EDITOR’S NOTE: Please see an important correction at the end of this post.
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In 2021, the Fellowship For Performing Arts in New York City — which produces “theatre and film from a Christian worldview” — released an ambitious movie with a title that made no attempt to hide its religious content.
To no one’s surprise, “The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis” was popular with the vast audience that reads and supports the work of the Oxford don who was one of the 20th Century’s most influential Christian apologists.
However, FTA founder Max McLean — who played the older Lewis in the film — also received support from a source that many would consider surprising. Here’s a key quote:
“God knows we need more intriguing, faith-oriented films like this. Noble is the right word; I would also add courageous and powerful. Thank you for all you do and bravo! You are a true artist.”
The email came from Hollywood legend Norman Lear and his wife, Lyn.
Lear’s death at age 101 has received waves of mainstream news coverage, all of it deserved. The question, explored in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), was whether this coverage explored Lear’s complex relationship with the role that religion plays in American life and culture.
Lear considered himself a cultural Jew with no ties to the practice of a traditional religious faith. In response to the rise of the Religious Right, he also founded People for the American Way — a liberal think tank and advocacy group on church-state issues.
However, in the final decades of his long life and career, Lear wrestled with the powerful role that religion played in mainstream American life and was intrigued with the fact that faith issues and stories seemed to be anathema to the powers that be in mass media.
In other words, Lear was an unbeliever who was both appalled and intrigued with people of faith and he wrestled with why liberal forms of faith seemed to have little appeal with ordinary Americans. These tensions could be seen in one of his final, failed attempt at a new sit-com, the six episodes of “Sunday Dinner.” Hold that thought.
This matters, in large part, because the legend of Norman Lear is based on the valid praise he received for dragging real-life issues into American entertainment, especially with his trailblazing TV comedies. Here is the overture for the Associated Press obit for Lear:
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Norman Lear, the writer, director and producer who revolutionized prime time television with “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons” and “Maude,” propelling political and social turmoil into the once-insulated world of TV sitcoms, has died. He was 101.
Lear died Tuesday night in his sleep, surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles, said Lara Bergthold, a spokesperson for his family.
A liberal activist with an eye for mainstream entertainment, Lear fashioned bold and controversial comedies that were embraced by viewers who had to watch the evening news to find out what was going on in the world. His shows helped define prime time comedy in the 1970s. …
This leads to the crucial quotation, from another screen legend:
Lear “took television away from dopey wives and dumb fathers, from the pimps, hookers, hustlers, private eyes, junkies, cowboys and rustlers that constituted television chaos, and in their place he put the American people,” the late Paddy Chayefsky, a leading writer of television’s early “golden age,” once said.
Of course, even in the breakthrough “All in the Family,” the blue-collar anti-hero lived in New York City (Queens, to be precise). Could Lear have managed a sit-com about some ordinary conservative believers somewhere in the Bible Belt?
Here is another typical quote from the coverage, drawn from the New York Times:
“You looked around television in those years,” Mr. Lear said in a 2012 New York Times interview, referring to the middle and late 1960s, “and the biggest problem any family faced was ‘Mother dented the car, and how do you keep Dad from finding out’; ‘the boss is coming to dinner, and the roast’s ruined.’ The message that was sending out was that we didn’t have any problems.”
Mr. Lear’s shows sent different messages, far more in tune with what was actually happening in those turbulent times. His crowning achievement was “All in the Family,” and his greatest creation was Archie Bunker, the focus of that show and one of the most enduring characters in television history.
An unapologetic bigot who was seemingly always angry at one minority group or another (and usually at least one family member as well), Archie, memorably portrayed by Carroll O’Connor, was also, with his malaprops, his mangled syntax and his misguided enthusiasm, strangely likable.
That final “likable” statement about Bunker is totally accurate, and points to Lear’s genius. Archie said things that made liberals and conservatives shudder, holding up a cracked and warped mirror for people on both sides. Not all of the blasts that Bunker aimed at the left (and the right, of course) were off target and people on both sides of a divided America knew it.
In many ways, Lear was an old-school liberal who could see that many of his fellow liberals in elite zip codes were ignoring the hearts, minds and souls of ordinary Americans. Thus, Lear’s greatest work was must-view entertainment for millions. Could anyone make the same show today?
In 1991, Lear made another attempt to reach that giant audience and, even though it failed, this sit-com offered revelations into what its creator was thinking and feeling. “Sunday Dinner” may have includes more than a few autobiographical themes.
The IMDB summary notes:
Set in New York's Long Island, Ben Benedict is a 56-year-old widowed owner of a printing business who brings out family conflicts after announcing his engagement to TT Fagori, an environmental activist 26 years younger than him.
Once again, these ordinary Americans are from greater New York. The cast of characters includes one traditional Christian, one total skeptic and the protagonist’s beautiful lover/fiancee is a New Age believer who is shown praying, right out loud, on screen.
In this prayer, “Chief” is Fagori’s name for God: “Chief? Chief, you got a minute? … I know I shouldn’t ask you to make his children love me, so I won’t. But I can pray to be a real lovable person. … And thanks. Thanks for bringing me to this moment.”
At that time, I was teaching at Denver Seminary and I was quoted in Christianity Today: “There’s nothing in this show to cheer the heart of a traditional Christian and nothing to offend Shirley MacLaine.”
That was accurate, but harsh. In some ways, it’s a miracle Lear sank some of his talent and money into this failed attempt at raising questions about spiritual dynamics in blue America, the territory constantly explored by the likes of Oprah Winfrey. At this point in his life, was Lear still “secular”?
A the first episode of the show in embedded in this post. But let’s end with the “Sunday Dinner” theme song. The lyrics offer this vision for the show:
Take my hand baby, 'cause it's cold outside. This world keeps changing, right before our eyes.
But I know one thing always stays the same, we all need somebody to call our name.
I don't know if this is a love song, maybe I've been singing it all wrong, trying to get my message through to you.
As sure as the sun shines above us, there's something out there that loves us, waiting patiently for us to see -- love begins at home with a family.
Two questions: Trying to listen on tiny headlines, is that lyric “singing it all wrong” or “singing it all along”?
Also, readers, do you think “something out there that loves us” should have an upper-case “S” on “Something”?
Finally, The Hollywood Reporter sought another source to explore Lear’s worldview, offering this quotation from his Instagram account:
“Norman lived a life in awe of the world around him. He marveled at his cup of coffee every morning, the shape of the tree outside his window, and the sounds of beautiful music,” read the post. “But it was people — those he just met and those he knew for decades — who kept his mind and heart forever young.
Enjoy the podcast and, please, share it with others.
CORRECTION: Also, I need to add a correction — a mistake on my part, pure and simple. In the podcast, I said that I thought I interviewed Lear by telephone 32 years ago when researching his sit-com “Sunday Dinner.” I did this podcast while 500+ miles away from home and my file cabinets. When I go back home and checked my files, my notes were with not with Lear, but with someone connected to the show. I have a thick research file on “Sunday Dinner” and used that material in a lecture at Denver Seminary — not in a column. Trust me, I regret this error and that, long ago, that Lear interview did not become a reality (which must have been why I didn’t write the column).
FIRST IMAGE: The legendary opening for “All in the Family.”