But, in practice, there’s a difference.

‘Perhaps Just Out of Our Minds’

Christian filmmaker Buzz McLaughlin tries to find a niche between secular movies and preachy ones—only to find it’s an elusive market.

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In the independent film The Sensation of Sight, Oscar nominee David Strathairn plays an introspective English teacher who feels himself complicit in a tragedy, and then begins selling encyclopedias door-to-door to the locals. But his anxieties begin to consume him as various characters and dreamlike situations increase around him, ultimately pushing him toward an unexpected awakening.

It’s sort of a strange synopsis for a “Christian” movie—which it isn’t. The filmmakers behind Sight—which played 19 festivals worldwide, had a limited theatrical release earlier this summer, and is now available on DVD—are Christians, but they didn’t want to make a distinctively Christian movie.

Frederica Mathewes-Green: I’m sitting in the kitchen with my son Steve and his wife Jocelyn and their baby Ruth Anne, who is crawling around on the floor. She has just learning how to walk, but it’s a lot faster if you go by crawling. She’s carrying an arrowroot cookie, and dropping it, and sitting on it, and picking it up again. And every once in a while she sees that there are fingers on my hands, and she grabs a finger and tries to lead it—because she wants to walk holding on to my hands. So I kind of have to hide my hands where she doesn’t see them. Isn’t that right, Ruthie?

“We Will Be Like Him” (I John 3:2)

England can be delightful in early August, when the mornings are cool and the afternoons bright. At home, on America’s mid-Atlantic coast, it’s so hot and gummy that the dogs are sticking to the sidewalks. This is one of those rare patches of year when Americans might like to come to England for the weather.

Frederica Mathewes-Green: Today is a Sunday, and I am in Holy Ascension OCA Church in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, right outside of Charleston. This is a very unusual church building. This was just consecrated last May, and I am speaking with the architect, Andrew Gould. You look to me like quite a young man, Andrew. Is this your first church building?

I’ve got a whole box of stuff here. This is tissue paper, it’s wrapped around little papier-mâché Christmas ornaments from India. And they’re all hand painted and there’s so much detail. I’m looking at one, it’s got a band of colors on top and another band on the bottom, and the middle is painted blue, and it’s dotted with—there must be a hundred little stars, and one, two, three, four, five angels, smiling with their wings stretched out and touching each other.

In early June I went to Los Angeles to speak at a conference at Pepperdine University that was on a fascinating topic; it was about a capella church music. I didn’t know this, but Pepperdine was established as a Church of Christ school—Church of Christ being a flavor of Christianity that is extremely Bible-based, very conservative in many senses, and in fact, they say the three things that make them different from most protestant churches is that they have weekly communion, they baptize by full immersion, and that everything in their worship is sung without instruments, it’s all a capella. They say they do these three things because that’s the way the early church did it, and of course as an Orthodox visitor to the campus, I was delighted to say, ‘Yeah, that’s the reason we do it too.’ We certainly agree that that’s what the early church did.

Frederica: Hello, I’m in Spokane Washington at the conclusion of the ‘To the Ends of the Earth’ Conference sponsored by St. Gregorios Malankar Syrian Orthodox Church, and I’m sitting here with, I would say Khouria Heather Durka.  We have all these names for clergy wives: presbytera, and preoteasa, and Pani Matka, and matushka and all these things, and here’s another one: Kochamma.  And your tradition is in stead of saying Kochamma Heather, you say Heather Kochamma. 

Frederica: Here I am in the Shakespeare Garden, of the—what’s it called? The Portland –

Kh. Krista: The Portland International Rose Garden.

Frederica: The Portland International Rose Garden, in Portland, Oregon.  Which is gorgeous.  It’s on the side of a mountain, part of the Cascade Range, Krista was telling me, and you can stand at the top and look down the terraces, and it’s just roses and roses and roses.  We’re in a little tucked-away corner that’s the Shakespearean garden; not too many roses here, but all the flowers are named after characters in Shakespeare.  So this is a nice quiet place to be.  I’m here with Krista West, Khouria Krista West, the wife of Father Alban West, who is the pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Portland, and her daughter Nora, and her daughter Zuzu, both of whom are sketching at this moment.  Krista’s probably known to many listeners as a liturgical seamstress and as an expert in liturgical vestment history.  You gave a speech about this recently at Holy Cross Seminary in Boston, didn’t you?

Frederica: I’m sitting here on the sofa in the blue room in my house with my son Stephen, who has a red wristband on that says ‘Bonnaroo.’  Does it say ‘Bonnaroo 07’ or just ‘Bonnaroo?’ 2007.  And on the other sofa is Jocelyn, I think fast asleep.  Yeah, she’s fast asleep.  They’re exhausted because last night at this time they were just getting in the car to leave the Bonnaroo music festival and they had an 11-hour drive and have done laundry and a number of other things in between.  Steve, when was the first time you and Jocelyn went to Bonnaroo?

Frederica: Here we are.  I’m at a beautiful outdoor café, what was the name of this place?  I’ve forgotten already.  Tree, something, Italiano, I think. [Laughs]  I’m looking around, I’m trying to see if there’s a sign.  Anyway, I’m in Malibu Village in Malibu, California on an overcast day.  It’s pleasantly cool; it’s just perfect here, as it so often is.  June gloom, I’m told.  I’m sitting here with my friend, Barbara Nicolosi, who is a screenwriter, who is a teacher of screenwriting and has a number of other talents and one of the things that frustrates her is Christians that think they’re going to write a screenplay and convert the world to Christianity with a script that is pretty unprofessional.  But let me let you speak for yourself; just start in anywhere.  Hit it, Barbara.  They can’t see you moving your hands and making faces; you’ve actually got to – [laughs]

This movie theater here: the Muvico 24, is just south of Baltimore and it’s such a hoot.  I don’t know too much about this company, this chain, Muvico theaters, but they build their theaters to have these grandiose themes, and this one is Egyptian temple, that’s the theme we have going on here.  As you approach this 24-auditorium theater, there are these huge columns with big capitols on top.  Everything looks like it’s destroyed, like it’s in ruins.  It all has cracks painted into it, Egyptian figures going around these columns.  I’m guessing there’s about 20 columns with black bases and then the sandstone rising up above that.  Huge multi-colored panels and snake heads and all kinds of crazy things. 

The Psalmist writes, "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness," words that fall on deaf ears in a culture that knows as little of beauty as of holiness. Look at new church construction. So many contemporary churches do not aim to be beautiful; they aim to be functional. This might still work out all right, if the designers truly thought the function of a church is worship, but too often the assumed function is communication with the people in attendance, either to teach, uplift, or entertain them. Contemporary worship spaces look more like education spaces or entertainment spaces than like sanctuaries. By contrast, picture a church constructed with an eye to beauty, designed to draw us into the presence of God. It is fitting that it be beautiful, because beauty opens our hearts.

"Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" asks the old Gospel hymn.

Mel Gibson's powerful film, "The Passion of the Christ," has brought many viewers "there," and I rejoice with those who say it deepened their faith. I can understand why this film moves them so much.

But I don't think they understand why a fellow-believer might prefer a different approach. It seems to them that any less-than-graphic portrayal is weak - "sanitized."

But is that the only way to see it? Here, for example, are two paintings made early in the 17th century. The one with the golden background represents the Eastern Christian tradition, and is by the iconographer Emmanuel Lambardos of Crete. The other, emblematic of Mel Gibson's Western tradition, is by the Dutch painter Hendrick ter Brugghen.