{"id":4238,"date":"2011-04-12T14:52:43","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T21:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thedudeabides\/?p=4238"},"modified":"2015-03-10T10:03:26","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T17:03:26","slug":"godstuff-soul-surfer-strikes-balance-between-faith-and-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thedudeabides\/2011\/04\/12\/godstuff-soul-surfer-strikes-balance-between-faith-and-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"GODSTUFF: “Soul Surfer” strikes balance between faith and fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Photo of Bethany Hamilton, courtesy of Noah Hamilton\/ www.bethanyhamilton.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The beautiful teenage girl floats across the surface of a crystal-blue ocean like a dream, her sun-bleached blonde tresses flowing behind her, unpolluted joy painted across her face.<\/p>\n

On the white-sand beach in the distance, her brother, a bronze-god of a young man, calls to her to come ashore. She\u2019s running late, lost in the reverie of surfing her native Hawaii\u2019s epic waves.<\/p>\n

As the new film \u201cSoul Surfer<\/a>\u201d opens, the angelic surfer, Bethany Hamilton<\/a> (AnnaSophia Robb<\/a>), rushes ashore, grabs a white sundress and hustles up the beach a large white tent where a crowd is gathered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d my son asked in the darkened theater.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a wedding,\u201d I answered without giving it much thought, reaching into the large bucket of popcorn between us.<\/p>\n

But I was wrong. The opening scene of \u201cSoul Surfer\u201d doesn\u2019t depict a wedding. Instead, it\u2019s a regular Sunday-morning Calvary Chapel church<\/a> service. Bethany, her hair a wet tangle around her shoulders, joins her family for worship.<\/p>\n

Churchgoing is a rare event in cinema. Usually, if a scene is set in a house of worship, it\u2019s because the plot calls for a wedding or funeral, First Communion or Christening. More commonly, a church scene is used to show some kind of inherent pathology in the characters\u2019 psyche or impending evil. (See: \u201cThe Apostle\u201d or \u201cThe Exorcist.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Even more commonly, religious life is depicted as a last resort in times of trauma \u2014\u00a0a Hail Mary prayer<\/a>, a deathbed confession, an (often futile) search for answers to impossible questions about loss, tragedy and pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoul Surfer,\u201d based on the real-life story of Hamilton, a world-class surfer who in 2003, at age 14, lost her arm in a shark attack near her home in Kauai, has plenty of trauma and the ensuing grappling with loss.\u00a0 But the religious life of the Hamilton family is portrayed as a normal part of their everyday lives.<\/p>\n

That is part of what makes the \u201cSoul Surfer\u201d story ring so wonderfully authentic.<\/p>\n

After Hamilton loses her arm, and keeps her composure with supernatural grace, she awakens in the hospital with her father Tom (Dennis Quaid<\/a>) quietly reading the Bible at her bedside. When Bethany asks him if she\u2019ll ever surf again, her dad says he knows she will. She can do all things \u2026 \u201cthrough him who gives me strength,\u201d she interrupts, finishing the quote from Philippians for him. She knows it by heart, deep in her bones.<\/p>\n

Still, \u201cSoul Surfer\u201d is not without moments of defeat. When Hamilton enters her first post-accident surfing contest, she fails and gives up.\u00a0 She even gives her surfboards away.<\/p>\n

(In real life, Hamilton says that never happened. Instead, Bethany says, she never gave up and relied on her faith in Jesus Christ<\/a> to carry her through. Perhaps filmmakers believed the truth was simply too far-fetched for their audience to accept.)<\/p>\n

In the film, a despondent Hamilton turns to her youth group leader, Sarah Hill (country music star Carrie Underwood<\/a>) at the seaside church pavilion and asks that most difficult question: Why would God let this happen?<\/p>\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Underwood\u2019s character answers. This is usually where people, in films and in real life, try to give well-intentioned answers that nonetheless fall short of providing any real solace.<\/p>\n

The youth group leader consoles her young disciple, saying that she\u2019s certain something good will come of the girl\u2019s unfathomable loss and quoting from the biblical book of Jeremiah: \u201cFor I know the plans I have for you,\u2019 declares the Lord, \u2018plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Hamilton asks her father a similar question in the film \u2014 now what is she going to do? \u2014 her father answers, \u201cWhatever comes next.\u201d<\/p>\n

What actually came next \u2014 at least according to the film \u2014 before her triumphant return to competitive surfing, was a trip to tsunami-stricken Thailand where Hamilton volunteered with the international relief group World Vision<\/a>. Out of her own pain, she reached out to help others, even teaching a young orphaned boy how to surf.<\/p>\n

By transcending her own grief, digging deep in the well of her soul to find the strength to help others, the film shows Bethany finding the courage to conquer her own fears, doubts and frustrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoul Surfer\u201d succeeds where many other Christian-themed films fail. It strikes a satisfying balance between powerful storytelling and overreaching message-giving.<\/p>\n

The Hamilton clan\u2019s faith comes across as authentic and, in another uncommon feat, appealing. While some have criticized the film for not being explicitly \u201cChristian\u201d enough, its just-shy-of-understated approach to portraying real religious life on film allows \u201cSoul Surfer\u201d to speak the language of faith without beating the audience over the head with a Bible.<\/p>\n

Bethany Hamilton\u2019s real-life story is beyond inspirational. (Today, at 21, Hamilton is one of the top women surfers in the world.)<\/p>\n

On film, her story doesn\u2019t lose any of its power \u2014 or faith.<\/p>\n

The real-life Hamilton did all of the one-armed surfing scenes in the film herself. In its final scene, after an astounding performance in a surf contest, reporters ask whether, if she had to do it all over again, she would choose again to go surfing the day the shark took her arm.<\/p>\n

Her faithful answer is breathtaking: \u201cI\u2019ve had the chance to embrace more people with one arm than I ever could with two.\u201d It\u2019s an answer the real-life Bethany Hamilton has offered many times.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the truth is harder to believe than fiction.<\/p>\n

A version of this post originally appeared via Religion News Service<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSoul Surfer\u201d succeeds where many other Christian-themed films fail. It strikes a satisfying balance between powerful storytelling and overreaching message-giving.<\/p>\n

The Hamilton clan’s faith comes across as authentic and, in another uncommon feat, appealing. While some have criticized the film for not being explicitly “Christian” enough, its just-shy-of-understated approach to portraying real religious life on film allows “Soul Surfer” to speak the language of faith without beating the audience over the head with a Bible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[823,824,825,826,24,827,828,791],"class_list":["post-4238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-godstuff-2","tag-annasophia-robb","tag-bethany-hamilton","tag-carrie-underwood","tag-dennis-quaid","tag-jesus","tag-shark-attack","tag-soul-surfer-a-true-story-of-faith-family-and-fighting-to-get-back-on-the-board","tag-world-vision"],"yoast_head":"\nGODSTUFF: "Soul Surfer" strikes balance between faith and fiction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cSoul Surfer\u201d succeeds where many other Christian-themed films fail. 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