{"id":377,"date":"2007-12-28T13:06:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-28T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2007\/12\/the-stars-come-out-at-christmas--charlie-wilsons-war.html"},"modified":"2007-12-28T13:06:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-28T13:06:00","slug":"the-stars-come-out-at-christmas-charlie-wilsons-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/12\/the-stars-come-out-at-christmas-charlie-wilsons-war.html","title":{"rendered":"The Stars Come out at Christmas– ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It is not often that one has both an all star script writer (in this case Aaron Sorkin of \u2018West Wing\u2019 fame), and an all star cast (Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Phillip Seymour Hoffman) in a sort of harmonic convergence which results in an excellent film, but \u2018Charlie Wilson\u2019s War\u2019 is one such film. Coming in at a svelte one hour and thirty seven minutes, this film has no filler, and gets right to the point with almost no back story at all. Unveiled before our very eyes are the inner workings (and pratfalls) of Congress, and how things get done, even things of international importance, when someone is persistent enough. That someone in the first place is a Houston socialite named Joanna (charmingly played by Julia Roberts), and in the second place is played by a hitherto unknown philandering Texas Congressman by the name of Charlie Wilson a.ka. Goodtime Charlie.<\/p>\n

In a story too unlikely not to be true, said socialite goads said lassez faire Congressman into action in support of\u2014wait for it, the Mujahadeen, Muslim tribesman fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. The gist of the story is about getting enough guns and supplies to that Mujahadeen so they in turn will kick Soviet hind quarters right out of Afghanistan\u2014which as it turns out was one of the inaugural signs of the fall of the Soviet Empire.<\/p>\n

The acting in this film is superb, and especially the Sorkin provided repartee between Hoffman and Hanks is classic. It makes one long for the good old days when we got to watch excellent episodes of West Wing with the same sort of zingers week after week.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be clear, Charlie Wilson is no Christian, indeed he has considerable moral flaws, not the least of which is all his womanizing, drinking, and use of \u2018recreational\u2019 drugs. A role model, Charlie is not. But what is so interesting about this film is that it is about just such a person having a crisis of conscience, or perhaps growing one over time, at least when it comes to the poor oppressed Afghan people. Charlie actually learns to care about the fate of someone other than himself, which is more than one can say for some elected officials for sure. <\/p>\n

The ugliness and dirtiness of politics and war are shown for what they are, including how Israelis, Egyptians, Saudis, Pakistans and the U.S. might all end up in bed together for a \u2018just cause\u2019, or at least for the philosophy \u2018the enemy of my enemy is my friend\u2019. And be forewarned that this is not at all a movie to take your children to\u2014 as it has more than its share of bad language, and compromising situations involving said Congressman. And yet, and yet, there are larger moral lessons brought to the surface in this film, not the least of which is whether aiding, rather than destroying, those we fear to have normal lives without oppression might not be a better way to win friends and influence people than seeking to eliminate them.<\/p>\n

The film is not filled with pathos, there is a certain devil-may-care whimsy about it, which keeps the tone light even though the subject is serious. But it is a film that raises all sorts of ethical questions such as\u2014if you had to choose between the two, would you want a Congressman who gets important and good things done but is a sleaze, or would you rather have the ethically pristine but totally ineffectual, or worse blundering, Congressman? This in itself is an ethical dilemma raised for the audience of this movie. It is a question worth pondering. This film has already garnered various Golden Globe nominations, and in a year where not many films have been Oscar worthy, this one will get some nominations. In the meantime you should go and see and decide for yourself about Goodtime Charlie and his righteous cause. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is not often that one has both an all star script writer (in this case Aaron Sorkin of \u2018West Wing\u2019 fame), and an all star cast (Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Phillip Seymour Hoffman) in a sort of harmonic convergence which results in an excellent film, but \u2018Charlie Wilson\u2019s War\u2019 is one such film. Coming…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Stars Come out at Christmas- 'Charlie Wilson's War' - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/12\/the-stars-come-out-at-christmas-charlie-wilsons-war.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Stars Come out at Christmas- 'Charlie Wilson's War' - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is not often that one has both an all star script writer (in this case Aaron Sorkin of \u2018West Wing\u2019 fame), and an all star cast (Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Phillip Seymour Hoffman) in a sort of harmonic convergence which results in an excellent film, but \u2018Charlie Wilson\u2019s War\u2019 is one such film. Coming…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/12\/the-stars-come-out-at-christmas-charlie-wilsons-war.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-28T13:06:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_MCBNSn1DlAU\/R3U828MMIII\/AAAAAAAAAY8\/5E0njYq28Bo\/s400\/1174258.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben Witherington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Stars Come out at Christmas- 'Charlie Wilson's War' - The Bible and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/12\/the-stars-come-out-at-christmas-charlie-wilsons-war.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Stars Come out at Christmas- 'Charlie Wilson's War' - The Bible and Culture","og_description":"It is not often that one has both an all star script writer (in this case Aaron Sorkin of \u2018West Wing\u2019 fame), and an all star cast (Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Phillip Seymour Hoffman) in a sort of harmonic convergence which results in an excellent film, but \u2018Charlie Wilson\u2019s War\u2019 is one such film. 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}