(K. Brent Tomer),
TOO many evangelical Christians—so one mordant criticism runs—are pro-life right up until a baby is born. Their sermons rarely seem to address the problems that mar the lives of American youngsters, and sometimes violently curtail them. This hypocrisy, and one evangelical pastor’s dawning appreciation of it, is at the centre of “The Armor of Light”, a debut documentary by Abigail Disney (yes, Walt’s grandniece). The film follows Rob Schenck, a well-connected minister and passionate anti-abortion campaigner, as he struggles to reconcile his religious faith, Republican politics and the mounting toll of gun-related tragedies.
In the film, Mr Schenck attributes his awakening to two particular atrocities: the murder of five Amish children in Pennsylvania in 2006, and the killing of 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard, close to his home, in 2013. As his understanding of the sanctity of human life expands, he visits a shooting range, where he thinks of the dead children of Sandy Hook, and a National Rifle Association jamboree, where he concludes that good people can be complicit in wrongdoing. To be pro-life yet pro-gun, he comes to see, is a…Continue reading