Vera Farmiga, in her directorial debut "Higher Ground," about a woman who has fallen in with a group of Christian fundamentalists, gets all of it right: the language, the baptismal rites, the Christian "marriage counselor" and the attractive patriarchal pastor. I should know -- I grew up Southern Baptist in North Louisiana and so I've experienced this movie. In fact, I found the film creepy in its authenticity. It took me back to a place I didn't want to go.
Farmiga plays the lead role of Corinne, who becomes pregnant as an 18-year-old, gets married and after nearly losing her child in an accident, gives herself to Jesus and a group of Protestant evangelicals. The strength of this film is that we really like most of these individuals. They are warm, caring and within the structures they have chosen, absolutely morally consistent. We never feel that the film takes an easy swipe at any of the characters -- with the possible exception of the marriage counselor -- and we see people, like ourselves, who are struggling to find their way through personal conflicts and the moral thickets of contemporary life. Because they are fully rounded human beings, they are believable, not caricatures, as one might expect in a film of this kind. Farmiga plays her role with no hint of irony and with great feminine beauty and sensitivity.
Corinne's problem is that she is highly intelligent, a reader of literature and a woman who is deeply intuitive. She wants to be a believer and she calls on God to speak to her and lead her, but her God is not a God of easy answers. When she prays, silence is the only response. And she can make no theological sense at all of the tragedy which visits her best friend. When the grieving congregation sings, "All is well with my soul," she tries to join them, but the words stick in her throat. All is not well with her soul. She is sensual and sexual in a social context of repression. She is a woman of subtle intellect thrown in with people who know all the answers all the time. She is with a husband who fails to be her equal spiritually, intellectually and sexually.
As we watch Corinne struggle, we wonder whether or not she will escape. After all, these are her chosen people and she is loyal to the core. She would rather deny herself than deny them. We understand this impulse, for all of us want community. All of us want a home. But she finds she must try to save her own soul.
I left the theater very troubled. I remembered the priest who told me I was going to hell when I left the Catholic Church at the tender age of twelve. I thought of the gay pastor I knew who died of AIDS, but was never able to reveal his plight, or his sexual orientation, to his congregation. I thought of the evangelical seminary professor who assured me that Jesus was the only way to salvation and that Gandhi is in hell. I recalled a conversation with my fundamentalist brother, who told me that women should not lead at church.
There was no intentional ill will or meanness of spirit in these people: the priest cared about me and the family; the congregation was devoted to their minister; the professor was warm and friendly; my brother loves me dearly. So what is the problem?
The problem has to do with the human consequences of fundamentalist values: these groups value rigid belief over human good. But any religious group that would deny others the opportunity to grow and contribute because of their gender or sexual orientation, which are God-given, is not a life-giving religion. Fundamentalists seem to be oblivious of the harm they do, and lay it all to the individuals who are "disobeying God," thereby bringing the harm upon themselves.
Contrary to a liberal relativism, I do not believe that all religious beliefs are equal and worthy of respect. Faith healers in Oregon are now on trial for the death of a child, one of several children who has succumbed to the beliefs of a sect ironically called the Followers of Christ. Faith healing, of course, is an extreme religious position, but I would suggest that every belief system should be judged by its effect on the individual and on society. Does it help the individual break barriers and flourish, or does it create barriers to growth, spiritually and otherwise?
There are still children having nightmares because they have been told they are going to hell. There are adolescents becoming suicidal after being rejected by their fundamentalist families because of their sexual orientation. There are far too many Corrines out there, still struggling to make sense of a faith that denies both body and spirit.
Every religious group and every religious leader must ask one simple question of our faith and practice: does it harm or does it heal? With subtlety and excellence, the film "Higher Ground" asks us to think on these things.
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No, they don't. Some probably do, but not any of the ones I know, and apparently not those that you see quoted by the media. They don't care about the harm they do, because the are acting in accordance with God's will. How can it be wrong if it is God's will. As the author says herself, they believe the "evil" people brought it on themselves.
For some of the leaders, there is a lot of money in it, too.
Seems to me that the self-righteous in every category, not just religion, don't give two cents for the harm they and their judgmental, controlling, hateful rigidity do to others.
It took me 4 decades and study of history and the world around me to discard the American myth that all religions are deserving of respect, let alone that all religions are equal in promotion of human decency. But I now believe that is a foolish and dangerous belief. In fact, dependence upon any religion to promote "goodness" is folly. Nevermind about other religions of which I have less knowledge, but we are a prime example. This most Christian of all nations is the most bellicose modern industrial nation and it has the highest crime rate and the least concern for reducing poverty and helping the sick, children, the elderly, the disabled, and others in need.
"Does it harm or does it heal?" Should be a reasonable measure of anything's worth, religion's too, but "To every complex problem, there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong."
Many things both harm and heal. A person refuses a vaccination because it hurts or causes almost immediate swelling, soreness, fever. Its potential for helpfulness, even healing, remains unexplored.
Fundamentalists would say that, like the "refusenik," your time span is too short. Everyone sacrifices now for future comfort. We work for $ so that we can enjoy spending it. We exercise now to be stronger, faster, more agile next month or 30 years from now. We sacrifice buying that daily latte to save for a car or better retirement. We literally bite our tongues that harsh words do not wreck our relationships with children, friends or spouses, precisely because we judge those relationships worth the temporary pain of self-control. Fundamentalists say that the greatest benefits of belief and practice are reaped in the "hereafter."
The more sophisticated, "Does it help the individual break barriers and flourish, or does it create barriers to growth, spiritually and otherwise?" is no less confusing. For Southerners, kudzu is unrestrained growth. In science, growth w/o barriers is cancer.
This ignores the reality of what we are. Dominance and territoriality and groupish-ness are behaviors which are every bit as much us as our compassion and our empathy and our zeal for healing. We do not choose to override our compulsions by dint of having reasons. It is only that the force of our compassion wins the choice in the moment. And when the food runs out the choice changes. There are no gay rights in Ethiopia.
Why don't you say something like, "I have a vision of every church in American being dedicated to healing the world and being a beacon of love and acceptance. Will you join me in my vision?" Wouldn't that be more effective than saying every church "should" and "must" be about healing and is "wrong" if it isn't. Moral relativism can be a beautiful thing.
It's the absence of dialogue around religious views, knowledge, theories, myths and perceptions that keep societies in the dark ages. It's the hush hush shushing that prevents society from advancing to a higher ground.
If you feel strongly about your beliefs, you should have the commitment to be capable of explaining it with passion, intellect and logic articulately.
Ever have a family event and someone inevitably says, "...now no religion or politics..." If I understand your faith and your choice of politics I can understand you faster than hearing how you found The Lion King at the grocery store. Or how you think Michael Vick should be traded to the Lions.
That's why our politics and religion are nobody's business. If people wish to share, that's great. I love nothing better than in-depth discussions on either subject. But I would never push or manuever someone into such a discussion. Not everyone can discuss them without getting emotional.
Respectfully, you can't be unaware that these things are so close to who we are as human beings, to our basic character and core values, that differences in belief often engender great anger and bitter feelings.
An attack on someone's religion or dearly held political view is an attack on them. If you want to ruin an enjoyable social occasion, just bring up a political issue or religion when you have people with strong opposing opinions.
There's also the fact that many people who are extremely religious or extremely committed to a political party often have less understanding of the tenets and philosophy than irreligious and apolitical people do. They believe without question, without knowledge, and without understanding, based on platitudes drilled into them, without their absorbing meaning, sometimes from earliest childhood.
Not only is it my experience, but it was verified by a national survey fairly recently that atheists, agnostics, and Jews know considerably more about Christianity than Christians do. Many Christians don't know what they believe, but whatever it is, they believe it with all their hearts!
Your argument cuts both ways, Brasstack. You are right that no person can think less of you because of your beliefs or lack of them, but your mocking use of the pet rock / sky fairy analogy makes you come across like a hypocrite.
People trapped in harmful religious behaviours will never be helped out of delusion and danger by derision and mockery.
I suspect you mean modern materialism. that we are here by the chance thing and throw in some random mutations and natural selection and kaboom; you have yourself a human species that are nothing more than robots of genetic genes.
religion has some profound teachings and also some profound ignorance, as does materialism.
two sides of the same coin and neither side has a clue they are kissing cousins. :-)
not a clue.
that rich thing about not getting into heaven does not faze these folks.
nothing sells better than guilt (evangel and catholic thing) and the feel good you are a christian destined for heaven. just believe and home free. try to find a better deal than that in the world.
we humans have this ability to cherry pick teachings to support our cherished beliefs and to keep our selfishness and greed intact.
no better way to see this cherry picking than in religion and politics.
For the record, most of the "metaphorical" interpretations of the Bible are the result of people simply pulling stuff out of their behinds. They can't accept the supernatural events recorded in the Bible so they simply ignore them or label them as metaphorical or symbolic. Whenever you press them on what precisely the "symbolism" represents they either have no answer for you, or they quickly come up with some vague axiom completely unrelated to the text in question.
Outside the Bible Belt at least, your garden variety American Christian does not seriously believe in Noah's Ark or Creationism or any of that stuff, only shows up at church to marry 'em and bury 'em (and maybe on Easter and Christmas), and tells their kids that only really bad people like Nazis and drug dealers and torturers of cute little bunnies go to hell. Mostly benign, mostly harmless, with only echoing traces of the oppression and hellfire of centuries past. Practitioners of alternative religions are also mostly harmless, aside from the occasional Norwegian church burners and the like. Mostly harmless, safely ignored.
Fundamentalism is a different story. It would take half a book to explain to somebody what it's like to be a part of it, not to mention the hellish process of trying to make an exit from it. This movie sounds like it does a pretty good job, so while I haven't seen it yet, I must recommend it to anybody who can't quite understand. I'll close with this: it's not just what it does or purports to do to those outside of its confines. It's also what it does to those within its confines, even if it seems they believe with full fervor.
This film will be no doubt be pretentious, selectively edited, overly-dramatic, self-congratulating, and deceptive. It will deliver to its audience precisely what they want to see and will serve to reinforce their preconceived notions and prejudices.
"the beliefs of a sect ironically called the Followers of Christ"
I find very few that I consider followers of christ.
find me one preacher, just one, that will give a sermon on the chances of a rich man getting into heaven or on john the baptist's chances of getting into heaven according to jesus. just one. :-)
a so called christian nation with 720 military bases around the world and on going wars for corp profits and a nation that refuses to give universal health care for all of its citizens. christian nation indeed. not.
think for one moment how corrupt this nation is. a nation that allows an economic ideology of profits over people to deny converage to those that need it most as they are labled with pre existing medical conditions to max corp profits and CEO bonuses.
christian nation indeed, I smile everytime I read or hear those words.
I was once a member of such a sect, and I believed fully, sincerely, and without cynicism, that that was the truth.
The desire for certainty is very strong in humans. If a holy book provides a blueprint for that certainty, it must be followed to the letter. That, to me, is what is so sad about the fundamentalists who seem intelligent in other ways.
those hindu's, muslims, buddhists, atheists, new age (ie his words) are off to you know where.
his last words were the only book I read is the bible.
once we attain some knowledge of the involution and evolution of consciousness process we see all different levels of soul development in our thoughts and actions and others actions.
politics and religion reveal these different levels of consciousness development the very best.
being smart is not a good indicator of one's level of development. ie hitler was smart. ie have you ever met a dumb atheist? ie IQ is about intellectual capacity.
even in jesus time there were many priests very smart but failed to understand much of what jesus taught.
the evangels are simply at a lower level of soul development at this time. ie all progress with experiences, time, and with the cause and effect of karma. if not this life then another, etc.
One of the first of those to fall was creationism. I just knew the people pushing it were morons (or, at best, Sophists) attempting to fly in the face of 150 years of rock solid science, I couldn't deny it anymore, I just couldn't. (And of course, the question was begged: if Genesis is wrong, what about the rest of it?) I wouldn't really say that's where the snowball got rolling, more like a very big brick that fell out of the wall.