I finally did my Christian duty last night and took the family to see "Gods and Generals." Wendy was having trouble remembering the name of the film, calling it first "Guns and Generals," and eventually devolving into "Guns and Roses." I think she was quite relieved that Axl Rose appeared nowhere in the film.

Overall, I found it to be quite worthwhile. We had been warned going in that it was a bit slow in parts, but both kids said "I didn't think it was slow at all." I think it could have been about 45 minutes shorter without losing anything, but there was much to like about the film. I was particularly taken with the movie's balance in it's treatment of the North and the South, as well as the overt Christianity (even Calvinistic Christianity) displayed by the film's main characters. I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a portrayal of real, explicitly Christian prayer which was not derisive (or at least condescending) in a major motion picture.

I grew up being taught in public school that the Civil War equation was pretty simple: North=good/South=bad. Only as an adult have I come to learn that the Confederacy was full of God-fearing, devotedly Christian men. I believe that the South was flat wrong on the slavery issue. But the film makes clear that the basis of the conflict and the motivations for fighting were not of the simple cardboard-cutout-caracature variety that many of us were taught.

Though "Gods and Generals" is not perfect in any sense (in fact, it has a good number of dramatic flaws), I'm glad we went to see it. My kids will not be growing up thinking that the matters surrounding the Civil War were simple, or that men like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were evil.