Ordinary radicals | film review

Thoughts on Ordinary Radicals from an ordinary guy who was extraordinarily annoyed by the film.

I watched a film the other night and I’m struggling with how to write about it. I really wanted to like it, but I walked out feeling frustrated and confused and somewhat alienated. It was called The Ordinary Radicals and it examines what the director calls a movement of, “revolutionary Christianity.  One with a quiet disposition that seeks to do small things with great love.” Sounds intriguing, right?

I had read and enjoyed The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne, co-founder with Jamie Moffett of the “Simple Way” community in Philadelphia, and who is one of the main characters in the film. I loved the “simple” approach they take to living out their faith and their commitment to making a difference.

Claiborne makes his own clothes and works hard on reducing his environmental footprint, at one point in the book he describes standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a group of homeless people about to be evicted from an abandoned church they have turned into their home. In short, he lives his life in a radical way on the front lines, in community with like-minded people.

The Ordinary Radicals is a documentary following Claiborne and the film’s director Moffett and some of their other friends (there are a lot of players and most aren’t properly introduced) as they tour around the U.S. promoting their latest new book Jesus for President.

The film’s Toronto premiere was held at an independent theatre in a trendy part of town and the place was packed.

As the group travels across the United States in a cooking-oil-fuelled bus, they visit churches, community groups, a music festival and other venues while promoting their message that living like Christ goes beyond political affiliation or simply your stance on abortion, but that it really means living for others in love.

On their road trip they highlight people who are doing that, ranging from an advocate and activist who lives in an old bus to be close to the homeless, to a guy who won two cars on The Price is Right [ed: a television game show] but then sold them to go to Uganda. There was even a soldier who left the military because God told him to.

Some of these people are really inspiring, however they pack so many of them in and there’s so little in-depth coverage to any of them,  that my friends and I found it hard to really connect. At times it seemed that Claiborne and Moffet felt obligated to tell the story of everyone they had ever met who is making a difference and so the end result was way too much information that lacked focus and went on far too long. I felt that there was little thread of true narrative holding the film together and so the many, many anecdotes came across disconnected.

I would have preferred if they had focused more deeply on just a few stories. For example, the story of the Amish group who offered real forgiveness to a murderer who had devastated their community by sharing that they were ready - in advance - to offer forgiveness. This intrigued me, I was fascinated by their explanation that “forgiveness means being willing to give up your right to revenge”. I wanted to know more.

Another paradox in Ordinary Radicals is that although the group purports to be focused on building bridges between Christians and non-church people, as one friend pointed out to me, they seemed to alienate almost everyone who might watch the film. The politically engaged Christian Right, especially, was the big bad guy for them and there seemed to be an unspoken assumption that everyone watching would agree with this stance. It somehow ran contrary to their message of building bridges and promoting love, in my opinion.

I also can’t imagine a non-religious, uninterested-in-faith person connecting with the film, and this also runs counter to their goal of breaking down barriers. There is so much Christian-ese spoken in the film, that I think anyone not familiar with the sub-culture would walk out asking themselves, ‘What the…???’

But, I will say this - my friends and I spent more than an hour discussing the film afterwards in a local pub.  At times we even ranted, and we all found things we disagreed with. But we were also somehow inspired by parts. Not by the film in general, I would say, but by a few of those numerous stories telling about real people making a real difference in the real world.

Oh yeah,  I just remembered one other thing that annoyed me about Ordinary Radicals. The very last line of the movie is spoken by a woman who, like many people featured in the film, appears out of nowhere, and says: “We are the change we have been waiting for!”

That’s an Obama campaign slogan, and I thought it really discredited their non-political message.

Writer: Andy Johnson is a writer and journalist living in Toronto. His interests include never-ending home renovations, furniture-making, rock climbing and an upcoming trip to China.

1 Comment to Ordinary radicals | film review

1. I saw it twice. I was left wanting more depth as well. I couldn’t find the foundation or commonality in these stories. I loved some of the stories and others irritated me. But there was nothing that tied these people together from what I could tell. No good news, just good works. Alienated? yes. I’ve lived in both cultures and see the same problems in both of them - Conform to our standard or you won’t fit in. Wheres Jesus? Where’s the Truth?
leon on June 12th, 2009

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