After a long church day today I decided to unwind by watching a movie. I’d heard a lot about the movie “Saved!” (starring Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin and Patrick Fugit), so I watched it tonight on DVD.

It is a movie that has raised the ire of many in the conservative side of the Christian community for its irreverent portrayal of the Christian sub-culture. It is, by all accounts, a satire, and a good one at that. It is a movie written and produced by people who grew up in Evangelical Christian sub-culture, and now are writing from an outsider’s perspective. Having experienced much of that Evangelical Christian sub-culture myself, I find a lot of humor in this movie.

Jena Moore plays Mary, a girl in her senior year at a Christian high school in Maryland. (Reviewer’s aside: now, at this point, I have a choice – a) give away the movie, b) describe the setting of the story in a way that will get 1) all of the content-blocking software blocking M Squared T and/or 2) offend my readership by the description of the humorous dilemma Mary creates for herself, or 3) say absolutely nothing useful.)

Ok, so three or four attempts at writing something useful have failed. So, here come the broad brushstrokes.

This is a movie about “crisis of faith.” It brings up the issues that “churched folks” must deal with in our contemporary culture. It talks a lot about how Christians can behave in ways that really put people off who are on the “outside.” It actually says a lot about those who are on the outside and why they don’t want in: they see right through a lot of the saccherine shenanegins seen everyday in public Christianity (e.g., TBN).

While I don’t really like the movie’s conclusions about what the answers to some of these crises of faith are, I found it very thought-provoking. I think it’s worth seeing. Nonetheless, I must issue the following caveats:

This movie is PG-13. It has all the stuff that goes along with PG-13 ratings. If you dislike seeing/hearing PG-13 rated stuff, or if you find it unwise given your disposition, you don’t want to see this. (It’s not that worth it.)

This movie makes you think about how you approach your faith. It will ask and frame questions in a way that challenge Christian assumptions. I would suggest, however, that it probably understands very well what Christianity is all about – even if the conclusions they draw from that understanding are problematic and some downright wrong.

This movie lampoons the Christian sub-culture. If you are a big fan of Christian sub-culture, and don’t like to see it teased, parodied and satirized, this is not your movie.

I liked it, however, and I’m interested in watching it with people who want to discuss the issues it raises.