My life these past few days has been shamefully consumed with movies. I'm not sure of the reason, other than perhaps a lazy desire to not want to make good use of my time. So that said, I'm going to redeem at least part of the time I've used in front of a movie screen.

Brian McLaren, pastor and theologian, wrote an article a few months ago regarding the movie Hotel Rwanda. He makes several good points, and raises some very valid questions that anyone claiming Christ should consider. Read it. Truly mulling over McLaren's article shouldn't leave anyone comfortable.

For instance, the last question McLaren poses asks what kind of repentance Hotel Rwanda evokes. He could have easily asked how the movie inspired. Or even convicted. But he wants to know how it drives one to repent. To repent. Not to feel warm and fuzzy, or even crummy. But to act. After witnessing an account of hatred vs. love, genocide vs. life, what are we driven to do? The idea of repentance involves an actual physical act--not just conviction or forgiveness, but an actual turning away from some deed, lifestyle, or way of thinking and toward something completely and redeemingly different.

Many reports came out after Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ about scores of viewers being driven to repent and turn to God. Yet not much, if any, has come out of Hotel Rwanda. At least not from Christians. McLaren argues, pretty effectively I might add, that Hotel Rwanda may be more accurately entitled The Passion of the Christ.

If so, what repentance does it call for? What must we, what must I turn from? Complacency? Ignorance? Lack of love? Inactivity?


What must we, nay, what must I run to?