“Why,” Variety asks in its review of this film, “have liberal Christians become an oxymoron?” They haven’t, Spirituality & Practice insists! In its critique of “American Heretics,” it pictures them as “progressive Christians attempting to reclaim the radical potential of their faith.” So, “it’s an earthquake waiting to happen”—Variety again. This DVD “showcases progressive Christian leaders in Oklahoma,” The New York Times affirms, “whose ideas run counter to the state’s conservative political leanings.”
“[T]he film centres mostly on a single church: …Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ, led by Robin Meyers,” The Hollywood Reporter points out, adding, they “merit a film.” [Note that the SSUC Library includes maverick minister Meyer’s The Underground Church, once a Featured Book.] His is “’a very unlikely ministry,’” The Oklahoman reports him as affirming of himself and his parishioners, “’in that we are unapologetically progressive people, but we’re also Christians.’” “[T]hese rabble-rousers are right where they belong,” Spirituality & Practice declares, “as they commit themselves to social justice, resistance, and restoration.”
This doc received a rare 100% positive score on rottentomatoes.com—all of the reviews mustered were laudatory: consider the take of the Jesuits’ magazine, America: “It makes passionate arguments. It offers a ray of hope.”
“American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel”
Produced & directed by Jeanine & Catherine Butler
Butlerfilms, 2019
