Hey, what do you know, one of these Donald James Parker films actually managed to be somewhat lightly introspective and somewhat lightly critical of the church in some regard. Does that mean it's any good, or even markedly better than any of these other movies have been? No. It's still comedically incompetent in writing and craft, it still has all of the bizarre aside non-sequiturs blaming young people for whatever problem the characters perceive in any given moment ("A lot of the younger members just went down the road to Victory church"), the main character Parker writes for himself still has every bit of the self-righteousness posing as humility, and this character also happens to have two daughters who never speak to him for literally no other stated reason than because he is too fastidious in his love for Jesus (this is such an oddly specific running theme. In three of these movies I've seen so far, Donald James Parker writes for himself a character who has a daughter that won't speak to him because he loves Jesus so much. As I covered in my review of In Gramp's Shoes, the reason his daughter wouldn't speak to him is because he was an awful authoritarian and insufferably self-righteous, even though the movie genuinely thinks it's because he loved Jesus too much. The fact that this has been a ham-fistedly contrived subplot in three of his movies now can lead me to draw a wealth of conclusions about Parker's relationship with his family), and Parker also writes himself yet again winning the heart of a more attractive woman approximately 10-15 years younger than he is, but this time around the movie's villain is not the gays or the Jews or the liberal indoctrinating education system, but instead a wealthy mega-church pastor. I mean, he doesn't offer any meaningful criticisms of or insights into the inner-workings of major money-centric religious establishments by way of The Righteous Gemstones, so none of the blows really land, but at the very least Donald James Park is punching up this time, so, progress?
Old Rugged Cross is about a wealthy mega-church pastor named Luke and his conquest of a small town as he grows his church's numbers and buys out local church properties to shut them down in order to build new facilities for his mega-church, as well as his sexual conquest in his bid to marry the church's attractive piano player, doing so with lines that sound like they came straight from Beauty and the Beast's Gaston. But a wrench is thrown into his plans when meek, supposedly humble (I say "supposedly," because what Donald James Parker writes as humility in reality is insufferable self-righteousness) Pastor Evan moves in from Kansas, and through his utter fastidious unwavering adherence to Jesus, snipes Luke's entire congregation, and steals his girl. So basically, it's an extended prosperity gospel sermon, lock-step with most other of these poorly produced evangelical movies.
At 45:25 one major subplot begins that revolves around how the main character's life was once uprooted because a woman in his congregation levied a false sexual misconduct allegation against him, a phenomenon is 100% conservative paranoia, as false accusations barely ever happen. The overwhelming majority of the time nothing ever comes of it whether the accusation is substantiated or not, and that only goes for accusations that actually result in legal filings, since more than 97 percent of sexual assaults go unreported. But even placing that aside, there's an absolutely reprehensible moment in which a woman s speaks to a friend of hers as she struggles with the weight of finding out the new pastor was once accused of sexual misconduct (before she finds out the accusation was false):
"I talked to a friend today, and she told me that she heard from a good source that pastor Shepherd was dismissed from a pastoral position for sexual impropriety."
"WHAT? Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I don't know what to do. I just found this out, and felt like I had to run."
"Well, I think you need to pray about it. And I think you need to remember a couple of things. Just because a man sinned a long time ago, we can't continue to punish him after God has forgiven him. And, the enemy loves to take out key members of the opposition through friendly fire."
Geez there's a lot to unpack in that last line that tells you exactly how the typical Evangelical approaches sexual assault. Can I get a copy of that list of people that God has forgiven? Wait, there is no list? So by this standard, how am I supposed to know who should and shouldn't be subjected to the justice system? Also, I find it amazing just how nakedly these people demonstrate the amount of disdain they approach sexual misconduct allegations towards a man, especially a man of the church, and predispose one another to simultaneously dismiss the allegations outright, and should they turn out to be credible, preemptively make the case to skip any form of punitive justice before any facts are known. And guess what, that's exactly what happens, everybody decides to forgive pastor Evan before it becomes known to them that the allegations were false. It's absolutely disgusting. And if you didn't notice, this movie came out in 2016. Any guesses as to what real world events transpired around 2016 in which the entire evangelical church simultaneously dismissed and preemptively forgave the sexual misconduct of a major public figure? I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with Ronald Dump.
I'm going to circle back onto the note of this highly specific theme of Donald James Parker writing and starring as characters with daughters that won't speak to him. I just find it hysterical that Parker evidently sees himself as a man fervently driven by his devotion to Jesus, stating that he does nothing in his life without direction from Jesus, yet it seems to me as though Parker uses these films to work out his own personal issues with his family. He should check out 1 Timothy 3:4 "The righteous man manages his own family well, his children show him reverence and respect." This verse is why many evangelicals take the authoritarian route with their children, thinking commanding the respect of their children is what this means, and then they are utterly bewildered when their children come to resent them and won't speak to them when they enter adulthood. There is no surer sign an Evangelical Christian has abjectly failed this verse, and produced the opposite effect they intended, when they manage to raise children who hate them and won't speak to them. Parker persistently casts himself as a victim of children who won't speak to him because he's just too committed to Jesus, yet according to the Bible, his failure to inspire the respect of his children can only mean he has failed to be a righteous parent.
On an ending note, at one point, I got irrationally excited because Donald James Parker actually wrote a line in which the character he plays made a self-deprecating remark on his own appearance, but then, of course:
"I know I'm scarry looking. I'm sorry."
"You are not."
"I am to sorry." (lol)
"No, I mean, you're not scarry looking. As a matter of fact, you're very distinguished looking."
Ugh, why why why why why why why does this man write other people complementing his appearance in every single one of his movies? May I remind you all, this is what Donald James Parker looks like.. What must I do to obtain even a fraction of the Chad-level confidence this man has in his own appearance? What I wouldn't give to have just some of that confidence in my day to day life.
