When singing “Get Out of My Way,” Reverend Vince Anderson takes no time to growl and whimper. Anderson, the subject of the often rousing documentary ‘The Reverend’, and his band, The Love Choir, spent 20 years at Union Pool, a bar in Williamsburg. And that brassy, organ-thumping, sax-honking exponent of what Anderson calls “dirty gospel” has been the invocation for Monday night gatherings.
Filmmaker director Nick Canfield follows Anderson as he jams; cooks pastrami at his home in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens; works with teenage rappers in Bushwick; and barnstorms with Vote Common Good, an evangelical group focused on encouraging religiously oriented voters to support progressive candidates in the 2018 midterm elections.
Loved by caftans and straw hats, Anderson is a big guy with a strong singing voice but a narrative cadence as he shares the spiritual journey that took him from a Lutheran youth in California to Union Theological Seminary in New York. He intended to become a minister, but left. (He has since been ordained.)
An early turning point came in college when he crossed a picket line of nuns to see “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which features “a beautiful human Jesus,” he says.
The defining moment came to Union when he crossed the street on, yes, Epiphany Sunday, and entered Riverside Church, where that day’s sermon was “The Mystery of Christian Vocation.” The message, he says, was, “We are all called to goodness and righteousness.” He embraced music as his ministry.
The arrival of Millicent Souris was a blessing. Of their first date, she said of the equally great caftans: “He doesn’t move. He’s got nothing.” They married in 2018. There are other funny and thoughtful interviews (Questlove offers some choice words), as well as musings on grace. Canfield’s debut film is infused with its own measure of that gentle spirit. It’s blessedly low on too. piety.
the pastor
Not judged. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theatres.
