Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God,

because God is love. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:7-8, 12

I don't know about you, but it often feels like that passage and others like it have been conveniently clipped out of modern Bibles. Not only are they strangely missing, but oddly replaced with unspoken mandates to preach a "gospel" of behavior modification. "Repent and be made evangelical."

The ickiness of associating with a culture that names itself after Christ, but behaves quite differently, was the catalyst for Dan Merchant's brilliant documentary, Lord Save Us From Your Followers. My husband and I had the privilege of sitting down with Dan recently to discuss the motivation, making, and marketing of his feature. Before I go on, let me tell you that it was one of the most impacting evenings I have spent with a fellow believer in a long time. Chris and I went home refreshed, re-fired, and stirred with passion for loving others with our lives.

We met Dan for a bite in a Lower East Side eatery before headed to a screening at a church in the neighborhood. From the moment we greeted one another there was a sweetness to the conversation; the free, easy talk of those with a mutual love and nothing to prove. No credential checking. No doctrinal qualifiers.

The story was simple. Call him Joe Christian; a good, God-fearing, middle class American guy, who, from time to time, felt squeamish about prevailing attitudes and treatment his ideological brethren displayed to "the world" around them. The more he thought about it, the more baffled he became. He decided to seriously investigate. His thesis question: "Why is the Gospel of love dividing America?"

Unlike plenty of current "documentary" makers who start off with a bone to pick and cut and paste their footage accordingly, Merchant is remarkably even-handed in his dialogue with believers and cynics alike. He questions, listens, and gets personal in a way that softens even the stereotypical fundamentalist. But there are no clever arguments or persuasive devices, the search for honest dialogue is forefront throughout.

Lord Save Us is a modern epistle. A letter -- excuse me -- movie, to the Church. To remember our first love, and then remember His love. It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. They are the object of His affection, and should be ours as well. In fact, we are all sick. When we forget that, and begin to look at others as the problem needing solving, we're in queue for the various disasters we've seen throughout the history of Christendom.

After a sparkling time together at dinner, we three headed to the church for the movie screening. Pulling up there was a line out the door, which turned out to be approximately five hundred eager viewers. Dan had described his experiences moderating discussions at various locations around the country. Churches, universities, art houses... Regardless of the audience make up, right-leaning Evangelicals, left-leaning academics, and the gamut of inbetweeners, the film never ceased to stir passionate discussion. Some weep, some confess prejudices, some get flustered and can't seem to decide between being offended or touched. Often there is at least one person who stands and says something like, "All this talk of love is great, but when do actually stand up for truth?"

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