September 17, 2006
Fischer Dissents from Spare ChangePosted by Bryan
Our church's student pastor called me yesterday and asked if I've heard anything about a movie called Jesus Camp. I had not. He mentioned it being described as "an indie movie" and I told him that I would not expect anything positive.
Upon review, my thoughts were prescient. To give initial credit where it's due, the film's directors give glowing recommendations about the personalities of the featured children. However, in the context of a movie that appears to be critical of the system that helps form these children, as well as the group of which these children are part of, such claims then appear disengenuous. As disingenous as, say, a person saying they "support the troops" but then denounce everything about what they are doing and why they do it. I know, I know, that's unheard of in this day of resounding affirmation of our military.
Moreover, in Becky Fischer, the children's minister of note for this movie, who by directly comparing her efforts with the those of radical Muslims, serves as a great source for Rosie O'Donnell's verbal diarrhea, if the hostess were in fact looking for just such a source laxative.
Now, I wouldn't dare say Ms. Fischer is so far out of orthodoxy that her faith is fraudulent (as I claim in my previous post regarding O'Donnell's recent comments). I do think it would only be fair, however, for it to be acknowledged that Fischer is a Pentecostal, which is a minority of evangelicalism (refer to this chart to make some sense of the assertion I just made). This chart claims that Pentecostals make up 2% of the US population (compared to "Baptist" representation of 17%). This would be like taking a political poll in Los Angeles and suggesting that it represented the voice of all of America. We'd never think of doing that, though, would we?
I'm not suggesting that Baptists alone have a stranglehold on Jesus (although it is my hope that Jesus would have a stranglehold on Baptists, or at least upon one Baptist...one Southern Baptist living in North Texas, blogging at Spare Change). I'd just like to remind the reader what you probably already know...Hollywood (and even/especially "indie" Hollywood) is much less interested in "fair and balanced" than is Fox News. The more they can marginalize Christianity and its adherants by representing them by its fringes, then kudos and congratulations for its own purposes. And if it can make a buck or two along the way through a documentary fimed through a fish-eye lens, even better.
September 17, 2006 7:24 AM