I generally avoid religious movies. If I want religion I'll go to my local place of worship, not to the theater. "Leap of Faith," while humorous, was sad because there are real Jonas Nightengales out there.
Jonas Nightengale (Steve Martin) was a fast-talking con artist who passed himself off as an evangelical preacher. He went from town to town with a caravan of trucks and busses setting up big tent revivals in one city after another. He preyed upon people's beliefs to get to their money. He'd have spies feeding him information so that he could look clairvoyant, or like he's in communication with the Lord. It was nothing but a big scam, but to him it was nothing but giving the people what they wanted.
This was a case of two things can be equally true: he was a scam artist and he was giving the people what they wanted. They wanted to believe in something that would cure them, ease their pain, or make them prosperous. Jonas provided that.
What the movie drove home was that the faith of the people is what mattered most. In other words, the preacher, priest, deacon, reverend, pastor, or whoever can be crookeder than scoliosis, but as long as the people believe that's what matters. His faith, or lack thereof, has no consequence upon the individual believer. That's not to say that they should fork over their hard-earned money to every silver-tongued devil with a bible---just that they should have faith in God and not the man claiming to represent God.
Jonas Nightengale (Steve Martin) was a fast-talking con artist who passed himself off as an evangelical preacher. He went from town to town with a caravan of trucks and busses setting up big tent revivals in one city after another. He preyed upon people's beliefs to get to their money. He'd have spies feeding him information so that he could look clairvoyant, or like he's in communication with the Lord. It was nothing but a big scam, but to him it was nothing but giving the people what they wanted.
This was a case of two things can be equally true: he was a scam artist and he was giving the people what they wanted. They wanted to believe in something that would cure them, ease their pain, or make them prosperous. Jonas provided that.
What the movie drove home was that the faith of the people is what mattered most. In other words, the preacher, priest, deacon, reverend, pastor, or whoever can be crookeder than scoliosis, but as long as the people believe that's what matters. His faith, or lack thereof, has no consequence upon the individual believer. That's not to say that they should fork over their hard-earned money to every silver-tongued devil with a bible---just that they should have faith in God and not the man claiming to represent God.