They must acknowledge that life is far more complicated than the typical Sunday sermon would indicate, and that faith means more than submitting to a controlled existence ruled by fear. If these films truly want to evangelize, then they must step outside their comfort zone -out of the closet, so to speak. “War Room” preaches that we have no call to be righteous and judge others, yet the film itself is righteous and judgmental in the extreme. “God’s Not Dead” was a call for tolerance that defended the intolerance of anti-gay Christians.

If there is a link between “War Room” and last year’s evangelical hit, “God’s Not Dead,” it can be found in their shared hypocrisy. In a film of otherwise bland performances, Abercrombie is the obvious stand-out, if only because of her tireless energy, yet she overdoes the old biddy routine to such an insufferable degree, there are times she resembles an unseemly hybrid of Steve Urkel and Yoda. So, they throw in more inspirational monologues and more contrived signs of God’s grace, all strung together in an interminable epilogue bereft of tangible conflict. You’d think this would be the end of the story, yet the Kendricks have a whole other hour to fill. She insists that she’s staying in the relationship because she loves Jesus, and that it is her godly duty to forever be at his side. When he asks how she could possibly forgive him for his endless list of transgressions, her answer is unsettling. Before you know it, he’s lost his well-paying job and is facing potential jail time for dirty double-dealing, but Elizabeth remains utterly unfazed. God promptly interrupts Tony’s dinner with a potential mistress by giving him a stomach ache, and sends him back into his wife’s arms. Once the evildoer is cast out of the house in a stirring, borderline psychotic monologue delivered by Elizabeth, everything changes. The multitude of problems in their marriage can be boiled down to one cause: Satan. As for the film’s advice to women who are beaten by their husbands, one of Elizabeth’s co-workers advises, “ Learn to duck so God can hit him.” Since the Kendricks have mistaken one-dimensional caricatures for people who exist in the real world, they forgot to provide Tony with any redeeming qualities that would make us want to root for his marriage. The film’s centerpiece sequence occurs early on, as Elizabeth sits weeping in her closet while pleading, “God, help him love me again.” This moment is heartbreaking for all the wrong reasons. There, she will summon God to help fight her battles, thus transforming the space into the titular “war room.” Her role as a submissive woman is to treat the man in her life with grace, which will eventually shame him into becoming a good person. Instead, she urges the long-suffering wife to go back home, empty out a closet and plaster the walls with Bible verses. When Elizabeth tries opening up about the unabashed cruelty she endures on a daily basis from her loathsome husband, Tony (T.C. Shirer) must be taught in extended conversations with her client-turned-friend, Miss Clara ( Karen Abercrombie). This is the lesson that real estate agent Elizabeth ( Priscilla C. Grappling with the gray areas in life is seen as a sign of weakness, while acting in one’s own best interest is nothing more than a sinful exercise in selfish pride. The film wants to evangelize by preaching an ideology that requires its followers to view the world in black-and-white terms. It has one single goal, which according to the Kendricks, is the only goal worth having. Spirituality can be a beautiful thing to explore in cinema, but “War Room” has no interest in engaging its audience on a personal level.

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