Heaven is for Real Movie Review

My wife and I watched the movie Heaven is for Real last night starring Greg Kinnear based on the book and true story of a little boy who had a near death experience and claims to have visited heaven.  Overall I’d say the movie was okay.  It wasn’t great and it wasn’t bad, it was just okay.  The strengths of the movie were the acting skills of Greg Kinnear who played Todd Burpo, a Nebraskan pastor and father of Conner (the boy who had the near death experience), Thomas Haden Church, and Margo Martindale who played church board members and friends of the Burpo family.  At first it looked like they were going to make a few of the main characters one dimensional, but I was pleased they avoided that pit and gave them some depth.  As a follower of Christ I have no doubts of the reality of life after death so I found the parts of the movie focusing on Conner’s experiences intriguing and encouraging.  I also really liked that the movie centered on God being love without clouding the issue.  And since I believe God loves us so much he meets with us where we’re at, in our reality, I had no hang ups about the Burpo’s religious views and activities. 

Where the movie really fell down was surrounding the point of conflict.  Since the movie was based on a true account that was turned into a movie the writers had to come up with a conflict to make the movie entertaining, otherwise it would’ve been better to simply make a documentary.  The problem is the conflict was just not believable.  (Minor Spoiler Alert: stop reading if you don’t want anything to be given away.)  The conflict was that people were having a hard time believing what Conner had witnessed.  This included the church board members and even the parents. Now that would work for me if they were atheists or agnostics, but these were church going people.  Conner’s story confirmed their beliefs.  The number one concern with the majority of Christians is heaven.  In fact, the subject of heaven is probably the LEAST offensive subject to Christians.  No matter what denomination or non-denomination, they all agree on the existence of heaven.  I’m certain that’s why the book on which the movie was based was number one on the New York Times best sellers list.  It’s the “how to get to heaven” and “who will be there?” where Christians start splintering into factions.  But I don’t know of a single Christian group that doubts the existence of heaven.  In fact, one of the problems some Christians have is they act like the whole point of life is just to die and go to heaven.

This is what makes the point of conflict in the movie unbelievable and quite ridicules.  The parents and church members would have eaten up Conner’s story.  They would’ve been begging him to tell them more.  Instead they’re aloof and suspicious.  The family even encounters minor “persecution” over it.  The “persecution” was so forced it came across as downright corny and made me cringe.  Getting persecuted for something with which the majority of people agree?  BIZAAR!  It felt like the movie makers were pandering to their audience. “Let’s make the average Joe church goer feel like a spiritual powerhouse for believing in heaven.”  Wow!  Such a controversial topic!  Don’t ever say you believe in heaven in mixed company – who knows what people might do!?  And while you’re at it how about having the kid get persecuted for talking about footage he saw of astronauts landing on the moon.  Whoa! This is edgy dangerous stuff here! Nothing will get you persecuted faster than believing what everybody else does – NOT! 

The conflict was nothing but a “straw man.”  This made it impossible to get emotionally invested in their struggles.  The mom’s aloofness followed by her overreactions to her son’s stories was so unbelievable it was like watching somebody get emotional about paint drying.  I found myself detached from the characters.

The other problem I had with the movie was the way it constantly pointed to the church building as being the center of spiritual life and the source through which all spiritual activity occurs.  Jesus made it very clear that we, his people, are his temple.  He dwells in those who follow him.  He meets with us right where we’re at, not on some “sacred ground” as in the old covenant.  But I realize this was merely reflecting the wide spread accepted tradition of many Christians today.

So there you have it.  Heaven is for Real is an okay movie.  But it can make for some good conversations afterward.  So that alone may make it worth your while. 

Movies That Impact The Spirit

This week's Untangled podcast is up. Movie Man Bob joins Loren again for another edition of Movie Monday (even though it's Tuesday).  This week they discuss movies that impacted them spiritually and launch into a deep conversation about the power of God that’s found in relationships. “Relationships transition us from pride to humility,” points out Bob, “…and God gives grace to the humble."

Leadership in the Body of Christ

Ready for a podcast that's all peaches and cream and is sure to tickle your ears? Don't listen to this one! Loren discusses leadership in the church. For many, this discussion will be rather shocking (although that's not the goal). This is not another "Obey your Pastor" message. It's an unraveling of a whole lot of dogma that has kept many in the church paralyzed, weak, and ineffective for decades. What is leadership? What is it not? For the church to truly walk in love, liberty, and maturity a few sacred cows have to be tipped over (or maybe a few herds) so that believers are free to love Christ and one another without hindrance. 

When the Church Leaves the Building

A new episode of Untangled is up. Imagine you're a pastor and out of the desire to live in the reality of being the church you just gave up your title and salary and you and your congregation shut down all programs, sold the building and walked away - WHAT NOW? Loren is joined for a second week by David Fredrickson to find out what happened after he and his congregation did just that. It's an incredible journey that may just leave you pondering what it really means to be the church.

You can read David's incredible and thought provoking story in his book When the Church Leaves the Building. It's available atwww.familyroommedia.com or at Amazon.

Journey to Reality

This week's episode of Untangled is up. This week Loren is joined by his good friend David Fredrickson who shares his incredible story of how after 30 years of serving as a pastor he and his congregation called it quits, abandoned their titles, sold their building, and walked away from the traditional Sunday morning scene because they yearned to live in the reality of what it means to BE the church. You can also read about David's journey in his book "When the Church Leaves the Building." It's available on Amazon or www.familyroommedia.com

A Powerful Life Lesson From Maleficent

Warning: There are some major spoilers in this.

My wife and I went to see the Disney movie Maleficent with some friends a few days ago.  There were some things that bothered me about the movie so at first I didn’t really like it. Like many people that saw it, I really wanted them to be a little more true to the romantic theme of Sleeping Beauty and I didn’t like that there wasn’t one strong, positive male character in the whole movie.  There were also some plot holes that bothered me.  But over the past few days I’ve come to realize there is actually an incredible lesson in this movie that I nearly missed because I watched the movie through the wrong lens.  See, I had on my romantic lenses and was ready to watch a different version of Sleeping Beauty.  But the movie is not Sleeping Beauty, it is Maleficent, the tale of an evil woman.  This was not a love story but a lesson in the nature of evil.

So what was the lesson?  The lesson was never return evil for evil.  It is the natural reaction of every human to seek revenge when we are wronged.  But what this movie showed is evil is like a cancer and when we give into it we only cause it to spread further.  Seeking revenge may cause those we hate to become even darker, we damage our lives, and we may even harm those who have nothing to do with the circumstances. 

Maleficent was tragically betrayed by the one she loved.  Having encountered betrayal myself (though not from a lover) I’ve seen that there is nothing more emotionally painful than this.  That being the case, betrayal has the potential to bring out the absolute worst in us beyond any other life event. I never tasted of such pain and anger until I was betrayed.  As a follower of Christ I firmly believe in what Jesus taught, that we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  But let me tell you, after my betrayal, it was MONTHS before I could even SQUEEK OUT a prayer for my enemies.  It took a very long time for me to be able to comfortably pray for them, the hurt was so deep.  But Maleficent chose to give into her anger and foster hatred in her heart.  In doing so she ended up having the very thing for which yearned; a chance for revenge.  She stood before her scumbag betrayer and humiliated him for all to see and had the wicked pleasure of taking from him what was most dear to him just as he had done to her.

However, Maleficent didn’t realize in that one fleeting moment of sick pleasure she made the world even darker and complicated her future.  After that encounter the king became even more evil.  Driven by fear and the rage of having what was most precious to him threatened, he was now seeking revenge.  The movie, in its course of showing Maleficent’s journey out of darkness didn’t really highlight the damage SHE had done.  The king became more evil BECAUSE OF HER.  Maleficent’s satisfying moment of revenge poured fuel on the fire and caused the King to go deeper down the hole of evil to place where he couldn’t get out.  The evil tyrant she had to fight at the end of the movie was not some villain that just sprang out of a pit to attack the now repentant fairy; it was the monster of her own making.  Not only did she turn the King from a shady man into a monster (remember, he didn’t have the heart to kill her when his selfish ambition drove him to become king – it was only after she cursed his daughter which upped the ante that he was driven to kill), she also robbed a child from having any kind of a relationship with either of her parents. Then as she started to love the child she came to realize she had stolen the future of one who was innocent.  She had damaged herself by cursing one she would one day love.  It was fortunate that at least she had a way to undo part of what she had done, the king didn’t have the same fortune. 

Maleficent reveals that there was a very practical reason why Jesus said to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us and spitefully use us.  Paul the Apostle even straight out told us to bless others and not curse them.  When we give into hatred it’s like punching a hole in a dam.  It’s only a matter of time before we’re all swimming in it. 

How would the story have played out if Maleficent had forgiven the King and blessed the child in spite of the evil that was done to her? Would she have ended the tensions between the two kingdoms?  Would she have grown to be loved by the humans?  Would the king have given her back her wings?  We’ll never know.

Loren Rosser

Another Movie Monday!

Untangled is back!!! Movie Man Bob joins Loren again to give their reviews of Godzilla and X-Men Days of Future Past. This leads them into a deep look at how movie trends at times are a reflection of things happening in the Spirit at the times they were made. People, whether following Christ or not, are influenced by spiritual forces that can't be seen. Sometimes a piece of what is true in the Spirit ends up being displayed on the screen, but you have to have spiritual eyes to see it.