Let me start off by saying I am not a Rich Mullins expert.
My younger brother Mark is though. I received the movie RAGAMUFFIN from my son
Joshua recently for my 42nd birthday. I watched it last night.
What is clear from the onset is that Rich did not have a
good relationship with his earthly father. His dad, who was a farmer, tended to
be rough, tough, verbally abusive to Rich, and didn’t know how to express any
love towards him. This would haunt Rich for most of his life really. And I suspect many will be able to relate to
this element of Rich’s story.
Rich decided to leave home and attended a Bible College. His
real passion was writing songs. One of
his friends sent his song ‘Sing Your Praise to the Lord’ to Nashville and Amy
Grant who was on the rise in Contemporary Christian Music wanted to record it,
and eventually did on her AGE TO AGE album in the early 80’s. Rich was not
overly interested in going to Nashville and becoming a Christian pop star,
especially if it meant leaving his love interest Jess behind. He was deeply affected when their romance did
not last/work out. He was distraught.
Rich ended up in Nashville. He stood out like a black sheep
in the CCM industry though. He wasn’t interested in writing cheesy pop songs
that just threw the name Jesus into the songs as many times as possible to be
popular. This frustrated his producers and this is well documented in the film.
Rich wanted to minister the love of God to people more than anything. He didn’t care about success or money as is
made clear in the film. In fact towards
the end of the film and his life he was teaching music to children on a
reservation or something like that. He didn’t care about his songs charting or
not. AWESOME GOD would become a massive
hit for him though. It’s a great
congregational song.
What I like most about this movie is that it doesn’t gloss
over Rich’s struggles, weaknesses, and vices, and unlike in most Christian
films (ie Fireproof/Courageous) he doesn’t conquer them all by films end. While
he was writing songs about God and spirituality, he was given to smoking,
drinking, anger, and what comes across in the film as brattiness frankly. I
know that may not be a word.
Rich struck up a life-changing relationship with Brennan
Manning, a recovering alcoholic who was an author and speaker. He wrote the
ever-popular THE RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL, which I must read one day. Manning, a
recovering alcoholic, helped Rich thru a series of exercises and through pure
friendship, see God as a loving Abba Father whose love was unconditional. When Rich talked about God’s extravagant love
at his shows some religious people didn’t like it. They thought he emphasized
grace and love too much. I have experienced this in my own life to an extent.
Rich died in a car accident as he was working on what he
viewed to be his most important work, THE JESUS RECORD. He left a void in Contemporary Christian
Music that has never been filled to this day. Michael Koch does a good job
playing Rich in the film. The acting is good in this film. And Koch does a decent job singing Rich’s
songs. You will learn the origins of some of Rich’s songs by watching this
movie. The dvd includes a message from
Rich’s brother Dave Mullins.
I’m rating RAGAMUFFIN 5 out of 5 stars for its honesty and
rawness. And its message that God loves
us no matter what. God can use broken vessels for His glory.