Speeches, Movies and The Culture War

Last Monday was the 150^th anniversary of President Lincoln’s assassination which occurred on Good Friday 1865, just a few months after he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and six days after General Robert E. Lee surrendered, ending the Civil War.  Seven weeks earlier, Lincoln gave one of his last speeches, his second inaugural address.  It was only 703 words long, lasting just 7 minutes.  Lincoln gave fewer than 20 speeches a year, almost all of them short and to the point.  His second inaugural address is considered by many to have been his best, appealing to God to heal the nation and highlighting the role of Divine Providence in ending slavery and reuniting our nation.  Here’s how he ended that speech, including a quote from Psalm 19:

“ ‘The judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’  With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the light, let us strive to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations.”

Lincoln’s speeches were always humble and filled with references to God and faith.  He never referred to himself, but rather, underscored the importance of acknowledging the role of Divine Providence in protecting human dignity and rights, as outlined in our Constitution.  In contrast, President Obama has given over 2,050 speeches during his presidency, an average of 500 per year, more than one a day, almost always referring to himself and his role in reshaping America.   In his speech at Selma last month, the president said, “America is a constant work in progress… unconstrained by habits and conventions and unencumbered and ready to seize what ought to be.”  For president Obama, “self-evident truths” are uncomfortable, and he recommended instead, “moral imagination…attuned to the fierce urgency of now.”  In other words, he advocates a new morality as evidence of progress toward greater freedom, even if it means legislating restrictions on religious freedom.

All this brings me to a quote from Sunday’s second reading from the first letter of Saint John: “The way we may be sure that we know him (i.e., Christ) is to keep his commandments.  Those who say, “I know him,” but do not keep his commandments are liars, and the truth is not in them.” (1 John 2:4)  Clearly, President Obama ignores the biblical truths about marriage and the right to life, and this is evidence of not knowing Christ.  Comparing Lincoln to Obama calls to mind Proverbs 29:2: “When the impious take up the leadership, the people shall mourn.”  I mourn for the 58 million children killed by abortion, and the children suffering the effects of broken marriages. I also mourn for all the women suffering the lingering effects of not only abortion, but from the emotional and psychological damage caused by illicit sexual relationships.

President Obama still holds a relatively strong approval rating, mostly along party lines.  His supporters apparently accept and approve his brand of morality, in which personal freedom trumps personal responsibility, notwithstanding the many negative consequences of such a worldview.  As our world becomes more secular and less religious, virtue declines and our democracy risks slipping into nothing more than mob rule. The great cinematic director Frank Capra knew this well, and used his art of movie making as a means of educating the public about the importance of moral education.  Prior to World War II his movies Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Meet John Doe, all portray heroes who fight against political corruption and moral relativism.  This was the era of FDR, whose progressive ideals led him to expand the reach of government massively, setting up huge federal departments empowered to write administrative law, with little or no congressional oversight.  In one pivotal scene, Mr. Smith, played by Jimmy Stewart, sits in front of the Lincoln memorial trying to decide whether or not to fight the establishment and he takes his courage from Lincoln’s words inscribed on monument.  Wrapping up his filibuster, Smith says, “Great principles don’t get lost once they come to light.  They right here.  You just have to see them again.”

For Capra, the problem was how to make people see the principles once again that make our nation great.  He understood that freedom not only offers opportunity, but establishes a duty for all citizens, an obligation to preserve that freedom for our posterity, and only those willing to bear the burdens have a right to its rewards.  During an interview about his last great film, It’s A Wonderful Life, Capra explained that this movie summed up his philosophy of film-making:  “First to exalt the worth of the individual; to champion man; and second, to plead his causes, protest any degradation of his dignity, spirit or divinity.  There are just two things that are important: one is to strengthen the individual’s belief in himself, and the other, even more important, is to combat a modern trend toward atheism.”  In his 1971 autobiography, Capra was critical of modern filmmakers, most of whom he said were, “stooping to cheap salacious pornography in a crazy bastardization of the great art, to compete for the patronage of deviates.”  Imagine what he would think of filmmakers today!

There is no question that Hollywood has an impact on our culture.  It both reflects our culture and directs it.  Not only are most movies overloaded with illicit sex, violence, and foul-mouthed heroes, but millionaire actors have come to believe that they are paragons of the culture, emboldened to use their celebrity for political causes that promote the liberal, progressive agenda.  Only recently have there emerged a few good filmmakers willing to produce G and PG movies with decent moral content.  The same writers who produced God’s Not Dead, this spring released Do You Believe?  Shot in Manistee Michigan, it tells the story of one man whose profession of faith might cost him his job.  The handful of Christian filmmakers’ efforts falls short of regenerating the morals of our country, but perhaps they are an early indicator that we are approaching the bottom of this cycle of declining morals.   The emergence of films like Capra’s, with a moral message, may represent the beginning of a reawakening of our moral nature.  

What our country needs now is another leader like Lincoln, who will stand on principle and inspire us to return to the moral underpinnings of our nation.  Quoting Proverbs 29:2 again, “When the just men are multiplied, the common people shall rejoice.”  Let’s start praying now for a “just man” to run for president in 2016, one who “knows Christ and keeps His commandments.”