Like To End All Wars, a brilliant film released in 2002 starring Kiefer Sutherland and Robert Carlyle, the producers cast the best actors who auditioned for the parts—actors who would bring the story alive for every audience member, religious or not.
It was a good move considering how many otherwise acceptable Christian films have been ruined by abominable acting. Plus, it indicates that mainstream Hollywood is finally ready to take part in our projects.
But rather than celebrating this accomplishment, some believers are using it as an opportunity to stir up dissention in the ranks. Why? Because one of the lead actors in the film is Chad Allen: an outspoken homosexual.
One religious writer carped that he fears the gay star will distract people and take them out of the film, though it’s worth noting that none but a handful of viewers would have known about the sexual proclivities of Allen had not the religious media made an issue of it I certainly didn’t know and I follow Hollywood for a living. What’s more, Spear’s filmmakers didn’t know until they were already in production and some helpful and terribly outraged columnists pointed it out to them.
Whatever controversy has come from casting Allen as Nate Saint, Spear’s filmmakers displayed much better judgment than casting ill-fitting, well-known names from “Growing Pains” or “The Love Boat” just because of their public professions of faith. It makes for a better work of art, and a better work of art is more likely to engage the secular public and not diminish God in their eyes.
It is my understanding that the actress playing Mary Magdalene in The Passion has posed in nude photos. Knowing this didn’t make me any less inclined to marvel at Mel Gibson’s artistic vision.
Keifer Sutherland has been known to go on a public bender or two. But his apparent struggle with alcohol didn’t make me feel any less affected when his character in To End All Wars finally finds life while building a railroad of death.
Two of the leads in Chariots of Fire were homosexuals. This fact does not in the least way detract from the lasting beauty of that film when I watch it again today.
However, if we believers must analyze more than the art itself and ask “what message” the casting of Chad Allen sends, maybe it is this: Those who seek to live like Christ will love a man beyond his transgressions. They will acknowledge that his lifestyle is sin (as the filmmakers have done with both Allen and the public), but they will be loyal friends and employers who honor their commitments, and they will not cast him out as unclean once the synagogue begins to squawk. Finally, they will continue to share meals with him no matter how much the pious wring their hands, and they will pray that their love and friendship will lead him to find the love and friendship of Him they are trying to emulate.
But for those who want their Gospel as uncomplicated, obvious and narrow as their art, I guess there’s always hope for another Left Behind.