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Again, this is a belated update, but I’ve been asked about it a few times, so I’m post­ing it here. For the 2007 San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival Treatment Competition, I entered the treat­ment of a film that I have been research­ing and plan­ning for a long time. The story is pretty self-explanatory, so I’ll post it here… The treat­ment placed in the com­pe­ti­tion, mak­ing it top-10 out of 75 entries, so I am pretty happy. I know a few of the other writ­ers who entered treat­ments, and it’s a real honor to be judged where I was. This project isn’t just one I wrote for the fun of it–I’ve been think­ing about the con­cept and doing the research since 2004 and I hope to see it made in the not-so-distant future.

THE PATRIOT PASTOR

John Calvin Young

© 2007 John Calvin Young

Genre: Historical Thriller

Setting: Colonial America

Target Audience: Families, Churches,History and Military Buffs

Predicted Rating: PG (for bat­tle violence)

Estimated Budget: $25,-100,000 (Low end) $1–2 mil­lion (High end)

Premise: A young min­is­ter in Revolutionary Virginia has to over­come self-doubt, dis­cour­age­ment, and his own father’s oppo­si­tion in his deci­sion to fol­low the Lord’s call from the min­istry to the mil­i­tary. Commercial Viability: Historical epics have risen to promi­nence in the movie indus­try in recent years. Past Revolutionary dra­mas like The Patriot have done very well, but were inap­pro­pri­ate for gen­eral
audi­ences.

Theological Significance: Now, even as then, many in the church believe that those who really want to serve their Lord can do it best through for­mal min­istry. This film exam­ines one man’s search for the Will of God in his voca­tion and his dis­cov­ery that he served the Lord best by obey­ing Him, “Behold, to obey is bet­ter than sacrifice.”

Concept Originality: Until about 1950, Muhlenberg had been regarded as one of the fore­most gen­er­als of the Revolution. His very Christian story fell out of favor and has not been addressed except for a “debunk­ing” show pro­duced by PBS which dis­counted his­tor­i­cal sources and com­pletely mis­un­der­stood the moti­va­tion of the man.

The Patriot Pastor is the epic story of John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, a vil­lage pas­tor from Virginia who when war broke out in 1776 raised a reg­i­ment out of his church and led his men off to fight under George Washington, becom­ing one Washington’s most trusted friends and gen­er­als. As the story opens, young Muhlenberg arrives at Woodstock, a Lutheran min­is­ter, newly ordained by the Anglican state church of Virginia. As he set­tles in, he draws the atten­tion and friend­ship of the great men of the com­mu­nity, even win­ning the belle of the town as his wife. As the unrest in the colonies builds and rumors of dis­sent and inde­pen­dence begin to spread, the like­able young min­is­ter of Woodstock is put for­ward for elec­tion first to the Committee of Correspondence for his dis­trict and then to the Virginia House of Burgesses.

John Peter Muhlenberg goes to Williamsburg, join­ing his friend George Washington and being swept into the ris­ing tide of inde­pen­dence. In early 1775, just a few short weeks before the deci­sive shots fired at Lexington and Concord, Patrick Henry gives words to the feel­ings of the patri­ots when he speaks out before the House of Burgesses and cries out, “Give me lib­erty or give me death!” His friend’s elo­quence brings Muhlenberg to a point of cri­sis. What is his duty? Should he lead his con­gre­ga­tion from the pul­pit or from horse­back? Would he be deny­ing the Lord’s ser­vice to reject the man­tle of the minister?

This faith­ful man of God, son of the founder of American Lutheranism, faces not only the dis­ap­proval of many in his com­mu­nity and the wrath of the British author­i­ties, but even his beloved father believed that as Americans from German stock, they owed a dou­ble loy­alty to George III, their king in Germany as well as in the Colonies of England. The young min­is­ter goes to his knees in pur­suit of the Lord’s direc­tion. He steps back from pol­i­tics for a sea­son in order to lis­ten to that still, soft Voice.

With the colonies in a fever pitch of excite­ment and the House of Burgesses dis­solved by the Royal Governor, his com­mu­nity at Woodstock sent the young min­is­ter once again to rep­re­sent them in the civil realm at the First Virginia Convention. There the final plans are made for inde­pen­dence. They offer him a Colonelcy and ask him to raise a reg­i­ment. The choice must be made.

One clear Sunday morn­ing, his con­gre­ga­tion gath­ers to wor­ship. Muhlenberg stands before them and takes as his text the first verses of Ecclesiastes 3. He recounts their suf­fer­ings and the wrongs of the king and explained the sacred nature of the con­flict that forced him to draw his sword. The king had bro­ken the covenant. Christian men must stand for jus­tice. “In the lan­guage of the Holy Writ, there was a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but those times had passed away. There was a time to fight and that time had now come!” Upon those words, he cast aside his sober robes and stood before them an offi­cer of the new Virginia troops. Calling for vol­un­teers, he raised that day out of his own church the core of the 8^th Virginia, over 300 men.

As the first of Virginia’s reg­i­ments to come to full strength, he and his troops were sent to Southern Georgia on the ill-fated Florida cam­paign. Caught in low­lands and swamps of Savannah in the heat of the sum­mer, his men began to drop of ill­ness and despair. Doubts begin to rise and he ques­tions his own judge­ment. He won­dered if the Lord had actu­ally called him to this or if his peo­ple were suf­fer­ing for his pre­sump­tion. He writes to his father for guid­ance and wis­dom, per­haps his father had been right. Falling ill him­self, he returns home, to his father’s, where his fam­ily is shel­ter­ing, to recu­per­ate. Father and son open their hearts to one another and are reconciled.

Soon he is called back to active duty, this time to Valley Forge. As win­ter sets in and the troops begin to suf­fer, George Washington con­fides his doubts and fears to his old friend. Muhlenberg’s tri­als have made him strong. With a renewed sense of pur­pose, he directs Washington back to the source of all their strength. As they kneel together in the cold of Valley Forge, they are reas­sured that to fol­low the Lord’s call­ing even into ignominy or death was the only choice for the Christian man. They rose and went forth into bat­tle, plac­ing their trust in the Lord of Hosts.

Comments welcome–I am hop­ing to write this script this spring. As always, all rights reserved on the treatment.

IHS,
John Calvin Young