This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Revenant Reverend
Plot Overview
After a rival gold mining alliance
raids a California tin pan colony, killing an adolescent's pet
dog in the process, she Megan Wheeler (Sydney Penny) prays over its
grave, (Psalm 23:1) “The
LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want,” but being
conflicted adds, “but I do want.” She asks for a
miracle, “if You exist.” Shortly thereafter she is
seen reading the family Bible, (Rev. 6:7-8) “I heard the voice
of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a
pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death—”
The camera pans out the window framing a rider (Clint Eastwood) on
a white, speckled horse, to the finishing words, “and Hell
followed with him.” The stranger had helped the fiancé
Hull Barret (Michael Moriarty) of Megan's mom Sarah (Carrie
Snodgress) deal with some harassment in town. He is welcomed to
join their table and being a preacher says grace.
These stubborn miners will not be intimidated but stand firm under the influence of the preach like unto the Colonel in a Charlton Ogburn novel:
Courage, self-sacrifice, tireless toil: these are what are required of your chosen leader, and of you, patience, and faith, incorruptible faith, in the principles to which that leader has pledged himself. That which is our birthright has excited the envy of those with desperate hearts. Yes, those with hearts made desperate by greed for that which is ours. (116)
The rival boss Josh LaHood (Christopher Penn) being up against it hires corrupt marshal Stockburn (John Russell) with his six handpicked deputies to scatter the hard-working colony. For the now gun-toting preacher, “It's an old score. It's time to settle it.” In the Biblical record, the scary entities in Revelation all come in groups of seven.
Ideology
Very soon
a love-struck Megan asks her mom, “Do preachers get
married?” She replies, “I don't see why not.” The
apostle Paul allows it: (1Cor. 7:28) “But and if thou
marry, thou hast not sinned.” Yet he adds, (1Cor. 7:32-33) “I would have you
without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things
that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is
married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may
please his wife.” This preacher travels light, but that
would change if he had a wife & family to support. If a miner
got a windfall, “he'd build his family a better house
and buy his kids better clothes, maybe build a school or a
church.” LaHood has a thought, “Why not invite this
devout, humble man to preach in town? Why not let the town be his
parish? In fact, why not build them a brand new church?” The
preach responds, “I can see where a preacher would be mighty
tempted by an offer like that. First thing you know he'd be
thinking about getting himself a batch of new clothes. Then
he'd start thinking about those Sunday collections. That's why it
wouldn't work. Can't serve God and mammon both—mammon being
money.” Paul hedges his bets on the married man to reduce the
drama in married life, (1Cor. 7:29-31) “But this I say,
brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have
wives be as though they had none; And they that weep, as though they wept
not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy,
as though they possessed not; And they that use this world, as not abusing
it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.”
Megan lets down her hair, her mom
pretties her up, and she finds the preacher out strolling at night.
Megan: “I prayed for a miracle. It's the day you arrived. I think I love you.”
Preacher: “There's nothing wrong with that. If there were more loving, there'd be less killing.”
Megan: “Then there can't be anything wrong with making love, either. If I practice loving for a while, will you teach me the other?”
Preacher: “Megan, most folks associate that with marriage.”
Megan: “I'll be fifteen next month. Mama was married when she was 15. Will you teach me then?”
Preacher: “That's no way to pass the test”—of trust in what he says. “Some day a young man's gonna come along, the right man.”
The preacher doesn't want her wasting her future on him. Megan gets angry and says she hates him and he can go to hell. Come morning she saddles the mare and goes to the enemy camp where she finds horny guy trouble. Paul advises, (1Cor. 7:34) “There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.” This Megan is conflicted. She doesn't maintain her holiness in body and spirit. She is fortunate a couple dudes rescue her from violation of body, and in the final scene she declares a proper love for the preacher.
Hull
explains about his “sorta fiancée”: “It
ain't that we're livin' in sin, and it ain't that I don't want to
marry the woman. A few years back her husband, Megan's father, he
lit out on her and left her with a half grown child.” She's
down on men since then and reluctant to commit. Is her hubby still
alive? Who knows? It's pretty dangerous there out West. At any rate
Paul advises the widow, (1Cor. 7:39) “The wife is bound
by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be
dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the
Lord.” The Jews had a custom called levirate marriage. If a
woman's husband being an eldest brother died and they were
childless, she was obligated to marry his younger brother, or
in pinch some other near kinsman, to continue the former's line.
The Jews in Corinth had asked the apostle Paul if any of that
carried over to Christianity, and he replied no, that the widow had
as open season on men as did a single girl. “Only in the
Lord” means she had to court with holiness in body and
spirit. That might be hard to do if she were on loving terms with
her ex's brother(s) in which case it is but a small step to sexual
intimacy. Although levirate marriage is not so common today, we get
an intimation of this issue wherein Megan and her mom sat at table
with Hull in his two-room cabin that he shared with the preacher.
At first blush the miner
family thought the handy preacher was some kind of gunfighter
and so were reluctant to have him join their colony. This was
parallel to Paul's admonition to keep the Christian body free from
foreign contaminants. (2Cor. 6:14) “Be ye not unequally
yoked together with unbelievers: ...” This from a metaphor in
(Deut. 22:10) “Thou shalt
not plow with an ox and an ass together.” In this movie we
see horses teamed to a wagon together and mules in a separate
harness, but not the one with the other. Similarly, gunfighters
were not hired by miners, nor were Christian churches to be yoked
with other religions. This is a separate issue from marriage that
had no such applicable commandment, the “be ye not” is
in the plural case while the widow is addressed in the singular,
and in an altogether different epistle besides. Some modern Bible
translations are terribly confused on this matter.
Arranged marriage … was hardly peculiar to China; arranged marriages were the norm in most cultures until modern times.Lawrence Stone, in his study of marriage in England between 1500 and 1800, sets out a scheme of four “basic options” for the choice of marriage partners …. The options may be restated as follows: parental choice without input from the children; parental choice with the children holding a veto; choice by the children with the parents holding a veto; and choice by the children with the parents informed but not consulted. Almost all marriages in traditional China resulted from the first option: they were arranged by the parents without any input from their children. (Intro, ix–x)
Sarah and her then man were modern. To Megan's question, “Were Grandma and Grandpa happy when you got married, Mama?” she replied “I'm afraid they didn't have a thimbleful of choice in the matter.” Bible times were more restrictive than ours for the would-be couple themselves. Paul said he's defrauded nobody: (2Cor. 7:2) “Receive us; … we have defrauded no man,”which some fathers back then would undoubtedly take issue with had he put the kibosh on favorable ($) wedding arrangements in the works.
Production Values
“” (1985) was directed by Clint Eastwood. It was written by Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack. It starred Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty and Carrie Snodgress. The actors did a first rate job, even in the minor roles.
It's rated R. The scenery was Western at its best, a
mountainous background, snow underfoot. It's cowboy ruminations
punctuated by extreme action shots. Runtime is 1 hour 55 minutes.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
The Christians portrayed were trying and sometimes succeeding and sometimes not. At any rate they were sympathetic characters contrasting sharply with all but one of the villains.
Though set in California in the waning days of the gold rush, the Western timeframe dominates. This preacher is unlike his Eastern counterparts. Lots of shoot-'em-up action.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture is quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software, print.
Hanan, Patrick. An anthology of Stories From Ming China: Falling in Love. © 2006 University of Hawai'i Press. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006. Print.
Ogburn Jr., Charlton. The Gold Of the River Sea. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1965. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org