From a literary standpoint, Kathryn Stockett's best-selling book "The Help," the story of two African-American maids working in the white homes of 1960s Jackson, Miss., does not merit all the attention it is receiving.
It frequently stereotypes the characters, black and white. It fails to set the domestic relationships within the larger events occurring in 1960s Mississippi. Others have written on the same theme with more skill and realism. Alice Walker, Ralph Ellison, Harper Lee and Toni Morrison all come to mind.
But the appeal of "The Help," now a hit movie, is not primarily literary or cinematic. It appeals as a story about black and white relations in the South -- then and now. Folks are packing the cinemas and buying truckloads of the book because it pulls back the curtain on Southern race relations in the 1960s while simultaneously asking us to get real about race relations now.
It invites us to draw a line from then to now, from there to here. To honestly ask ourselves and each other, how far have we come today from the story's segregated Jim Crow South? And if the answer is, "A long way but not far enough," what do we need to do to speed our progress?
As for faith, the story may be even wiser than its author realizes. The two maids, wise Aibileen and sassy Minnie, and their friends in the African-American community, depend upon church, and the God they encounter through church, as the body depends upon oxygen.
The church sustains their courage in defiance of racially motivated violence, their dignity in the face of dehumanization, and their humor in response to insult. In church, they belong. In church, they are not "the help;" they are beloved daughters of God.
Naturally, in one of the closing scenes of the film, the church is where the community celebrates when Aibileen and Minny succeed in publishing the community's stories. Church is where they learned their true worth and belonging in the first place.
Ironically, dignity and safety are what Aibileen imparts to the white "baby girl," Mae Mobley. "You is kind. You is smart. You is important," she says to Mae Mobley. Not a bad summary of what God thinks about us all.
"The Help" prods us to ask when will the church -- Black, White, Latino, Asian, African, Native American -- waken from its comfort-induced slumber and fragmentation to lead the long march towards racial and economic justice that begins with the simple conviction that, in God's eyes, we are all "kind, smart and important?"
Here's the real treasure carried within the cracked earthen vessel of "The Help": A set of questions that ordinary folks like you and I are always asking. Questions whose answers we will pay good money and lose lots of sleep to find.
What does it mean to be a human being?
How do we find our own voice when others silence us because of the color of our skin or where we live?
How is it that in the long march of human society, with most of the major world religions advocating the peaceful realm of God, we still vilify and brutalize one another?
When do the walls of fear, hatred and prejudice finally come tumbling down and open us to authentic relationships with one another?
How do we ever change, as Gregory Boyles says in his book, "Tattoos on The Heart," "that lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than others?"
These questions should be enough to keep us talking about "The Help" for awhile.
Better yet, they should be enough to turn us to the One who is our True Help, the One who sees fit to make Aibileen and Skeeter, Minny and Ms. Hilly. And, according to Genesis 1, to call every last one of us "good."
Dr. G. Lee Ramsey Jr. is professor of pastoral theology and homiletics at Memphis Theological Seminary.
New Feature
This week we're launching Faith and Culture, regular reflections from Memphis-area writers on religion's impact on books, movies, music and more.
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