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Romans

Christian Rebels? The Pandemic & Pop Culture Nostalgia

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your sunday drive podcast

Mid-pandemic, with many questioning and resisting government authorities and policies, we ask: Can Christians be rebels? Are there biblical and/or historic church models for us to follow, such as Jesus and the apostles, the prophets, American civil rights leaders?

Many are more immersed in pop culture currently than ever before – particularly in nostalgia for old shows, movies, etc. What are the positives and negatives of nostalgia? How does it relate to spiritual matters and to the “Christian rebels” topic?

All this and more (! 🙂 ) in this episode of the Your Sunday Drive Podcast.

Come along for Your Sunday Drive – quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.

Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive

The Long Road Home: Lessons Learned

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(Photo: National Geographic/Van Redin)

When we last left the eighteen trapped soldiers in The Long Road Home (National Geographic), they were surrounded on all sides by enemy insurgents carrying human shields.  Lt. Shane Aguero (EJ Bonilla) gave the command to open fire while the screen went to black.  It was an effective way to end an episode, that’s for sure.

The final three episodes chronicled the continued search and rescue of not only Aguero’s team, but a second platoon led by Staff Sgt. Robert Miltenberger (Jeremy Sisto) who had a broken down vehicle, limited protection, no method of communication, and a bunch of soldiers who had never fired a gun in combat before.  Sadly, the result was exactly what you might expect.  Insurgents saw the weakness and attacked it mercilessly, leading to a number of significant injuries and deaths.

Aguero’s team was also in significant danger after the shots rang out in Episode 5.  They still had a house of refuge, but insurgents were still swarming.  The main problem was a lack of ammunition, dwindling by the second. Their interpreter  Jassim al-Lani (Darius Homayoun) was still around, but even he was in trouble if the ammo ran out.

As you might expect, there was some good news. A tank finally found them, but only after Aguero put himself in the crosshairs of death for the third time, chasing the tank down with a flashlight. Miltenberger makes a dash to keep an insurgent from bringing friends, but finds himself looking down the barrel of a gun—just as he predicted.  Thankfully, the person wanted to help him.  In the end, the soldiers in both platoons were rescued and taken to the base, where their injuries were treated.

But not everyone was able to successfully recover.  Pfc. Tomas Young (Noel Fisher) was left paralyzed thanks to a bullet that hit him before he ever fired a shot.  Specialist Israel Garza (Jorge Diaz), always the jokester, didn’t survive his wounds.  The scene where members of the Army inform his unprepared wife Lupita (Karina Ortiz) was difficult to watch.

I thought the ending was well done as Lt. Col. Volesky (Michael Kelly), in a gathering of the soldiers, called out the names of the eight soldiers who died, giving them the honor they deserved.  The role of the surviving soldiers was reinforced when they had a meeting the next day and told about their upcoming mission.  It wasn’t a ‘one battle and you get to go home’ deployment; it was ‘stay until the mission is complete, then go home.’ In the end, the ambush cost eight lives, injured over 60, and left soldiers with physical, emotional, and spiritual scars.  War isn’t fun; that’s for sure.

(Photo: National Geographic/Van Redin)

So what can we learn from all of this?

* As just noted, life doesn’t stop just because an attack occurs. We sometimes have days when it seems everything goes wrong.  We’d like to crawl into the bed and hide until the sun shines again.  But that’s not the way life works.  Instead, we have to draw on our reserves of courage and determination (or just ask God for some wisdom – see James 1:5) and go out again into the world.

* Sometimes bad things happen, as with Pfc. Young. We have to choose how to handle the adversity—can it be used for good in some way, shape, or form? If so, we can make a positive difference in the lives of those we come into contact with (see Romans 8:28).  Or we can choose to wallow in negativity, passing that on to people who don’t deserve it.

* I was struck by the role hope played in The Long Road Home. It would’ve been extremely easy for Aguero to give up as the odds were definitely against his squadron. But deep inside, he continued to hold out hope of being rescued even when the world around him was burning. That didn’t mean he was able to sit idly by; he had to lead his troops, play the role of counselor, and go after the tank after it drove by them numerous times.  Hebrews mentions faith “is the confidence that what we hope will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (11:1 NLT).  That hope turned into faith, which eventually saw his troops rescued with only Chen dying.

The Long Road Home brought the realities of the Iraq War into homes across the country. It wasn’t easy to watch at times, but was a necessary reminder of the sacrifice and bravery our soldiers make on a daily basis. Thank you, men and women of the Armed Forces, for all you do!

Foxcatcher: Wrestling with God

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foxcatcher2

Foxcatcher is as difficult to write about as it was to watch. I have seen it three or four times now, and it does not lessen the difficulty of watching such a tense and dramatic film. Despite that, it is a great film, deserving every nomination for every film award it got! There is no other film like it. Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Mark Ruffalo all gave outstanding performances.

The difficulty of watching this film is that it is true.

Foxcatcher is the story of John du Pont (Steve Carell) whose desire to achieve something on his own draws him to sponsoring the US Olympic wrestling team in the 1980s. Du Pont knows nothing about wrestling, but it does not stop him. From the moment we meet du Pont, though we barely recognize Carell, we know that there is something not right.

The same could be said about Channing Tatum’s Mark Schultz. The trophies and metals in his apartment seem to stand as a memorial to what was in Mark’s life. Mark goes from making a speech to elementary school students about the Olympics to making a speech (prepared by du Pont’s people) about the father-figure that John du Pont has become in his life. These speeches stand in contrast to where Mark’s life has taken him.

John du Pont seeks out Mark to achieve his vision of being a part of a winning team. There are hints that he goes to Mark to get to his brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), an experienced coach. In this attempt, John befriends Mark, making promises and sharing intimate stories. John sets himself up to be the father-figure that is missing in Mark’s life. Mark does not seek him out as a mentor; John positions himself to be such. On the way to the event where Mark is give a speech that John’s staffers wrote, John shares cocaine with Mark and teaches him how to use it. From there we see a decline in Mark.

There is something not right here.

Between the two of them, John and Mark fill the screen with emotional damage. This damage is so settled within their very core, that is difficult to see, yet it explains everything. After participating in drug use with John, Mark begins to change, which is depicted by his appearance. He dyes his hair and he dresses differently. He spirals into self-destruction.

Foxcatcher 2

After he loses a match that he should have won, Mark returns to his hotel room to grieve. What follows is one of the most intense scenes in the whole film. Without any words, the real wrestling in Mark’s soul is revealed.

Filled with anguish, Mark sends his head into a mirror, glass breaking. He orders carts full of food and stuffs his face. His nameless internal wrestling bursts forth. The fighting ends with Mark collapsing to the floor. This is how David finds him. Bloodied. Defeated. Full of carbs. The wounds can be bandaged. The carbs can be handled. David puts his attention on Mark’s battered soul.

In the shadows of the hotel room, Mark is curled up on the bed, with David bent over him. As they do when they wrestle, they become one lump. David says to his younger brother, “You’re not in this alone.”

When you are in your darkest moment, dwelling in the shadows of life, there is nothing more meaningful than someone whispering, “You’re not in this alone.”

FOXCATCHER 3

In the Hebrew Bible, Jacob wrestled with an angel (Genesis 32) all through the night. Some have suggested that the angel represented God and the wrestling was over whom God was calling Jacob to be: Israel – the father of a nation. In Romans 7, Paul describes a fight with himself – “I do the things I know I shouldn’t do and I don’t do the things I know I should do.” In Ephesians 6, Paul says that the struggle we go through is not one of flesh and blood, but one with the spiritual forces of wickedness.

We wrestle with God, with ourselves, and with forces of injustice. 

The beauty of the film is that it does not state the obvious. We do not know for certain why Mark is emotionally damaged. Nor do we know why John is, though the film leaves clues as to why they may be. So often that is the case. We see others wrestling with their inner selves, not knowing why. We can, however, say to them, “You’re not in this alone.”