I had a chance to see a preview of the movie Courageous, which premieres on Friday, made by the same team that created Fireproof a couple of years ago.
This one’s about a group of Georgia cops and how they see their roles as dads. I’m not a big crier at movies, but the tears started rolling about halfway through. Maybe because Courageous showed some things you don’t usually see in movies.
1. Characters prayed out loud.
In recent surveys, six out of ten Americans say they pray every day and only about ten percent never pray. Funny, you don’t usually see or hear people praying in movies.
2. People grew in faith.
That’s not the usual trajectory if faith is mentioned in a film. I was glad to see that the characters struggled in their faith. They weren’t perfect. It took some work and it wasn’t a no-brainer. I’m always distrustful of someone who’s never had any doubts.
3. Faith was a black-and-white thing.
By this I mean the cast was multiethnic. The praying went both ways. Blacks, whites, Hispanics learned about faith from one another. For 30 years I’ve belonged to a multiethnic church. There have been times when I thought it’d be tons easier to be in a homogenous church, but I don’t think I would have grown as much. Spiritual growth sometimes requires being taken out of your comfort zone.
I didn’t always agree with the film. It undersells the role of women in a man’s spirituality and it got too sermonic for my taste. But it took me out of my comfort zone and that was OK.
Courageous opens nationwide on September 30. To find out where it can be seen in your neighborhood, visit www.courageousthemovie.com.
