'It’s A Wonderful Life' versus atheism
Frank Capra’s cinematic triumph “It’s A Wonderful Life” reminds us that all life is valuable, “no man is a failure who has friends,” and “all that you have is that which you give away.”
One of its best messages is often overlooked. In writing about "It’s a Wonderful Life," Capra stated, “There are just two things that are important. One is to strengthen the individual’s belief in himself, and the other, even more important right now, is to combat a modern trend toward atheism.”
The film’s slow opening is easily overlooked in contrast to its famous climax but is the essential moment that makes the conclusion possible. All of Bedford Falls prays for “a man named George Bailey” and the angels respond to those prayers. The audience, along with Clarence, the angel assigned to George, will learn of George’s life, how he has sacrificed for friends and family, and how he has come to the brink of suicide believing that his life has amounted to nothing. His building and loan business is short $8,000, and he is facing arrest. In the midst of this, his friends and neighbors pray for George, unbeknownst to him.
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George’s redemption is set in motion by the brief prayers given at the beginning of the film. It is easy to forget that these have taken place, they remain always in the background as the subtle but essential plot catalyst. The movie’s climax and resolution do not occur because George is a good man, although he is, or because he is especially deserving. They come through patient, simple prayer.
That there is a God, who hears our prayers and responds to them, and who often works through ordinary means and ordinary persons is an essential message of the movie. Also, important is the recognition that those answers may take much longer than we expect.
Despite the happy ending and the popular characterization of Capra’s movies as “Capra Corn”, “It’s a Wonderful Life” is, at times, one of his darkest pictures. In his moment of desperation, George, frantic and hopeless in a bar, utters a prayer for God’s help. “Dear Father in Heaven, I’m not a praying man but if you’re up there and you can hear me show me the way. I’m at the end of my rope. Show me the way.”
But George is not shown the way. Instead, as he looks up expecting a miracle to happen, he is punched in the face.
“That’s what you get for praying,” George says. This scene was essential to Capra, writing in the New Orleans Review, “It’s a short prayer, but we believe it. He’s desperate and has nowhere to turn. If we showed him on his knees in a church or in a private corner, the audience wouldn’t take to it. But in a bar, right after gulping down a shot of whiskey, we are inclined to believe it. Then, a man recognizes him as the one who told off his schoolteacher wife on the phone and socks him. That’s what he gets for praying. That’s natural. Someone expects help and look what happens.” The audience can identify with this, they undoubtedly have prayed and felt as though God was silent.
What the audience knows, which George does not, is that Heaven is already at work on his behalf. Before he prayed, before he began to contemplate suicide in Martini’s Bar, angels were responding to the prayers of George’s family and neighbors.
His salvation approaches, but for George, like most of us, it is not the salvation he anticipated. The missing $8,000 seems insurmountable to George, and our present concerns often seem insurmountable to us, but it is not insurmountable to God, and it is not the primary way in which George’s prayer is answered. God, it seems, is more focused on George’s transformation, his recognition that his life has value and meaning, and his gratitude for it despite its hardships and disappointments.
The $8,000 is taken care of in two minutes, it is George’s transformation that takes much longer, but that is what George really needs and what we all need, a heart changed and restored by encountering God.
Profound change takes hold within George before his problem’s resolution. His famous run through the main streets of Bedford Falls transpires before one cent is collected on his behalf. He cheerfully pronounces upon entering his home, “I’ll bet it’s a warrant for my arrest. Isn’t it wonderful? I’m going to jail! Merry Christmas!”
At the end of the movie, George’s friends and family help to pay off the $8,000, giving us a final reflection on prayer. Often our prayers aren’t answered through angelic appearance but rather by God working through ordinary means and people around us. And sometimes we are the people He works through to answer the prayers of our loved ones as well.
Frank Capra directed It’s “A Wonderful Life” because the modern world saw God as more distant, or perhaps nonexistent, and he reminds us that He is much closer than we often realize.
Originally published at Juicy Ecumenism.
Sarah Stewart directs the Institute on Religion & Democracy’s campus outreach program, which dispatches scholars of historic Christian political theology to speak at Christian colleges, universities and seminaries. These scholars explain what the church has taught across centuries about God’s purposes for government and his intentions for the church’s role in society.
Originally from Saint Marys, West Virginia, Sarah came to IRD from Leadership Institute where she served as Grassroots Administrator. She previously worked as a teacher in West Virginia. Sarah graduated from Liberty University with a Master of Divinity in the Development of Christian Thought (2020) and a Master of Arts in Christian Apologetics (2018). Following graduation, she was a fellow with IRD’s New Whiggery initiative.
