Starting with the huge publicity that surrounded "The Passion of the Christ," and contiuning with the release of "The Chronicles of Narnia " filmmaker Rik Schwartzwelder started to be concerned about the amount of pulpit time being given to films and the amount of push from pastors that their congregations "must see" certain movies because of their Christian messages. He made a short film about it, reviewed here in Christianity Today's movies section, and the film itself, "The McPassion" is streaming online through the 40 days of Lent.
Schwartzwelder's film has already received some harsh criticism in reviews and strong conversation for and against it in the website's discussion section. Some people call it sacreligious; others see it as a sharp jab in the sermon calling preachers back to Biblical teaching rather than over-reliance on "relevance" to culture.
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2 comments:
That's a very interesting film. I think it rightly portrays the message the guy is trying to get across. However, while watching it, one does wonder if one will go to hell for laughing at it. Still, I think the Swa-whatever is right. No Christian should be guilt tripped into going to see a movie or buying a dvd. We could take this a litte farther to say that it is understandable for the film industry to very rarely put forth Christian values. They do not have the same hope and faith as Christians. When Christianity becomes extremely popular one has to wonder if it is really Christianity. Our faith is not a crowd pleaser.
Esther, you made the point really really well. Mark Yaconelli talks about wanting to start a project called "12 and One's Trying to Kill You Ministries" because it would be truer to Jesus' model of ministry than a lot of the ones we have out there today. Personally, I'm more than a little nervous about what living authentic Christian faith really looks like. No stakes, stoning or lions for me, please!
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