Saved!

Took some time yesterday to go see the movie "Saved!" The basic plot line is that a girl from a private Christian high school becomes pregnant and it's a look at how she's treated by her fellow students. Seeing as how my life involves a "youth group" I couldn't pass it up.

Suffice to say that, as a movie, it wasn't all that great. It couldn't decide if it was a comedy or a drama or whatever, and the ending was pretty weak, too. Wrapped up a bit too neatly, like a sitcom.

I didn't expect the theology to be all that sound, either. The sappy ending had enough bad ideas about who God really is against what people want Him to be that...well...I guess that's what you have to do when you want a happy ending.

What struck me was the portrayal of the Christian teen subculture. In many ways it was dead-on accurate.

For example, the aging principal of the high school was using out-of-date teen phrases in an attempt to be cool. You know, like he'd yell to the kids, "Who in here wants to get jiggy with Jesus?!" They'd all respond wildly. Unfortunately, I know plenty of youth pastors who try to remain hip and it comes across exactly as the principal in the movie did: pathetic, but the kids didn't really care. I told my wife that if I ever start to act like that, tell me, and I'll go to my office, shut the door and write.

The Christian teen subculture was pretty accurate, too. One of the characters was forced to attend the private school because she was expelled from some others, and her observation of teen Christian guys was, "All the Christian boys look like NASA employees."

There was a teen who attended the school who had recently come back from a world tour with the "Christian Skateboarders Association." The band at the prom was playing a song by a punk band from my youth, The Replacements, and one of the lines in the song was "We'll inherit the earth, but we don't want it..." The song was certainly not religious in any way, but the teens were responding as if it were a worship song. They have prayer meetings that are really gossip sessions. The teen who get pregnant has a Bible thrown at her while her friend screams, "I love you too much to let this happen." The sins of various kids are swept under the rug and dealt with under accepted Christian phraseology and actions instead of with love by parents. There was a True Love Waits reference that was really funny. The teens were riding around listening to an alternative Christian music station. Their assembly was very typical of most Christian youth rallies, complete with a silly altar call portrayal.

I guess what really got under my skin was the idea that the view of the writers and directors wasn't all that far off base. Sure, it was taken to extremes, but there was a lot of truth underneath it all. The lead character, Hillary Faye (Tammy Faye, anyone?) played by Mandy Moore, was an example of everything that legalism could lead to if it went unchecked.

Which is why the characters of note that everybody liked told the truth as they saw it, and gave each other grace (albeit in order to make a happy ending they had to conveniently ignore some obvious biblical truths) and love.

And when you think about it, that's what will ultimately draw people to a genuine relationship to Christ (minus the ignoring of obvious biblical truth). The world sees all too much of legalism and it's effects on people...so much so that it was pretty easy to see some serious realities within the subculture.

The world needs to see more grace in us as a tribe.

So, the movie wasn't all that great. Like I said before, it couldn't decide if it wanted to be a comedy or a drama...and unless you're really tied into the subtleties of the Christian subculture many of the jokes will seem cliche and stupid. But I will say that the parents in my student ministry will get to watch it and discuss it at our next movie/discussion night.

The lesson that night will be "What is it that we're doing that makes the non-believer view us in this way?" Hint: Legalism kills.