restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations
Saved! Do We Deserve It?
From WND:
New film mocks Christianity
A noted movie critic says the new film Saved! is a sad, bigoted, anti-Christian movie that mocks the Christian faith.
Ted Baehr, the founder of the Christian Film & Television Commission ministry has come out swinging against the MGM movie, according to Assist News Service. The film is slated to be released May 28.
SAVED! is a hateful, politically correct movie, Baehr declared. It is being heavily marketed to the community it mocks to lead Christian youth astray and make them resent their own faith.
Read the whole thing. I saw the preview. Im not advocating that everyone should see it, but I can vouch, this doesnt look good. There are no obligatory preview scenes of those lovable-yet-misguided Christians. All serious Christians are portrayed as mean-spirited prudes in a very unsympathetic way. Jesus-jokes and pokes at the popularizing of Christianity abound.
And yet, Im thinking, do we, speaking as a Christian, deserve this?
Lets see…weve spent the past few decades trying to put the cool back in Christianity. Weve taken the harsh realities of sin and redemption out, and replaced them with pastels, portraits, and Huggy Jesus. Weve made bureaucracies of our churches and called them community programs. Weve taken our songs of faith, given them a bubblegum beat, vapid lyrics, and miniskirts and called it worship.
Mind, theres nothing essentially wrong with some of those things, and they have their place. But what is our motivation? Are we really trying to further the cause of Christ, or are we just trying to be liked? Are we focused on the message itself, or just what we can do that makes us feel good?
I think weve had our priorities wrong for some time now. Ive seen a lot of crazy things done in the name of Christianity in order to reach the world. But the problem is, our efforts have been downright nauseating. Every time I see a pastor preach a Bibleless message with a constant organ tune playing in the background to cue crowd reaction, I switch the channel in disgust. Every time I hear of a church basing an entire service around a NASCAR race, NFL game, or old episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, I weep. Every time I see another pathetic attempt at Christian entertainment come down the pike, I want to run far away. Granted, were trying to reach a shallow world, but shouldnt we be trying to fill it up?
And the sad part is, we actually think its effective. Right. So effective that Hollywood is going to devote an entire hour-and-a-half solely for ridiculing us for that. Real effective, guys.
Maybe I sound like Im 18 going on 58 here, but I dont care. The fact is, we deserve this film for everything weve done for the past 20 years or so. Weve tried being buddy-buddy with the world, and they continue to bite us. Well, this time, its personal.
If only we have the wit to wake up, this time, maybe we can actually start making a difference in this world by…I dont know…being Christians? One of the things that struck me about the article was this quote from Baehr:
Imagine if this movie were set in an Orthodox Jewish school with faithful Jewish children cast as the villains and a Christian girl shows how legalistic the Jewish girls are. Or, what if it were set in an Islamic school with faithful Muslims cast as the villains and a Christian or Jewish girl exposes how legalistic the Muslims are? The outcry in the press would be tremendous! Not to mention the righteous outcry from Jews or Muslims!
Ouch.
What hes essentially saying is, although he probably doesnt realize it, Jews and Muslims are better at being who they are than Christians! They can claim personal insult to themselves because they actually believe in what they believe in! But why are Christians the ones targeted here? Simple. Because Hollywood knows it can get away with it. I wouldnt be surprised if youth groups went and saw this film. We just dont care when Christians are targeted, because I think we dont really know what we are. The average Christian will usually describe his walk with God as, Ummmm, I go to church most Sundays, and I sing some Christian songs. Yeah, its a big part of my life. All that is well and good, but isnt a personal relationship with Jesus Christ supposed to factor into the equation at all? Or are we just supposed to feel good while the world quite literally goes to Hell?
So, to sum up, I feel that weve sacharrined Christianity down to the point where the world laughs at our puny attempts to appeal to them, and Christians themselves dont really care about what they have. If there is not even a whimper of outcry over this film and the state of the Church today, then were as good as spiritually dead. It should bother us that were getting this treatment, because we well deserve it. We should look to, not only protesting this film (though thats a good idea), but also reforming what we have become to ensure that this sort of thing does not happen again.
Whos with me?
May 13, 2004
Chad Harris, whose essay originally appeared at Deux Ego, is a website administrator for CapitalFocus Media LLC, and a freelance web journalist. He currently resides in Belgium with his missionary family. Mr. Harris may be reached for comment here.