A Light Shining into the Darkness: A Critique of The Sound of Freedom
By now, you probably know or heard a fair amount about Sound of Freedom and may have even read some reviews. I want to concur with what you have probably already read: it is a well-made thriller that is worthy of your patronage. Is it the best movie ever made? No. But it is probably the best movie that could be made given the subject matter. Buy some tickets for someone else if you don’t want to watch it. But conservative Christians need to throw some bones at this film because it was an act of courage to create it.
I only want to offer this critique as a way of agreeing with the reasons for making the film, but even upping the ante. The filmmakers made the film to shed a light on the increasingly horrific evil of child sex trafficking. Their desire was to create a work of art that would be a 21st century version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and hopefully create a movement against this modern form of slavery, not unlike the abolitionist movement against antebellum slavery in America.
Here’s the difference and the problem though: no one is trying to justify child sex slavery. Oh, it is being justified by millions of patrons, pimps, cartel members, and government officials who encourage and allow it. But other than the occasional Ted Talk justifying MAPS or a NAMBLA press release, there is not a “legitimate” movement saying, “Well, ackshually…child sex is defensible on historic and moral grounds which are as follows…” So the corollary to American slavery is already quite different.
After the movie, Jim Caviezel makes the case that there is more slavery today than when slavery was legal. This means, the uphill battle we face today is far greater than it was in the 1800s. For back then, we could at least change a law - as herculean an effort as that was - and banish above ground, free market slavery. We could at least make it more difficult to engage in the practice. We didn’t have to fight a civil war to accomplish that. It could, in theory, have been accomplished by law, and how we all wish it was ended by merely passing a law or amending the Constitution!
But child sex trafficking is already illegal. It’s already on the black market. And it is thriving. So there is no easy fix. Yes, awareness is a critical first step, but there is no political or legal movement that will help here, I am sorry to say. So this film cannot do what Uncle Tom’s Cabin did and inspire a relatively simple movement to end this practice. We have to take this film as only a courageous first step and go much further into more difficult political terrain.
The changes required to end child trafficking will have to be cultural and spiritual far more than legal or political. What is needed is wholesale, civilizational revival that makes the exploitation of any human impossible to consider. The change must come from the Christian worldview, for it is the only worldview that accurately views human beings for what they are: humans made in God’s image which makes these actions are not only illegal, but immoral and worthy of the harshest of penalties.
So yes, I hope this film can bring this evil to light and I hope more can be done. What we lack are not laws, but the hearts, wills, and minds to end the practice.
But, to the extent our political leaders can pass some meaningful legislation to end the practice of child sex slavery, might I propose five changes to law and practice that could help dramatically? I won’t hold my breath that our current rulers would ever enact these, though Trump and DeSantis have suggested a few of them.
1) Make it a death penalty offense to sell, buy, or traffic a child to be raped.
2) Make it a death penalty offense to rape a child.
3) Close the southern border and know exactly who is coming into America. (Every country should do the same so children are not falsely said to be someone’s child, nephew, etc.)
4) Use our military against the militaristic power of the cartels.
5) Utilize AI to detect all child pornography and go after online peddlers of it.
One only has to ask the question: why is there a lack of will to end this practice?
Photo Credit- The Washington Examiner