THE APOSTLE

 

THREE STARS - Challenging

 

 

        The “Apostle E.F.” baptized himself.  Instead of entering into a community of believers and becoming accountable to them, Euliss Dewey (Robert Duvall) is a man who answers only to God.

        The problem, of course, is that such a person is vulnerable to his own arrogance and limited by his own ignorance.

        Though most Christian churches have recognized such dangers and joined together into denominations to provide the guidance and accountability of spiritual leaders, there are those who deny that such accountability is a necessity.  “The Apostle” is a film about a person representing the latter viewpoint and the churches he leads.

        Although the film clearly presents the fact that the Apostle E.F. is sincere, it also leaves no doubt that he is a disturbed and dysfunctional person.

        The root cause of his dysfunction is portrayed at the beginning of the film when he is shown as a toddler and then as a young boy of 12 who began to mimic the emotional style of his Pentecostal preacher and became a minister himself.

        This decision and the lack of guidance by the adults in his life arrests his emotional and spiritual development at the age of 12.

        Rather than waiting until he became a mature adult with a thoughtful and deepened faith, the Apostle E.F. is thrust into spiritual leadership with nothing except a veneer of religious language and emotional appeals.

        Hiding behind a manic denial, constantly singing religious songs and speaking in religious ways, the Apostle E.F. is unable to connect either with himself or with others as a stable human being.

        This is seen most clearly in his failed marriage.  Jessie (Farrah Fawcett) is a susceptible musician who is many years his junior and the mother of his two beautiful children.

        But rather than simply connecting with them as a loving husband and father, the Apostle E.F. can only relate to them in his religious role as “Apostle.”  His frenetic recitation of the books of the Bible is his only connection with his children as they parrot back to him in parting.

        When Jessie tells him that she wants a divorce, it is obvious that he is unable to even discuss the reasons with her.  Manipulating her to get on her knees to pray with him, she is fearful of both his spiritual power and his unpredictable anger.

        As in most persons who live behind a persona, the Apostle E.F.’s anger and lust erupt into actions which are not only uncontrollable but are also not understood by him.  Therefore it is with little understanding of what he does that the Apostle E.F. expresses his rage against Jessie’s boyfriend with a baseball bat in the full view of his wife, children and friends.

        What is amazing about the film is the realization that not even this act strips him of his religious veneer.

        Fleeing to a nearby state, the Apostle E.F., does the only thing he knows how to do:  he builds a church.

        Although we might at first define his actions as a form of penance, there is no remorse, confession, repentance or accepting of responsibility on the part of the Apostle E.F.

        Instead, he simply fills the role of minister until he is arrested and taken away for his crime against his estranged wife’s boyfriend.  Even in prison he continues living his role.

        Although the film clearly demonstrates that the story of Jesus is life-changing even when presented by a dysfunctional minister, the tragedy of “The Apostle” is that it fails to reach the man beneath the apostolic veneer. 

        Christian life is not a veneer one puts on over the soul, it is power when it enters deep within and transforms the soul through repentance and genuine change of motivations and actions.

       “The Apostle” is a troubling film about a troubled man who never truly found the only thing he ever talked about:  the living God.  Had he allowed Him to, God would have become much more than a mantra to be shouted about, He would have become the transforming love at work within his soul.

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