{"id":7622,"date":"2023-01-25T17:53:22","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T17:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=7622"},"modified":"2023-01-25T17:53:25","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T17:53:25","slug":"leap-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/25\/leap-of-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Leap of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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What Difference Does it Make?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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What could have been the takedown of a real-life faith-healing scandal becomes instead an unlikely conversion story in 1992\u2019s Leap of Faith<\/em>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Gregg Fairbrothers
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In a 1992 Paramount Pictures film, Leap of Faith<\/em>, Steve Martin gives without a doubt the most compelling and sensitive performance of his career as a shameless preacher-man, con-man Jonas Nightengale (n\u00e9e Jack Newton), who uses all the usual gimmicks and deceptions to part the faithful and their dollars. At the opening, we find Jonas\u2019s traveling caravan stopped for speeding somewhere in the dusty plains of Kansas. Inside the lead bus, Jonas\u2019s crew smirks and stakes bets on whether he can con his way out of an expensive citation as he heads out to do his thing. Coached from the bus through an earpiece, in no time he has the chubby officer weepy over his troubled marriage. The team inside guffaws as the lawman calls his daughter to patch things up. This short sequence establishes the theme of the film: Jonas may have scammed the guy, but true repentance has happened, and a father and daughter are on the road to a restoration. Seamy\u2014but if it works, what difference does it make?<\/p>

Then one of the trucks breaks down and the whole traveling show has to hole up in a rural Kansas town struggling with a broken economy and a drought that has its farms on the edge of ruin. Jonas, characteristically brazen when it comes to a buck, has the crew set up to work the community until they can roll on to the next big-money town. As they settle in, Jonas takes a passing fancy to Marva, a hostile diner waitress whose younger brother, Boyd, was crippled in the auto accident that claimed their parents. Doctors say there\u2019s nothing wrong with him, but he struggles to walk on crutches with braced legs that barely work. They\u2019ve seen everyone\u2014shrinks, quacks. Worst of all were the faith healers. Do you know what they told him? His faith wasn\u2019t strong enough.<\/em> His faith is all he has, Marva tells him grimly. She is having none of Jonas, but never one to shirk a challenge, Jonas befriends Boyd anyway.<\/p>

Meanwhile, in the revival tent, Steve Martin as Jonas gives the performance of his career, preaching on stage, slaying in the spirit, damning the devil, and selling Jesus. He wows the faithful with \u201cprophetic\u201d knowledge (fed through an earpiece by his crew); healing the lame who leap from wheelchairs to dance (after the crew helpfully greeted elderly walk-ins with said wheelchairs); showers of crutches thrown on stage (yup\u2014by the crew). When skeptical Sheriff Will publicly unmasks Jonas by disclosing Jack Newton\u2019s criminal background, Jonas gives a rousing recount of his redemption in Jesus that has the crowd in ecstasy. It seems there\u2019s nothing Jonas can\u2019t con his way around.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Jonas passes out into the night among the throngs of faithful camped in the fields under the tent\u2019s neon cross.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Until the climactic performance, when everything goes off script. Boyd struggles forward on his crutches. \u201cHey Rev,\u201d he calls, \u201cWhat about me?\u201d Jonas is stricken. He tries to dodge, but the crowd shouts \u201cOne more! One more!\u201d Jonas grimaces and helps Boyd onto the stage. He pulls the trusty \u201cif there\u2019s even one among you who doubts,\u201d card and sets up Sheriff Will for the rap. The cynicism is palpable. Marva holds back tears. And then: Boyd drops his crutches at the foot of the cross, touches the nailed feet of Jesus, and walks!<\/p>

Later that night we find a bitter Jonas\u2014shaken to his core by a true miracle\u2014returning alone to the dark, silent tent. \u201cHey, boss,\u201d he grimaces at the foot of the cross, \u201cRemember me? Jack Newton. I\u2019ve got a question for you\u2026 Why\u2019d you make so many suckers?\u201d Channeling the psalmists, Job, Ecclesiastes, he calls out to God for answers. But the answer he gets is not what he\u2019s seeking.<\/p>

\u201cRev?\u201d says Boyd.<\/p>

Jonas turns to find the kid has come in behind him. Boyd wants to join Jonas\u2019s crew. \u201cYou made me walk again,\u201d he says. Jonas sets him straight, but admits that there is one thing you can never con your way around: the genuine article. \u201cAnd you, kid, are the genuine article. I know I\u2019m a fake.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cWell, what difference does it make if it gets the job done?\u201d says Boyd.<\/p>

\u201cKid,\u201d Jonas says, gravely, \u201cit makes all the difference in the world.\u201d<\/p>

Jonas passes out into the night among the throngs of faithful camped in the fields under the tent\u2019s neon cross. People are reading scriptures to the children by campfire light. Servers ladle out stews. The sequence sensitively captures Jonas seeing what he has done\u2014the spiritually hungry people who have come are praying, sleeping in groups, tending campfires, feeding the hungry.<\/p>

Nightengale packs a bag with only a few things and slips away, hitching a ride with a truck driver bound for Pensacola. When the driver asks if he\u2019s in some kind of trouble, Nightengale-Newton smiles. \u201cNo, no, no, no, sir. Maybe for the first time, I\u2019m not.\u201d Just then raindrops, big, fat raindrops patter on the truck windshield\u2014first just a few, then the downpour. Jonas leans out the window with rain pouring over his face. \u201cCome on baby, rain!\u201d he cries, \u201cThank you, Jesus<\/em>!\u201d<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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A smug, outrage-inducing let\u2019s-look-at-the-real-story tell-all would fit right in with contemporary culture and the entertainment industry\u2014one that would leave audiences disgusted with both the perpetrators and the faith of the suckers who enrich them.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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On the surface, Leap of Faith<\/em> screenwriter Janus Cercone\u2019s script is about a fictional grifter who makes a killing fleecing the faithful. By the end her point is clear\u2014even Jonas Nightengale can be saved. It\u2019s an entertaining and insightful twist, a story of self-discovery, conversion, and redemption\u2014Jonas Nightengale\u2019s own leap of faith.<\/p>

But Cercone has gone one level deeper. She has given us not just a sensitively written and brilliantly performed conversion story, but a profound commentary on Christianity in contemporary culture\u2014and a challenge. In a 2015 article in London\u2019s Sunday Times<\/em>, Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Justin Stoneman report that Cercone based her script on the life and career of one Peter Popoff<\/a>, a notorious, debunked faith preacher and healer who has scammed the faithful for millions over 60 years.<\/p>

Starting in 1960 as \u201cThe Miracle Boy Evangelist,\u201d by the 1980s Popoff and his wife, Elizabeth, had built a televangelism empire. In a field of the cringeworthy and detestable the Popoffs stand out. You can find samples here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>. Among Popoff Ministry techniques that found their way into Cercone\u2019s script are feeding research through an earpiece, seating able-bodied old people in wheelchairs to fake miracles, and buckets of crutches. At the end of the 1980s the Popoff Ministry was collecting<\/a> almost $4 million a year; in 2005 it was over $23 million. The scam continues to this day<\/a> with a revivals cable show and a franchise selling \u201cMiracle Spring Water.\u201d<\/p>

But, come on, this is hardly new. From tents, to radio, to television, to the internet, the false prophets and profiteers have always been with us. They go all the way back to the Bible\u2014Testaments Old and New.<\/p>

Now, imagine for a moment an entertainment industry writer-producer dreaming up a film script. She comes across the Popoffs, watches their shows on YouTube, and gazes at the piles of dollars that pour in from faithful who have the least to spare\u2014even after <\/em>the Popoffs have been repeatedly exposed as hucksters. What tale, today, would you expect that entertainment professional to sell? A smug, outrage-inducing let\u2019s-look-at-the-real-story tell-all would fit right in with contemporary culture and the entertainment industry\u2014one that would leave audiences disgusted with both the perpetrators and the faith of the suckers who enrich them. And, really, who could blame this hypothetical writer? What kind of name do the Popoffs of the world give Jesus\u2019s Church?<\/p>

Thankfully, Janus Cercone didn\u2019t produce that script. At the deepest level, Leap of Faith<\/em> isn\u2019t just about the gullible and grifters, or even a conversion. By turning a Peter Popoff into a Jonas Nightengale, Cercone is talking to us, <\/em>gently reminding us that we should expect a miracle anywhere, a conversion of anyone. What is our<\/em> reaction when we look at those Popoff Ministry videos or the expos\u00e9s that unmask the truth? There are so many crooks and exploiters in the world: Ponzi Madoffs, startup frauds, bitcoin kings. There are whole cable series on hucksters and scams that prey on suckers. It\u2019s hard to keep faith in a gracious God with the world filled with these\u2014\u201cMy feet had almost slipped when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.\u201d<\/p>

Cercone\u2019s film turns the question around and holds a mirror to each of us: what about you<\/em>? Are you the Pharisee praying in the temple? \u201cThank God I\u2019m not like that tax collector<\/em>!\u201d With Leap of Faith<\/em>, Janus Cercone gently reminds us: in Christ anyone<\/em> can be saved.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Gregg Fairbrothers<\/strong> is a founding board member of <\/em>Fare Forward, and a founding faculty-alum advisor to the <\/em>Dartmouth Apologia and the Eleazar Wheelock Society.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Leap of Faith<\/strong> was released on December 18, 1992, by Paramount Pictures. It was written by Janus Cercone and directed by Richard Pearce. If you’d like to watch it, it is available to rent on YouTube<\/a>. <\/em>
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What could have been the takedown of a real-life faith-healing scandal becomes instead an unlikely conversion story in 1992\u2019s Leap of Faith. 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