Saved?
 
Last night we saw Saved!, the comedy set at a Christian high school. I was curious whether it would remind me of Goodpasture, the Christian K-12 I attended through eighth grade, back when I was a lad in Tennessee. The film made me laugh a lot, and I enjoyed it. As regards my experiences, however, I was struck less by the similarities than the differences.
 
The chief difference is sectarian. The Christians in Saved! practice a vigorous sort of evangelicalism, with lots of swaying and bearing witess. Goodpasture, on the other hand, is strongly influenced by the Church of Christ, a Southern fundamentalist denomination that discourages enthusiastic demonstrations.
 
Most critically, the climactic scene of Saved! takes place, as in any high-school comedy, at a prom. But Goodpasture has no prom. The Church of Christ forbids dancing, and so does Goodpasture. The best movie about a regime like that remains Footloose, and sadly, all these years and all this heathenism later, I'm still not much of a dancer.
 
There also are important musical differences. The soundtrack to Saved! is dominated by the cheery pop known as CCM, or contemporary Christian music. This kind of music didn't really exist 20 years ago, when I was at Goodpasture, so a movie about my time there would more likely feature the old-fashioned hymns and gospel songs we sang at weekly devotionals--and also the Van Halen and Duran Duran we listened to when we weren't in devotional.