Today you will see why I keep “Confessions of a Bad Christian” as my blog title. Recently the movie Bull Durham was on a cable channel and I watched it again. Hard to believe it has been over 20 years since it was released. In this article I am going to draw some spiritual applications from an R-rated movie. Gasp. In my early church experience real Christians didn’t watch any movie and most assuredly not an R-rated one. The really godly people did not drink or dance. The really, really godly people did not have televisions. They were a laugh a minute. If any of those folks were to read today’s post they would no doubt remove me from their fellowship that I used to call “The First Church Of Misery Loves Company But We Probably Won’t Love You”.
Despite that risk of censure I press on. No baseball movie that I have seen comes closer to capturing the unique culture of baseball like Bull Durham. It has some rough language and sexual content (see previous sentence). So parents and good Christians should proceed with caution. The main characters are a young pitching phenom (Nook LaLoosh) and a nearly washed up but knowledgeable catcher (Crash Davis) that is brought in to mentor the prize prospect. One of my favorite scenes is when Crash teaches the young pitcher how to handle interviews with the press.
Crash Davis: “It’s time to work on your interviews.”
Nuke LaLoosh: “My interviews? What do I gotta do?”
Crash Davis: “You’re gonna have to learn your clichés. You’re gonna have to study them, you’re gonna have to know them. They’re your friends. Write this down: “We gotta play it one day at a time.”
Nuke LaLoosh: “Got to play… it’s pretty boring.”
Crash Davis: “Course it’s boring, that’s the point. Write it down.”
I have learned that the journey with Jesus is simply living it one day at a time. Write it down. You can’t live in regret of the past. It is forgiven. You can’t live in fear of the future. It is in God’s Hands. You live in the moment, one day at a time, trusting Him for that day. That’s the point. Play it one day at a time.
My friend John Weber passed away two years ago. He had a saying that I love.
“God didn’t call me to be spectacular. He called me to be faithful.”
Write it down.
Another quote from the movie Bull Durham had spiritual application for me.
“This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.”
In many ways Christianity is a very simple faith that we have made incredibly legalistic and difficult. To paraphrase the line above. “You love the Lord your God. You love your neighbor. Sometimes it is easy. sometimes it is hard. Sometimes life rains on you.”
Why do I want to make it so maddeningly complex? Jesus said that two things are the most important.
One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: “Which is most important of all the commandments?”
Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.”
Today I sit here and wonder why I ever tried to make it anything else? The scholar who heard the words of Jesus “got it”.
The religion scholar said, “A wonderful answer, Teacher! So lucid and accurate—that God is one and there is no other. And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that’s better than all offerings and sacrifices put together!” (Mark 12, The Message)
I wonder how the body of Christ would look differently if we concentrated on those two simple commands? Would we worry so much about the worship music style and the vestibule carpet color? Why do we get so exorcised about what other Christians are doing and other people are saying? Why do we care so much about being treated fairly and getting what we deserve? If we concentrated on those two commands we would be so much happier and effective for Christ. We would experience and give grace.
But do I get it? Or do I still get sidetracked by life and pride and worries? It is really very simple. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart. Read the Word daily. Love others as you love yourself. That is what Jesus told me to do. Nothing about programs or positions or curriculum or strategies.
Love God. Love others.
Write it down.
Ted Jones
Mr. Burchett. Thank you for your article. I certainly agree that sometimes Christians get too hung up about things that are not important spiritually, whether it’s music preference or how to have communion. However, I would like to ask you about watching certain movies (or television programs for that matter) that have questionable content in them. For a large part of my life, I watched R rated movies and read books by authors such as Tom Clancy/Robert Ludlum, etc…, and I justified my actions by telling myself that I was interested in the plot or storyline, and therefore all the incidentals (such as nudity/sexual content and language) were just part of the package and they wouldn’t affect me, or at least not negatively. However, my mother used to ask one quesiton that I think can sum up whether something is wrong or right. She would always ask me, “If Jesus were sitting next to you, would you still watch that movie or read that book?”, and of course, Jesus is “sitting next to” everyone that is a believer, at least in the form of the Holy Spirit. I never saw Bull Durham, but I’ve heard about it. If Paul clearly tells us in his letter to the Collosians that we are to avoid sexual immorality, and to avoid filthy language (Col. 3:5,8), I think it is wise to avoid that sort of material. Adultery often starts with pornography, which often begins with so-called “soft-porn”, such as R-rated movies with fairly explicit sexual content or nudity. I hope you don’t feel I am condemning you or trying to judge you, but I do think one has to set boundaries in terms of what we let our eyes see and our minds read, especially as men. We are called to be like Christ and to be holy, and I don’t think R-rated movies (except maybe in rare circumstances) would be worthwhile food for the soul, at least for the Christian trying to become more like Christ. If you care to respond, my email address is familymandoc@comcast.net. Thank you.
God bless,
Ted Jones