Wrong kind of missionary
MACHINE GUN PREACHER
Director: Marc Foster
Certificate: 15
Running time: 129 minutes
This is a film that explodes the stereotype of the American missionary. Based on a true story, the action centres around Sam Childers (Gerard Butler), a biker from Pennsylvania, who has a history of drugs and violence. In the wake of one heinous night, he goes to church and is converted.
Voluntary work leads him to Sudan, a land in the bloodthirsty grip of Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army. Gerard Butler’s compelling performance conveys every tremor of Sam’s shock and dismay. The film is unflinching in its portrayal of atrocity — a woman whose lips have been hacked off, a village torched by LRA soldiers, a boy blown to bits by a landmine. Appalled, Sam decides to build an orphanage to protect Sudan’s child victims. But his efforts are dogged by difficulty. In one horrific scene, the orphanage is attacked by LRA soldiers. Terrified children flee screaming while Sam fires at the attackers.
Unsettling
In the face of such danger, Sam’s actions seem justified. Nonetheless, this depiction of a weapon-wielding Christian is unsettling. As an aid worker points out, there are parallels between Sam and the other ‘Machine Gun Preacher', Joseph Kony. Whether and when the use of violence is legitimate is a debate that the film powerfully ignites.
As Sam’s difficulties mount, so do our concerns for his spiritual welfare. We ricochet between the turbulence of life in Sudan and sleepy Pennsylvania. Beset by financial problems, Sam descends into frustration. He angrily slaps his daughter and rails against his congregation, claiming that the Lord isn’t interested in sheep, but only wants wolves who are prepared to act. Compare such a claim with John 10.11 and it is exposed as a gross reversal of the truth.
It would be interesting to know how closely this construction represents the real Sam Childers, who to this day works in South Sudan. Whatever you think of Sam Childers’s theology — or at least the film’s representation of it — you can’t help but be impressed by his guts. Implicit is the challenge, should we be doing more?
Helen McKay-Ferguson,
staff writer on Junior magazine
