War Room: A Review by Justin Peters

by Justin Peters , September 9, 2015

If you do not know the Kendrick brothers by name, you almost certainly know them by their films: Flywheel (2003), Facing the Giants (2006), Fireproof (2008), and Courageous (2011).  Stephen, Alex, and Shannon Kendrick have just released their fifth faith-based film, War Room.  War Room, starring popular Bible teachers Priscilla Shirer and Beth Moore, looks like it may well be the most successful of their films to date bringing in $11 million just on its opening weekend; more than triple it’s $3 million production budget.

Given the popularity of Christian themed films and the considerable buzz about this one in particular, my wife, Kathy, and I went to see War Room on the evening of September 3rd so that I could write a review.  For those of you who read my review of Mark Burnett and Roma Downey’s movie, Son of God, you know that I am a bit skeptical of the Christian movie genre as a whole.  Nonetheless, I do want to offer what I hope to be a fair review. This review will not touch on every single facet of the movie or even on every theme it presents, but I do hope to address what I believe to be the most important of them.

Plot Overview

War Room is centered around Tony and Elizabeth Jordan, their ten year old daughter, Danielle, and Elizabeth’s real estate client-turned Christian friend, Mrs. Clara. The Jordan marriage is in serious trouble.  Tony, a pharmaceutical salesman who travels extensively in his work, is the kind of husband and father one loves to hate.  Though a hard worker, he shows little interest in his daughter and pursues a female work interest behind his wife’s back. Elizabeth, played by Priscilla Shirer, goes to Mrs. Clara’s home discuss the particulars of putting it on the market.  The meeting, however, went far beyond deciding on a listing price for the house.

Mrs. Clara, an older widow, is a Christian fiercely devoted to prayer which she does in a closet she has dubbed her “War Room.”  Mrs. Clara goes to war here, battling Satan who is portrayed as the source of every form of evil plaguing mankind. Rather than plotting troop positions on a military map, Mrs. Clara pins  prayer requests and Scripture verses on the wall of her war room, prays to God, and rebukes the Enemy.  

Mrs. Clara begins to ask Elizabeth some probing questions about her family, marriage, and church attendance.  Upon learning that the Jordan family is at the point of collapse, Mrs. Clara exhorts Elizabeth to fight for her marriage in her own war room.  

Slowly but surely, Elizabeth is changed by her newly found prayer life and by reading the Bible. One day in her war room, she discovers via a friend’s text that Tony has been seen in a restaurant with another woman.  Elizabeth immediately prays for her husband and asks God to stop him. God gives Tony a stomach ache in the restaurant preventing him from following through with his adulterous plans.  

Shortly after this, Tony is fired from his job. Rather than the anger and sarcasm he expected to receive from Elizabeth upon hearing this news, she offered him love and support. The change he sees in his wife eventually changes Tony as well. He confesses his sin and turns back to God. He seeks and is granted forgiveness from both Elizabeth and Danielle, and the Jordan family is on the fast track of restoration. 

Despite his new life, Tony is fired from his job.  What his boss did not know, though, was that Tony had been stealing drugs from the company, selling them and pocketing the profits. Though he had gotten away with it, his now sensitive conscience drove him to return to meet with his former boss, confess his theft and make restitution.  His boss could easily have turned Tony in to the authorities to face prison but chose not to do so. The Jordan family was spared the loss of being torn apart again just as it had begun to heal.  Tony eventually found a new, though less lucrative job, his family grew closer to one another and the Lord, Mrs. Clara’s house sold to a pastor and his wife, and all was well because of the battles fought in the War Room.

Strengths

The movie was, of course, clean.  There was neither foul language nor any innuendos (other than what was about to happen between Tony and his almost-mistress at the restaurant) anywhere to be found.

War Room emphasized the importance of fidelity to one’s spouse and cutting off any potential threats to the sanctity of the marital covenant. The film championed the virtues of character, integrity, and selflessness. The importance of family, and the need for regular church attendance were stressed. Mrs. Clara (a very winsome character in the film) taught Elizabeth the importance of reading Scripture and, of course, prayer. The movie did teach the biblical truth that man is unable to reform himself.  “You can’t fix Tony. Only God can.” said Mrs. Clara to Elizabeth.

The Gospel was, well, mostly there.  Mrs. Clara presented the Gospel to Elizabeth in one of their meetings and she talked about sin, that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty of sin, was raised from the dead and that a person must believe in Jesus and repent. These are all essential elements of the Gospel and I am glad that they were included. That having been said, even though the proper biblical terms were used, often these terms were not explained. The term “repent,” for example, was used but never fleshed out.  The lingo was there to be sure, but without a biblical understanding of these terms they are just that, lingo.

Weaknesses

As I’m sure you are expecting, I did find much with which to be concerned. Some of the film’s failures could have been avoided with more careful attention to doctrine and theology and some of the failures, as I will explain in the conclusion, are inherent to the genre itself and unavoidable.  I will outline my concerns in a series of “Outs:” Out of Home, Out of Order, Out of Focus, Out of Bounds and Out of Context.

Out of Home

I may as well begin with the most politically incorrect and probably the most controversial point I will make in this review and get it out of the way. Not everyone reading this will agree but truth is truth. 

That men and women are of equal value before God is beyond dispute (Gal. 3: 28-29). That having been said, men and women do have different roles and the role of a young wife and mother is to be a worker in the home.  The Apostle Paul writes that older women are to teach “the young women…to love their husbands, love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be blasphemed” (Titus 2:4-5). Note the “workers at home” part.

The context makes it quite clear that the “young women” are those who are married and have children in the home. This text makes it quite clear that such women’s primary place of service is not to be outside of the home but within.

Pastor and teacher Dr. John MacArthur has written that if a young woman is adequately fulfilling all seven of the requirements listed in this passage then she “will probably be a very busy individual” and have little time for work outside of the home. If, however, “she still has time left over, then she would be free to pursue enterprising and creative activities outside the home.” It is not that a young woman should never engage in wage earning work of any kind. Proverbs 31, in fact, depicts the godly woman who may do some enterprising work from within the home.

One of the first things I noticed in the film is that Elizabeth worked outside of the home as a real estate agent. Had she been adequately fulfilling all of her duties inside the home, then the case could have been made that this was permissible. This was not the case, however. In fact, the movie actually makes a point that Elizabeth was so involved at her job that she did not know what her daughter, Danielle, was doing at school or in her jump-rope team. 

The sad reality is that the fallen world in which we live often requires young women to work outside of the home. Some “young women” have been abandoned by their husbands and some may have husbands unable to work due to some type of infirmity. In situations such as these work outside of the home is, unfortunately, unavoidable. 

When a young woman can avoid working outside of the home, though, she should. If a young woman works outside of the home out of preference rather than absolute necessity, then a biblical principle has been violated. The issue is not a minor one. Note that if a young woman works outside of the home at the expense of her biblical household duties, then the result is that the Word of God is βλασφημῆται (blasphemetai), literally, blasphemed.

Writes Dr. MacArthur:

The home is where a wife can provide the best expressions of love for her husband. It is where she teaches and guides and sets a godly example for her children. It is where she is protected from abusive and immoral relationships with other men and where, especially in our day, she still has greater protection from worldly influences—despite the many lurid TV programs, magazines, and other ungodly intrusions. The home is where she has special opportunity to show hospitality and devote herself to other good works. The home is where she can find authentic and satisfying fulfillment, as a Christian and as a woman.

Out of Order

War Room is a theological train wreck chronologically speaking.  In other words, it totally gets out of order the Holy Spirit’s work of regeneration in a person with the fruits of regeneration.  

In their first meeting, Elizabeth tells Mrs. Clara of the distressed state of her marriage to Tony. Upon hearing this, Mrs. Clara asked her, “Have you prayed for him?” There is nothing, of course, wrong with this in and of itself except the fact that Mrs. Clara made this inquiry without having first made certain that Elizabeth understood the Gospel herself. Though Elizabeth certainly was not guilty of the overtly egregious sins of her husband, like he, she displayed little understanding of the Gospel. She attended church only “occasionally” and was biblically illiterate. There was no discernible spiritual fruit in her life to indicate that she was a believer. 

Another example occurs after Elizabeth hears the Gospel (most of it anyway) from Mrs. Clara and begins to get on the straight and narrow. Shortly after Elizabeth found out about Tony’s attempt to cheat on her, he came home from his failed dalliance to a meal she had prepared for him.  She looked at her husband and asked, “You wanna pray?”  At this point in the movie there is absolutely no reason to believe that Tony had been converted. He had little interest in Danielle and he did not love his wife. He was selfish, arrogant, was a thief, and had no conviction over his sin. He cared only for himself, had no godly sorrow, and showed no affections for things holy and pure. He was ignorant of Scripture and comfortably so. That Elizabeth, by this time walking with the Lord, would ask her husband to pray assumes that this is something he could do which, as a lost man, he could not. 

Save the prayer that one may prayer at conversion, prayer is a spiritual discipline that can only be done by the saved. The movie gives the impression that praying for one’s spouse or asking God to bless the evening meal can be done by one who is lost. This, of course, is an impossibility. Before coming to Christ we are enemies of God (Col. 1:21), dead in our sins (Eph. 2:8-9), and cannot seek Him (Rom. 3:10-11); a condition which precludes any ability to pray (Is. 59:2).

Now, this having been said, I am not saying that this was the intention of the Kendrick brothers. It is probably the case that they were simply portraying how people normally speak. I am not at all saying that theologically they would believe that lost people can pray. The problem, though, is the vagueness in which it was portrayed.  

Additionally, and even more worrisome, is that the film gives the impression that one can live a life of habitual, unrepentant sin and still be a believer. In her own war room, Elizabeth petitioned “Lord, I pray for Tony that you would turn his heart back to you.” 

My issue here is not that Elizabeth is praying for her husband, but that her prayer gives the viewer the impression that Tony was a just backslidden Christian. “Turn his heart back to You,” she prayed. Again, Tony was an absolutely loathsome individual at this point in the movie who displayed zero evidence he had ever experienced regeneration.  

Christians can and do sin (1 Jn. 1:8) but their lives are not to be characterized by sin. It has been said that a Christian can stumble into sin, but he cannot swim in it. A believer is a new creature in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God Who produces in him good fruit (Gal. 5:22-23). Many people living lives of habitual sin are told they are just “backslidden” when they’ve never slid forward in the first place. Charles Spurgeon stated, “Unless our faith makes us pine after holiness and pant after conformity to God, it is no better than the faith of the devils, and perhaps it is not even so good as that.” Whether intentional or not, there is a danger of this film giving some of its viewers a false assurance of their salvation.  

Out of Focus

War Room certainly did deal with sin but it did so, I thought, primarily on a horizontal basis. In other words, though it showed the damaging consequences of sin in relation to our fellow human beings, it did not focus nearly so much on sin’s deadly consequences in our relationship to God.

Tony and Elizabeth both sinned in that they focused on their employment at the expense of their daughter, Danielle. Tony, of course, sinned in his pursuit of a woman who was not his wife. Eventually both came to see how their sin hurt others and they repented. In and of itself, this is good.

What I did not see – or at least what I believed was not emphasized nearly enough – was the vertical nature of sin. There was no mention anywhere in the film of the wrath of God that our sin incurs. There was no mention of God’s wrath abiding on the unbeliever (Jn. 3:36) or that we are saved from it (Rom. 5:9). There was no mention of eternal judgment for those who die in their sins (Lk. 16:19-31).

Without first understanding the wrath of God, one cannot rightly understand the mercy of God. Without first realizing that our sins are storing up God’s wrath (Rom. 2:5) which will be poured out on the ungodly for all of eternity (Rev. 14:10), we cannot truly appreciate His mercy. It is only in understanding God’s deserved wrath that we can fully understand His undeserved mercy. It is His wrath that makes His mercy so precious.

In watching the film both my wife and I were looking for one thing which is a hallmark of every genuine believer: a godly sorrow over sin.

The Bible speaks of two types of sorrow over sin. There is a worldly sorrow which is merely a guilty conscience. A worldly sorrow is one that is concerned only for the horizontal consequences of sin and it leads to death (2 Cor. 7:10).  

The other type of sorrow, however, is a godly sorrow. A godly sorrow comes about when we understand that our sin is first and foremost against God. A godly sorrow is when we grieve over our sin because we understand that our sin grieves God and we desire to turn from sin because we do not want to grieve Him. It is this godly sorrow which “produces a repentance without regret leading to salvation” (2 Cor. 7:10).

Unless we both missed it, neither Kathy nor I saw any godly sorrow evidenced in either Tony or Elizabeth’s life. There definitely was sorrow over hurting others, but nowhere in the film did we see the kind of godly sorrow exhibited by David when he humbled himself before the Lord and said to Him, “Against You and You alone have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight” (Ps. 51:4).   

Out of Bounds

The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:6 exhorts the immature believers in Corinth “not to exceed what is written.” In other words, we as believers are not to exceed biblical parameters. Whether in our theology or in our practice we are to stay safely within biblical parameters for when we exceed these God-given parameters we are opening ourselves up to demonic influence and demonic deception.

Sadly, biblical parameters dealing with spiritual warfare are exceeded throughout the movie. The entire film is saturated with Word-Faith/N.A.R. spiritual warfare lingo. There seemed to be as much time and effort expended in binding, rebuking and casting out Satan by Mrs. Clara and Elizabeth in their respective war rooms as there was praying to God. 

In one of the more emotionally rousing scenes of the film, upon discovering her husband’s philandering ways, Elizabeth retreats to her war room. As she repeatedly cites to herself James 4:7b, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” indignation swells within her and she begins to talk to the devil. “No more, you are done! Jesus is Lord of this house and there is no room for you anymore! Go back to Hell where you belong and leave my family alone!” she shouts.

There are at least two significant problems with this. First, Satan is not in Hell. Only when the eschatological events of Revelation 20 take place will he be thrown into the lake of fire and “tormented day and night forever and ever” (vs. 10). The Bible makes it very clear that, for now at least, Satan is quite free “prowling about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).

Secondly, and more significantly, we as believers are not to be addressing Satan. Ever! 

Consider that in Jude we have the record of Michael the archangel disputing with the devil and arguing over the body of Moses. Jude records for us that when he disputed with the devil, Michael the archangel “did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’” Think about that for just a moment and let it sink in. If Michael the archangel – the archangel – did not “dare” to rebuke Satan then I think it’s probably a safe bet that we should not do so either. Pastor Jim Osman in his excellent book Truth or Territory writes, “What God’s highest holy angel would not dare to do, sinful, fallen men presume the authority to do. It is unthinkable. I have been in the presence of Christians who boldly declare, ‘Satan, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,’ and I wonder, ‘Who do you think you are?’ Rebuking, commanding, or ridiculing the devil are not tools of effective spiritual warfare; they are marks of prideful, arrogant, self-willed false teachers.” 

It is troubling that noted Bible teacher Priscilla Shirer does not know this and would model such a dangerous and unbiblical practice. By exceeding biblical parameters, people are exposing themselves to the very enemy that they fancy themselves as rebuking.

The movie also has a decidedly mystical bent. Towards the end of the film, an older pastor named Charles and his wife, clients of Elizabeth, are shown the home. Charles notices the closed door to the “war room,” opens it and slowly walks inside. He looks around, pauses, backs out of the closet, and then walks back in as though he feels something different in the atmosphere. His wife asks him what he is doing and he says that there has been a lot of praying in this room. “It’s almost like it’s baked in,” said the old pastor.

This is pure mysticism. God speaks to us through the Bible and we speak to Him through prayer. Prayer is an act of obedience that serves to conform our will to that of the Father but it in no way changes the atmosphere in a closet, house, hospital, gymnasium, state or country. This is hyper-charismatic, Word-Faith mysticism.

In another scene Mrs. Clara, Elizabeth and Danielle were on their way to get ice cream when their trip was interrupted by a knife wielding thug demanding their money. The unflappable Mrs. Clara stared him in the eye and commanded, “You put that knife right down in the name of Jesus.” All of the sudden the thug looked dazed and confused. Powerless to follow through with his criminal plans, he fled the scene. Saying “in the name of Jesus” to this miscreant was like giving Kryptonite to Superman.

Throughout the film the name of Jesus is used in this way. It is used almost like a magical incantation, a Christianized version of Abracadabra, to manipulate the physical realm toward one’s desired outcome. Whether used in prayer to restore a marriage or to thwart a mugging, the name of Jesus always got results in War Room.

Contrary to the way in which it is portrayed in the film, saying “in the name of Jesus” is not like putting in coins in some theological vending machine. The name of Jesus is synonymous with the will of Jesus. When we pray for things in Jesus’ name rightly, we are praying for Jesus’ will to be done (Jn. 14:13-14; 1 John 5:14-15). Using the name of Jesus does not always bring the results we desire. 

It was fidelity to the name of Jesus that led nearly all of the Apostles to gruesome deaths. It is fidelity to the name of Jesus that has brought horrific persecution to untold millions of Christians during the last two thousand years. Many Christians throughout the world face persecution to this day because of the name of Jesus. Sometimes the name of Jesus gets us not what we want, but what we may not want. Often it is in times of trial and persecution for the believer that God is most glorified. 

Out of Context

“The thief comes to steal, kill and to destroy; I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly” (Jn. 10:10) was quoted several times throughout the movie. In War Room the “thief” is identified as Satan who has come to steal people’s joy and marriages. 

While it is not necessarily incorrect to identify the thief in John 10:10 as Satan, the context of the passage argues for a much broader view. The context indicates that the thief includes not only Satan, but any false teacher who claims any way of salvation other than that which is found exclusively in Christ. What the “thief” is attempting to steal is not one’s joy or marriage but rather one’s reception of the Gospel itself. The context is that of salvation, not one of life enhancement.

The movie concluded with one of the most familiar, beloved, and yet taken out of context passages in the Old Testament, 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” The text was shown superimposed on a shot of the United States capitol the insinuation, of course, being that if we will repent that God will heal our nation’s many societal ills. 

Though a thorough treatment of this passage is beyond the scope of this article, to apply this verse to the United States of America (or any other country for that matter) is to employ poor hermeneutics. The context of this verse is that it is God’s answer to Solomon’s prayer dedicating the temple recorded in the previous chapter. There has only been, is now, and only will be one country in a covenant relationship with God – Israel. 

Another aspect of the movie that was out of context is the entire premise of having a prayer closet in the first place. The film portrayed this room almost as having magical powers. If you want your prayers to be effective, it’s best to pray them in a closet emptied of its contents. Upon first consideration, this idea appears to have biblical support:

When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father Who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. – Matthew 6:5-6.

As we were driving home from the theater that night, Kathy and I talked about how we would be willing to bet that thousands of people will see this film and then go to their homes, clean out a closet and make their own “war rooms” believing that their prayers will become more effective. 

Sure enough, just this morning as I was writing this piece, I was watching the Daystar channel as presidents and hosts Marcus and Joni Lamb played a clip from Eyewitness New Fox 58 as Aaran Perlman interviewed two of the Kendrick brothers. A visibly emotional Perlman said, “I saw this movie last weekend with a  group of people, I’m gonna start crying before I even get into this. It changed my life so much. This movie, it’s about prayer. It’s about finding a room called the war room and immediately after this movie I went home and ripped everything out of my closet and made my own war room.”  “Wow, that’s incredible, awesome! You will see a difference in the days ahead. Write ‘em down so you can keep up with them. It’s great to be able to check off those prayer requests to realize God is alive and well and at work in your life,” Stephen Kendrick responded.

While there is certainly nothing wrong with praying in a closet if that is what one wants to do, the location is not the point. The point Jesus made in this text was not about location but attitude. The point is that we are not to make a show of our prayers as did the scribes and Pharisees and should remove any distractions which may divert our attention away from the One to Whom we are praying. Sincere, humble prayers offered in a living room, a backyard, or in an airplane at 40,000 feet halfway across the Pacific Ocean are heard just as well as those offered in an empty closet. Believing that there is some special power in the location itself is not only mystical, but borders on idolatry. The Object of our prayers and the condition of our hearts are the important things – not the location. 

Conclusion

    Some will read this review and undoubtedly think that I am being too nitpicky and critical. I have talked to some who have seen War Room and thought that it was great and that it had a solid biblical message. There is no doubt that the film was Christian themed – an element that has drawn the ire of numerous secular critics – but we are enjoined to “test all things” (1 Thess. 5:21) through the lens of Scripture and to “study to show ourselves approved unto God” (2 Tim. 2:15). Charles Spurgeon once said, “Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.”2

    Finally, as I hinted at the beginning of this piece, I am not a fan of the whole Christian movie (I am not including documentaries in this) thing in general. It is not that I am inherently opposed to the genre per se, but rather that I believe there to be an inherent danger in them. For one, in order to be successful at the box office, Christian movies must be intentionally vague when it comes to many doctrinal matters. Christian films never really go past the basics of the Gospel and, sadly, often even fail at that. Yet the Bible says that we are to pay close attention to doctrine (1 Tim. 4:13) and to persevere in it (vs. 16).

    Additionally, these movies are highly emotional. They tug at our heart strings. There is nothing wrong in and of itself with emotion, but emotion cannot be a substitute for obedience to objective biblical truth. Movies in and of themselves cannot bring lasting change to anyone’s life. It seems that every few years or so something new is introduced to the evangelical masses and is portrayed as the next great evangelistic super-tool. Whether it’s a blockbuster movie like the Passion of the Christ, or best-selling books like The Purpose-Driven Life, or Jesus Calling, people get all excited. Spin-off products follow and incredible amounts of money are spent chasing after the latest fads.  But they are just that – fads. Recall the Prayer of Jabez craze about fifteen years ago? Remember how everyone was praying for God to enlarge their territory? Do you have any friends still praying the prayer of Jabez? Me neither. Without a foundation of sound doctrine, without a constant and proper hermeneutic, all of these things are the spiritual equivalent of a sugar pill.

    It is a sad commentary, in my estimation, that so many professing believers get so excited about the latest thing to come down the evangelical pike, but show little enthusiasm in and put precious little effort into reading, studying and obeying God’s Word. Watching a movie is easy. Laboring in the Word is not. But only the latter will bear fruit that remains.  

[1] Source: http://www.gty.org/resources/questions/QA188/is-it-wrong-for-wives-to-work

[1] For the purposes of this article when I write “young women” I am referring to the biblical definition of the term per Titus 2.

[1] Source: https://www.gty.org/resources/bible-qna/BQ101712/Does-Scripture-Permit-Women-to-Work-Outside-the-Home

[1] No matter how he may argue to the contrary, if a man cheats on his wife (or vice versa) he does not love her. Such a sin breaks the marriage covenant and is in direct contradiction to the biblical definition of love.

[1] The New Testament never uses this word. It is only used in the Old Testament in reference to Israel.

[1] New Apostolic Reformation is a twin movement of Word-Faith but has even more emphasis on signs and wonders and modern day Apostles. Some of its prominent leaders include Bill Johnson, John Arnott, C. Peter Wagner, Cindy Jacobs and Heidi Baker.

[1] Technically, there will never even be a time when Satan resides in Hell. Revelation 20:14 states that Hell and death are thrown into the lake of fire where Satan and the demons will already be by that time. It is a distinction with probably little meaningful difference, but a distinction nonetheless.

[1] Osman, Jim (2015-01-24). Truth Or Territory: A Biblical Approach to Spiritual Warfare (Kindle Locations 1905-1908). Jim Osman, Kootenai Community Church. Kindle Edition.

[1] For an excellent book on spiritual warfare from a biblically sound perspective see Truth or Territory: A Biblical Approach to Spiritual Warfare by Pastor Jim Osman. Also available is a 6 CD set of 12 interviews with Jim Osman and this writer on the topic of Spiritual Warfare. It is available at http://justinpeters.org/store/

[1] All of these mentioned have massive doctrinal errors.   

http://www.worldviewweekend.com/news/article/war-room-review-justin-peters

Lazy Writing, Cheap Restoration

Christian films like ‘War Room’ are getting better, but they still lag in quality in one important area.

Kenneth R. Morefield/ August 28, 2015

Alex and Stephen Kendrick, darlings of the Christian film industry, are back in theaters today with War Room, their fifth film overall and their first since 2011’s Courageous. War Room is produced by Provident, but it’s being distributed by TriStar, which shows that they’ve come far—and that commercial studios are certainly willing to court Christian viewers.

A few years ago, a studio executive told me that the primary place in which the typical Christian film suffers, compared to its mainstream peers, is in the writing. Many Christian productions are willing to hire experienced, professional directors; even when they’re shot by self-taught cinematographers, the result is usually at least adequate. Christian productions now attract familiar stars: Robert Duvall in Seven Days in Utopia; Sean Astin in Mom’s Night Out; Cybill Shepard in Do You Believe?

But when it comes to screenplay writing, the genre seems stuck in a rut. It’s more committed to heavy-handed providential plotting than imaginative explorations of character or setting.

War Room follows the increasingly dreary pattern familiar to anyone who has seen more than a handful of Christian films. Karen Abercrombie and Priscilla Shirer are easy to like as a spiritually mature senior on the one hand and a beleaguered housewife on the other whom the older woman teaches to pray. T. C. Stallings plays a flatter character: Tony, the not-yet philandering but not exactly faithful husband to Shirer’s Elizabeth. The women deliver lines like “Devil, you just got your butt kicked!” and “Go back to hell where you belong, and leave my family alone!” with the requisite earnestness to make viewers believe that they believe.

But believe what exactly? That prayer is good?

Because that seems to be the film’s thesis, and it is so anxious to underline and demonstrate that thesis that it jettisons any bit of characterization or plot incident that isn’t immediately and directly tied to Clara’s or Elizabeth’s prayer life.

Tangential question: are addresses to Satan prayers? I found it odd that in a movie about the centrality and necessity of prayer, the characters are shown contending with Satan more often than attending to God. This seems to be a subtle way in which the film—and maybe the strain of Evangelicalism it is made for—flirts with turning prayer into a work.

Elizabeth’s prayers themselves are implied through montages and post-it notes, and Miss Clara’s instructions seem to have more to do with manipulating the external environment than the content or execution of prayer. The film’s one specific piece of advice—you should have a space dedicated exclusively to prayer in your home—is certainly not bad. But it’s also one of several places in which the film is more exclusively directed towards the affluent viewer who has that space to spare than it perhaps realizes.

Avoiding Controversy By Being Innocuous

College English professors teach their freshmen a common axiom: if you pick a thesis for your argument that nobody could, or does, disagree with, it’s a bad thesis for a paper.

That goes for films, too. In this case, the thesis is that “prayer changes things.” It just does. End of story.

Christian Films frequently avoid controversy by being innocuous. They smooth the edges and elide the elements of our faith that we struggle with or argue about. This is a problem.

Being inspirational or uplifting is fine. But to sustain the hazy good feelings wrought by Christian art means more than promoting bromides about how our God is able. It means demonstrating those truths by embedding them in fully realized and developed narratives. And when those narratives aren’t fully developed, when characters aren’t carefully and lovingly drawn as real people, they can wind up backfiring subtly for the film.

This is precisely where War Room, like so many Christian films, stumbles. The characters and situation are so thinly drawn that even those of us who believe in the film’s ultimate message have a hard time with the package wrapped around it. Tony, Clara, and Elizabeth don’t come across as real people, but as stock figures in a sermon set in in some indeterminate Christianville. By standing in for everyone, they come across as having no real, personal identity of their own. Because the setting is meant to be anywhere, it comes across as unlike any place that is real.

That vague setting is especially evident in how the film depicts social class, along with the financial perils that Tony’s dishonesty supposedly create. Do the Jordans and Miss Clara belong to the same social class? Miss Clara apparently inherited her home from her husband who fought in the war; she is selling it to a pastor who doesn’t look as though he is wealthy or representing a megachurch. Is this an instance in which the spiritual wisdom and happiness of the middle class is meant to teach a lesson to the wealthy? Are the Jordans wealthy?
Early on they certainly are. In one of the film’s first scenes, Tony slams Elizabeth for giving five thousand dollars from the couple’s discretionary account to her sister. It’s worth noting here that Tony doesn’t object because this is a significant portion of the family income. Rather, he says that he makes “four times as much” as Elizabeth, and so should have final say in how even discretionary income is distributed. What’s more, he argues that his sister-in-law is responsible for her own precarious financial position because she married a no-good, lazy, bum. That Tony is African-American is meant to inoculate the film, I guess, from playing on class stereotypes, anything that would suggest that all recipients of charity are capable individuals who simply lack the work ethic of the financially successful.

Class Mysteries

But Elizabeth is a part-time real estate agent and housewife, so that “four times” is a puzzling piece of lazy writing, allowing the Kendricks to convey the power dynamics within the family without requiring them to research or imagine specific details about their characters’ lives. Is Elizabeth a power realtor making a killing in commercial leases who only happens to be selling Miss Clara’s house?

Given the amount of time she spends with Miss Clara drinking lukewarm coffee and soaking up pearls of wisdom, it’s hard to see how she has time to stage, show, or sell a lot of other houses. Later in the film, she mentions asking her boss if she can pick up a few more properties, so she is definitely represented as an agent and not an independent realtor.

Let’s say that Elizabeth makes $40,000 a year, just below the average for a full-time real-estate agent. That would mean Tony is taking home a healthy $160,000 from his job selling pharmaceuticals. (If any of my readers are in sales for a living and that sounds high or low, please drop me a line.)

When Tony is fired for “padding” his accounts, he has to give back the company car and worries openly that the Jordans “might” lose their home. Yet after an indeterminate period of unemployment—the film relies heavily on at least four montages to suggest the passage of time—he accepts a job at the community recreation center for “half” what his other job paid. (If any of my readers organize jump rope contests for primary school kids and get paid $80,000 for their efforts, please drop me a line and an application.) A chastened Tony now wants to help out his in-laws, but economizing means the couple can only afford to make a car payment for the never-seen poor relations.

After just a few weeks (possibly months) of unemployment, Tony is able to land a job that requires no specialized education or training, no references, no experience, and still pays enough to leave a couple hundred left over to help out extended family. Unemployment is either calamitous or no big deal, an actual blessing in disguise. Elizabeth is either entirely dependent on Tony or makes enough money working part time to support the family indefinitely. What’s going on here?

A Sermon Illustration, Not a Movie

My hunch is that the Kendricks aren’t really interested in how prayer saves Tony (or in what it saves him from), only asserting that it does. War Room is a sermon illustration, not a movie, and it needs only include details that underline the parable, not those that ground it in the real world.

The finances are not the only place where the script is indifferent to devilish details, only the most visible. How exactly does Tony pad his accounts or keep back a portion of the drugs for his personal stash? I have never worked at a hospital, but even I have seen enough episodes of ER to know that nobody just walks into a medical facility’s pharmacy and logs in how many drugs he is dropping off.

That Tony’s boss is reluctant to file charges struck me as feasible, that he handles the theft of product and Tony’s de facto robbing of clients as a strictly internal matter does not. Given the company’s liability vulnerability, there is no realistic reason Tony’s boss doesn’t turn him in to the police, even before Tony confesses to his secret stash.

But the script wants to reward Tony for stepping out in faith, and director Alex Kendrick himself takes on the role of CEO/expository preacher, explaining more for our benefit than Tony’s why he isn’t turning him in—it’s a parable of earned grace, a reward for doing the right thing, see?

I also have a hunch that the script’s greater comfort in discussing the importance of prayer than in showing the mechanics of making a living is indicative of a broader dis-ease in American evangelicalism, rather than a personal blind spot in the artist’s imaginative vision. With issues of class and race minimalized—Tony experiences no visible, overt racism, even from the executive who wants to turn him into the police—the film ends up spiritualizing all social problems, seeing their root in Satanic opposition and, hence, defeated primarily through prayer.

There may be seeds of truth in this theodicy, but in War Room, the enemy only works through direct, psychological attacks on individuals, never through the racist, patriarchal, oligarchical infrastructures of this world. I’ve long argued that Americans’ suspicion of Marxism and socialism extends to evangelicals’ neglect of the Social Justice Tradition (to borrow a term from Renovare).

Elizabeth does say at one point that it is hard to submit to the pre-repentant Tony, but the film nowhere grapples with this kind of complementarianism, or even suggests that Elizabeth doesn’t share some or most of the blame for Tony’s moral failings, since she neglected her wifely duty to pray for him. All of the couple’s problems are results of bad (and unnecessary) choices on the husband’s part—none of them from ever being in seemingly untenable positions caused by unjust actions of other people.

Easy Fixes

Neither are any of the couple’s problems anything that can’t be solved in a single step, through repentance alone.

As mentioned earlier, Tony’s theft is forgiven and after a short period of chastening, he is rewarded with another, better (albeit lower-paying) job. Tony confesses to a flirtation, but he has fortunately stopped short of adultery, so there are no illegitimate children, sexually transmitted diseases, or emotionally enmeshed and damaged mistresses to negotiate once he has turned over a new leaf and started washing Elizabeth’s feet.

I was always taught in my Christian Education that there are acts of sin and there are habits and bonds of sin. (In an early scene, Tony lustfully ogles a woman while sitting in a church pew.) God can and does forgive both, but He does not always magically shield us from the consequences of the bad choices previously made. If you want to see what a lifetime of pursuing Mammon does to people who suddenly try to economize, check out The Queen of Versailles. If you want to see how hard to slip are the habits of promiscuity for those who have repented, check out Thanks for Sharing. If you want to see how ingrained are the patriarchal assertions of privilege within most evangelical communities, read the comment thread in just about any article on Her.meneutics.

Tony’s transformation is so complete, his break with the habits of sin so absolute, that one sees him not so much as a man emboldened and encouraged through prayer but as the prize given to Elizabeth when she pulls the prayer lever.

Another Way

My experience watching War Room was not helped by the fact that I have seen two veritable masterpieces in the last year about well-rounded characters brought to their wit’s end by the pressures of unemployment.

In Two Days, One Night (now streaming on Netflix in the United States), Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne detail a weekend in the life of Sandra (Marion Cotillard), a recently laid-off worker who has forty-eight hours to convince her eighteen co-workers to forego bonuses so that she can keep her job. In that film, not only the protagonists, but each of the co-workers she appeals to, is painted with more depth and nuance than any of the characters in War Room.

In another film, Clay Hassler’s Homeless, a teen tries to cobble together enough money for the security deposit on an apartment before his dad is paroled from prison. Shot on a budget of only $20,000 and using volunteer actors from the Winston-Salem community, Hassler’s film masterfully portrays how both bad choices and infrastructural roadblocks combine to make the crawl away from poverty painfully slow and precariously uncertain.

My prayer as we head into the fall and winter film season is that audiences who may not be fully satisfied with the Kendricks’ film seek out and find Homeless. War Room doesn’t have a bad message, but in nearly every area, and especially in its writing, Homeless is the better film.

Kenneth R. Morefield (@kenmorefield) is an Associate Professor of English at Campbell University. He is the editor of Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema, Volumes I, II, & III, and the founder of 1More Film Blog.

Review: War Room

Posted by Jesse Johnson

Christian movies can’t win. If they are overt about the gospel—such as Courageous or Fireproof—then they are criticized that they are too in-your-face. If they are more subtle—Chronicles of Narnia, for example—then they are criticized for not being Christian enough, whatever that is supposed to mean.

There are two new Christian movies that fill opposite ends of this dichotomy: War Room (in theaters now) and Captive (releasing next week). I saw them both back-to-back and was struck at how they each intentionally aim for different ends of that dichotomy. I’ll review War Room today, and Captive next week.  

Side note: I understand there is really no such thing as a “Christian movie.” Movies aren’t born depraved, regenerated by the work of the Holy Spirit, converted to Christ, baptized, and made members of a local church (not that War Room doesn’t try!). When I use the term “Christian movie” I mean a movie made by professing believers for the purpose of entertaining other believers while advancing a biblical world view.  That’s it.

War Room:

The Kendrick brothers’ newest release is by far their best-made movie so far. It’s also in the top spot in the box office after Labor Day, having already made over $30 million.

This is the crew that produced Courageous, Fireproof, and Facing the Giants, and the company that made October Baby and Mom’s Night Out. Gone are (most of) the cheesy scenes that littered their previous movies. The acting is better, the writing is better, and the production has obviously taken a step up. And—fortunately—this one did not seem to be made for the sole purpose of selling Christian trinkets.

The plot is straight forward. A sleaze-ball husband is ruining his family, while his nominally Christian wife feels powerless to do anything about it. She meets a strong Christian woman who reaches out to her, confronts her luke-warm relationship with the Lord, and challenges her to pray for her family while submitting her life to Christ. The rest, as they say, is history.

Subtlety is not a tool that the Kendrick brothers know how to use. Everything in all of their movies is over-the-top. It is as if they looked at the dichotomy in Christian films and said, “that’s fine; we’ll make a movie that is so over-the-top Christian that nobody can accuse us of leaving anything out.”

This movie has prayer, devil-binding (more on that later), Bible reading, more prayer, the sinner’s prayer (2xs!), more Bible reading, sermon listening, and ESV product placement. It features gym evangelism, ethical quandaries at work, a weepy daughter who asks her mom if she even knows the name of her sport’s team. There is even immorality interrupted by food poisoning. No Christian cliché is beneath the Kendrick brothers, and it is all for the sake saving this one marriage!

I was reminded of something Max McLean often says about critics of C. S. Lewis: people criticized The Screwtape Letters for being too benign—in a world with Hitler on the loose, did Lewis really mean to say that you see the devil in the details of how often a wife has tea, or what past-times consume Joe Englishman? But the truth is that kind of story is often more convicting to Joe Englishman than a WWII study of the holocaust.

That crossed my mind while watching War Room. In a world with war and terrorism, is a story about an upper-class philandering husband really the best vehicle for expounding on the sovereignty of God? Well, I suppose Lewis would say that both have their place, and War Room fills that place nicely.

About that devil-binding—Priscilla Shirer (Tony Evans daughter, and a Dallas Seminary Graduate) plays the wife-who-turns-to-prayer, and Beth Moore makes an appearance in the very minor role of a co-worker (She has one line: “Sometimes submission to your husband looks like ducking so the Lord’s punch hits him instead”). I’m not that familiar with Shirer, and Moore is someone to whom I would not look to for prayer advice. I don’t trust her theology, and lament that LifeWay sells her stuff.

But in this movie they are not theologians–they are not even real people! They are actresses, and I am able to see War Room without endorsing their theology in the same way I can watch Mission Impossible and not be a Scientologist.

Regardless, the theology of War Room is pretty good. God rules the world, and he can do anything he wants to. Divorce is bad, marriage is good, and Jesus is the only one who can save. Yes, after being a Christian for all of 15 seconds the lead character does banish the devil from her house. But the movie made clear that this was not an endorsement of demon-binding (as if they would listen anyway!), but came from a wife who finally realized sin was her enemy, not her husband.

Which really gets to the main message of War Room. This movie may be about prayer, but its main message is really about marriage. It is very straight forward: the role of a wife is to love her family and pray for her husband. The role of the husband is to lead his family and provide for them. Sin interferes with both, and the only hope of restoration is found through repentance and submission to the Lordship of Jesus, who does use prayer to give people the grace to enjoy marriage.

I left the movie thinking that if a couple contemplating divorce were to watch it, this movie just might challenge them to stay together. Any couple that watches this movie would walk away asking themselves “am I regularly praying for my family?”

That is a good question to ask, and it’s hard to ask anything more from any movie.

http://thecripplegate.com/war-room/