Wesley Baines on God and “Logan”

I didn’t like Logan much. But I am very much in the minority among critics and audience members and I have really enjoyed reading the thoughts from people who were able to see more in the film than I was. Wesley Baines has a lot of insight on the spiritual qualities in the film in his essay on Beliefnet, “Finding God, Redemption, and Purpose in “Logan.”

This is the point where much of Christian art fails. Too much of the time, it tends to zoom in on the aftermath of a life touched by God, and even then, only on the stories that continue to go well after this point. The abusive father gets saved and is re-accepted by his family. Or the promiscuous guy gives up his sex life for God. Everything’s okay. Everything continues upward.

But these aren’t truthful stories, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find God there. No—God is most present in those stories which start at the bottom, and sometimes return there over and over. Look at the history of the Israelites in the Old Testament. Really—go look at their story as a whole with open eyes, and you’ll see a natural patterns of ups and downs, of falling away from God and drawing back to Him, of rock-bottom death to beautiful life.

That’s actually a pretty good description of Logan. This is a world of negatives. This is a world that allows room for heroism, and depicts it as the beautiful rarity that it is.