor City. Incessant gunfire filled the evenings, rocks and bricks bashed downtown windows, storefronts were looted of their goods, flames consumed entire city blocks. When it was over, 43 lives and $50 million in property damage had been the cost. To get home, Massey had to drive through the riot zone. He made it safely, but the biggest challenge still lay ahead for Massey and other leading Detroit ministers who began working to restore peace to their tortured city. “Our church became an outpost for reaching out to people who had lost their homes to fires or had no food because stores had been destroyed.” And Detroit was not alone. Racial uprisings had recently erupted in other cities as well—Los Angeles, Harlem, Cincinnati, and several others.

The urban riots were an ugly symptom of the growing spirit of despair that had gripped the Negroes of many northern cities. “There was a lack of jobs and a growing social dissatisfaction,” remembers Massey. “With the rise in automation at factories, there were a lot of layoffs, and blacks were feeling the severity of the pinch far more than others.”

Although King’s civil-rights endeavors had made strides against racism and Jim Crow in the South, issues like poverty, unemployment, and racial discrimination were raging out of control in the North. As a result, younger members of the broader civil-rights movement grew impatient. Leaders of groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) tossed aside King’s “ineffective” nonviolent strategies in favor of more radical “black power” tactics. Malcolm X had been killed in 1965, but the Black Muslim movement continued to win converts in the inner cities. In 1966, SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael vowed never again to “take a beating without hitting back.” King, though troubled, understood what drove the militant factions. “The Black Power slogan did not spring full grown from the head of some philosophical Zeus,” he said. “It was born from the wounds of despair and disappointment.” Nevertheless, black power did not understand King. Massey observes, “King was being looked upon by black militants as an ‘Uncle Tom.’ “Massey, now 68, is dean emeritus and professor at large of the Anderson University School of Theology (Ind.) and interim dean of the chapel at Tuskegee University in Alabama. With his neatly trimmed mustache and stately demeanor, Massey was sometimes said to resemble his friend Martin King. He often spent time with King during his trips to Detroit and was aware of his distress and self-doubt over the fragmenting civil-rights scene. Massey points out that, although King remained committed to methods of nonviolence, he was making a clear shift in his rhetoric. “He had moved on to speaking out strongly against poverty and America’s participation in the Vietnam War,” recalls Massey. “He was, in fact, sounding quite radical.”

He wrote in his last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?: “Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a mass effort to re-educate themselves out of their racial ignorance. … It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.”

Despite his personal struggles, in early 1968 King was working to organize a massive Poor People’s Campaign in Washington for both Negroes and whites. In late March, he arrived in Memphis to support a Negro sanitation workers’ strike. His popularity had long since waned. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (and others) fancied him a “Communist,” and for many white Americans, Martin Luther King and urban unrest had become synonymous. The anger and hostility he had been encountering at different protest events, particularly in the large cities, began visibly to erode King’s spirit. Says Massey, “In the pictures of him marching in Memphis, you can see the grimmest look on his face. He was very tense. And the speech he gave the night before his death reveals how much he was expecting hostility to rise against him.”

On the night of April 3, a violent thunderstorm drenched Memphis as a somber-looking Martin Luther King took the stage at the Mason Temple (denominational headquarters of the Church of God in Christ). Despite the furious storm, an enthusiastic crowd of 2,000 people had gathered to hear King deliver what would become his final speech. After an impassioned appeal to the audience to continue the work the movement had begun, King’s address concluded on an eerie note. “We’ve got some difficult days ahead,” he preached. “But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. … Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. … But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

The next evening the 39-year-old preacher was shot down as he stood on the second-floor balcony of Memphis’s Lorraine Motel. Massey remembers being at a Detroit television studio that night with his church choir to record a local broadcast for the following Sunday. “While we were preparing to tape, the studio announcer called me aside and told me the news. My heart sank. I didn’t tell the choir until after the taping, because I knew they’d be too upset to sing. After King’s death, something in me just died.”

Something died within the Negro community as well. King’s assassination sparked riots in 125 cities, which led to 21,270 arrests and 46 deaths.

Continued on next page | Just not getting it

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