I'll Walk The Way - January 29, 2006

By: Sellers S. Crain, Jr.

    Ever since the movie I'll Walk The Line on the life of Johnny Cash came out, Sue had been wanting to see it.  We went Friday with Jim and Shirley Orand.  No, I am not a Johnny Cash fan.  In fact, I didn't even think he could sing, but millions of others apparently did.  So much for my music critic status.  Even though I was not especially fond of him, he was from my generation.  He, along with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins were some of the early Memphis Rock-a-Billys.  All of them came from humble roots and made it big in the music business.  When Johnny produced the movie many years ago, Calvary's Road, Sue and I had the privilege of meeting Johnny and June personally at a free premier showing for ministers.  They were both very cordial and friendly.

    Overall, the movie did a good job depicting Johnny's life.  The script was actually taken from his own autobiography.  It told the good and the bad.  It related his bouts with drugs and alcohol, and the troubles with the law because of it.  It also showed that even though the love story between he and June Carter was endearing, it began while he was still married to his first wife.

    One fact stood out to me.  For perhaps most of the last thirty years of his life, Johnny Cash became a very religious man.  He attended church services on a regular basis for many years until his health declined, and I am not sure how much he attended afterward.  There was one brief scene in the movie of Johnny and June going into a church on a Sunday shot only from the outside.  I had to wonder, did the movie makers really believe people would be more interested in his adultery than in his religious conversion?  This is another evidence of the anti-Christian bias in Hollywood.

    If you need more evidence of that bias, did you happen to note who won the big prizes at the Golden Globe awards last week?  One of them was a movie titled Brokeback Mountain, the story of two homosexual cowboys who "fall in love".  It was said to be a sympathetic portrayal of two people struggling with their sexual identities.  Another big winner was TransAmerica, a movie about a transsexual man who had surgery to become a woman.  The popularity of these two movies with the Hollywood crowd is a clear indication of the deep chasm that exists between their values and most Americans, based on recent polls.

    The Hollywood power brokers will continue to trash America and try to get al of us to walk their line, but as Christians, our path is clear.  Jesus said, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7:13, 14)  Instead of walking Hollywood's broad line, I chose to walk the Lord's narrow way.  How about you?

Brotherly,

Sellers