Robert Duvall remembered
Photograph by Paul Sherwood via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons Deed - Attribution 2.0 Generic License.
Rev. John Burns
“If you reach out to him, he will accept you and love you forevermore even as this church will love you forevermore.” E. F. in “The Apostle”
Baptist churches ought to be flying their vacation Bible school flags at half-mast to honor the passing of American movie actor Robert Duvall. The Academy award-winning actor played dozens of characters in his over ninety film appearances. Several of those characters were flawed men who were redeemed by their faith in God or helped redeem others equally fallen. I don’t know what Robert Duvall’s personal religious beliefs were, but his characters in a handful of movies remembered what many of us had forgotten: People’s lives can be redeemed through a genuine faith in Jesus Christ.
I don’t know when this core belief began to slip away from me. I think it started in college when I realized that many white Baptists, who claimed to have been converted by believing in Jesus, condemned the Civil Rights movement, the protests to the Vietnam War, and the work for women’s equality. I concluded that any gospel that made people less willing to stand for justice and peace must be a superficial one. That conclusion was solidified during the Southern Baptist split that started in my seminary days and by the fraudulent behavior of TV preachers in the years that followed. I also felt uncomfortable by the unhealthy emphasis on heaven and hell that filled the revivalistic preaching of my youth and was suspicious about the formula that was heralded by evangelists as certain to bring instant conversion. I was embarrassed when entertainers and Christians from other traditions poked fun at what they saw as our invitations for folks to “get saved.” Little by little, these and many other factors caused me to forget one of the central messages of my faith. I am not alone in that forgetfulness.
I forgot the power of personal conversion through faith in Jesus Christ. Thank God Robert Duvall remembered for me.
More than any other actor of his caliber, Robert Duvall remembered that people’s lives can be changed for the better through faith in Christ. In his Academy Award-nominated performance in “The Apostle,” Duvall’s character E.F. repents of a murderous act, baptizes himself, and dedicates the rest of his days to helping people hear and respond to the life-changing love of Jesus Christ. Through his preaching that anybody can be transformed through faith in Christ, and his practice of accepting everyone who entered the doors of his church, a small fellowship of black and white believers formed a loving congregation in rural Louisiana. In his Academy Award-winning performance in “Tender Mercies,” Duvall plays country music singer Mac Sledge, who slowly but surely finds a true faith in Christ that enables him to put his life back together. In “Get Low,” Duvall’s character, Felix Bush, confesses his sins and receives forgiveness for tragic mistakes he made in the distant past. The scene in which he makes his public confession rivals any testimony ever heard in any church. This confession not only brings him peace but helps heal his entire community. The less successful film “Seven Days in Utopia” tells the story of Duvall’s character, Johnny Crawford, who helps a young man deal with his own failures and reconcile with his father by allowing the love of God to heal his brokenness.
Many Baptist preachers started out delivering sermons to the faithful gathered in white clapboard country churches just like The Apostle E. F. And we saw people make genuine acts of contrition and profess a faith in Christ that gave them a more loving and compassionate way of life. I saw a man who had threatened to kill me with a garden implement drop to his knees and profess his life-changing faith in Christ. I saw a white man who openly and vehemently professed his hate for all black people, repent, receive the Spirit of Christ, and get baptized with two African American men whom he then embraced as brothers. I saw a woman stand in church and say the spirit of Christ hit her like a freight train of love and put her on a new path of joyful celebration of that love. Somewhere along the way, however, I forgot the power of personal conversion through faith in Jesus Christ. Thank God Robert Duvall remembered for me.
Twenty years ago, I gathered the deacons of the church I pastored for a retreat in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. We met in a hotel that has since been destroyed by time and rot in the place that John Brown tried to end slavery. I believed our almost-all-white church needed to change. I believed we could build a diverse congregation based on the gospel of Jesus Christ. To help cast that vision, I showed the deacons a movie that remembered what God can do in a community if people truly believe. After that movie, those deacons committed to building a different kind of congregation and eventually they did just that. The movie I showed them at that retreat was “The Apostle.” Thank God Robert Duvall remembered.
The Rev. John Burns retired in 2023 from University Baptist Church in College Park, Md. He is the author of “Modeling Mary in Christian Discipleship,” available from Judson Press.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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