Growing up, my family played a game.
It’s a game that today drives my wife crazy.
“You all speak in movie quotes,” she says. “Who does that?”
Justin Cox
We do. I do. For as long as I can remember, we’ve performed this back-and-forth display of memorization. We’ve done it since my parents bought a Betamax system and rented Revenge of the Nerds. We did it when we purchased a VHS player and bought Old Yeller.
We spent many a weekend at video stores. Mom-and-pop shops and Blockbusters knew us well. We honed our craft.
Some of the first lines I memorized?
Judd Nelson’s monologue from The Breakfast Club.
Extended scenes from Back to the Future.
The entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.
Later, it would be Tyler Durden’s existential reflections from Fight Club.
Big chunks of Clueless. Equal chunks of Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Everything, and I mean everything, Val Kilmer uttered in Tombstone.
“Some films are just more quotable because of how they stick with you.”
Some films are just more quotable because of how they stick with you. Actors deliver dialogues so powerful they’ve etched themselves into our collective consciousness like holy words on stone tablets.
1985’s The Color Purple is an example.
For the few uninitiated, the scene in question involves Celie, played by Whoopi Goldberg, and Oprah Winfrey as Sophia. Celie is Sophia’s mother-in-law. Her stepson, Harpo, has complained to her about Sophia not “minding” him. Celie tells him to physically abuse her because that’s what’s been done to her by her husband, Alfred, whom she calls “Mister.”
Viewers watch as Sophia crashes through the cornfield where Celie is working. Huffing and panting with a black eye, she confronts Celie.
“You told Harpo to beat me.”
Celie looks taken back, frozen mid-task.
Sophie continues: “All my life, I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my cousins. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men. But I never thought I’d have to fight in my own house. I loves Harpo. God knows I do. But I’ll kill him dead before I let him beat me. Now, you want a dead son-in-law, Miss Celie? You keep on advising him like you are doing.”
Celie stammers, “This life be over soon. Heaven last always.”
It is then Sophia speaks the wisdom of her namesake.
“Girl, you outta bash Mister’s head open and think about heaven later.”
“She, like Celie, doesn’t seem too concerned with the here and now.”
These words came flooding back to me when I watched the video of Iowa’s Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s comments late last week supporting the cutting of Medicaid benefits. She, like Celie, doesn’t seem too concerned with the here and now.
During a town hall meeting, Ernst explained to those in attendance her stance on why she was in favor of her party’s “big beautiful bill.” As she spoke of changes to the federal program, a voice cried out from the wilderness of her constituents, “People will die!”
Ernst responded, “People are not — well, we all are going to die, for heaven’s sake, folks.”
Criticism came over the weekend, her comments appearing on the bottom screens of news outlets. The clip played on repeat all over social media. One would think a political spin was coming — an explanation of intent. An apology forthcoming
I was waiting for a “you misunderstood me” or a “that’s not what I meant” public statement.
I’m still waiting.
No, Ernst doubled down. On Monday, in a video uploaded to her Instagram account, Ernst is seen walking through what appears to be a cemetery. What seemed like an apology quickly turned into sardonic dribble.
“What seemed like an apology quickly turned into sardonic dribble.”
“I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth.”
In case anyone watching wasn’t sure if she was being inconsiderate enough, she smugly threw one last jab for good measure.
“I’m really, really glad I did not have to bring up the subject of the Tooth Fairy as well. But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”
Ernst, who’s listed as a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was born and raised in Iowa. The state leans politically conservative, casting its six electoral votes for the Republican presidential candidate in the last three elections. A state where six out of 10 Iowans understand themselves to be white Christians, according to Public Religion Research Institute. This aligns with the overall average of the United States. A 2023 Pew Research Center study found 62% of U.S. adults identify as Christian.
For a while now, when I hear the word “Christian,” I find myself asking: What kind of Christian are we talking about here?
Lord knows there are many camps. The Christian banner encompasses all, much like the Sergio Leone film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Ernst and others of her ilk, those looking to gut social programs, support ICE raids, sidestep due process in favor of immediate deportation and rollback DEI, preach government sovereignty while also boasting a faith rooted in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. How can such be possible?
Sadly, I don’t think such a hypocrisy is anything new. I heard the seeds of such thoughts long before I knew what they’d grow into.
“Sadly, I don’t think such a hypocrisy is anything new.”
I heard it when fundamentalist preachers smacked their palms on pulpits, exclaiming, “Remember, you are in the world but are not of the world.”
I heard it when a friend invited me to Sunday school at his Independent Baptist church. After the teacher spent the better part of an hour explaining why it was God’s judgment that caused Ervin “Magic” Johnson to contract HIV, he attempted to lead me and a few other visiting heathens in the Sinner’s Prayer. “Where do you want to spend eternity, son?” I bit my tongue in Jesus’ name and said nothing.
I heard it again in the voices of teenagers at a summer camp when I was a youth minister. “Tonight is Cry-Night,” a girl told me. For the better part of a week, counselors and speakers manipulated, shamed and pleaded with young people to get right with God because tomorrow is never promised.
Repent.
Get saved.
Make sure your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Today is fleeting; heaven is everlasting.
I realized early on that this sort of heaven existed elsewhere.
I realized later this was not the same heaven Jesus spoke of in Luke’s Gospel — the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, coming near and dwelling among the people as they lived their lives.
That sort of heaven was too dangerous because it required immediate action. One had to do more than say a single prayer asking Jesus into their heart. They had to live it. They had to get involved. They had to participate. They had to proclaim good news to the poor, set the captives free, return sight to the blind, and show up for the oppressed.
This was a heaven you couldn’t think about later. It was, and is, right now.
In this heaven, God’s people fight for the rights of others. They vote as hard as they pray to ensure the justice that rolls down like water is a justice for all. This includes extending justice to foreigners, regardless of whether they have citizenship in Caesar’s empire. Why? Because people are human, and the ability to stand and defend oneself is a divine right intended for everyone. It is not a right bestowed by kings on their whims.
And I don’t know, call me crazy, but in this heaven, individuals and families, those needing additional support, should be able to go see a damn doctor and not have to pay an arm and a leg for their prescriptions.
So yeah, Sen. Ernst, I suppose you’re right. We’re all going to die one day.
However, I hope it won’t be because people can’t receive adequate medical care in the greatest country in the world.
There’s nothing big, beautiful or heavenly about that.
Justin Cox received his theological education from Campbell University and Wake Forest University School of Divinity and McAfee School of Theology, where he received his doctor of ministry. He is an ordained minister holding standing in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and American Baptist Churches USA. When not spending time with his spouse and daughters, he can be found writing and baking late into the night. His thoughts and reflections are his own.
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