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As
much as I love books that
take me to new and exotic locations, sometimes the best stories are the
ones set close to home. I’m often drawn to books that take place in my
region because I can settle into them and really enjoy them. I can
easily visualize the landscape and hear the familiar drawls and brogues
of Coastal Carolina. I’m a North Carolina girl all the way from the
saltwater in my veins to my darlin’ Southern
accent. So when my pastor mentioned The List by
Robert Whitlow and I discovered that it was set in the Carolinas,
written by a Carolina author, I rushed out to find a copy.
I wasn’t disappointed by The
List. Whitlow’s book was filled with the familiar images I
had hoped for. At the same time, it was much more than I expected: a
powerful story of the lengths God will go to bring His children home.
Josiah Fletchall “Renny”
Jacobson has spent his whole life trying to please his father, but
since he can never quite seem to manage that, he figures that he’ll
settle for being rich like his dad. Renny graduates law school, buys a
Porsche he can’t afford, and begins practicing law at a prestigious
Charlotte law firm. When his dad dies, Renny sees one last chance to
receive some kind of love or acceptance from his father—in the form of
his father’s large estate.
Renny returns home to Charleston
to meet with the estate lawyer and learns his father donated everything
to charities and churches. Once again, the only thing he seems to get
from his father is rejection. H. L. Jacobson does leave one thing to
his son: a membership in a secret society called The Covenant List of
South Carolina, Ltd. Mr. Jacobson promises Renny that through this
group, he will find incredible riches. Renny has never heard of them
but is willing to do anything to get the money he believes he deserves.
One thing Renny doesn’t count on
is meeting the beautiful Jo Taylor Johnston. Her father is also a
recently deceased member of The List. She goes to the meeting of The
List, hoping to learn more about the father who abandoned her years
before. She is shut out of the group, but because Jo is a Christian,
she quickly realizes that God is the only one who can fill her needs
and heal her hurts.
Renny pledges himself to The
List, signs the covenant, and seals it with his blood. What he doesn’t
know is that he is a marked man. God the Father is seeking Renny, but
so are the powers of darkness that are attached to the covenant. Renny
is going to have to choose whom he is going to follow.
This book is obviously about the
battle between good and evil. The spiritual warfare element is a large
part of this book. As I read it, though, what struck me deepest was
that above everything else, God the Father was longing for a
relationship with his son Renny. God surrounds Renny with people like
Jo, who have intimate relationships with Him. Though Renny had a
religious upbringing, he sees something genuine and personal in the
lives of the Christians he meets.
After
I read The List
I was eager to see the movie. I saw the excellent trailer at our
church, so I was expecting a fantastic cinematic masterpiece. I tried
to temper my hopes with the knowledge that it is impossible squeeze a
406-page novel into a 108-minute film.
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The
List was
filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, with a cast full of highly
respected and talented Southern actors. The film crew was not only
experienced, but also highly acclaimed. The movie was well acted, well
directed, and the set was unbelievably gorgeous. It won three Crown
Awards at the International Christian Visual Media Convention. However
I couldn’t help but be disappointed at the overall product. I watched
the movie, hoping to see in it the novel, but it was significantly
different from the book.
The most glaring inconsistency
was how the film neglected the salvation story. A large part of the
first half of the novel was dedicated to presenting the gospel to
Renny, but in the movie it was notoriously absent. A motion picture
doesn’t necessarily have to have a gospel presentation to be labeled
“Christian”; however, in The List, the entire
premise hinges on Renny’s response to God. The problem is that the
movie never shows us clearly that Renny has an
experience with God. One thirty-second glimpse of Renny silently crying
in a pew at a church can’t realistically replace Renny’s intricate and
complex salvation journey he takes in the book.
After I watched this movie a
second, third, and fourth time, I was still torn over how I felt. I
ended up searching online to find out what director Gary Wheeler
intended when he started the project. In an interview with Christians
in Cinema (www.christiancinema.com), he explained his motives: “Our
goal all along was to drive people to the novel, because it contains
the full measure of the Gospel in the sense that it contains the full
Christian experience, and you could never convey that in a film. So if
people go and watch the movie and pick up the book afterward, we’ve
accomplished one of our goals.”
The List is
an excellent book, which I highly recommend. I do not, however,
recommend watching the movie in lieu of the book. Invest your time in
the novel and enjoy the story of a heavenly Father’s intense love for
His children and the sacrifices God’s children will make for the ones
they love.
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