Considering Machine Gun Preacher

Last night we had “Guy Movie Night”. I thought the recent release, Machine Gun Preacher, would be an interesting movie to watch and talk about. It would certainly get us outside of our comfort zone and think about how to live out our faith in circumstances very different than our own.

It has a provocative title, drawing attention to the seeming contradiction at play. It is based on the life of Sam Childers, who runs an orphanage in southern Sudan. This is the Hollywood treatment, so we can’t be too sure about how accurate the story is. Often multiple events can be synthesized into one for the purpose of movie-making. So … I am not speaking about the real Sam Childers, but the Sam Childers of film, played by The 300′s Gerard Butler.

The beginning of the movie is a large part of why it has an R rating. Sam is released from prison. He’s something of a bad boy biker, and speaks like it. There are quite a few F-bombs and c-suckers in the first 20-30 minutes. After his wife picks him up at the prison the next scene is them in the car on the side of road getting reacquainted, so to speak. There is no nudity and it is shot from a distance, but it certainly made me feel uncomfortable.

This was a man who lived according to his most pressing desires. Yet he returns to a wife who is different from the one he left. She no longer strips. I could not conceive of having the mother of my child, even if we weren’t married, strip for men. He was angry upon this discovery. “What, did you find God?” he asked derisively. Like a good Calvinist, she responded “God found me.” And so the battle begins. She continues to work at a respectable, low-paying job and bringing their daughter to church. He returns to his life of crime, drugs and drinking.

That is until one night, after robbing a dealer he thinks he kills a hitchhiker in a brutal attack in the back seat of the car. His wife awakens to find him trying to wash blood out of his shirt. “Help me,” he cries. And so he awkwardly attends church and responds to a vague invitation and is baptized.

What he believes is never really spelled out. His faith is more a necessary plot device that motivates some action and creates the cognitive dissonance. There are no clear articulations of any Christian doctrine, and he is baptized upon a confession of faith we never hear.

But what is clear is that he changes. Though he struggles to provide for his family, he sticks to respectable work. Eventually he applies himself and builds a business. His family is able to move out of the dumpy, tornado ravaged mobile home they share with his mother. He is engaged in family life.

One day a missionary from Uganda speaks at church. Something strikes a cord in him and he goes to spend some time there helping with construction. He is struck by the presence of soldiers and begins to talk with them, building a relationship with one. Bored and curious, he asks Dang to bring him north into Sudan. There he sees burned out villages, and holds a dying boy in his arms. He wants to make a difference.

First he builds a church facility to house a church for “people like me”. When the guest speaker doesn’t show, he essentially becomes the accidental pastor. Then he returns to Africa.

He picks a spot in the thick of the action. His plan is to build an orphanage. But this puts him in conflict with James Koney and the LRA. Much of the movie is about his conflict with Kony and a crisis of faith. These are the 2 things that require the most analysis.

He works with another military group, the SLA (I think it was) that opposes Kony. They protect the orphanage, but he emerges as a leader. He protects the kids, sometimes proactively by ambushing LRA troops. There are many disturbing scenes of violence, often involving children. But children hear of the “white preacher” and come to view him almost as a savior. After telling him the legends that have arisen around him, a UN worker tells him “That’s how they used to speak of Kony.” She saw him as another part of the problem, becoming the monster to defeat the monster.

It is hard for us in the first world to really grasp the severity of the problem and the limited options at his disposal. We could quickly criticize him, like the UN worker. He’s not just fighting an undeclared war, he’s seeking to defend the defenseless and rescue children from horrific abuse in a land without a police force. He cannot call 911 or CPS to report James Kony. The international community has essentially said “that’s horrible” but done nothing. The UN’s solution seems limited to refugee camps.

Providentially, two horrific incidents occurred earlier in the day. Both were at schools and children were murdered and injured. Imagine being there. What would you do? Those teachers did the best they could to protect the children. But wouldn’t you put down killer. I would, if I was there with a gun. It would be a “righteous” kill.

That is much of what Childers is doing- standing in the breach to protect children by any means necessary. And that is the rub. At the end of the movie the real Sam speaks about if your child was being abducted. Would you care about the means used to return them to you safely? Probably not. But the ends don’t necessarily justify the means.

At times he’s not directly defending children. He’s taking the fight to the LRA. Do the ends justify his means then? I think in this case he’s taking vengeance into his own hands, which he is not supposed to do (Romans 12:14-21). He has been overcome by evil when he does. Like any real life person, his choices are a blend of right and wrong when faced with such formidable evil.

He also experiences a crisis of faith. On the one hand he spends so much time in Sudan that you wonder “who is running his business?” He is essentially deserting his family. On one of his trips home, he hears that one of the key leaders trying to resolve things peacefully has been killed in a helicopter crash. He’s so consumed with the realities of Sudan, and the pressure to get more money that he can’t think like a 1st world dad who’s daughter is going to a “formal”. He begins to feel abandoned by God, and walks away from his faith. The F-bombs reappear. He shuts out everyone and descends into bitterness and despair. He contemplates taking his own life.

The “ministry” became an idol. His sense of worth was totally set on success.  In his new book, Every Good Endeavor, Tim Keller talks about this danger. He brings up the “story” Amadeus and Solieri’s struggle.

“His appropriate ambition had become his misguided salvation; so his considerable success was not enough.”

Later, Keller notes:

“Work can convince you that you are working hard for your family and friends while you are being seduced through ambition to neglect them.”

Childers neglected his family and friends. One friend died due to that neglect, but he chose to blame God instead of accept responsibility for his own lack of action. He moved from minister to savior, and that shift can kill you. And others. He became angry, thinking no one cared like he did. His preaching when he was home (behind a metal pulpit) turned ugly- chastising the people for not being like him. Instead of humbling, his struggles hardened him. It is a common temptation, and many a pastor (father, artist etc.) has fallen into it.

The story of one of the kids in the orphanage intruded upon his attempt to kill himself. He heard of this child’s pain. We aren’t sure what exactly happened that night, but in the morning he was free from the bitterness and re-engaged with his family (via phone) and the people he served.

While Sam’s circumstances are extreme, they do portray some common temptations that we face in our far more mundane lives. We can think the ends always justify the means. We can think “I’m the only one who cares.”

I just wish this movies has a firmer spiritual foundation from which to address this issues. It seemed preoccupied with the sensational aspects of the machine gun preacher instead of the spiritual life of a man who risked his life to help so many. For me, that would have made this a more satisfying film. But probably not as popular.