SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 , 2020 l A7 ROCKET-MINER

C O M M E N T A R Y

RICHARD CARLSON

Stop, Look and Listen!

Sometimes, we find our-selves at the right moment at the right time. Back in June, between Victor, Idaho, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, seeing a cow moose with twin calves at dusk will stand out in my memo-ry. Certain sights God shows us are beyond words.

It took me back to a Tuesday, May 31, 2011. My wife and I were trav-eling back home from Missouri, Iowa and South Dakota. Remem-bering our honey-moon in the Black Hills, in 1967, we decided to travel home through the hills on Monday evening, spend-ing the night in Spearfish. The next morning, we traveled to Devils Tower and on to Gillette. We saw lots of wildlife including an awesome sight — two whitetail deer rearing up on their back legs, pawing the air repeatedly.

It was before lunch that we turned onto Wyoming Highway 50. We noticed official cars and trucks with police looking out into an open pasture be-hind Hidden Valley Road in the southwest part of Gillette. We were in no rush, so we began driving in the neighborhood, in-vestigating, until we came near to the area where the official vehicles were gath-ered. To our surprise, we noticed a large cinnamon brown bear sitting out in the open pasture beside the only tree in the field, a cottonwood.

We watched the big cin-namon brown-black bear through our binoculars. The bear at first glance looked like a grizzly, but the gathering crowd were saying, “If the bear runs up the tree, it is a black bear, because grizzlies do not climb trees.”

Gillette police, Camp-bell County sheriff ’s deputies, Gillette city workers, animal control officers, two plain clothes detectives, two USDA Wildlife Service trappers, and Wyoming Game and Fish Department wildlife biologist Heather O’Brien converged on this Hidden Valley subdivision. The of-ficers discussed, thought, and rethought through a plan to protect both the public and the bear. O’Brien made the final decision that the bear was lost and not a troublemak-er or a nuisance bear. Un-dersheriff Scott Matheny got his first report about the bear around 10:15 a.m.

The big bear looked huge through binoculars as it rested near the cot-tonwood tree. There was a flooded slough that ran between the officials and the bear. The bear seemed content to occasionally

lift his head as officers contemplated a plan.

One of the two trappers, Andy McKinney had a knee high, blackish brown and white mountain dog that was tugging on a lead

rope, wanting to be the hero. The dog pulled so hard that his owner fell to the ground a few times hanging on to the rope. When the time came to let his dog Digger go, to run after the bear, the bear hesitated a split second. Then the mystery of the

bear’s identity was solved. The black bear ran up the tree as if he were running down a freeway. I was amazed.

O’Brien shot a tranquil-izer dart into the bear. In five to 10 minutes, the other trapper, Calvin Taylor, climbed the tree to where the bear was sawing logs in a fork 20 feet above the ground. Lassoing the bear, he tied a rope around it before lowering it to the ground. The snoozing bear was loaded by four men into the back of a Sher-iff ’s Office animal control truck and taken to Camp-bell County Detention Center. Game and Fish sent a truck from New-castle to relocate the bear. By mid-afternoon, the young male black bear was headed towards Buffalo and a new home in the Big Horns.

Being in Gillette at this moment, being able to get close to hear all the action, being able to watch how the black bear was trapped, and how it was captured, made a memory that still stands out today. God was good to us to let us watch this saga unfold before our eyes. Cooperating officials worked well together. The public was protected. One reawakened bear was now off to report to any other wandering bears in the Big Horns, that Gillette was off limits.

Perhaps the truth is, Rock Springs is also a place to see the most un-usual sites. On any given night, I know where to go to view seven to eight mule deer bucks lying down, chewing their cud. They feel safe and never spook easily. No one will come to use a tranquilizer gun to take them out of town. If all goes as it has been, they will be back tomorrow night. Four of the bucks are large — six pointers. God made for us a very beautiful, captivat-ing world.

Richard Carlson is the pastor of the Rock Springs Evangelical Free Church. Of his 52-plus years in minis-try, he has pastored locally for the last 43 years.

God’s timing shines in incredible moments

A Wyoming interstate game tag is a metal, self-locking tag that allows for interstate transport of game meat or other parts of game animals in certain situations. It’s typically needed when someone other than the person who har-vested the animal is transporting the game meat out of Wyoming. Here are the rules that can help determine if you need a Wyoming interstate game tag:

TRANSPORTING WITHIN WYO-

MING

— Within Wyoming, you can transport the carcass of a big or trophy game animal, wild turkey or sandhill crane as long as you are in possession of a properly dated, signed and detached carcass

coupon from the license on which the animal was legally harvested. Transportation of other game animal parts requires possession of the license by which the animal was taken.

— Properly licensed anglers, game bird or small game hunters may transport a daily bag or pos-session limit on their own license.

TRANSPORTING OUT OF STATE

— The licensee who harvested the animal can transport a big or trophy game animal, wild turkey or sandhill crane or any part of these animals out of Wyoming with a properly dated, signed and de-tached carcass coupon. Otherwise, you need a Wyoming interstate game tag.

— No more than 25 pounds of meat from any one big or trophy game animal taken by a resident may be exported from the state, and it must be properly tagged with a Wyoming interstate game tag.

— Anyone can transport any amount of big or trophy game meat that was legally harvested by a nonresident as long as it is tagged with a Wyoming interstate game tag.

TRANSPORTING FOUND WILD-

LIFE PARTS

A Wyoming interstate game tag is required to transport — within or outside of Wyoming — any head or other wildlife parts found in the field, like in cases of winter

kill or roadkill. This excludes shed antlers. Please contact a game warden or regional office before transporting a head or wildlife parts to obtain a Wyoming inter-state game tag.

A Wyoming interstate game tag costs $8 and may be obtained from game wardens or a Game and Fish office. For full laws and regulations, refer to Wyoming state statute 23-3-106 and the antelope, deer and elk hunting regulations brochure or the upland game, small game, migratory game bird and wild tur-key hunting regulations brochure under shipping game animal and game birds out of state.

Todd Graham,Green River Region wildlife supervisor

ASK GAME AND FISH

Do I need a Wyoming interstate game tag to transport my game meat?

POLITICALCARTOONS.COM/DAVE GRANLUND

“God’s Not Dead,” “Miracles from Heaven,” “I Can Only Imagine” — what comes to mind when you hear those titles? Maybe they’re some of your favorite films. Maybe you’ve seen the occasional trail-er but don’t quite understand what these movies are. Maybe you cringe just thinking about them.

Christian and faith-based films have gained popularity quickly, especially over the past decade. But a divide exists in how these films are viewed — most notably between support-ive audiences and condemning critics.

“Reel Redemption: The Rise of Christian Cinema” explores the rise of faith-based films and dives into the discussion of their polarizing nature, offering a fascinating look at their history and a balanced perspective on both their downfalls and their potential.

Written and directed by Tyler Smith, this roughly hour-and-a-half-long documentary takes the form of a video essay, using Tyler’s narration over video clips. Over the course of the film, Tyler tracks the history of the Church’s relationship with Hollywood and the evolution of Christian films while also addressing the arguments and debates that have arisen sur-rounding this topic.

I was recently able to “sit down” with Tyler for an inter-view (via Zoom) to chat about “Reel Redemption” and our own thoughts on the pros and cons of Christian films.

The rift between the Church (a term both Tyler and I use in the broadest sense) and Hollywood became especially wide starting in the ‘50s and ‘60s, particularly with the introduction of television. Tyler explained that filmmakers, who had previously censored themselves under the “Motion Picture Association Code,” began to include more objec-tionable content in their movies as a way to compete with strictly censored television. The Code was replaced with the Rating System, movies became more explicit, and Christians object-ed.

Tyler explained that he

believes Christians saw this change as an act of betrayal. Not only were they uncomfortable with the possibility of seeing objectionable elements and a non-Christian worldview presented in film, but they also may have been upset because they had lost their power over an influ-ential medium that they previously had a good deal of control over.

As tensions be-tween the Church and Hollywood grew over the years, Christians eventually began to respond by making their own films. Although many of the early films were low-budget, small productions, they persist-ed, and eventually began to gain popularity. “Reel Redemption” points to “Fireproof” as the first film to truly establish the viabil-ity of Christian films at the box office. Eventually, major studios began to realize the potential of faith-based films, and Holly-wood itself began to court the trend, leading to the increasing numbers of Christian films in recent years.

However, along with the rise of Christian film came harsh criticism. As Tyler puts it in “Reel Redemption” — “Chris-tian film remains a convenient punching bag for film critics.”

At the heart of both “Reel Re-demption” and my conversation with Tyler is the debate over the validity of Christian films and the divide between those who support them and those who criticize them — and the few of us like Tyler and me who fall somewhere in the middle.

The box office numbers, if nothing else, have established that there is a strong fanbase for faith-based films, and much of that fanbase is outspoken about their love and support for these movies.

However, film critics have been largely dismissive of and antagonistic towards faith-based films. “Reel Redemption” explains that in the early days critics pointed to the stilted acting, on-the-nose writing, and poor production quality of in-dependent Christian films. And even as they have become more mainstream, critics still tend to condemn faith-based films as unoriginal and overly preachy.

“The word ‘propaganda’ gets thrown around a lot,” Tyler said.

On that point, he thinks that many critics step beyond just critiquing the art and begin to attack the film because they

disagree with its message, which he sees as a problem. Many “secular” films are heavy-handed in presenting the philos-ophy of the director, but that doesn’t mean the film itself is badly made, Tyler points out.

“To dismiss any type of film because of the philosophy that

it might espouse is limiting,” he said. Because of this, Tyler explained — “I don’t like the dismissal of Christian film as a concept.”

That’s not to say Tyler doesn’t agree with the critics on other points.

“Most of the movies are almost unwatchable,” he contin-ued. “But as a concept they can be good.”

Tyler is more than willing to admit when criticisms of faith-based films are accurate. In one of his podcasts, he picked “God’s Not Dead” as the worst film of the decade. Critiques on the artistic quality of many of these films often meet with agreement from Tyler.

However, one of the most original and insightful argu-ments in “Reel Redemption” may help defend Christian films to some extent, especially those criticized for being unoriginal. Tyler believes that faith-based films are becoming their own genre — they’re just a new genre that hasn’t been recognized or understood yet.

“Any new genre is not iden-tified as a genre immediately,” Tyler said. Usually the fans are the first to pick up on genres and appreciate them, even while critics initially view them “as a defective version of an estab-lished thing,” he explained.

So when critics argue that Christian films are predictable, Tyler argues that this may be true, but so are many Westerns, sci-fi movies, and zombie mov-ies. They may be predictable, but that’s because they follow what their intended audiences enjoy, as genres usually do. And as with any genre, not everyone will be a fan of it, but those who

are will enjoy and appreciate the films.

“I think looking at it that way helps us to frame what a Christian movie can be,” Tyler explained, while also noting that “there’s still success and failure within genres.”

Tyler and I both expressed our hopes that Christian films will continue to improve in quality — perhaps eventually reaching more of a middle ground between audiences and critics.

He believes that part of the issue is that many Christian films tend to present a simpli-fied and overly-optimistic view of life and faith, which audienc-es accept because the message is familiar and affirming. In order for Christian films to be more widely accepted, Tyler believes they will need to become more honest and artistically sophis-ticated.

“As long as Christian films are approached as sermons and not as unique works of art, they’ll never be taken seriously by anybody but the most devoted Christain viewers,” Tyler admits in “Reel Redemption.”

He explained to me that he believes critics notice “a dishon-esty within Christian film and an unwillingness on the part of the money people and the director to tell us the story the way it would emotionally feel.”

However, Tyler believes that as Christians become more mature as an audience, they will expect more from their films, and eventually there could be “more Christian films that are less interested in affirming and pandering to their audience and more interested in reflecting their actual experience.” When this happens, Tyler believes crit-ics will start to appreciate films that are “willing to be honest about what it is to live this life.”

Until we reach that point, the debates will continue, but films like “Reel Redemption” add to the ongoing discussion by offering helpful insights to both fans and critics through honest examination of Christian films’ struggles and their potential value as a genre.

Hannah Romero is the digital media manager at the Rocket Miner and can be contacted at hromero@rocketminer.com, or you can follow her on Twitter @hannahromero131.

Faith and films ”Reel Redemption”

explores the debate

HANNAH ROMERO

Ink Quirks