I have a small confession to make: I went to see Mamma Mia! last week. Twice.

The film has received deservedly mixed reviews, yet I found myself sucked in by it, almost in spite of myself. The sheer goofy joie de vivre of the “Dancing Queen” scene alone is worth the price of admission. (There’s a hilarious entry here about what how this movie is so bad that it makes the writer want to claw his eyes out. I include it as fair warning for those who might be tempted to run out & see the film after reading this blog. No, I won’t give you your money back if you hate it.)

So what could such a pop culture cream puff of a film have to do with religion? I hope you’ll bear with me, and maybe take my enthusiasm with a grain of salt. From my perspective, the message of the film concerns the necessity of embracing all of who we are, rather than sticking safely to comfortable, if potentially stale and outgrown, images of ourselves. While superficially the movie is about Sophie, a young woman trying to figure out who she is by uncovering her father’s identity, the real focus is on the inner journey taken by the girl’s mother, Donna. Aided by two best girlfriends and a plot contrivance worthy of the frothiest Shakespearean comedy, Donna (played by Meryl Streep) finally faces both her conflicted feelings about her past and her fear of the future in order to discover who she is and what she wants.

I’m not at all sure how much of this is in the movie, and how much I’m importing from some of my own experience, but I think it suggests that this identity integration is the work of midlife, not something that can really be undertaken by a sweet young thing like Sophie, whose joys and mistakes and regrets are still ahead of her. Growing up is not for wimps.

Could this be a journey we all must embark upon in order to clearly see ourselves as created in the image of God? What would it be like to reach a point in life where we look back on our younger selves and say, “This is my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased?” Without reaching that point, or at least moving toward it, can we honestly consider ourselves equipped to pass on God’s love to others, as when Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as our self?

One last theological note: our church, no less than our culture at large, still struggles to face and resolve the misogyny inherent in our history, structures, and even psyches. I’m sure some feminists will loathe the way Mamma Mia! presents a big white wedding as the road to “happily ever after,” but I want to claim a different interpretation that rang true to me as a woman and a moviegoer: female energy is celebrated in this movie.

In contrast to the usual movie fare of wife or girlfriend or femme fatale (roles in which women are defined in relationship to a man), this film shows women embodying roles that are about their own development as women: the giddy ingenue, the wise crone, the mother who suffers the pain of letting go of a growing child, the friend who will stand by her in good times and in bad, and so on. (I can only imagine how much fun Meryl Streep had with a role that allowed her to embody so many of those aspects of the feminine in one person.) And I’d like to suggest that female empowerment in the church needs to go way beyond finding gender neutral ways to refer to God, or “permitting” women to take on leadership roles.

As I was finishing up this post, I ran across a USA Today article about how “women’s films” are gaining in popularity and clout, this one being a prime example. My mind flashed back to seeing Thelma and Louise for the first time, and the stark contrast between it and Mamma Mia!. Just picture a radiant Meryl Streep and her merry crew of liberated women diving off a pier in Greece, then cut to Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis embracing before they drive their car off a cliff. Sadly, the reality of most women’s lives comes closer to what is portrayed in Thelma & Louise (economic and sexual exploitation leading to a deadly lack of options), but perhaps we need the occasional fantasy of Mamma Mia! to feed our hopes and dreams. Or at least I do.