Sometimes Christianity really scares me. Like a lot. Recently, my Religion and Global Culture class watched some movies both published by and about Evangelical Christians. We've watched Jesus Camp (a movie that I probably should already have seen) and Left Behind (yeah, its a movie about the Rapture) and I can't take any more Evangelical Christianity. We'll go one by one and I'll try and convey the horror of Evangelical Cinema.
Left Behind shows all of us non-believers the horror of the rise of the Anti-Christ who of course is of indeterminate Eastern European ethnicity and is the Secretary General of the UN. It teaches us that only those who believe in their hearts of hearts (and the innocent children) will be saved. If you are an adulterer (Rayford Steele), an atheist (Buck Williams), or a preacher without true faith (Bruce Barnes) you will be LEFT BEHIND with the rest of the heathens who were not born again. Left Behind to face the seven years of hell on earth under the antichrist. Fear it! Admittedly it was interesting to see how the modernized the biblical story, but it was essentially fear mongering. Pathetic, pathetic fear mongering. This film in particular had a budget of about $17.5 million, which says a lot about how strong the Evangelical film industry was even in 2001; demonstrating that an awful lot of effort is going into spreading the word through overdramatic cinema. This genre started because it was cheaper to modernize biblical stories and it has expanded exponentially. They're meant to teach budding Christians to be truly faithful but the only lessons I learned from this movie were to fear globalization and that the lesbian hippies won't be saved.
And now Jesus Camp. This is what happens when you limit media to only that which compliments your message and manipulate children. I mean Holy Sh*t people! Telling children to become soldiers of God and Christian America is not OK; of course, if they're doing it in Somalia and Palestine it's totally fine (sarcasm hand raised). This movie really begs the question: where does Religion cross the line between Faith and Zeal? I have no problem with having a religiously oriented moral center, but this movie shows parents isolating and conditioning their children to believe in Creationism, Satan as the root of all things that go wrong, and a unilaterally Christian America. In this movie you see a preacher railing at children, telling them that they are lying hypocrites, that they must prevent Satan from entering their lives or they will burn forever in a fiery pit of doom, and about all the sins of abortion. And this preacher is railing at little kids! She indoctrinates these kids with songs and games and toys, and encourages religious fervor to the point of glossolalia and fits. I really encourage you all to watch it for yourselves, because I really can't capture the fear that this movie struck into me in words. Of course there is an anti-Born Again bias that imbues the movie. We can't forget that if we hope to have a rational discussion and analysis. But still, it's scary.
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