Update: Since I grilled this movie for failing to address why bad things happen, I wrote an article where I offer my take on it here.
I'm writing this the day after I saw Kirk Cameron's Unstoppable and I'm still in shock at how bad the movie was. I'm mostly familiar with Kirk through way of the master and living waters. He and Ray Comfort put out some pretty top notch evangelism training material, so I had a lot of respect for the guy. I liked Fireproof quite a bit as well. So when I heard Kirk was putting together his own little movie project, it grabbed my attention. I knew little about the movie other than it was supposed to focus on the question 'why do bad things happen to good people?' If you haven't realized it already, this question is very much relevant to the gospel, so much so that it's actually hard to answer that question without preaching the gospel. Surely Kirk is going to knock this one out of the park...right? I wish.
For the first half of the movie, I was laughing at how ridiculous everything was. Outside of Kirk telling a story of a friend for a few minutes there was very little content, and what was presented wasn't really in line with the topic. I didn't keep track of time, but I'd estimate about 30-45 minutes of the movie was spent telling the story of Genesis chapters 1-6 in a rock music video format. Kirk would read/talk about a little bit, then subject you to headache-inducing music alongside “I'm trying way too hard to be artistic” imagery.
As the movie drags on, Kirk briefly skims what was supposed to be the topic of the movie. In short, his main message seems to be: yeah, bad stuff happens but God works it out for good. Of course that's true, but it's also woefully inadequate to anyone seriously asking this question. Kirk also failed to present the gospel in the movie. Sure, the facts were there – Jesus died for your sins and rose again – but that was about it. No call to repentance, not even a mention of salvation through faith. Unless I missed something, Kirk didn't make any effort in this movie to tell sinners what they should do so they can be born again. I know Kirk can do better. I've seen/heard him witnessing to people and he does a pretty good job. I think it's fair to say that in terms of answering big questions and reaching out to people with the gospel, the movie was a flop.
So what does this have to do with evangelical philosophy? Everything. Somehow a guy who 5 years ago had a lot of zeal for the gospel just put out a movie on the 'big questions' which had a lot of flashy imagery, but said almost nothing. There's a bit of a mystery here, and while we don't have perfect knowledge, it's easy enough to put the pieces together and see how this happened. I suggest that two major problems caused the changes in Kirk as evidenced by this movie:
- A desire to mimic the culture.
This movie had it in spades. Edgy music, edgy imagery, edgy standards. There's nothing wrong with a good-looking modern movie with up to date cinematography, but do we have to also imitate Hollywood's content? Sure, those scences with Adam and Eve didn't show the worst possible angles, but let's just say that if I had a daughter, I would never let her play the role of Eve in this movie. How about that multi-minute fight scene between Cain and Abel that ended with a blood-spattered Cain standing over Abel's broken body? It's just an attempt to make the movie 'cool and relevant' to today's generation of carnal churchgoers.
One might say, “but those things are in the Bible!” Yeah, and there are some things better left in text. There are certainly some 'gritty' things in the Bible, but they are never presented in a 'just for fun' way, but as a important part of the narrative or for emphasis. In contrast, the nakedness of Adam and Eve, and the fight between Cain and Abel had absolutely nothing to do with this movie. It had no narrative purpose, but merely an entertainment purpose. In other words, it was put in there just to try to be cool. Pointless sensuality and violence in a movie? Sounds like Hollywood to me. What a shame that such things are found in this film.
- A philosophy of “let's get everyone together” that emphasizes unity to the exclusion of much important doctrine.
This was another huge problem in the film and the live intro. Unity of the brethren is important, and something we should strive for, but we can only ever have unity with those obedient to Scripture and the gospel. Unity without truth can only be achieved by compromise and this movie was a perfect example. I would almost guarantee that Kirk's compromise in this movie was mainly with regard to calvinism. I don't know if Kirk is calvinist or not. I imagine that, much like Comfort, he isn't a calvinist, but is friendly toward that camp. Either way, you see this come out a bit in the intro where Kirk had one guest that said some very non-calvinistic things, and another who used the word sovereign in every other sentence. These little glimpses may not be convincing, but there's another big problem to take into consideration.
When it comes to the question of why bad things happen to good people, calvinists and non-calvinists give very different answers. If Kirk goes on the movie and says what I'm certain he at least used to believe: “First off, there are no truly good people, but we all willfully sin each day. You chose to sin at some point in your life, chose to jump on the bandwagon with the sin-cursed world, now you reap the consequences for your choices. Death, sickness, and disease is the way of the world because of our choices.” Well, if Kirk said that, he'd get all kinds of flak from MacArthur, Piper, White, and all the other calvinists. He surely doesn't want to upset them, that would harm their 'unity'. Perhaps he should just put out a movie that gives the calvinist answer, “It pleases and glorifies God to destroy your young child with cancer, to kill your baby in the womb, etc. Be comforted, because God causes all these things to happen.” Well, that'd make the calvinists happy, but everyone else would be horrified.
So, Kirk has his hands tied. No matter what answer he gives, many will be offended. Ah, but there's a third option. Make a music video, talk a little about mostly irrelevant things, then dodge the issue by simply saying, “Well, God works everything out for good.” I imagine this same concept causes Kirk to dodge the gospel application in this movie. Well, we can all agree on the facts of the gospel, but there's different opinions on how to apply it. According to the calvinist, don't worry too much about it. God chooses to save you or not and there's nothing you can do about it. If you're elect, God will fill you with irresistable grace and you're set. So, Kirk couldn't say, “Christ died for every man and offers you forgiveness if you'll repent of your sin.” Again, if you value unity above all things, you can't take a position, but must dodge the issue and in the process, neglect to preach the gospel.
In conclusion, Christian unity is important and something worth striving for, but if you try to compromise truth for unity, you end up with neither. The road of compromise leads to a shallow, powerless religion which is toxic to real Christian living. As Christians, we must heed the Lord's admonitions to be separate from the world and theological error (Rom. 16:17, 1 John 2:15-17, James 4:4, Jude). To obey Scripture in these things is an unpopular stance to take, but a necessary one if you intend to make your like useful in the Lord's service.
Lately I've run into quite a few people who are determined to change the meaning of the great commission as it applies to Christians today. This command, which should give us joy, excitement, meaning, and purpose is seen as grievous by some. I can only assume that this stems from an over-attachment to this world with its temporary pleasures and comforts, fear of men, or plain laziness. Whatever the motives are for these attacks, I think it's worthwhile to frame some responses. The accusations generally fall into two main categories which I'll tackle here.
- The great commission only applied to the twelve, not the rest of us.
If you claim that the great commission applied only to the twelve, we have to ask the question, “which other commands only apply to them?” Perhaps the command to love one another was only intended for the original hearers. Nonsense. It's interesting to note though that people who make this claim refuse to apply their logic across the board. They only want to cherry pick the one commandment that they don't like. The answer to this objection lies right in the commission itself: “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you”. Surely this commission is also included in “all things”. Also note that there's no way the twelve could have fulfilled this command on their own, and they certainly didn't.
Let's also look at the rest of Jesus' ministry. He called every one of his disciples, not just the twelve, to follow him. He spent years showing them first hand how to minister to others, specifically in preaching the gospel. Obviously, the twelve had a special mission, but it was special only in scope and specificity. There is no indication anywhere in Scripture that there were certain commands that didn't apply to other Christians. In fact, this idea runs contrary to passages like Gal. 3:28 that state all Christians are equal. When Jesus wants something done, he doesn't only use a special group of people (contrary to the clergy/laity division you see in churches), but the Lord delights in using 'average' people to perform his work.
Finally, we can see this claim as nonsense from the testimony of the early church. Much of Acts focuses on specific instances of the apostles, mostly Paul. Still, if you're paying attention, you'll notice that most of the spread of the gospel is accomplished by the average rank and file Christians. For example, see Acts 8:1 (notice the apostles stayed in Jerusalem, but others fled during persecution) and compare this will Acts 11:19-20. Recall that the first martyr wasn't an apostle or church leader, but a regular guy. As a deacon Stephen was to be in charge of taking care of widows and the poor. Apparently, even with this heavy charge on his shoulders, he was convinced it was important for him to go out and preach the gospel to people. We could go on. Acts and the epistles tell a unified story. The early churches had plenty of problems, but zeal in preaching the gospel was not one of them.
- The great commission isn't properly translated, it should be more passive.
Of the two accusations, I come across this one less frequently. Nevertheless, it has apparently found a home in the heart of plenty of people. This actually begs a deeper question that I want to touch – which Bible do you trust? It's not just an issue of different ways to say things, but revolves around trust in God's promises to preserve his word in the hands of Christians (ex. Ps. 12:7). For a more full treatment see #6 of The Ten Deadly Heresies. Since I hold to the Textus Receptus (from which the KJV is translated), I'll use it as the base for my discussion.
So does the KJV translate the great commission improperly? One proposed rework that I've seen recently suggests that it should read more like: “as you are going, make disciples...”. Therefore, they say, there's no need to actively preach the gospel to others. Just go through life as you normally would, except live a little better, and maybe tell someone about Christ if they ask. Booorrring! Do you really think that's all that Christ asks of us? When Jesus calls us to lay down our life for the sake of him and the gospel (Matt. 10:39), do you really think he's just going to clean you up and then send you off in basically the same direction of life that you were going? What about the command to deny ourselves, to strive as faithful soldiers of the cross? (ex. Matt.16:24) None of this makes any sense if the battle for the gospel is merely passive.
Now that we've looked at how the proposed understanding doesn't mesh with other parts of Scripture, let's deal with the proposed translation itself. First, I would remark that even if we grant the assumption that this new translation is correct, it still wouldn't justify the conclusion that sharing the gospel is passive. It would just make it sound like Jesus is assuming they're going to preach the gospel. After all, where else would they go, and what would they do? The Lord has just spent years teaching them to minister to others, even if Jesus gave the commission phrased like this, the disciples would still understand it perfectly. Again, if you try to make the case that the great commission was passive, a simple reading of Acts makes it perfectly clear that nobody understood it that way, but they all knew it was something to be done actively by each Christian.
There's one final point I'll make on this. If this is truly the “correct translation” as decided by so many pastors who took one year of Greek courses online, why are you hard pressed to find any translation that renders it this way? Really, there's so much variety in modern translations, with some even removing whole passages and significantly changing others. If the translation is so uncertain, surely there's someone out there willing to translate it 'correctly'. Not really. I checked all the major modern translations and some historical, Geneva, ESV, NASB, NRSV, NIV, NLT, etc. and even a few very liberal translations. Of about 20 different translations that I checked, nearly all of them rendered the passage actively, as in the KJV. I found one exception in an obscure version that I had never even heard of before. Isn't that interesting. Even modern scholars, who are willing to change/question significant parts of the Bible, all agree on the translation of the great commission. I'm not saying that a modern translation would justify the argument, but if this idea is to be accepted, shouldn't you be able to find someone who has put serious effort into understanding the translation process who would agree to this rendering? Their argument fails on even this 'bare minimum' test. Without little/no suppport from any real translator, historical or modern, to support this position, I can only conclude that this idea is mostly championed by people who know just enough Greek to be dangerous, who use it to justify their cold heart towards the Lord and their fellow men.
There's a good lesson here. In general, you should always get very skeptical when someone takes your Bible and tries to say what it really means in the original language. Translators, especially historic ones, were not stupid or careless, but devoted their life to their studies. If you've ever struggled with this type of thing I highly recommend doing some reading on God's preservation of the Bible. If you've been clinging to various excuses to justify your cold attitude, repent and seek to follow the Lord without reservation. I'll make another post soon which should be helpful in understanding your part in the Lord's work.
