"Come Sunday" on Netflix. Anyone watch? [spoilers]

Cafe Society
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It’s a movie based on the “This American Life” episode entitled “Heretic”, which is about Carlton Pearson, the Pentacostal televangelist who lost his fame and fortune when he shifted from a fire and brimestone theology to one that does not include a notion of hell (apart from the earthly one).

IMHO, the TAL episode was one of the best ever. I listened to the show a couple of years after it first aired, around the time when I had decided I was through with Christianity. I grew up in a Pentacostal church and have lots of conflicting memories of the experience. Like, I really enjoyed the music, but I hated how the music was used to whip everyone in a mindless frenzy. I could appreciate the showmanship of the preaching, but the content never did anything for me. But one thing I don’t have any ambivalence about was all that hell business. I hated it. And I hated that it was such a prominent message in a church where many of the congregants were poor and suffering.

So I was captivated by Pearson’s story. I burned the episode to a CD and sent it to my devout parents. At the time, neither of my parents were on the “no hell” train, but they still thought Pearson’s transformation was poignant. Fast forward to today and my mother is now a minister in a church that preaches the gospel of inclusion. I don’t think my father is prepared to give up totally on hell, but I think he’s open to the idea of not everyone being sucked into it unless they believe in Jesus.

Despite being fascinated by the story, I think “Come Sunday” is merely okay. It has some big names–Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, and Martin Sheen–and I thought they did a great job. But the film isn’t as riveting as I thought it would be. I think it’s because the radio show did a much better job showing how big of a name he was in the evangelical movement. He had the wealth to match his celebrity, and he lost both. I don’t think the movie really did a good job showing how devastating his “heresy” really was.

I am curious if others have seen the movie yet.

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I won’t be seeing it because I don’t have Netflix. I read a review that seemed to track and similar to your take on it, it sounds good but nothing too special.

I found out about Pearson back in the day when there was a Dateline episode on him with Keith Morrison’s narration and interview snippets with Pearson. You might be interested in checking that out if you never have, and I might just go listen to that TAL episode since I’ve only ever read/skimmed its transcript. There’s a quote from it that’s etched into my memory.

I’m from a conservative Lutheran background and our style of worship was like the polar opposite of what was going on in his church, almost no emotion when we’d sing, no spontaneity, pastors generally never relied on charisma. Regardless I was profoundly moved from knowing about Pearson because the thought process of his awakening reminded me so much of my own as a young adult a few years earlier. I once told a childhood friend of Pearson’s new theology and his head basically exploded.