..American Sniper brings us face to face with the issue Americans can’t escape in our modern society: the conflation of faith and patriotism. A week ago, Sojourners ran an article from Religion News Service highlighting the role of Christian faith for Chris Kyle, the sniper and main character played by Bradley Cooper in the Clint Eastwood film. Several quotes from his book were used to call attention to the prominence of faith for Kyle in real life versus the lighter take on it shown in the movie. The article ends with one such quote: “I believe the fact that I’ve accepted Jesus as my savior will be my salvation. … But in that backroom or whatever it is when God confronts me with my sins, I do not believe any of the kills I had during the war will be among them. Everyone I shot was evil. I had good cause on every shot. They all deserved to die.” Even if such language is patriotic for those who defend a black-and-white, us-versus-them ideology when it comes to combat, it is disturbing at best in a Christian context. First, Kyle makes the mistake of judging the life-value of another, something Christ implores us to leave to God (Matthew 7:1-2). Second, such language highlights the issue I mentioned earlier: the conflation of faith and patriotism. It’s a difficult idea to pull apart and examine, especially if both subjects are important to your daily life and identity. Even so, we’re asked to be thoughtful about our relationship to God and our neighbor. We’re even asked to go beyond that by loving God and loving our neighbor in the same way we love ourselves. Believing that ending the life of a neighbor, no matter what they’ve done, is outside the realm of sin or God’s judgment is a precarious Christian position to take. Yet many are quick to defend the problematic Christianity of Kyle. They defend it with a vehemence, and they defend the beliefs present in the book — and now in the movie — in many cases because they personally hold similar beliefs. This is what makes all of this so troubling for me: Many Christians are eager to speak out in the wider culture using their money (something I’m not sure is a completely Christian or grace-inspired tactic to begin with, but that’s another discussion), yet the overwhelmingly dominant film is a war biopic chronicling violent individual accomplishments, not the one about one of the greatest teachers and leaders of our time, a preacher with a Christ-driven message of non-violence... Mark Lockard
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 19:03:40 +0000