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Review for Parents Evaluating ‘Gods and Generals’

By Doug Phillips
February 20, 2003

Doug wants to thank the many friends of Vision Forum who have written with questions or comments about the film Gods and Generals. As an outspoken critic of Hollywood and vehement opponents of the secular culture, especially the movie theater industry, Doug is grateful to the Lord for this rare opportunity to offer praise for a distinctively and overwhelmingly orthodox Christian witness in a major motion picture. The following is a composite of a letter which he wrote to some individuals who asked for a follow-up on his initial review and for comments about the appropriateness of the content in the final cut.

Doug Answers Questions from Parents

Our love for Christ must drive and define our interpretation of everything we look at and endorse.

Friday night, I took my wife Beall and saw the final cut of Gods and Generals. We chose to skip the previews and arrived in time for the opening credits. The movie was changed a bit from the preview I saw, though not dramatically.

Gods and Generals is not a perfect film. I have not, for example, addressed some of the artistic and technical issues which concern some. They do not concern me. The greatness of this film rests not in the battle choreography (though it is remarkable) or the soundtrack (though it is noble) or even the flow of the film. The greatness of this film lies in its heroic, visionary, and fearless message of faith in a sovereign God and commitment to principle communicated through the lead characters, but primarily through the film’s protagonist, Stonewall Jackson. The greatness of the film rests in its overtly biblical message about marriage and “women and children first.”

MTV-generation Christians who cannot sit through a symphony, a forty-five-minute sermon, or read a book without pictures will struggle greatly with this four-hour film. This film is not the typical mindless escapism we have been trained to crave. This is a “change your life” film. One critic complained that the film is a non-stop sermon. I think that’s a bit overstated, but let me be plain. I want the sermon. I need the sermon.

Having said this, I will go on record saying that Gods and Generals is the most encouraging film I have seen in my life, for one simple reason: It accurately and powerfully portrays the characters of two model evangelical Christians, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and his wife Anna. Years ago, my wife and I read the biography of Jackson written by his second wife and were deeply touched. The film brought an appreciation for Jackson as a husband and warrior to new levels. Beall and I left the film profoundly challenged in our walk as a Christian husband and wife, as a Christian man and woman.

Frankly, this film has gotten under my skin. It has made me sorely miss a man who I have never met because he died 130 years ago.

  1. Parent Guides: Several of the movie guides failed to discuss the potentially offensive elements of the film in the context they were presented. One review said there was nudity, based on the fact that a small portion of a boy’s chest is revealed to show a bruise. I think this is misleading. The ScreenIt.com review (which appears to be a non-Christian source), for example, is inaccurate as to several points, accurate as to others, but clearly and overtly prejudiced against the film because of the reviewer’s inability to process Christianity in terms of a Confederate leader. This is disappointing.

  2. Modesty and Sensuality: This film can be honestly described as extremely modest and sensuality free with the following caveats: Gods and Generals has a tenderly composed, fully dressed scene of a husband and wife talking about the sovereignty of God and love of Jesus Christ while they lay in bed. Contrary to ScreenIt’s prejudiced comments, absolutely no sexual intimacy is implied or described. In the course of this four-hour film, there are a few non-sensual husband and wife kisses upon greeting each other, as in the case of Stonewall Jackson greeting his new baby daughter for the first time. (For the record, I do not approve of any actor kissing anyone other than his wife — even in the name of “art.”) Beyond this there is absolutely nothing, except the discussion of a marriage between a chaperoned young man and woman who have no physical contact and appear to have approached the matter through a formal betrothal. There is an extremely brief scene in which, if one looks carefully and pays close attention, one can briefly see that a performer on stage singing “The Bonnie Blue Flag” is wearing a Mexican-style dress cut lower in the front than I would want for my daughters. I make no excuses whatsoever for anything which is less than God’s highest standard, but to offer a little perspective, the dress is nothing compared to that which any Christian man can see in the typical conservative Evangelical church today. Other than that, there is nothing even remotely objectionable.

    The fact is that modesty dominates the film. The modesty communicated in Gods and Generals (which reflects the modesty of that age) makes the clothing of this film look like a boutique for a convent in comparison to the daily sights you will see during most any visit to a McDonalds, or the grocery store, or even the typical church service. By way of comparison, the 1958 film The Ten Commandments is literally hundreds of times more sensual than is Gods and Generals. Thus, while we must reject any relativistic standard, it is helpful to have points of comparison, so you can more accurately gauge what you will see.

  3. Language: The word “damn” can be found about six times in the film. I went to the film with a pad of paper to try to count them and had to really strain to hear all but two of these expressions. I could barely hear the expressions “O Lord,” but when I did it was in the context of a death, and could be either interpreted as a call out to the Lord or a flippant statement in contradiction of the Third Commandment. There may have been others. Difficult to hear and difficult to tell.

  4. Racism: There is no racism in this film or inappropriate racist language. To the contrary. The film overtly promotes respect and honor for individuals of diverse melanin counts. Everything that is said is historical, and where the language could be interpreted as offensive, it is immediately corrected by another character.

  5. Violence: The primary parental concern is the battlefield violence. This is not a film for young children or any with tender eyes. While Gods and Generals is light years more tame than the sort of violence one sees in modern war films like Saving Private Ryan or Braveheart, there are many battle scenes which involve a lot of death. The violence is on the whole non-gratuitous and non-gory, but it is brutal. My recommendation to parents who have questions about the violence is to see it twice. First, go to review the film for your family. Next, determine which of your children are old enough to absorb the battle scenes and go see it again.

  6. Tobacco and Alcohol: Jackson explains to another General his reasons for not using tobacco. The other general agrees. A rebel shares a pipe with a Yankee in an act of friendship. Dieing men are given alcohol and morphine to dull the pain. Some soldiers have pipes. That’s it. It is absurd to suggest that there is anything inappropriate on either front, given the context of the usage and the historicity of the application.

Conclusion

I do not believe in relativistic standards, and I believe that any offense to God is unacceptable, period! I also believe that perspective is necessary. In truth, in terms of language and sensuality, a visit to any grocery store — with exposure to immodesty of printed material, of consumers, of dating relationships, of bad language — is about one-hundred times more offensive to our Lord, than anything one might find in this film. A visit to a mall would be five-hundred times more offensive than Gods and Generals. Frankly, a visit to a typical church — with the immodest dress of many and the practice of minced oaths being so prevalent — could even be more offensive than this film in many circumstances. Error is never acceptable, but one must still determine where to draw the line in terms of what we do and do not do. I don’t suggest that this is easy. Each family will have to prayerfully consider their course of action.

Thankfully, Jesus is glorified and honored in this film, not mocked, which is the exclusive reason behind my excitement over this film. Frankly, there has never been, and may never be a major film that honors Christ more in presenting a biblical view of marriage, a biblical view of God’s sovereignty, a biblical view of obedience to Christ, a biblical view of faith, a biblical view of the blessing of Heaven, or the meaning of having our first priorities be to our Savior. Because of Jackson’s character, this is the most openly evangelical film ever produced by the mainstream film industry. It is not a perfect film, but it is a remarkable film.

I deeply respect and agree with the desire to only endorse God-honoring material. May God help us to wisely live in this fallen world.

The Bizarre File

In my original article on the film Gods and Generals, I argued that many Christians will lack the foundation to appreciate a distinctively biblical affirmation of Christian culture. They are not accustomed to the type of distinctively biblical Christianity represented by Jackson and will fail to process the consistency of a man who is tender and sacrificial towards his bride, but ferocious toward his enemies. Consider the following quotes from one commentator who fashions himself an advocate for Christian culture. In an article published in 2002, which purports to tell Christians how to reclaim the culture, one commentator writes:

We here know that Christians won’t win back the culture by sad-sack “quiet times,” funeral-dirge “worship services,” fifth-rate apocalyptic fiction, tofu Sunday school socials, and Little House on the Prairie bonnets, but by boisterous invocations of the Almighty God, ear-blasting steel guitars, full-bodied Napa Merlots, exotic marital sex, and God-drenched avant-garde teenagers. We won’t win the culture until we get over being embarrassed by our robust, world-affirming Bible. Embarrassed by Song of Solomon’s stunning eroticism. Embarrassed by Israel’s worship dance and loud musical instruments. Embarrassed by Jesus’ water-to-wine miracle (WWJD should really mean, “What Would Jesus Drink?”). ... So crack open the Bible, fire up a Cohiba, mix the martinis, and crank up the latest Coldplay CD.

Applying this same worldview to Gods and Generals, this same commentator states: “But another contrast in Gods and Generals deeply troubled me. Almost without fail, the piety Jackson manifests is of an almost womanly, ethereal, Platonic variety, while his attitude toward war itself is masculine, earthy and gritty. As he leaves for war he caresses his devout wife in his arms and they both tearily quote the first few verses of 2 Corinthians 5 in a manner more suited to the ancient Docetic heretics than Biblical Faith.”

This same author goes on to say that the Mel Gibson film Signs, about creatures from outer space and though “less explicit in its Christianity,” packs a greater wallop for Christianity than does Gods and Generals.

Concerning charges of effeminacy and Docetism, we are confident that this brother has accidentally confused his viewing of the recent Michael Jackson interview, with the Stonewall Jackson film. We are confident that this is an honest mistake, completely unrelated to the martinis and the Cohibas.

For a sane and insightful alternative to such silliness, click here to read Brian Abshire’s comments on why Gods and Generals is not a “good” film by modern standards.