God’s Gay Movie
In ‘End of the Spear’, Evangelicals faced their villain
To be an American Evangelical from the late 1950s on, you knew a a key narrative: the deaths of the five missionary martyrs in Ecuador.
The ‘classic’ story in Elisabeth Elliot’s Through Gates of Splendor had never become a movie, and by the late 20th century, probably never would.
But one of the slain missionaries had a son. Steve Saint had gone to have his own missionary engagement with the tribe which killed his father, and it gave him som ideas on refreshing the famous narrative. He began prepping The End of the Spear, positioned as a sequel to Through Gates of Splendor, and to be immediately made into a movie.
The plot was: the son of the murdered missionary met his father’s killer.
In an act of Christian grace, he forgave him. That’s how the book went. A Hollywood version would need even a little more oomph, so a further scene was added in which the ‘Steve Saint’ character was tempted to kill the native man, ‘Mincayani’, who’d become his friend.
Overcoming his own desire for revenge killing, the movie’s ‘Steve Saint’ demonstrates true Christian love even more than in the book.
But what actor would play the dual role of Steve Saint and Nate Saint? This was an Evangelical movie, so Brad Pitt was probably unavailable—but Chad Allen was available.
He looked the part. He was famous, and well-known to Evangelicals from his T.V. work, especially Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman. But he was also known for having been ‘outed’ by a tabloid, and going on to be a gay activist, often engaging the notorious gay marriage issue.
Allen was surprised when the Evangelicals approached him.
Should he do it? The movie appealed to him. He knew of it as a story of a cycle of violence ending through the relationship of a missionary and a native man.
He recalls: “I knew it was an opportunity to bridge these two disparate communities that are believed to be enemies—the gay and the Christian communities.”
They were wary of each other.
“We both came to the table with a lot of preconceived notions,” Allen recalled. “I thought they were right-wing crazies, and they thought I was the godless bohemian or something.”
But they began to talk. The Evangelicals moviemakers knew about his sexuality and all that. They’d referenced the November 25, 2003 cover story interview of him in The Advocate, where he’d talked about his public service to gay kids in crisis, and his Catholic childhood.
Steve Saint, Allen learned, had himself read the interview, and said those were the values he’d worked for in his own ministry, “and it would be wrong for them not to ask me to do it,” as Allen summarized. “That’s an amazing story, right?”
Allen asked for assurances that profits wouldn’t be used to fund anti-gay activism.
The filmmakers said they wouldn’t. So he agreed to star in the movie. The plot was set in Ecuador, but they were to film in Panama. On location, Allen met Steve Saint, and as he recalls in an interview with Christianity Today, again dealt with the sexuality issue:
“If you don’t want me to do this movie, because I respect you and your family so much and I respect this story so much, I will walk away from this — contract or no contract, even if that means I’m liable for breaking the contract.”
But Saint affirmed that Allen was wanted. When filming was finished, Allen recalls, both he and Saint “were in tears, hugging each other saying goodbye, because so much love had developed between us. It was an amazing experience.”
Allen could see that his presence in the movie would cause Saint some grief with Evangelicals. He told the Toledo Blade: “I could tell he was deeply concerned and scared about what was the right thing to do.”
After the December 2, 2005 premiere, it got okay advance reviews.
Everyone knew: Evangelicals don’t made good movies. But it was a good movie — for an Evangelical movie. “We never know Steve, despite his banal narration of the tale throughout,” notes the Pensecola News-Journal.
Evangelicals have problems making movies, or any art, because anything “sinful” needs to be omitted—or appropriately punished.
And America wasn’t really in the mood for old missionary stories. As the January 20th premiere of The End of the Spear approached, gay issues were on the national mind.
A few days after the premiere, the movie Brokeback Mountain debuted—to become a cultural phenomenon. A shift was happening in ideas about homosexuality, and gay marriage was looking possible?
At the Golden Globes on January 16th, Brokeback Mountain won, as did Felicity Huffman for Transamerica, and Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote. A cultural re-think of sexual issues seemed in progress.
Evangelicals wouldn’t usually be involved in that.
They didn’t make movies. But now, they had made one—and Chad Allen was being interviewed in national outlets about it. He was speaking, rather, as a spokesman on gay issues, and mentioned The End of the Spear. Like on CNN’s Larry King Live on January 16th, he was on a panel with, among others, Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
“I have a deep relationship with God of my understanding,” Allen said. “And I am very much at peace in the knowledge that in my heart God created this beautiful expression of my love.”
He mentions the collaboration of End of the Spear offered an idea of peacemaking.
“You know, I made this movie with a group of conservative Christians who do not agree with my expression of sexuality. But we said to each other, I will walk with you accepting your differences, and we can create together. I will give you your space to respect you fully. They don’t need to take away from my freedom, I don’t need to take away from theirs. And I am so proud to have done that. That’s the kind of bridge-building I think we can get to.”
Allen was working off the filmmakers’ approval.
Prior to the CNN appearance, he continues:
“Steve Saint called me today, and he said, I need you to know that I’m sitting here with Mincaye. We’ll be watching you tonight. We love you. We are on your side. And I know that we have those differences, but we are walking through this together.”
And a phenomenon occurred that God had never seemed to manage before. An Evangelical movie became ‘relevant’.
A “gay activist” in a Christian movie?
The film ascended in the media feeding chain—from regional reviews to a national issue. The paradox, the irony, was too delicious not to notice.
“Controversy erupts over gay lead actor in ‘Spear’,” an AP report is headlined.
“Evangelical Filmmakers Criticized for Hiring Gay Actor,” reported the New York Times.
Allen would recall the controversy later.
“So many people were upset that a gay actor would play this famous religious straight man. One of the great articles about it was in the New York Times, which said, ‘I don’t understand what Christians are so upset about. Chad Allen is just doing what they’ve asked us to do for so long — act straight.’”
Evangelicals realized it was a tricky situation.
In a widely noted blog post, Albert Mohler was left navigating the tricky situation. He wishes Allen hadn’t been cast. He doesn’t call for a boycott.
“Christians are not called to conduct investigative hearings on such matters,” he writes. “Yet, we should learn to look for the connections between worldview and art that always underlie a work or performance.”
The End of the Spear filmmakers fanned out with shifting narratives, doing their best to save the film. Jim Hanon, the director, now claimed he learned about Allen being gay after they’d signed a contract, and was legally compelled to proceed.
Steve Saint worked the Christian media.
His line was that he’d been flabbergasted to learn a gay actor and activist had been cast to play himself and his father. “I could not imagine how something like this could slip through a professional screening process,” he sighs to Christianity Today.
He continues: “After I got over the emotional shock of realizing that a man who has chosen to live a lifestyle in stark contrast to my dad’s would actually be playing his role in End of the Spear, I realized I would likely be held responsible for that decision. I wanted the issue to go away. Finally, I realized I was going to have to face what was happening, and there was little chance of coming out unscathed.”
He spoke in several interviews about the process of grappling with the issue. “It was an excruciating process for me,” he told the Toledo Blade. “It forced me to go to the Scriptures.” He reflected on Jesus dealing with the woman caught in adultery in John 8.
Still troubled, he added, he had a dream in which God spoke.
In the dream, Saint says he was “being chased by a mob of Christians who were angry with me for having desecrated ‘their story.’ The answer to their hostility was easy: Just ask Chad to remove himself. But as quickly as this thought came to me, I found myself standing before God. His look was not as compassionate as I had expected. God said, ‘Steve, you of all people should know that I love all of my children. With regard to Chad Allen, I went to great lengths to orchestrate an opportunity for him to see what it would be like for him to walk the trail that I marked for him. Why did you mess with my plans for him?’
Gay people seemed to be taking it in stride.
A bemused comment at a gay website:
“Could it get any easier to make a joke than by having a gay actor in a play about missionaries called The End of the Spear? Luckily, I’m above all that.”
And an idea of the end of a war might have been in view.
The movie is about the problem of ending systemic violence happening among the Waorani people in the rainforest of Ecuador.
They’d been wary of having their story filmed. But they’d given approval for The End of the Spear. What changed their mind was the Columbine shootings in Colorado in 1999. They’d seen their own history. “If our story can help North America, then you tell our story,” they said.
To extend this idea of non-conflict to Evangelicals and gays, however, was unexpected.
The filmmakers seemed to sense the possible dynamic, if not have worked to set it up with the casting of Allen. Other actors had been available.
“This is a story of how love can transform any situation and how faith makes a family from the most opposite of people,” Hanon said, pitching the film.
But Evangelical leaders were reluctant to be part of such a negotiation. Indeed, Elisabeth Elliot herself, though slipping into a dementia, used the film to make her very last gesture as a public person.
She refused to see or endorse The End of the Spear.
A Christian blogger visited Elisabeth Elliot and her third husband, Lars Gren, while the film was in theaters, and reported on discussion of the matter.
“They had not seen it, and did not have plans to. This way they could avoid media attention and efforts to get a quote from them about the actor, a gay man, who played Nate Saint.”
The movie did okay at the box office, making less than expected, but a profit.
Chad Allen was never featured in any of the publicity. A new ad campaign for the movie was launched, featuring viewers who said they’d been inspired by it to become missionaries.
Steve Saint has a treatment of the episode in a 2007 memoir, Walking His Trail: Signs of God along the Way. He goes through the story again—or one of them. He was horrified to learn of a gay actor’s involvement, he says, but came to see it as part of his missionary work. Then God Himself had told him, in the dream, the role would give Allen “the opportunity to see what it really means to follow Me, to submit his will to Mine.”
Saint includes a speech about the evil of homosexuality. “It is unnatural, a perversion, and it threatens the historic fabric of our country.”
But the experience of making the film, he reports, had changed him. “I no longer find homosexuals disgusting.”
Was it that time God told Evangelicals to make a gay movie?
I wonder if there was really a message from the Creator being received in the process. That line Saint had said—did sound so like Him.
“I love all of my children.” 🔶
