With Its Angel, Hollywood Tells Us It’s OK to Believe

One of the musical hits of 1996 was “One of Us,” in which singer Joan Osborne asked us to ponder:

What if God was one of us/

Just a slob like one of us/

Just a stranger on the bus/

Trying to make his way home . . .

Now comes 1997 and one of the big movies right out of the chute is “Michael,” in which John Travolta plays not God, but, close enough, an archangel. And guess what, he is a slob. Our first look at Michael is of him coming down the stairs in striped boxer shorts, half-awake, unshaven and scratching himself. I know, I know, it sounds like your uncle, except that your uncle doesn’t sport a full-length set of white wings and engage in full-speed head-butting contests with black Angus steers.

Right to the breakfast table goes Michael, where he pours mounds and mounds of sugar on his cereal and handles his spoon like a 3-year-old. One would think an angel would be more refined with his sugar, but as Michael says, “I’m not that kind of angel.” He prefers beat-up station wagons to nice sedans.

Unlike the Osborne song, however, the movie doesn’t leave us with any puzzling questions. Michael is an angel all right, complete with miraculous feats in plain view, so when he says he battled Lucifer lo those many years ago, we can’t doubt him.

And wouldn’t that take contemporary religion to the next level?

Let’s face it, even the most skeptical among us couldn’t debate the God question if we saw a winged angel perform miracles. Oh, a few people who have caught David Copperfield in Las Vegas too many times still might smell a rat, but not the rest of us.

If Michael, then God.

So, isn’t it interesting that the film makers made Michael seem like one of us? Interesting, isn’t it, that instead of making him distant and nonhuman, they made him hairy and paunchy and a fan of Aretha Franklin? In short, just the way we like our fellow man.

The clear message from the movie is that if you don’t like Mike, there’s something wrong with you. This comes from a Hollywood long seen as Sodom by the religious classes.

Far from breakthrough, though, the impetus behind the movie seems to be nothing more than a continuation of the “religion lite” that’s been popularized over the last generation. Mainstream religion has gone from no meat on Fridays to bass guitars in the church on Sunday, and all within the current baby boomers’ lifetime.

Fearful that it was losing forever millions of churchgoers, many preachers in recent years have tried to make the Word more contemporary. So, while one wing of organized religion has become more political and rigorously insisted on strict construction of the Bible, a counterforce has sprung up that almost cajoles people into going to church.

Perhaps realizing that there’s nothing more important with baby boomers than to be hip, the idea has been to make going to church a cool thing to do. Sure, there are sermons, but you can also go a whole year without hearing about Jonah and the whale.

Theologians probably debate this stuff for hours. What are the best means to achieving the ends, which in church parlance means saving souls and filling pews on Sunday mornings?

Is it with fire and brimstone, or rock ‘n’ roll? With the specter of going to Hell, or the lure of Singles Night?

Hollywood has cast its lot with the latter. Just a few years after being blasted for “The Last Temptation of Christ,” the movie people now are selling us “Michael,” in which they’re telling us it’s OK to believe. Throw in TV’s “Touched by an Angel” series, and you can almost make the argument that the entertainment industry has gotten religion.

If Hollywood operated by momentum alone, you can see where this is heading.

Joan Osborne also asked in the song,

If God had a face/

Would you want to see it/

If seeing meant that you would have to believe/

In Jesus and the saints and all the prophets?

Just last year, that question was supposed to be a difficult one.

Now along comes Michael, who likes country-western bars and seducing women and, oh, yeah, doing the right thing and loving God. Who cares if he’s unkempt and has truck-stop tastes? He observes the Golden Rule and knows how to dance.

Most of us were brought up to believe that this religion business was serious. It required thought and commitment and sacrifice. Now, we’re told that embracing the angels is no more taxing than having a pal come over to watch the Super Bowl.

Now that we’re confronted with it, do we want God to be one of us? Is it supposed to be easy?

Good grief, if God’s anything like Michael, this religion business sounds pretty simple.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.