Appaloosa: Follow Christ or Fall Apart!

Saw this yesterday via redbox dvd...
It follows on the heels of 3:10 to Yuma as a Western Morality Play. It fits generally with the moral exemplar view of atonement theology. What's intriguing though about the movie is the attention given to the individual idiosyncracies of the main characters, their flaws and how they manage to work through them together.

Initially, I thought of titling this post as "Follow Christ or Die!" as the movie is full of good examples of how shall we say "common sense" morality was critical for surviving in the wild west where our wanton fallen natures were far less inhibited, especially once we gained a significant amount of wealth or a firing piece of our own. But the lessons from scripture go deeper and do not dwell as much on the willingness to die for another. It's there and it's great, but the full spectrum of self-sacrificial acts of love for others is given more attention and that's a good thing, inasmuch as martyrdom is never something one want's to do more than once. Less facetiously, to die for someone is too easily removed from the sorts of decisions we must make on a regular basis in our lives. It's a lot easier to affirm something that seems like a pretty remote possibility than something bound to be significantly costly to us.

So in addition to risking one's life for others, we see Christ being followed in many ways: Adultery and cynicism and deep-seated rage (and Aspie-like disabilities) are forgiven, trust is affirmed as critical for all relationships, flawed individuals are given the benefit of the doubt(the worse possible case scenario about them is not given overt attention), and the bonds of friendship are held up as superior to bonds of kinship or the bonds formed thru a sexual relationship. The willingness to die for something sets the sheep apart from the goats and enables a few to face down many. False egotistical claims to be uber-human/without emotions are overcome not by argument but by love.

The book also tempers the significance of actual acts of violence. The possibility of such and the mind-games between the opposing groups are far more important, as are the flawed nature of the law and the weight given to the ability of law-enforcement to legitimately take a life. This is not a cynics movie and it takes a very straight-forward things are basically as they seem. There are no huge revelations or unforseeable plot-twists. There is a great deal of honesty about the relationships of the characters and the finale has the true hero lay down his livelihood/security on behalf of his friend and do something that grates against his inner-code: break the law. If only we held the law, imperfect as it is, in such a high state of regard today again....

dlw