Love's Long Journey (DVD)
Based on the popular series by best-selling Christian author Janette Oke, the three episodes in this DVD series follow the family of a young woman named Missie from the time her biological father meets her adoptive mother.
Love’s Long Journey, the third in this series, recounts the events surrounding Missie and her husband Willie as they start a family and a cattle business. The problems and tragedies that they deal with are realistic enough, but the author or screenwriters seem to sanitize everything. Each episode works out just fine, true to Hallmark formula. In fact, these three films, all directed by Michael Landon, Jr., top Hallmark’s long list of hits featuring wholesome and inspiring love stories, earning the top three standings in popularity on the Hallmark Channel.
As spiritually-themed movies, they have a lot to offer, namely by addressing several pertinent issues relevant to our time. These include subjects such as the Christian witness in the world; how Christians treat each other; how to raise good kids; and even an interesting take on what time with the Lord might look like.
The story takes place in the second half of the 19th century, around 1876. I imagine that at the time of the story the Christian message was understood, particularly since America was experiencing a spiritual awakening following the Civil War. In the story, the methods used to attract people to the Christian message were about what one might expect: Missie invites people to have church with her family, since there is no church in the wilderness where they were building their home. Presumably, everyone in the movie “knew� God in the Christian sense and simply had wandered away from the faith. But while those assumptions and witnessing strategies may have been perfectly effective in 1876, they have little relevance over a century later.
For those interested in evangelicalism (either through direct involvement or open-minded curiosity) Love’s Long Journey offers viewers a chance to observe some genuine, warm evangelism. We see Missie (Erin Cotrell) able to influence those around her because of her loving and accepting ways. By behaving like a Christian to everyone around her, she wins hearts. Her husband Willie (Logan Bartholomew) is a loving husband and boss. His guys are devoted to him because he treats everyone fairly and gives some down-and-outers a second or even a third chance to earn a living. Throughout the story, there are numerous examples of how a good witness can positively impact one’s peers. With startling insight, the film exemplifies how to live well in one’s environment and culture. Audiences can witness the value of prayer, seeing how a man’s character is shaped and strengthened by daily conversation with God. These are all good things.
However, Love’s Long Journey, while a good story, is most likely a story that will appeal only to Christians (probably by design). The lives portrayed are pretty well sanitized. Their clothes are always clean. The bad guys are actually pretty good guys. The really bad guys get what’s comin’ to ‘em (it’s a Western setting). Their lives are sanitized by either the target audience’s sensibilities or by a false reality that everything works out to our satisfaction. In short, it is a sermonette for Christianettes.
Here’s the “but�—part of which is due to the newest hobby horse I’m riding, which is this: the church has so insulated itself from the world and its cultures that it can’t offer any reasonable apologetic for Christ. Nor does it allow the culture a chance to engage in conversation. There are changes happening within the Church with regard to this problem. Movies like this, though, are written for the “ostrich� faction of the Church. These three films seem to be trying to witness to the saved. And that's fine. But the church needs to spend less time trying to protect itself through its own sub-culture of art. The church does not appear to take seriously the mandate that Jesus left to “go out into the world and make disciples of all nations.� Or maybe we’ve left it up to professionals. I’ll let you decide who that is.
I have a couple of reasons why I say what I do: One is that the Church in its bubble no longer recognizes what’s going on in the culture. Second, the Church can’t relate to the culture, and therefore can’t do its job as salt and light or as heralds. Third, the Church has become protective of its own subculture to the point of wanting (even expecting) to force that culture (which it no longer understands or connects with) to change to suit the Church—which likes to think that it is good, or at least “gooder,� and therefore deserves to make the desired changes. It wants to protect its own culture and comfort, as my wife sagely puts it. Christians are quickly coming to resemble much of the Muslim world in their motivation, trying to use their influence to make the “infidel� conform. Fortunately the Lord will not let that happen, but it may take a pruning or strong disciplinary action to change it.
And now just a side word to Christians in our reading audience: Romans 8:28 says, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose.� As Christians, I think we often forget that we are called to His purpose. Not our own. We also need to define what “good� means here. God will watch out for us. But to assume that our satisfaction is the ultimate good is a stretch. Many Christians around the world know this Scripture, and their lives are violently ended before they get to see any material good. So is the Scripture false for them and only true for us, or do we misunderstand it?
I hope all audiences take away positive images of evangelicalism from this DVD series. I also hope that this movie was not Hallmark’s highest-rated show ever simply because it perpetuates the falsehoods that the church of today both teaches and assumes—the mentality that says God is available to protect you and sent His Son to supply you with all the good stuff you can imagine. That notion is a crock. It’s also ruination to the work of Christ.
Love’s Long Journey, the third in this series, recounts the events surrounding Missie and her husband Willie as they start a family and a cattle business. The problems and tragedies that they deal with are realistic enough, but the author or screenwriters seem to sanitize everything. Each episode works out just fine, true to Hallmark formula. In fact, these three films, all directed by Michael Landon, Jr., top Hallmark’s long list of hits featuring wholesome and inspiring love stories, earning the top three standings in popularity on the Hallmark Channel.
As spiritually-themed movies, they have a lot to offer, namely by addressing several pertinent issues relevant to our time. These include subjects such as the Christian witness in the world; how Christians treat each other; how to raise good kids; and even an interesting take on what time with the Lord might look like.
The story takes place in the second half of the 19th century, around 1876. I imagine that at the time of the story the Christian message was understood, particularly since America was experiencing a spiritual awakening following the Civil War. In the story, the methods used to attract people to the Christian message were about what one might expect: Missie invites people to have church with her family, since there is no church in the wilderness where they were building their home. Presumably, everyone in the movie “knew� God in the Christian sense and simply had wandered away from the faith. But while those assumptions and witnessing strategies may have been perfectly effective in 1876, they have little relevance over a century later.
For those interested in evangelicalism (either through direct involvement or open-minded curiosity) Love’s Long Journey offers viewers a chance to observe some genuine, warm evangelism. We see Missie (Erin Cotrell) able to influence those around her because of her loving and accepting ways. By behaving like a Christian to everyone around her, she wins hearts. Her husband Willie (Logan Bartholomew) is a loving husband and boss. His guys are devoted to him because he treats everyone fairly and gives some down-and-outers a second or even a third chance to earn a living. Throughout the story, there are numerous examples of how a good witness can positively impact one’s peers. With startling insight, the film exemplifies how to live well in one’s environment and culture. Audiences can witness the value of prayer, seeing how a man’s character is shaped and strengthened by daily conversation with God. These are all good things.
However, Love’s Long Journey, while a good story, is most likely a story that will appeal only to Christians (probably by design). The lives portrayed are pretty well sanitized. Their clothes are always clean. The bad guys are actually pretty good guys. The really bad guys get what’s comin’ to ‘em (it’s a Western setting). Their lives are sanitized by either the target audience’s sensibilities or by a false reality that everything works out to our satisfaction. In short, it is a sermonette for Christianettes.
Here’s the “but�—part of which is due to the newest hobby horse I’m riding, which is this: the church has so insulated itself from the world and its cultures that it can’t offer any reasonable apologetic for Christ. Nor does it allow the culture a chance to engage in conversation. There are changes happening within the Church with regard to this problem. Movies like this, though, are written for the “ostrich� faction of the Church. These three films seem to be trying to witness to the saved. And that's fine. But the church needs to spend less time trying to protect itself through its own sub-culture of art. The church does not appear to take seriously the mandate that Jesus left to “go out into the world and make disciples of all nations.� Or maybe we’ve left it up to professionals. I’ll let you decide who that is.
I have a couple of reasons why I say what I do: One is that the Church in its bubble no longer recognizes what’s going on in the culture. Second, the Church can’t relate to the culture, and therefore can’t do its job as salt and light or as heralds. Third, the Church has become protective of its own subculture to the point of wanting (even expecting) to force that culture (which it no longer understands or connects with) to change to suit the Church—which likes to think that it is good, or at least “gooder,� and therefore deserves to make the desired changes. It wants to protect its own culture and comfort, as my wife sagely puts it. Christians are quickly coming to resemble much of the Muslim world in their motivation, trying to use their influence to make the “infidel� conform. Fortunately the Lord will not let that happen, but it may take a pruning or strong disciplinary action to change it.
And now just a side word to Christians in our reading audience: Romans 8:28 says, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose.� As Christians, I think we often forget that we are called to His purpose. Not our own. We also need to define what “good� means here. God will watch out for us. But to assume that our satisfaction is the ultimate good is a stretch. Many Christians around the world know this Scripture, and their lives are violently ended before they get to see any material good. So is the Scripture false for them and only true for us, or do we misunderstand it?
I hope all audiences take away positive images of evangelicalism from this DVD series. I also hope that this movie was not Hallmark’s highest-rated show ever simply because it perpetuates the falsehoods that the church of today both teaches and assumes—the mentality that says God is available to protect you and sent His Son to supply you with all the good stuff you can imagine. That notion is a crock. It’s also ruination to the work of Christ.
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