If At First You Don’t Succeed, by Tyler Smith

MISSIONARY POSITIONS (2005)
Written and Directed by: Bill Day
Starring: Craig Gross, Mike Foster

Many already know about XXX Church, the Christian website dedicated to helping the millions of men (and women) dealing with porn addiction. The site and its founders, Craig Gross and Mike Foster, have become so high profile in the modern church, one would be hard pressed to find a Christian guy, age 18-30, that hasn’t heard of the site. The supportive environment offered by XXX Church, as well as the practical accountability software, allows Christians to be more open and honest about these struggles than ever before.

With their hearts so firmly in the right place, it’s hard to believe that Craig and Mike first met with hostility and resistance. Their attempts to overcome these obstacles is the subject of Bill Day’s Missionary Positions, a relatively short documentary chronicling the early days of XXX Church.

The film doesn’t have a great deal of directorial flourish, though one could say that this is as it should be. The filmmaker is clearly in sympathy with his subjects and, as such, portrays them in a mostly positive way. To his credit, however, Day doesn’t shy away from the more awkward moments. When Craig books a speaking tour and gives himself all the best locations, leaving Mike to give lectures in the largely-unreceptive Midwest, the cameras are rolling. We see these men’s wives as they try to be supportive at one of the many trips to porn/erotica conventions, only to be treated with a complete, objectifying lack of respect by the convention patrons.

There are several moments in the film when the founders and their wives have serious doubts about what they’re doing. They’re getting hit from all sides. On one side, people view porn as completely harmless and make fun of what Craig and Mike are doing. On the other side, certain members of the Christian community feel that they are totally off base, enabling porn producers and watchers more than challenging them.

Throughout it all, though, the pastors stand by their goal of providing a safe haven to help those hurt by pornography while equipping them to resist the temptation.

Much of the film is surprisingly funny, as they keep coming up with publicity campaigns that backfire. They put up a billboard, but are dismayed to find that, rather than going to xxxchurch.com, they’re going to christianporn.com, which is a true pornographic website. They take their billboard down, replacing it with a banner flown in the sky at the beach; the banner is misspelled (“the #1 Chritian porn website”). They make a humorous on-line commercial featuring a midget, only to be slammed for being insensitive.

The humor in the film is offset- wisely, in my opinion- by a few sad testimonies of people whose lives have been shattered by their addiction to porn. Marriages destroyed, families broken up, a loss of joy; these are what drive Craig and Mike to fight through the failures- and, in some cases, the humiliations- they’ve endured. It’s important to show this side of the struggle, lest the viewer forget why XXX Church exists in the first place.

Ultimately, the film ends on a positive note, with Craig and Mike’s anti-porn ministry going strong 1. They are no longer a laughing stock, having been interviewed on several network and cable news shows. One need only look up Craig Gross on Youtube to find several videos of his debates with porn star Ron Jeremy. In the audience of these debates are hundreds of porn fans, laughing and applauding at almost everything that Jeremy says 2.

But Gross is getting the message out, and that’s all he ever wanted to do.

1 By using the term “anti-porn,” some might think that they’re saying that porn shouldn’t be available; that it should be made illegal. That is not what they’re saying. Pornography is considered free speech, and they’re not trying to get it banned. Instead, by “anti-porn ministry,” they simply mean a ministry whose primary message is about how harmful porn can be.

2 Some of the language gets pretty graphic. You’ve been warned.