Christianity vs Documentaries
Christianity has a problem succeeding in documentaries. It’s hard to find a documentary out there that really seems to put Christianity into a good light. Whether it’s what’s being said, or inability to answer questions, reliance on only the Bible, just being a whack-a-do, or whatever the issue, in the fight Christianity vs Documentaries, I think Christianity gets knocked out in the first round. Quite often.
It honestly, and sadly, doesn’t take long to find a whack-job with a notion about Jesus who wants to be on TV. There’s even some that get paid to be on television, parading their twisted view of the scriptures in a multitude of ways. Whether it’s about God just making you wealthy, burning Bibles, white-supremacy, God telling people to murder… there’s a ton of people riding on a facade of Christianity.
Borat was one of the first movies to “expose” some of Christianity’s “best and brightest”… Yes, I saw the movie. No, I don’t condone it.
At one point in this mockumentary, Borat goes to a revival and gets saved. He’s more than willing to run in there, pick up on whatever emotions and craziness going on and multiplying it with his character’s ridiculousness.
I can’t blame documentaries for finding the weirdos and featuring them, or taking sections of an interview out of context because it wouldn’t be the first time that anyone did that. In the elections, speeches are scrutinized, looking for those few words or phrases to piece together to tie Obama to a hate-mongering-Commy-witch doctor.
Frankly, that’s how persuasive arguments are taught. You find something that someone said that agrees with your point, no matter how small, quote it with ellipses and move on.
I recently watched Expelled with Ben Stein about the exclusion of Intelligent Design from teaching, and I thought it was a great documentary. Let me just say that it was NOT A CHRISTIAN MOVIE. Granted, Christians are some of the biggest proponents for Intelligent Design, but it wasn’t all about how God made the world in six days. (More of that for another post)
I also watch Jesus Camp. It was about a Christian summer kids camp. It was very interesting, and I think it portrayed the event very well. They do their best to remain unbiased, and I think they accomplish their goal. They don’t have commentary over top of what’s happening on screen, so you’re left with your own thoughts of what transpires. I thought this was interesting because it actually challenged me, and my memories of my youth group experiences.
I have three documentaries that I want to see: Religulous, Jesus Save Us from Your Followers, and COLLISION. I hope they will challenge my faith and in doing so grow my walk deeper with God, and I’ll let you all know how that all goes.
But, what do you all think? Am I being mean? Are things taken out of context? Have you seen a documentary where Christians didn’t come off looking like a bunch of crazies? Let me know!
I do think things get taken out of context a lot, and that some will go out of their way to find the biggest wack job. Sorry. How many crazy Christians have you personally known? I have known more than I can count on one hand, but less than I can count on two. How many Christians in general have I known? More than I have time right now to count. I do find it upsetting though that the media seems to imply that reality is the flip side of my experience.
I have seen Maher do an interview about his movie Religulous. My blood pressure soared. I'm not sure I could take actually seeing the movie.
It's true. I have known, actually, quite a few Christians that I thought were downright crazy for what they were saying. We'd get into arguments sometimes. I couldn't believe what they were saying. It always feels like a severe distortion of the Gospel… but there's so many of them out there, and they're the ones in the spotlight.
I'm intrigued to watch Religulous because I've watched Bill Mahr do his stand-up act about his beliefs, and it's always very interesting. He doesn't tend to use very much "evidence" and more of the "just look how crazy they are" argument. I'd like to see how he carries a whole movie like that.
The deal with modern documentaries is that Mockael Moore (typo on purpose think about it) has proven that they are a viable money maker so long as they are sensational and entertaining. They don't have to be honest or accurate. In fact honest and accurate rarely sells so of course documentaries take a minority and represent it as the majority. If they wanted to have a documentary that showed what most Christians do/believe no one in America would watch it because most Christians don't think about God through the week unless they need something. They wake up and go to work then come home and watch TV then go to sleep, lather rinse repeat till Sunday and get their God fix if the preacher is doing his job right. That won't sell.
I agree with the Michael Moore thing. I've found most of his documentaries frustrating, and it seems like just a bunch of sensationalism. That bugs me. Documentaries were meant for documenting, and a lot of them have gone far beyond documenting and into the persuasive.
Maybe there should just be a new category. Persuasionaries.
Persuasionaries….that's a good idea. I'd find them a lot less frustrating if it was clear that by its category that persuasion and not fact finding was the point. I might even be willing to watch Religulous then in order to see what the other side thinks of us. You know?
Religulous won't challenge you very much. Bill Maher basically preaches to the choir and doesn't present any new or exciting viewpoints. He does do a good job of going after more than just American Christianity, although that is the main topic of the movie.
and what's all this about comments needing to be approved?
Ugh. I have no idea.
Yeah, one of my friends has really been wanting me to watch it. I want to watch it with him so that I can discuss it also.
The one I'm actually pretty excited about is Collision, and Lord, Save Us.
I was very impressed with Expelled, especially since I had pretty low expectations. It was a good documentary about the right to free speech and free ideas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ixmLNwF9s
Warning: there's 16 videos in the series
What's more believable? A YouTube video, or a movie?
I'm not saying that I know the answer, but you have to wonder if either holds it's own in a court of law.
I doubt either would hold in the court of law. Though why they would be in court is beyond me.
As to the which is more believable, you can be a con artist with either. Which is why I prefer to get both sides of an argument, then look at the evidence my self to figure out what I believe.