One Christian Cheeseburger Coming Right Up
by Theresa A Ludwick
Consider the following two scenarios: First, you walk into a fast food restaurant and order a Christian Cheeseburger. You pay your $2.69, or maybe order some fries and a Coke to go along with your meal. You wait, virtuously patient, and retrieve your order with a smile. Then you sit down and lift the fluffy white bun-top to see if your order is correct. Just as you hoped, the cheese on top of your burger has been carved in the shape of a cross, making it (in your mind) palatable. Next scenario: You walk into a movie theater, curious to see the latest offering by a Christian-based film company. You’ve watched the trailers for it on your favorite religious broadcasting channel, or been bombarded by emails touting the film as the next Passion of the Christ, or the next (fill in the blank). You pay your $7.50, maybe order some popcorn, and sit through two hours of blandly-scripted, mediocre(ly)-acted twaddle involving the Last Days or some other devastating, crisis-oriented theme. You sit through the closing credits, trying to think good thoughts about what you’ve just watched. After all, it presented the gospel clearly, if nothing else. That, in itself, should make it palatable. Right? Maybe, but that alone may not have made it tasty or memorable. Enter, stage right: Peter Farrell, director of New Life Actors, a Small Group at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Farrell, who has acted on stage, film, and television, as well as having forayed into radio, is intent on “raising the bar” of quality and integrity in acting and film, while maintaining a necessarily high standard of morality. In his opinion, while vitally important, the Gospel message often takes precedence over skill and presentation in Christian theatrical enterprises. Too often, he says, “Christian producers look predominantly at the Bible. To them, the front of the bus is the Bible and the back end is the performance, and all that really matters, is that the Gospel message gets conveyed.” But is it? “I think execution is vital,” he affirms. What causes us to remember a story; its details and nuances? Is it not the fact that the story reached things inside us: universal truths that we can all relate to on one level or another; things like love, beauty, nobility, or sacrifice? When these things are lacking, no matter how noble the theme, the story fails to impact us. Who didn’t weep (or at least sigh deeply) at the end of the three-year theatrical journey with Frodo, Sam, and the Fellowship? “Look at a sunrise,” Farrell smiles. “Look at the petals of a flower. Look at the dynamics of a storm. Consider the level of detail that God put into these things. Execution is everything.” So, what’s he going to do about it? What he already has done is started an acting group, with plans to build, from its foundation, a company of dramatic artists who strive after both Christian principle and creative excellence. “The arts, in general, need to be stood upright again,” Farrell believes. “In his book, Addicted To Mediocrity (published in 1981), author Frank Schaeffer contended that the Christian arts had been effectively reduced to nonsense because people tried to “Christianize” them (it was Schaeffer who originated the analogy of the Christian Cheeseburger, utilized at the beginning of this article). The purpose of New Life Actors is to create a core of skilled, Spirit-filled actors and believers. Maybe I sound bigheaded – I don’t mean to – but I hope we get to a point where New Life Actors eventually becomes a school, a “Mecca,” where people can learn to be what God wants them to be as actors, writers, and producers.” Bigheaded? Maybe, maybe not, but daunting in either case for, while Schaeffer’s book was written 25 years ago, some would say little progress has been made in the Christian arts community overall. There seems to be a lack of freedom, in particular, among Christian filmmakers; a fear that incorporates several ideas: “Who am I going to make angry, and who is not going to touch this [production] with a ten-foot pole? What is potentially sinful, or may have the appearance of sin?” Therefore, they often stick to the safe subjects: Biblical themes and, most prolifically, the seriously overworked “end times.” “Anyone looking at that topic,” Farrell says, “should realize that, from an artistic point of view, it would take a monumental effort to be done even halfway good. The one who expects to be able to adapt the Book of Revelation and turn it into a credible movie in just a couple of years, doesn’t understand art. We have to give credit to the secular film industry because, frankly, the levels of artistic quality, flair, and scrutiny a major studio requires is higher than what a lot of Christian producers require.” The subject of “freedom” is a controversial one. While Hollywood may indeed exercise high standards of quality and skill, it also takes artistic freedom to its irresponsible extreme, with no holds barred regarding morality, sexuality, or social responsibility. New Life Actors is meant to be a safe place for believers to explore acting without fear of being asked to do something they are uncomfortable with. “I have an unwritten policy with NLA,” says Farrell. “We don’t use material that would compromise Christian values. That’s challenging, because I have to choose scripts carefully but, in addition to being an acting studio, we’re a point of ministry.” What about the future? As NLA progresses, how will it face the issues of propriety or “not-for-prime-time?” How close to the cutting edge will New Life Actors go? “I don’t know yet,” Farrell admits. “But I think one of the best places to look for how to approach a touchy subject is in Scripture itself. In the 34th chapter of the Book of Genesis, the sons of Jacob exact terrible revenge on the hometown of a man who molested their sister. Scripture tells us what happened, but it doesn’t go into graphic detail. I do believe artistic quality can be achieved.” Along with Christian probity, and at the expense of neither.