PROPAGANDHI: So, Romero.

The basic thing to know about this movie is that it’s Braveheart for people who respect Oscar Romero more than they do William Wallace.

Into which demographic I gratefully leap! No joke–Braveheart for pinko pacifists is twenty times better than Braveheart for Braveheart fans.

…But that doesn’t make it a good movie, you know.

I think probably it’s impossible to make a movie about Oscar Romero that I would dislike. But oh Lord, this movie came close! There were absolutely beautiful moments: I remember especially the little girl ringing the church bell. Every moment involving the Eucharist (and there were a lot) was amazing, just literally breathtaking.

But it should be said that you could walk away from Romero thinking that a) Communist nations were renowned for freedom of religion (I am not making that up!), b) poor people do better under Communism than under capitalism, and c) Christian movies are propaganda. Romero chose the easy way of “moral complexity” in which the good guys are complex because they doubt themselves, whereas the bad guys are… kitten-kickin’ villains who use words like “capital” and “penetrate.”

At one point the movie-Romero gave a radio speech in which he transformed the idea of “liberation theology”–he said that what we need to seek, as Christians, is “liberation and redemption.” I thought that was amazing, totally powerful, and maybe you all can help me: How does the concept of redemption play out in “liberation theology”? It seemed, in the movie, as if Romero were taking what was real and true in liberation theology, and yet rejecting what was false in it, its attempt to build the Kingdom in this world through Marxist violence. And “redemption theology” seems less likely–to me–to fall into that trap. Do you all have comments?