In 2016’s Old Rugged Cross, Pastor Evan Shepherd (played by the film’s director, Donald James Parker) is looking for a new church.  He feels that he lost his way at his old church, becoming more concerned with money and prestige than with leading the people to God.  He was also accused of “sexual improprieties” with a member of the congregation but he’s quick to point that none of the accusations were actually proven.  Evan was set up and he left town because he was feeling burned out.

But now, he’s ready to return to preaching.  He rents out and reopens a previously abandoned church called the Old Rugged Cross.  He worships on Saturday morning.  He delivers messages from God to those who attend.  He only occasionally preaches a sermon and he doesn’t make a big deal out of tithing.  He’s not in it for the money or the prestige anymore.  And, if you have any doubts, he’ll talk to you about them.  And by talk, I mean that he will just ramble on and on and on.  This film will seriously test how much patience you have for an old man who never makes a point twice when he can make it three times instead.

Pastor Luke Wolfe (David Vanergriff) views Evan and the Old Rugged Cross as a threat.  Wolfe is the pastor at Victory Church and all he cares about is bringing in enough money so that he can redesign the church and have the biggest sanctuary in town.  He’s cold and distant from the people who attend his church and his little time to listen to their problems.  He’s also single.  He wants to marry Anita (Kelly Nelon Clark), Victory’s pianist, but she starts attending the Old Rugged Cross.  In fact, all sorts of people are abandoning Victory Church for the Old Rugged Cross.

At a meeting of all the local protestant pastors, Wolfe challenged Evan on his style of worship.  Evan responds by talking about W.C. Fields searching the bible on his deathbed because he was looking for a loophole….

Yes, this is another Donald James Parker film and it has all of the things that one typically associates with his productions.  The scenes drag out interminably.  The acting is abysmal.  There’s a strange obsession with filming characters sitting in restaurants and debating religion.  Early on in the film, there’s a scene of Evan and Anita talking in a restaurant.  It goes on for what feels like 15 minutes.  Before you can even breathe a sigh of relief that the scene is over, we then suddenly cut to the next night and Anita having a conversation with Luke Wolfe while sitting at the exact same table in the exact same restaurant.  Just when you think you’ve escaped, the films drags you back in!  It would perhaps have helped if Parker had occasionally moved the camera during these lengthy scenes but that sort of thing just isn’t a part of his directorial aesthetic.

As with many of Parker’s films, Old Rugged Cross is, at times, a rather angry film.  Evan may be an old man but he still often comes across as if he’s about to hit someone.  His dislike of Luke Wolfe feels as much personal as theological which is really not a good look for a pastor.  Seriously, you don’t want to get on Evan Shepherd’s bad side!