Movie Review: Risen (2016)

This past week, I decided to try out the movie Risen. Just in time for Easter, this movie explores the experiences of the fictitious Clavius, a Roman soldier placed in charge of finding the missing body of Jesus. At first, Clavius has no idea who Jesus is, but as events transpire, he finds himself enthralled by the stories and his followers.

Doctrinally, the movie tries its best to stay generically Christian. Most denominations would not have many qualms with wrong facts. Viewing as a Mormon, the only thing I picked out was one point where Jesus is called the "Son of Jehovah," but that's not even worth arguing over. Many other nitpicky things are correct, such as having the nails go through the wrist instead of the hand, and Jesus being called "Yeshua."

The plot centers entirely around Clavius, which is both good and bad at the same time. In order to have Clavius attend most of the important post-death events in the New Testament, the story of Jesus and his followers is forced to bend around Clavius, so much so that some parts come across as being a little funnier than they should be. For example, Pontius Pilate is turned into some super bad guy who won't rest until Jesus's body is found. When in actuality, Pilate (who is portrayed in all four gospels as not wanting to crucify Jesus) most likely left the matter alone after the crucifixion.

But on the other hand, it is Clavius's story. Joseph Fiennes (brother of everyone's favorite evil guy Ralph Fiennes) plays his role well. Clavius is good at what he does. He executes his orders with precision. All he wants to do is retire in the country and live out a good life with his future family.

As he comes across Jesus and witnesses several miracles, he at first holds to more scientific explanations. For example when the walls crack at Jesus's death, it was only an earthquake. While everyone speaks of miracles and adoration, Clavius strives to stick with his cold logic and his desire to get down to the real story.

Along the way, Clavius asks one of the disciples, "Before he died and he said he was going to rise again, did you believe him?" The disciple answers, "To tell you the truth, we doubted." To which, Clavius asks, "Then why do you follow him?" Eventually, he gets his answer, and this is where the movie excels.

The writers cleverly turn Clavius's story into our own personal stories. As Christians, why do we follow him today? This movie gives us plenty to think about, and leaves it up to us to decide.

Do You Believe In Religious Tolerance?

More and more in the news, we hear about religious freedoms being under attack.

As we fight this figurative but real war, I'd like to invite you to take a quick inventory to see where you stand.  Do you believe in religious freedoms?  And what exactly does that mean?

Take for example, prayers at public meetings.  Most Mormons and Christians would agree with me.  If I'm on the city council making tough decisions that would affect thousands of constituents, I would like God's inspiration and guidance.  Thus, I believe a prayer offered by someone in the room would be more than appropriate.

Atheists don't like these prayers because it makes them uncomfortable.  They are also concerned about the appearance of establishing an official government religion.  If you say a Christian prayer at a city council meeting, it's like the city saying that Christianity is our religion.

I understand the atheists concerns, but I don't think a prayer establishes a religion.  I also believe that when the Constitution spells out the separation of church and state, it's talking about the independence of church and state, and not the removal of church from state.  If the government were to deny us the right to pray in public, I believe it would be infringing on my religious freedoms.

Let me switch gears here.  How would you feel if a Jew gave the prayer instead of a Christian?  Would you feel uncomfortable?  Jews make up about 2% of the US population, so if prayers are allowed, we should expect on average more than 1 out of 50 of these prayers to be Jewish.

But then again, would a Jewish prayer really be that bad?  Their perspective on life is different and beautiful, and their doctrines are so similar to what we Christians believe.

Okay, before I continue on, I'll come out and say that I expect that most of my readers would already be comfortable with a Jewish prayer.  I just wanted to give y'all a moment to pat yourselves on the back for believing in religious freedoms before we take this up a notch.

What if it were a Muslim giving the prayer?  Would that be okay with you?  Most Christians I know would pause here.  A lot of them would be uncomfortable.  But could we deny the Muslims their turn to pray?  They do make up 1% of the US population.

If we were to deny the Muslim, how would that make us any different than the atheist wanting to deny all prayers?  Then we would might as well be saying, "I believe in religious freedoms, but only for Christians (and sure, the Jews, too)."

And this is exactly what I hear when political candidates go around talking about how we need to preserve the "Judeo-Christian values" our Founding Fathers instilled into our nation, and even going so far as to propose or entertain the ideas of removing, tagging, or carpet-bombing Muslims.  It makes me want to yell, "No, we're not a Judeo-Christian nation!  We're an All Religions nation!"

It's very important to maintain that distinction, as it is the only way to ensure religious freedoms, not only for Jews and Christians, but also for Muslims, other religions, and even atheists and agnostics.  The Founding Fathers instilled into our Constitution certain protections that are meant to help each one of us be able to believe according to what we wish to believe.

It is true that practically all of the "Founding Fathers" had a Christian upbringing, but many of them were friendly to other non-Christian religions.  Some even clarified straight out that Muslims were meant to be included under the umbrella of religious freedoms.  I recommend this Washington Post article for an expose of several quotes from several of our early leaders.

In response to recent anti-Muslim sentiment, the LDS Church came out on 12/8/2015 and offered this official announcement clarifying their stance on religious freedoms, pointing out how Joseph Smith specifically mentioned Muslims as being equal to others.

Finally, this discussion would not be complete without a recitation of the eleventh Article of Faith.

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

Now at the end of this blog post, I ask once more.  Do you believe in religious freedoms?  Is it just for Christians?  Or will you fight to protect the freedoms of Muslims and other religions, and even atheists and agnostics?  Will you endeavor not to infringe on the freedoms of others?

I think that as we properly align ourselves in our understanding of religious freedoms, we will be much more prepared to fight the ongoing war.