This is a review of The Apostle that I dashed off back in 1998, about half a year after that film was released. I wrote it for a discussion list that is now defunct. I thought, in light of the other recent movie I reviewed (Jesus Camp, it would be interesting to resurrect this from the ol' mail archives.

Since I wrote it eight years ago, it's a little rough around the edges. But I'm posting it with minimal editorial changes--mainly for the sake of time.

Enjoy ... and if you get a chance to rent this flick, I think you'll enjoy it, with the few caveats I mention below.

After all the debate about Robert Duvall's move, The Apostle, I finally got a chance to see it in one of the cheap second-run theaters locally.

Marc, over at Spudlets, posted a reflection on 9/11 and its aftermath, now five years gone.

At the very least, whether it’s the day after or five years later, it comes down to how you have made a difference with the life and talents you were given. Have you loved deeply and given much? Can’t do anything about yesterday, today is a work in progress, and tomorrow holds out hope for something better. It’s up to us to grab that opportunity.

Amen.

I've been reflecting on this as well, and commenting elsewhere about suffering and tragedy. So, Marc's post prompted me to say more. And and I thought why not share my thoughts here, as well?

Yesterday my blog stats tripled. Nay: quadrupled. With six new random comments on my previous Justin Berry post (“Justin Berry: From ‘camwhore’ to water-baptized witness for the State”), I figured there’d been another major media piece on Berry’s recent lifestyle change and cooperation with the Feds. Little did I know that both Justin Berry and Kurt Eichenwald had appeared on the local media-diva’s talk show: Oprah. And I didn’t even Tivo it.

The links to the Oprah show content follow my comments.

“She can not take it any more, Captain!”
One thing concerns me, even more now that I’ve seen Justin’s hollow-eyed, thousand-yard stare in the Oprah.com screenshots: Justin is ripe for a meltdown-burnout-crisis. There’s a scriptural injunction against “laying hands” on anybody suddenly—it’s not a proscription against Pentecostals praying for strangers, and it’s not advice about

Today I felt my heart lifted even as my gut was wrenched. Kurt Eichenwald, writing for The New York Times, ditched a traditional rule of journalism by becoming a compassionate part of the story. And The NYT pulled out all the stops, backing him every step of the way. Three cheers for Eichenwald and the NY Times!

Update 12/30/05: Kurt Eichenwald updates us on the aftermath his series of articles have at least temporarily wrought in the online pedophiliac camworld. From the article: “The shutdown of the portals, all of which have been in operation for at least four years, came days after an article in The New York Times described how minors, often with the assistance of their online fans, had begun operating pay pornography sites featuring their own images sent onto the Internet by Webcams.” Child Pornography Sites Face New Obstacles (New