In the fall of 1999, during the Y2K panic, a small piece of news caught my eye. The Southern Baptist Convention, Catholic League and other religious groups were pressuring their members and followers to boycott the film “Dogma.”
Being a small-town Baptist girl, I had no idea what “dogma” meant, but when I saw that Kevin Smith wrote and directed the film, I knew I had to see it.
I loved his earlier movies, “Clerks,” “Mallrats,” and “Chasing Amy.” He had a crude sense of humor backed up with wonderfully written dialogue in the vein of Amy Sherman Palladino and Aaron Sorkin.
The internet was in its infancy, so I had no idea what the movie was about other than what I read in the article. The summary was something like, “Two fallen angels, played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, find a loophole in Catholic dogma that will gain them entry back into heaven.”
By the time I read the article, the movie had been running for several weeks. So, the minute my boyfriend (another Kevin Smith fan) came into town, we went to see it.
This film arrived during a time when I was struggling with God. I was a college student in Denton, Texas, and the tragic Texas A&M bonfire collapse that killed 12 people had just occurred. On top of this, I was still haunted by the Columbine shooting that occurred earlier that year.
I couldn’t understand why God would allow these tragedies to happen to kids around my age. Maintaining my faith and not questioning God’s plan was getting more challenging.
There is a scene early in “Dogma” where Bethany, the protagonist who works at a Planned Parenthood Clinic, says she doesn’t think she has any faith left, to which her friend, Liz, replies:
“He said that faith is like a glass of water. When you’re young, the glass is full, and it’s easy to fill up. But the older you get, the bigger the glass gets, and the same amount of water doesn’t fill the glass anymore. Periodically, the glass has to be refilled.”
On hearing this, tears streamed down my face. That line hit home and struck something inside of me. And it wouldn’t be the last time that happened during the movie.
Even throughout his critically panned “Gigli” and “Batman” eras, I have never wavered from being a Ben Affleck fan. I fell in love with his acting because of a scene in “Dogma” where he discovers something that enrages him. He delivers this monologue to Matt Damon:
“In the beginning, it was just us and Him. Angels and God. And then He created the humans. And He gave them more than He ever gave us. Ours was designed to be a life of servitude and worship – adoration. But He gave the humans more–He gave them a choice. They can choose to ignore God, choose to acknowledge Him. All this time we’ve been down here, every day, I felt the absence of the Divine presence. And it pained me… as I’m sure it must have pained you sometimes, even though you’d gloss over it with jokes. But we feel his absence, and why? Because of the way He made us–as servants. Had we been given free will, we could ignore the pain… like them.”
“Dogma” didn’t cure my lack of faith overnight, but it placed me back on track to a deeper spiritual relationship with God.
For 25 years, when someone asks, “What’s your favorite movie?” I immediately say, “Dogma,” and I am always met with a puzzled look and the response, “Never heard of it.” I have never found a fellow Dogma devotee, but I am excited that that will change in June with its 25th Anniversary re-release.
To kick off the release, Kevin Smith himself is doing a limited tour with the movie, and I was able to get tickets. I will be in a room full of people who understand how special this movie is.
Before that day, I had always experienced God through music–singing church hymns on Sunday mornings, listening to Gospel music in the car with my dad, or listening to my grandfather play the piano. But God is truly everywhere. In 1999, God found me in a local movie theatre watching an R-rated movie.
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