c. 1998 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ The tiny 12-year-old boy, all the self-confident bravado of near-adolescence gone and replaced with the small voice of a child experiencing his first crisis of faith, looks up at his minister and says:”I want to know there’s a reason for things. I used to be certain, but I’m not so sure. I want you to tell me God has a plan for me, a plan for all of us.“

In the new movie”Simon Birch,”a Hollywood Pictures film that opened nationwide recently, a burned-out minister cannot give the title character the answer he seeks. Even into films about faith, a few stereotypes about institutional religion must fall.

However, the movie still is eliciting a chorus of alleluias from some real-life religious folk. They are grateful a major popular film is daring to take seriously central questions of faith such as the existence of evil and God’s presence in the lives of individuals.

And where the main character is not a teen heartthrob but a 12-year-old disabled from birth.

“This has a lot of pro-life value to it … to value that life in dignity” as part of God’s creation, said Sister Irene Regina of the Daughters of St.Paul.”I’m glad it’s out there and we need more movies like it.” In the film, Simon Birch is an underweight baby who doctors do not expect to live out the week. By age 12, he has adopted the doctors’ pronouncements that his life is a miracle, and is confident he has a special purpose in life preordained by God. The movie focuses on the relationship between Simon and his best friend, Joseph, as they both struggle to find meaning in their lives.

Coming out of the Hollywood mill where scores of coming-of-age movies focus nearly exclusively on sex, hearing the two boys talk about God is almost startling.”I thought it was just delightful,”said the Rev. Gena Thornton, of St. Paul A.M.E. Church.

In Cleveland recently, Thornton, Regina and some other religious folk gathered for coffee after a screening to discuss the spiritual themes of the film.

Thornton sees strong biblical parallels in the life of the diminutive Simon, played by actor Ian Michael Smith, who has Morquio’s syndrome, a genetic disorder that results in dwarfism.”It’s been that way through the Scriptures. The ones that God used were the least likely,”she said.

Simon’s life and eventual sacrifice are the basis of faith for Joseph, who starts out as a nonbeliever and ends as a grown-up narrator telling the audience, “He is the reason I believe in God.“”This is how he knows God, by this little crippled boy,”Thornton said.”It seems so strange.” And equally thought-provoking, according to Thornton, is how Simon’s disability, while not minimized, gives him an understanding of God that can only come through suffering. And a self-respect that allows him to endure the taunting of others and participate in Little League and other activities for kids his age.”I think it also forces us to look at the deformity,”she said.”I think somehow we have programmed ourselves to be insensitive to people who are different.” Simon clearly is a Christ figure, says 27-year-old Matthew Luecke, a graduate student who holds a master’s degree from Fuller Theological Seminary.

He is not only destined to die, but he asks the hard questions of faith”that nobody wants to hear,”Luecke said.

This is one film that doesn’t dance around the tough theological questions. Why is a child born with a severe disability? Why does a parent die in an accident? Why do cries to God sometimes seem to be met by silence? Does faith require proof?

In posing the kind of concerns that come easily to 12-year-old boys, there is a lesson for the church, where sometimes people believe any expressions of doubt are evidence of unbelief, said the Rev. Kenneth W. Chalker of First United Methodist Church.”Growing up in the church, people feel they can’t ask questions,”he said.”If the church would do anything, it would give people permission to ask questions.” Not that religious leaders will always have all the answers.

When a new member’s son was murdered, Thornton said she could not offer the man a divine reason.”I don’t try to do that. I just grabbed him and cried with him,”she said.

But if a 12-year-old came up to the clergy gathered and asked if God had a plan for people’s lives, they would say yes.

For example, in the movie, God sends Joseph to be Simon’s best friend, said the Rev. Mylion D. Waite of Antioch Baptist Church.”God creates all of us for a specific purpose. … He’s using us all the time in ways we’re not really aware of,”she said.”I don’t think you’re going to have an aha moment in this journey. Each day, we’re making discoveries about what we’re doing.” In spite of the movie’s portrayal of the minister as an embittered spiritual leader, what clergy interviewed about the film say is that their calling is one of the strongest evidence in their own lives of God’s plan.”I honestly feel I couldn’t have lived and not be in ministry,”Waite said.

DEA END BRIGGS