Squirming at the gospel

Last night I watched the movie Fireproof. It came out in 2008, and it’s a story of a fireman whose career is going well but his marriage is falling apart. The movie presents his feelings and efforts as he tries to save his marriage.


What makes this movie unique are its explicitly Christian messages. Specifically, at several points in the film a character presents the gospel message to another. Also, the film emphasizes the importance of marriage as a sacred bond, something important above and beyond the feelings of the moment.


I’m not much of a film critic, but I would say that in terms of production value, this movie is better than a Lifetime channel movie but not up to the standards of a big-budget Hollywood film. It stars former child-star Kirk Cameron, who did a credible job as the lead, and much—but not all—of the film was believable.


I woke up this morning thinking about several aspects of the film, or, more accurately, my reaction to it. The thing that surprised me the most was that I found myself a bit uncomfortable with the gospel-presentation scenes. It’s not that they were done badly nor did I disagree with their message in any way. Rather, I found myself cringing at how openly the movie presented the gospel. I watched it on the computer, and during those scenes I wanted to check my e-mail or read the newspaper headlines.


For whatever reason, whether it’s because of my being in academics, a less-religious part of the country, or whatever, I’ve inadvertently bought into a peculiar view of the appropriateness of talking about the gospel with other people. Namely, it’s violating a social norm—something not to be done.


As I experience it, the norm about talking about religious beliefs goes something like this. It’s okay to have your own beliefs, even to hold them strongly. It’s also okay to discreetly acknowledge your affiliation with a particular set of beliefs. However, if you’re going to talk about your religious beliefs openly, you should do so with someone who shares your beliefs. It’s probably not appropriate to talk about them with people who don’t already agree with them. As Stephen Carter wrote about it in The Culture of Disbelief, the message is that Christian faith should be kept almost as a hobby—fine if you do it at home, but don’t bring it into the public sphere.


My squirming at the gospel message in Fireproof may just reflect that I squirm at a lot of things, but I think it also results from me having partially bought into the “don’t ask, don’t tell” view of the Christian message.


Now, I realize that this can be taken too far the other direction, and people can become obnoxious bores with the gospel (or anything else for that matter), but that’s not what I’m talking about here.


So, I guess that my goal is to talk about my religious convictions as freely as I talk about other things that I care about or am thinking about, such as bicycling, gardening, or In-N-Out hamburgers (though, that last one may put me into obnoxious territory).