‘Authentic’ comes from a Greek word that means “doing things oneself”: self-directed, self-realizing. Ironically, the word ‘automatic’ has a similar origin (self-thinking, self-moving) but has come to mean the opposite of authentic.

The Swedish film “As It Is in Heaven” is a crash course on authentic religion and relationship. It features a Christ-like figure, who enters the lives of ordinary folk in a small rural town. This is the vulnerable, idealistic, and intense retired conductor, Daniel (as in the lion’s den), whose passion is to “open people’s hearts” through music. Burnt out by his professional life, he returns to the village of his birth, where the bully who plagued his childhood still reigns in terror. Daniel agrees to coach the local church choir, whose stodgy pastor is a Pharisee who cannot break away from his own repression. The conflict is not only between Daniel and these two men, caught in their automatism, but between the blossoming desire of the townsfolk for inner freedom and their own long-established habits.

Daniel is exacting, a perfectionist who knows that nothing can be accomplished without focused intention, and without setting aside social conventions and habits that stand in the way of authenticity. At the same time, his drive has exhausted his health and he searches for a deeper sense of belonging. Under his guidance, the choir gets a taste of emotional freedom and joy. It becomes a virtual therapy group—and the butt of attacks from outsiders who view it with increasing suspicion. He becomes ever closer to a young member of the choir, the local “Mary Magdalen,” whose apparent loose ways express her genuine lovingkindness, in contrast to the stilted sanctimony of her husband, the pastor of the church. The choir, now excommunicated, becomes the genuine church, a celebration of life.

The film contrasts two ways of being and relating, and underlines the choices that make the difference between authenticity and mechanical life. One leads to suffering as well as joy; the other to boredom and safety. Either involves a price. One can do things as others do, and the things we assume are right because “that’s how it’s done.” Or, one can do things oneself, from scratch. They are not mutually exclusive, since we are free to agree with the wisdom of others, when we do in fact realize there is a choice.