It took me a while to be able to watch Sound of Freedom, but I was able to get it despite being out of the country, I just had to wait longer. Full disclosure, I already knew this story. I have contributed to Operation Underground Railroad in the past and believed in the organization at the time. Since that time, I heard rumors that they had potentially conflated some of their stories and may not have been helping children as much. I do not know the truth to those allegations but have been reluctant to donate since. I am addressing that now and considering a donation.
I recommend you do the same.
Before going to watch the movie, I had seen several social media accounts and even a couple written pieces published from official outlets questioning the movie. A lot of the questions revolved around the “religious” nature of the film. I then listened to talking heads downplay the religious nature of the film as almost non-existent. We’ll get to that.
The movie was phenomenal. Attesting to this fact is the amount of revenue it has driven in spite of limited screens showing it, and the amount of that revenue that represents profit may be setting records, since the film was very inexpensively produced.
The story captures you quickly and unless you are a creep, you are cheering for the hero very quickly. You are transported to a scene where a clever criminal organization separates children from their parents and then takes them away. We meet our hero, and pedophiles are his target as a DHS employee, and watch an arrest unfold.
It is an emotional film, and my cheeks were frequently holding tears while I watched, but shortly after the initial arrest, one of the most profound comments is made by our hero’s partner, when he asks how many kids he has saved. The answer was zero. He hadn’t saved any. As a DHS employee, he had busted a lot of pedophiles and creeps, but he hadn’t saved a single child. That weighs in on our hero and sets the tone for the rest of the film.
He starts by saving one child, posing as a pedophile himself to set up the small-scale sting, which leads to him learning about how much more extensive the problem is. A much more elaborate scheme results in saving over 50 children but the one that he was looking for wasn’t among them. We follow him on a trying journey to go deep into dangerous territory to secure that child and run away.
The point of the film was to highlight a true story. Children are being trafficked and few organizations are actually oriented towards emancipating them from that life of slavery and abuse.
Now, was it religious?
I would argue yes. I would also argue it was Christian. With that said, it wasn’t blatant or in your face. The main character at least knew of the Bible and was likely Christian, but we aren’t inundated with prayers or scripture. There aren’t any apologetics or altar calls. I believe on 3 separate occasions we heard the phrase “God’s children aren’t for sale” or some version of it. More distinctly, one time Luke 17:2 was quoted almost word for word, thought it was drowned out by the excitement of the scene and I didn’t hear the entire verse.
That isn’t a lot, but it isn’t nothing either. Quoting the New Testament certainly is an exclusive religious position, but any of the beliefs espoused were those of the hero, and insinuations that others might share his views were very subtle. The religious nature of the film was certainly not central to the theme or even important.
What the film highlighted, very adeptly, was the human trafficking concern. Especially the child sex trafficking. While one side of the political aisle wants to pretend slavery exists everywhere and racism is institutional, they are simultaneously discounting what this movie clearly drives home. It is real, and it is modern. It is a problem. But this problem isn’t convenient for their politics, so they are dismissing it as “religious” as if there is no other argument to have.
Similarly, though, the response isn’t to simply build a wall across our border. Although that might limit some of the children being trafficked, it wouldn’t eliminate the problem, and it certainly presents other problems.
Rather than come up with creative solutions, though, and bring them to the table with a sense of compromise to address a real concern for innocent victims of a terrible form of slavery, both sides are once again trying to use something as a bludgeon to beat one another with.
If you have done that, just stop. You are adopting the foolishness and it looks silly on you.
One thing is for certain, though, and that is that upon watching the film, I was overwhelmed with concern for my own children. I started thinking about how I’m currently halfway around the world from them. When the movie showed a short montage of videos of children just being snatched, I was in tears and started imagining what I would do if that was my kid.
That isn’t enough, though. I think anyone watching the film, who has a soul, will become more vigilant in watching for predatory behavior. Perhaps we can protect some other random child who isn’t ours. We might see something and be willing to ask a question that might normally make us feel uncomfortable.
It is so easy to get caught up in our daily endeavors and forget that there are real problems with no great solutions. The only way to deal with real problems is through individual efforts done across a collective. Note, I didn’t say collective effort. The movie does a fine job of highlighting how the incompetence of government and bureaucracy makes the problem harder to address, not easier. Should a large group of adults individually decide to make an effort to reduce this in our own neighborhoods and locations, we can probably make a huge impact on reducing this in those locations.
In terms of Operation Underground Railroad, they were under investigation for allegedly claiming a role in arrests that they didn’t make. I’m not sure what to think about that, but the organization isn’t shy about how they set up the stings and use local law enforcement to carry them out. So is there anything to those allegations? I don’t know. What is obvious is that this is a real problem and if you watch the film, you will likely feel the same.
