See this movie, ASAP

What follows is the text of an article I wrote for Samaritan Ministries' Christian Health Care Newsletter, which I serve as Assistant Editor. It describes my recent experience watching Hotel Rwanda for the first time.

There exists no shortage of assorted religious leaders, pundits, and the like who decry the influence of Hollywood movies on our culture and our collective spirituality.

At the same time, it is undeniable that the medium of the motion picture, in the right hands, is uniquely qualified to create a visceral experience that demands both emotional and substantive responses from its audience.

For historical precedent, we look to no less than the earthly life of Jesus Christ, who “saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.” (Matthew 14:14, KJV) When Christ took in the image of those people - when He saw them - He responded with compassion, which compelled Him to heal those who were sick.

It was not hearing of their plight that moved Christ. Rather, it was the visceral experience: the images - and, surely, the sounds - of a large group of needy people milling around, helplessly searching, but not really even knowing what they were looking for.

All of which leads me to last night.

I rented the movie Hotel Rwanda to watch at home with my wife, Kristy. I consider myself a fan of movies of all kinds, and I had heard good things about Hotel Rwanda. It had been nominated for three Oscars, which served mostly just to put it up on my mental radar screen, and I waited until 11 p.m. on the night the rental was already a day overdue, to watch it. The plan was to get this movie watched while Kristy fell asleep so that my $3.50 wasn’t completely wasted.

Two hours later, as the end credits rolled, Kristy and I were literally on the edge of our seats. Kristy was in tears; I felt like I had had the wind knocked out of me. We talked for another hour - by now it’s 3 a.m. - about how badly we wanted God to use us to reach out to those who need Him.

We were moved to compassion.

Hotel Rwanda retells the true story of the Rwandan genocide of the early 1990's, when, in the space of one hundred days, Rwanda’s Hutu extremists slaughtered nearly one million of their Tutsi neighbors and any moderate Hutus who stood in their way. The story focuses on Paul Rusesabagina, a moderate Hutu who - at the height of the atrocities and after being abandoned by all who had promised to help - sheltered more than 1,200 refugees in the hotel where he was manager.

The movie follows Paul, a devoted father, as he moves from acting only in the best interests of himself and his family, to sacrificing to save scores of people with whom he has no other connection than that they have come to him for help. The emotions on display - the terror of imminent death, the helpless despair of isolation, the joy of safety and discovering loved ones thought to be lost - are palpable.

As the movie unfolds, the enormity of what actually happened - and that various governments and groups of people stood by as it happened - begins to settle on your consciousness with a weight that will not let up. Even as I write this now, I can’t stop thinking about the faces, the sheer terror, the streets running red, littered with scores of dead bodies. (I would not attempt to gauge the level of objectionable elements here; proceed with some caution, but, by all means, please proceed.)

In the end, I was moved to compassion for the people of Rwanda in a way that, sadly, I have not been moved in a long time, perhaps ever. It made me aware that our missions presentations could use fewer slides of rolling green hills and quaint village streets, and more of, well, Hotel Rwanda.

My prayer, now that I’ve been moved to compassion, is that I will follow Christ’s example of compassion leading to acts of restoration, mercy, and hope - for this life and the one to come.

For more information on Hotel Rwanda and on the events surrounding the Rwandan genocide, visit the movie's website.

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:

For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. - The Bible, James 1:22-25