The best response to the movie Saved! that I’ve heard yet is a one-line quip passed along by my friend Michael Leary, who heard someone else say it after a screening of the film…
“The Church will only be doing what it really should be doing when it won’t be possible to satirize it.”
And when will this happen?
Actually, I believe it DOES happen. But because a believer imitating Christ is one who loves and serves quietly, sometimes even anonymously, without any ego or drawing attention to what is being done, people rarely notice Christ’s work occurring. Thus, we rarely hear about it. And when we do, it is mostly misunderstood and sometimes even attacked. As Thomas Merton once mused, the greatest saints may never be recognized on this earth, in this time, because they are serving almost invisibly.
My belief is that a skeptical world balks and therefore satirizes ANYTHING or ANYONE that speaks of having “the truth,” as you say, people rarely recognize Christ’s work occurring in their midst. I guess I get a little tired of Christians criticizing the church as bad as it is sometimes without offering something constructive. Good quote by Merton by the way. I remember a friend speaking of this years ago.