HERE ARE the opening lines of Secretariat, the fine new Disney movie now at a mall near you:
"Do you give the horse his strength . . .
. . . or clothe his neck with a flowing mane? / Do you make him leap like a locust, / striking terror with his proud snorting? / He paws fiercely, rejoicing in his strength, and charges into the fray. / He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; / he does not shy away from the sword. / The quiver rattles against his side, / along with the flashing spear and lance. / In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground; / he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.["]
In these lines, God is giving Job a much-needed talking to (Job 39:19-25). But what are these lines doing in a movie about the greatest thoroughbred that ever lived?
INTERJECTION, September 20, 2013. Today, three years after this post was written, it is being visited in greater numbers than ever, thanks to a link by Houston-based radio talk-show host Michael Berry. To the new readers, welcome. To Mr. Berry, thanks.
Well, it turns out that the director Randall Wallace is a big, old hairy Christian -- the kind who admits his faith early and often. He was a seminary student at Duke. His first big splash was the screenplay for Braveheart.
And the quotation from Job -- repeated at the climax of the film -- is not the half of it. Midway through the movie, a character sings "Silent Night," a hymn about the birth of Jesus.
Christ, the saviour is born.
Later, as Secretariat is being washed down, the soundtrack explodes with the Edwin Hawkins Singers' "Oh Happy Day."
Oh happy day, oh happy day . . .when Jesus washed, oh when he washed, when Jesus washed . . . my sins away!
That song is the exultation of a new believer. And it refers to baptism, symbolized in the movie by the washing of the horse.
What is baptism? "It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead." (Baptist Faith & Message, 1962)
By the way, Secretariat must have been a Methodist, not a Baptist. Methodists sprinkle; Baptists and most other evangelicals dunk. See, for instance, the baptism scene in O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Secretariat is not a movie, obviously, about the spiritual redemption of a thoroughbred. Nor is it a movie about the spiritual redemption of any human being.
The plot is built around the gritty character of the co-owner, Penny Chenery Tweedy (Diane Lane). The overt theme is a Disney staple: determination and hard work win success, here with a feminist twist: "You go, girl!"
The New York Times correctly describes the success theme as "fuzzy humanism," at odds with the religious theme.
So why all the religious stuff?
Several reasons.
One reason is commercial: to reach and touch a target audience, an homage to the success of the Christian-themed (and better) The Blind Side.
Bible verses and gospel music hit a lot of real-world moviegoers right where they live. Giving a biblical gloss to the meaning of a horse, crediting the horse's power to God's creative power, makes sense to believers in a way that it doesn't make sense to secularists in the entertainment media and culture at large. And coupling the triumph of the horse with the joyful experiences of being saved and baptized, that makes sense too.
Not logical sense; emotional sense and, at some level, spiritual sense. It communicates in the idiom of Christian faith.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that as Secretariat thunders home in the 1973 Belmont Stakes, the climactic scene, Secretariat's unearthly 31-length victory in race-, track- , and world-record time is celebrated with a most triumphant repeat performance of "Oh Happy Day!"
When Jesus washed, oh when he washed, when Jesus washed, he washed my sins away!
Another reason Mr. Wallace uses these themes is literary or artistic. For longer than you can remember and in books and movies where you didn't even notice, Christian references have provided the skeletons of plots, the muscles of character, and the spirit of meaning -- most often for irreligious or antireligious reasons.
Some samples:
Cool Hand Luke. At the end, Luke takes refuge in an abandoned rural church building, echoing Jesus's night of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemene on the Mount of Olives. Except that here Luke blames God for his suffering. The unsubtle argument of the movie is that we're all on our own. Anybody here? Hey, Old Man, you home tonight? Can you spare a minute? It's time we had a little talk. Luke was a decidedly post-Christian retelling of the story of Christ, this time recast as a free-spirited rogue who brings life, in a sense, to others while losing his own. His prison offers a dark vision of the modern world -- a place of confinement and humiliation and meaninglessness. Luke is the existential hero who refuses to accept defeat.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. An asylum this time, not a prison. A fishing trip. Baptismal baths. A kind of redemption through the sexual initiation of Billy Bibbitt. McMurphy's sacrifice of his own life so that another might live (sexually). And the resurrection story told to the other patients after the hero's body is stolen away from the asylum.
O Brother Where Art Thou? As the central characters cling to a floating casket in a flooded lake, they argue the meaning of their recent salvation from death by hanging. Delmar: A miracle! It was a miracle! Everett: Delmar, don't be ignorant. . . . Delmar: No! That ain't it! We prayed to God and he pitied us! Everett: Well, it never fails. Again, you hayseeds are showin' your want for intellect. There's a perfectly scientific explanation.
Light in August (character Joe Christmas is killed at age 33). Bladerunner (a replicant, representing humanity, kills his maker, representing God). The Green Mile (John Coffey). Etc., etc., etc.
These uses of Christianity are typically irreligious or antireligious. Mr. Wallace subverts the subversives by doing the same thing as the secular artists, but for a religious purpose.
Which leads us to the third and most important reason for using the Scriptures and religious music: Mr. Wallace wanted to teach two important spiritual truths.
One is God's creative power. The horse is God's creation, not Mrs. Tweedy's, not the breeder's or the trainer's or the jockey's, not anyone else's. Sit through the opening two minutes and listen. "Do you give the horse his strength?" The answer is no. Secretariat is presented to us from the first to last as a gift from God. Think of it as a literary epigraph that, in a way, undermines the whole Disney message.
The other lesson is God's redemptive power, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Don't think of "Oh Happy Day!" as a soundtrack for the movie. Think of the racing scene as a video for the song. As Secretariat smashes his way through the Triple Crown, Mr. Wallace is saying, "That's what it feels like to turn your life over to Christ. It's like winning the Triple Crown."
Mr. Wallace starts with the Old Testament, celebrates the birth of Christ, then delivers the message of Christian redemption. What's not to like?
Oh happy day . . . when Jesus washed . . . my sins away! He taught me how to watch, fight, and pray. And live rejoicing every day!
Amen, brother.
The good news
There is a God. He loves you and wishes to be his friend. But you and I, alone, are unworthy of having a relationship with God.
Worthiness before God is not a balancing test, whether your good outweighs your bad. It is a test of absolute perfection. It means you have never done or said or thought anything selfish, hurtful, or evil.
Sin is the name for these and other wrongs against God. Sin is part of the human condition and the source of much human misery. You cannot, through your own efforts, live without sin.
There is a way out. It starts by confessing your sins to God, sincerely repenting of them, and agreeing with God that you wish to live without sin in the future. As a human being, you cannot fully keep that agreement, but the important thing is to agree to try. God will then help you, day by day, to become a better person.
The next step is to accept God's offer to erase your sins from his mind, as if they had never occurred. He does this in return for your acknowledgment that Jesus is his son, that Jesus lived without sin, and that the death of Jesus constituted payment in full for your sins and the sins of all believers.
Believe and confess, sincerely, and in that instant -- by grace through faith -- God will accept you as his friend. He will give you a new start in life, as if you had been born again, free of sin. And he will give you a new end to your life, which is the promise of eternal life in heaven.
Why would God do this?
"For God so loved the world," the Apostle John wrote, "that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
This is what salvation means. It is the joy of salvation that the Hawkins Singers so rapturously celebrate.
Please accept God's invitation -- the good news that is called the gospel -- and join me and other believers in the family of God.
If you are curious about these things, go see the real Jesus film.
If you have any questions or if you wish to share your decision to accept God's gift of salvation please contact me at [email protected].
Oh happy day!
* * *
Reviews that are antagonistic toward the Christian theme in Secretariat:
Andrew O'Hehir ("creepy, half-hilarious master-race propaganda"). Peter Ranier ("odd . . . Are we supposed to think it was God's will that Secretariat made all that moola for all those breeders and bettors?"). William Whitty ("As if . . . an omniscient and omnipotent supreme being has time to fret about such things . . . ."). Claudia Puig ("substitutes reverence for bona fide excitement;" "deification").
Sympathetic Reviews
Roger Ebert ("straightforward, lovingly crafted film"). Owen Glieberman ("uses a fantastic gospel anthem to stoke our feelings").
"By the way, Secretariat must have been a Methodist, not a Baptist. Methodists sprinkle; Baptists and most other evangelicals dunk." / Lutherans and Presbyterians (some of whom are evangelical) also sprinkle. / "As Secretariat smashes his way through the Triple Crown and into our hearts, Mr. Wallace is saying, "That's what it feels like to turn your life over to Christ. It's like winning the Triple Crown." / If this is what he intended, then I would say a more accurate representation would be coming up for air and being resuscitated after being held underwater until you're unconscious. That's a better representation of conversion. / Of course, Scripture uses being born again, which would be similar, a baby taking its first breath. However Scripture also uses dead being raised, as we are all dead in trespasses and sins. However I doubt any of that would fit into a movie about a racehorse. / It's possible he wasn't trying to make any connection with winning the race to conversion, though (without having seen the movie yet; I plan to) I can see why you'd say that, and that does seem to be the natural meaning. / Could be he just wants to make Christians look normal to the general populace, since usually they are made to look like kooks!
Posted by: Paula | October 18, 2010 at 08:09 PM
My wife, quoting a source I've forgotten, told me that Secretariat's heart was much bigger and heavier than that of an average race horse. So, truly, Secretariat was created with huge potential.
Posted by: Fred | October 15, 2010 at 12:47 PM
Oh Happy Day! I agree fully with this analysis. I am grateful that God gave me the desire to pay to see this movie. Being frugal to the point of cheap, "Secretariat "is the first movie I have paid to see since Narnia. I had no idea that it would not only stir the joy and enthusiasm seen in a good horse, but would also encourage me with the truth of God's Word in Job as well as remind me to be ever so grateful for God's saving grace and its resulting joy.
Posted by: D.Caddell | October 9, 2010 at 07:04 PM
I Googled this because I wanted to know the Christian motive behind this movie. Thanks for telling it. Yahoo! I worshipped in a horse movie. Way to tell the story, Mr. Wallace. I am glad you are not ashamed of the Gospel.
Posted by: Rene' | October 9, 2010 at 04:09 PM