Last week I had the chance to see the film Brokeback Mountain. I had wanted to see it ever since I first saw the trailer for it and had heard the mass amounts of rave reviews. My interest grew, and my eagerness to see it increased as I began to hear negative comment on top of negative comment from people of faith and as it got cruelly dubbed “the gay cowboy movie”. As I was waiting in line at the movie theater I saw a friend of mine from my old youth group that I hadn’t seen in awhile. His surprise in seeing my wife and I there was evident as he asked: “Why are you guys seeing this movie? I wouldn’t expect you to be here.” I answered him simply in saying that I had heard a lot of good things about it and wanted to check it out. My wife then asked him the question to which I had already guessed the answer: “Why are you here?” He looked at us in mild embarrassment as he lifted up his shirt slightly to reveal a rainbow belt. I had known this kid for several years. He was the kid in youth group that worshiped unashamedly, he was the kid in high-school who would preach to everyone and was even the president of the Christian club. And now here he was standing before me, revealing something about himself that was clearly uncomfortable for him to communicate.
Simply put, Brokeback Mountain was one of the best films I have seen all year. It was powerful, moving and tragic. It is a beautiful and tragic story of the lives of two men who love each other but can’t find any way to deal with it. It’s a story about a time and place where two men are forced to deny the only great passion either one has ever, and possibly will ever feel. It is a story about a struggle that two men never asked for; one in which will destroy their lives because neither of them, nor the world around them know how to deal with it. It’s a film that I believe should be seen by everyone who follows Christ. The reason being that it takes us out of our very narrow and blind predisposed perceptions, and places us into a story with real people and real feelings, where our perceptions and prejudices are challenged and you get to see into a struggle which so many share today. I feel it is important that before we blindly condemn something, that we put ourselves in the shoes of the other. Obviously Jesus thought this was important too. He came to earth to live life and show us the way, not as an immortal God, but as a human being just like us.
As I shared with people that I had seen the film, I was met with several responses - one of which was similar to that of my friend’s response above: “Why would you want to see that?” as well as “I’ll love the person but hate the sin”. To me, both of these responses reciprocate the proverbial “Thanks for stopping by” and are neither helpful nor thoughtful. Many of the people I have talked to about this issue are very uncomfortable with homosexuals. Talking about this movie makes them feel awkward, and they do not know how to respond, so they usually respond with something they had heard once, or with something that they had been taught in Sunday school. Many of us have been taught to be homophobic - whether it be by our parents, friends, church, society, whatever - and have thus never actually thought about the issue, so we reduce it to our trademark phrase: “Love the person, hate the sin.”
Do we actually love the person? How can we love someone if we don’t try to understand them? How can we try to understand them if we don’t know them? And how can we know them if we don’t share any level of personal space with them? We say that we love them, but how can we possibly if none of them are our friends? Love means nothing unless it’s coupled with justice. Unless we are willing to stand up for our brothers and sisters and fight for them until they receive justice, our “love” means absolutely nothing.
A couple of days ago I sat down with my friend that I saw at Brokeback Mountain to share a bit of life with him. I sat across from him, listening intently as he began to share with much vulnerability and honesty his story. He told me that ever since he was in kindergarten he felt different. He always had a lot of friends who were girls, and by the time he was in 7th and 8th grade, he realized that he was gay. He constantly tried to fight it. He went to church and became ultra-religious and preached to his classmates. He felt that he had to be this way so that he could “mask” what he was struggling with, because he knew what the church thought of people like him. Years later as he began to slowly tell people his struggle, he experienced a mirage of condemnations: “You are sinning against God”, “You are going to hell”, which were always followed by the nice phrase: “but we love you”. What my friend felt was nothing that resembled love and acceptance. He told me that he didn’t know why he was gay. He suggested that maybe it was because he didn’t have a good relationship with his father and now he longed for that male relationship, but he wasn’t sure. He knew for sure that he didn’t choose to be gay. He told me with tears in his eyes that the life that he lived was so incredibly hard and that he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. He told me how people always seemed to think that just because he was gay that he was a sex crazed person. He told me that he had never had a gay relationship and that he doesn’t have any pictures of men up on his bedroom walls and that he was just a normal guy that wanted to be loved. He then told me that he felt like he could never fully be himself. That he was always hiding who he really was so that he wouldn’t be judged or ridiculed. He told me that the only place he could be himself was around his friends who knew that he was gay. Not in church, because all people would do and have done was try to “fix him”. He then told me that he still believed in Jesus and God, but that he also was exploring different spiritualities like Buddhism and meditations. I find it interesting that once he got judged and condemned by some people who claimed to be Christians, he didn’t throw Christ out the window, but instead began to search for a people and a spirituality that loved him. I shared with him that it is sociologically proven that every man is orientated towards polygamy, and that just because my struggle was heterosexually and his was homosexually, it didn’t mean that he couldn’t have a vibrant life in Christ. Our struggles were different, but neither one is more of sin than the other. As we were finishing our conversation I shared the following verse with him:
If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, wont he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one – for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one – for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?…No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow – not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below – indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)
Ennis tells Jack something he saw as a boy: “There were these two old guys ranched up together, down home. Earl and Rich. They were pretty tough ol’ birds. Anyway they found Earl dead in an irrigation ditch. Took a tire iron to ‘im. My daddy, he made sure me and my brother seen it. For all I know, he done the job. Bottom line is, we’re around each other an’, this thing, it grabs hold of us again, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and we’re dead.” How sad that these men need fear for their lives.
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Excellent Ryan. Wonderful job communicating our need to truly share life and truly understand in order to truly love. I really have got to see this film before the GG’s on Monday. Perhaps our churches would get further if we rented out theaters to create conversations around this type of film rather than Narnia and the Passion. Wonderful article… Seriously, this is way better than most of the stuff I read in Christian mags, including Relevant. You should email Cameron Strang @ relevant and see if they would be interested in publishing it. The great thing is that the film experience led to a connection and conversation that led to Christ and his Love. Really substantive, very thought provoking, life giving and refreshing!
Ryan,
Very thoughtful post and approached with such love & humility. I have got to see the movie!! I appreciate your heart and your response… very Christ-like.
I appreciate you writing about your experience seeing this movie. I hope that, because I choose not to see this movie, I would never be labeled as a close minded, judgemental Christian. There are just some movies I don’t find appealing. Your assesement that the movie is tragic confirms my impression. There are a lot of war movies I don’t want to see either. But your thoughts about true Christian compassion is well put.
Mainly I wanted to comment that the tragedy comes not from the source of the passion, but that mankind is blinded from the only deeply worthwhile object for that passion, and that is God Himself. The tragedy is that, even if these fictional, yet life-like characters could express themselves freely in their love for one another, they most possibly would still be empty. The issue of sexuality is a first hurdle that many cannot get past. Heteral or homo… Tragically.
Wow.
Okay, where do I start? Forgive me if I end up writing a post myself in this response.
First of all, incredibly well-written post, Ryan. I’ve read it about 3 times so far to try to digest everything you so humbly and poignantly addressed. I second Billy’s suggestion to see if you can get it published.
Then, although there are traces of American culture all over Italy and Europe, this place where I am at is a very small and traditional town. If the movie ever does get released here, it will be in a year and dubbed, and I doubt many people would go to see it for the exact homophobic reasons many won’t see it in America. All this to say, I wish I could see it for myself, but honestly you packed so much into this post that I feel like I got a pretty good sense of what feelings it might bring up in me.
That brings me to the “gay issue.” Hard topic to tackle because I feel like I have been on both sides of the fence: a time in my life when almost all my friends were gay and I was totally for that, then to the other extreme where I was like the typical “love the sin, hate the sinner” Christian, and then to now, where I still have a hard time figuring where I stand with this issue, and this is where your post hits me, Ryan. More on that later.
Question, though. You state:
“Love means nothing unless it’s coupled with justice. Unless we are willing to stand up for our brothers and sisters and fight for them until they receive justice, our ‘love’ means absolutely nothing.”
What justice are we fighting for exactly? Because God is the true judge, and even when the religious spout condemnnation on, say, the gay community, Christ’s blood and sacrifice is still available to them and no one can take that away. So how do we bring justice, and more importantly the message of Christ’s salvation to the gay community? Because, let’s face it, even though the gay community is just as spiritually hungry and in need as the rest of us, most have been spitefully chased away by the Church that claims to represent Christ. How do we bridge this gap? That is the issue where I have yet to find my position.
I admire how you so humbly brought Christ’s love to your friend, Ryan. I pray that his negative experiences with judgement and hatred from the church are washed away by interaction with Jesus. But it brings up real questions for me. What if your friend (only as an example) were attending Aqueous, met an amazing guy, wanted to share his faith with him, and the two started attending together? How would the church react? What if your friend wanted to marry him and they wanted you to be the best man? If we accept that being gay isn’t a choice like most of the religious right state, but part of one’s genetic makeup, then where do we as Christ’s followers go from there? I honestly don’t know and want to hear what you think.
In the end, I agree with something that Suzanne wrote in her comment. Heterosexual, homosexual, fetishes with animals or whatever it may be, all of our selfish human fleshly lusts that don’t bring us closer to God’s kingdom all leave us empty, and that is tragic no matter one’s sexual preference.
Can’t wait to see where this conversation leads…
Amazing post Ryan, I also suggest you try to publish it, like Billy said, it is far better than a lot of the stuff published in Relevant, Sojouners ect. It seems perhaps we need the type of love and acceptance you exemplified with your friend to counter the condemnation and pain the Church has heaped upon the gay community. I also struggle, like Sarah, with questions about how far our acceptance goes. At some point we need to draw the line. Perhaps if our line was more firmly drawn on issues of heterosexual sin and adultery then our conversations of sin with the gay community would not be so hypocritical. Just a few thoughts that were stimulated by your post, can’t wait to hear more of your thoughts on the subject.
Ryan, I’m so stoked to hear that you had such a great opportunity to speak into your friend’s life. Even though I was hesitant to see the movie with you and Heather, I’m glad that I did for the insight it gave. You do make an excellent point in that we, as Christians, need to be open to really making an effort into understanding what life is like for those who struggle with homosexuality.
As a person who has walked with a few friends through this issue and attempted to bring the love of Christ into their lives, as well as one who has seen the destruction that sexual sins can cause, the movie still gave me more insight. I appreciated that it didn’t hide the tragic, or make homosexuality a glorious thing, but stayed quite realistic and wasn’t afraid to address the issues. I think that is a huge part of why it’s a very well-made film.
My hope is that more Christians can turn away from the judgementalism, cliche-ridden views of what it means to minister to people who deal with homosexuality, and just learn to be open to their struggles and face the fact that we are no better just because our struggles are heterosexual in nature. We need to be a beacon of light, not a condemning finger of rejection to people who are hurting.
By the way, I totally agree that you should try to get this published at Relevant. More people need to hear this kind of thing.
Thanks everyone for the kind words. I am glad that so many of you are entering this conversation and hope that more do. In response to some of the comments above I offer the following: The gay community is a very outcast people. Many feel like they have to hide who they are because they don’t want to deal with all of the struggle and pain that would come with “outing” themselves. When a movie like Brokeback Mountain comes out and it receives so much criticism as its called “career suicide”, “controversial”, “super uncomfortable to watch” and “a professional risk” it should tell us that we have a problem with a community that we have unnecessarily outcast. I mean, why doesn’t a movie about a serial killer, rapist, terrorist, or an adulterous affair get these labels? It sort of reveals something sad about our society. If we would take a quick look at the types of people that Jesus fought for and stood up for, we would see that they too were mostly those who society and the religious establishment rejected. The fact of the matter is that God uses us to bring about justice. He uses us to represent himself. He uses us to show others his love. And if we as Christians aren’t about loving and fighting for those who get a bad rap and are rejected and looked down upon, then I think that we have sort of missed the point. The gay community shouldnt be treated like aliens, but like brothers and sisters. They shouldnt be rejected jobs because of their sexual orientation. So in answer to your questions Sarah, we should seek the type of justice that treats the homosexual community no different than the heterosexual community. You pose some other very good questions Sarah. I would love to talk about these, but for the sake of space and running the risk of writing too much, being misunderstood, sounding like a know-it-all expert (which I most definitely am not) and over-simplifying this very complex issue, I will save this for face to face conversations. It is definitely something that we need to wrestle with and allow the voice of the Holy Spirit to speak. I will say this though: I do believe that everyone who comes to Christ is called to surrender all they are to God. Nothing can be taboo in a life with Christ.
Ryan, I really admire how well you can put your thoughts into words. Maybe I just haven’t spent enough time hashing these issues out in my own mind, but you just put into words something I’ve been trying to put together in my mind for some time.
I posted a brief review about “Brokeback” on a message board I frequent. It’s really interesting to see which people open up and which people shut down or attack when discussing the issue of homosexuality in any way. I posted about my thoughts on homosexuality and some of the things that have come up in my mind recently about this issue on my blog, so I won’t continue here.
Thank you for starting this discussion Ryan.
Thanks Marieke. For all who are interested, Marieke posted some more thoughts on her blog here, that continue this conversation. Please continue to share your thoughts here, but head on over to Marieke’s blog when you get the chance.