I've already
written in other places about the festering boil on the face of cinema that is
End of the Spear, a Christian-made and Christian-aimed story about missionaries in 1950s Ecuador. But a new meta-wrinkle has developed: Apparently fine with the clumsily handled content, some
conservatives are protesting the fact that
Chad Allen, the film's lead, is
openly gay.
Hands down, my favorite reaction comes from one Kevin T. Bauder, who wrote on his
blog (which seems to be more poorly designed than average, even for a senior citizen) that "it would probably be wrong to firebomb" the houses of the film's producers. "But what they have done is no mistake," he continued. "It is a calculated strategy." Congratulations, Mr. Bauder. You win the award for Most Likely To Replace Pat Robertson For Sheer Bats**t Insane Statements. Your prize is to be mocked by the rest of society until you die.
I think may favorite part of this whole thing is thinking back to 2001-2003, when Peter Jackson's
Lord of the Rings trilogy took over theaters, and Christians latched onto the story as (what else) a
religious allegory. I guess no one bothered to tell them about
Ian McKellen.
3 Comments:
Daniel,
Cody (my brother) directed me to your blog pretty early on in your critiquing career. Your use of sarcasm is one of the main reasons I frequent your blog and your articles on pajiba. You're a funny, clever, and witty guy. Admittedly, your views tend to be at the opposite spectrum of mine, but I respect differing opinions and consider myself better equipped for life if I understand both sides of a debate.
This post (along with some previous posts) has led me to ask a couple of questions of you. What is your view on homosexuality in relation to Chrisitanity? Do you believe that homosexuals should be allowed to wed? Obviously, you have a negative opinion of fundamentalist Christians and legalists (i.e. Pat Robertson). Though you often allude to the fact that you disagree with these people thru your sarcasm, I can't tell what your actual take on the subject is. I just want to hear what you think and why. If you get a chance...
Thanks,
Ty
oo! oo! perfect timing!
To be brief: there's an interfaith group called Equality Ride coming to ACU in March to protest its attitude toward GLBT people. Judging from the students' knee-jerk response, the riders may not be received too warmly. I'm working on getting together a group of people who think that (regardless of theology) these visitors should be greeted warmly and treated hospitably.
So if you've got contacts with any ACU alums who are in Abilene and might be interested, will you please funnel them my way? liberaljesus.blogspot.com
BTW, a sketch of my theology regarding gayness is here.
Also, dan, i've kind of stalled out on the film and homiletics work i mentioned last month. Yell if you're still interested.
oh, yeah.
equality ride
It is funny that Christians treat homosexuality like it is a bigger sin than any other. We all know the only truly big sin is instrumental worship music.
I think there is at least a scriptural arguement against it (homosexuality, not instrumental worship), but certainly not as good of an arguement as there is against greed and selfrightousness (Jesus' two pet peeves as far as I can tell), which might be slightly more of a problem in the good old US of A than homosexuality.
What happened to hate the sin love the sinner? That was such a cool idea in the mid 90's. Oh well, march on Christian soldiers.
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