Episodes
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Body swapping is a time-honored film trope, especially in family-friendly inspirational comedies, where a character might “wish upon a star” to switch lives with someone who makes them jealous. Since God can make anything possible through prayer, Christian genre films are a perfect fit for this concept. SWITCHED lulls its audience into a false sense of security by beginning as one might expect a Christian teen body swap movie to go: a socially anxious Christian girl named Cassandra prays her school bully, the famous social media influencer Katie, could experience a day in the lives of her bullying victims. The two girls awaken the next morning in each others’ bodies, and the high jinks begin in school as both must train each other to carry out their their day-to-day lives without being able to explain their unbelievable circumstances. Katie must learn how to play folk guitar for a Julliard audition; Cassandra is now interviewing for a prestigious influencer position on “The Glam Slam”. It’s cute in theory, but SWITCHED ultimately fails because of some bizarre plot choices. Although aiming for originality is admirable, why would Cassandra (who is now inhabited by Katie’s soul) flirt with her own biological brother? Why would Katie’s parents (portrayed in celebrity cameo roles by John Schneider and Denise Richards) be so lackadaisical about Katie’s influencer career, even though they quit their jobs to support her work? SWITCHED is full of delightfully campy moments, like the UI of fictitious social media network The Social, but its desire to be perceived as easily watchable family fare that is light on the Christian message is thwarted by a confusing story that doesn’t stick the landing.
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The collaborations between Baptist preacher Estus Pirkle and the Ormond family of filmmakers are considered some of the most legendary Christian genre films ever for their shocking imagery and urgent sermonizing. With our review this week of THE BELIEVER’S HEAVEN, we here at Boys’ Bible Study have now reviewed the entire trilogy, which also includes IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO? and THE BURNING HELL. All three films feature fiery narration by Estus Pirkle intercut with colorful, dramatic vignettes by the Ormonds. THE BELIEVER’S HEAVEN is unique in the trilogy for focusing on the pleasure of heaven rather than the tragedy of earth or the horrors of hell (but don’t worry — we still get enough of those in this piece to keep our interest piqued.) “In My Father’s House there are many mansions,” says Estus Pirkle quoting John 14:2. He then proceeds to take us on a tour through a real mansion to hype us up for the delights of heaven. This gleeful literalness drives the rest of the film, which includes lots of time spent filming Christians with physical disabilities to prove to non-disabled viewers that they should be excited to take on “glorified bodies” in heaven. However, the close-up shots on the deformities of disabled people remind the viewer that the Ormond family first made their mark in vaudeville and carnival entertainment, where the disabled were frequently displayed as sideshow “freaks”. By titillating the viewer at the expense of the disabled and in the name of religious education, the Ormonds show their talent as “mondo” genre filmmakers, a style marked by a moralizing tone that barely disguises the actual purpose of selling the audience on morbid or lurid imagery. The contrast between the exploitative tone of the Pirkle/Ormond films and their seemingly sincere moral message makes THE BELIEVER’S HEAVEN, and the rest of the trilogy, one of the most fascinating watches in all of faith-based film.
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This silent movie that graphically depicts the famous epic poem Inferno by Dante Alighieri was a box office success in its day, grossing $2 million worldwide due to its longer-than-usual runtime for the era (about 70 minutes) and its titillating imagery, including hundreds of nude actors. L’INFERNO’s aura is still creepy more than 110 years later because the practical effects and camera techniques deployed by the filmmakers are extremely creative and sophisticated. We at Boys’ Bible Study found L’INFERNO a fascinating watch because it caused us to ponder some of the same questions we ask of Christian genre films from the 2020s, including: is this film truly Christian or hiding behind the claim of a wholesome message to sell graphic scenes of sex and violence? Is a shocking depiction of hell on film an effective missioning tool, or does it simply arouse the senses? We suspect in this case the filmmakers simply thought Dante’s Inferno was thrilling source material to explore using the burgeoning medium of film, but perhaps L’INFERNO sold some tickets to curious Christians who wanted a moral excuse to enjoy risqué entertainment. We also theorize that Dante’s Inferno completely changed society’s idea of hell as a concept — perhaps contemporary Christianity’s idea of fire and damnation doesn’t come directly from the Bible, but instead from Dante’s impressive Bible fan-fiction. Either way, this film inspired us to avoid being “simonists”, who Dante depicts as being buried upside down in hell with their feet above ground and tortured for eternity. Nasty stuff!
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Let’s journey deeper into the twisted mind of Tim Chey, the Christian movie auteur responsible for some of our favorite films about the evils of money, Hollywood, and sports. Last week on this podcast, we congratulated Mr. Chey on the success of his newest film THE FIRING SQUAD, which we saw in theaters. This week we catch up on his most recent filmography we’ve neglected: 2022’s JOURNEY TO HELL. This is Chey’s take on the Divine Comedy trope of a guide leading a mortal spirit through hell, but the film is actually based on a John Bunyan novel instead of Dante. In Chey’s adaptation, protagonist Shane Badman is a successful entrepreneur and unsuccessful Christian who believes himself to be saved but is shocked after he perishes in a surfing accident only to wake up trapped in Hell for eternity. As we watch flashbacks of Shane’s corrupted earthly lifestyle, including an extremely meta scene where he makes fun of a bad Christian film, we also enjoy a guided tour of hell and all of the strange characters Shane meets along the way. Shane talks to Mao Zedong, the Zodiac Killer, the Columbine shooters, Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock, an unnamed “iPhone CEO”, and even a certain Führer who you might remember from history class. They’re all there on a mission to humble Shane and get him to realize that his meager faith on Earth was no match for his pride, which was ultimately his downfall. JOURNEY TO HELL is a sobering depiction of the consequences of a life without God, where demons are depicted as micromanaging human labor for all of eternity… which honestly just sounds a lot like Earth.
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We here at Boys’ Bible Study jump at the chance to see a brand new Christian movie in theaters, especially one made by a director we trust as much as Tim Chey. THE FIRING SQUAD is the sixth film of his we’ve reviewed for the pod and we found it to possess some of the quirks and qualities we expect from a Chey joint: groups of hunky guys having fun together, D-list stunt casting, evangelical Christianity, and a bizarre hatred of sports. THE FIRING SQUAD finds established Christian genre superstars (Kevin Sorbo, Eric Roberts), a fallen former Oscar winner (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and newcomer James Barrington in a nonsensical plot set in an Indonesian prison, allegedly based on a true story (it's not; we can’t find info on these events anywhere.) Several foreigners facing the death penalty for drug charges in the draconian Indonesian justice system band together in the prison chapel to share the word of the Lord, resulting in some unlikely conversions and a feeling of peace despite the tragedy of impending death by firing squad. Now, we at BBS are all about DIY filmmakers using their big imaginations to tell stories beyond their means, but some of THE FIRING SQUAD’s asks of its audience to suspend our disbelief were a bit much. How did Cuba Gooding Jr., stuck in maximum security prison, acquire three formal suits that fit the protagonists perfectly so they could pretend to be “the media” and escape? Why are the prison doors always open, with guards and prisoners fraternizing like a freshman year university dormitory? Then again, the plot inconsistencies were so perfectly Chey that we think THE FIRING SQUAD might be the prolific anti-sports director’s most solid and enjoyable film yet.
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One of the most bizarre and singular pieces of Christian media we’ve ever watched is this dreamlike documentary from the minds of father/daughter writer/director team Derek and Vanessa Frank, who assembled some of the biggest names in Christian film history to shake the Protestant Reformation down to the “demonic conspiracy” at its very core: the anti-semitic teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin. In LET THE LION ROAR, Kevin Sorbo, Stephen Baldwin, Eric Roberts, John Schneider, and young up-and-comer Ben Davies star as 16th-century European historical figures who don funny hats and monologue their virulently anti-Semitic views to the camera for extended scenes, some lasting for several minutes at a time. Writer Derek Frank believes that the major weakness that plagues Protestantism is its insufficient respect for the Jewish faith and an unwillingness for the Christian church to become fully “grafted into Israel.” Mr. Frank has written five more “theses,” to add to Martin Luther’s famous 95 Theses of 1517, that propose full deference to Jews from Protestants that he hopes will heal Christianity and save it from vague, unitarian sluggishness that he reads as weakness. This is an ambitious and extremely boring goal to try to sell to an audience, but the Franks make it fun with uncanny corporate stock footage and a series of costume changes that make Derek Frank look like the Architect from The Matrix, if that character were a hardcore Zionist. In general, Derek Frank’s extreme passion for his case of “finishing” the Protestant Reformation is what sells this documentary — he gazes directly at the audience severely like a cat that has just cornered a mouse and wants to talk to it about Israel for an hour before dealing the death blow that will wipe it out of existence forever. The Lion of Judah is a lion after all, and Derek Frank teaches us that to hammer your point home, you must approach your argument with the ferocity of an apex predator.
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This lurid and captivating film about a family besieged by demons after attempting to contact their deceased loved one via an occultist could only have been produced from the singular vision of the Ormonds. To us at Boys’ Bible Study, writer/director Ron Ormond, his wife June and their son Tim are the “first family” of Christian movies. Some of the Ormonds’ most famous films, such as IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO? (1971) and THE BURNING HELL (1974) are still considered Christian genre classics decades later, known for their gripping exploitation-style treatment of Christian messaging that likely emerged from the family’s shared background in vaudeville performance. This same showbiz charisma could also explain why the Ormonds’ films were financially successful, widely distributed through church tours that were sometimes accompanied by a live presentation by Tim Ormond saving the souls in the audience who had just been moved by a shocking film experience. THE GRIM REAPER is plenty shocking; the Ormonds are skilled at DIY costuming and special effects to depict the supernatural horror of the world of demons, making Satan come to life for viewers to effectively demonstrate why tampering in the occult could doom their souls forever. Celebrity guest preachers Jerry Falwell (!) and Jack Van Impe (!!) also stop by the Ormonds’ set to deliver sermons addressed directly to the camera, hammering down the central theme of THE GRIM REAPER: hell, Satan, and his demons are very real. If you don’t believe in demons, you may as well not be a Christian.
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Merry Christmas in July! We love Christmas movies for their tedious pleas for a return to small town values despite clearly being written by effete big city media types. CHRISTMAS WITH A CAPITAL C is one of the most glaring examples of this we’ve ever encountered, which makes it extremely charming. Dan Reed (Ted McGinley) is the affable mayor of a small Alaskan town with the seemingly perfect life, until his former high school rival Mitch Bright (Daniel Baldwin, who sounds almost exactly like his brother Alec) returns to Alaska after making it big in the city with a plan to dethrone Dan as mayor and finally separate church and state by removing the Nativity display from city hall. It’s pretty obvious that this is a stupid idea and our hero Dan is going to prevail, which he quickly does, humiliating Mitch by revealing that his “rich and successful” act is a total lie. What’s more interesting here is how CHRISTMAS WITH A CAPITAL C reveals that many adults are perpetually stuck repeating their high school humiliations, living their lives according to whether they were designated a “winner” or a “loser” at age 15. Also, the film is notable for a show stealing performance by Christian stand up comedian and film producer Brad Stine, who wrote the song that inspired the story of this film and who doesn’t let a scene of his go by without completely chewing up the scenery. Don’t believe in CHRISTMAS WITH A CAPITAL C? Get on the mic at your local city council meeting and let them have it.
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This DIY surf thriller about the son of a military spy superstar is way more than meets the eye, revealing its intense Christian and poly-spiritual themes in an audacious 45 minute long opening monologue. SURFER: TEEN CONFRONTS FEAR is the first feature film by writer and director Douglas Burke, a physics professor at USC with a lifelong passion for surfing and theater. Burke seems interested in the ways the physical and metaphysical intertwine; most of the dialogue of SURFER attempts to explain the unseen cosmic forces that guide our observable physical reality. In the film, a young surfer played by Mr. Burke’s real life son Sage experiences a near death experience while surfing that causes him to abandon the sport. He is visited by the reanimated spirit of his dead father, played by Douglas Burke himself, who warns Sage that the new physical body which has been crafted for him by God using “squid and electricity” will only survive for a short enough time to reignite Sage’s passion for surfing. This scene between Douglas and Sage is truly astounding — it lasts for 45 minutes (nearly half of the film’s total runtime) and constantly escalates in emotion. After this transformative exchange, Sage finds a top secret military hospital, where a doctor called Banks (Gerald James) has information that could change the way Sage understands his world forever. We at Boys’ Bible Study were lucky enough to catch the Los Angeles premiere of SURFER back in 2018 before we ever had a podcast. We’re excited to share this bizarre and wonderful film with our listeners while also diving deep within its fascinating spiritual worldview. It’s your whale, boy!
Visit the SURFER: TEEN CONFRONTS FEAR official website
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Billing itself as a light-hearted Christian family film, MOMS’ NIGHT OUT is accidentally a chilling indictment of millennial parenting. Allyson is a busy full-time stay-at-home mom with aspirations to run a famous mommy blog. Feeling unfulfilled in her role as a mother, she decides to decompress with a night on the town accompanied by her two best friends Sondra and Izzy. Despite the full support each mom gets from her family for a well-deserved break, the act of the moms leaving their respective houses triggers a series of chaotic and traumatic events that are supposed to be funny but are actually extremely stressful. Every character is a terrible communicator, and you get the sense that moms having fun disrupts some kind of ancient social order to the point of severe consequences for everyone involved. Directed by the Erwin brothers (I STILL BELIEVE), MOMS’ NIGHT OUT is a competently-produced and commercially successful film, drawing appeal from its relatively star-studded cast including Sarah Drew (GREY’S ANATOMY) Sean Astin (LORD OF THE RINGS), Patricia Heaton (EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND) and country singer Trace Adkins. Even more important to us at Boys’ Bible Study are featured performances by Christian film scene veterans Andrea Logan and also Alex Kendrick, one of the famous Kendrick Brothers, who have created and starred in some of the highest grossing Christian movies of all time. We were excited to watch MOMS’ NIGHT OUT for Mothers’ Day, but forgot, so we watched it for “Mothers’ Day In July” and ended up being horrified by the film’s grating millennial humor and depiction of each character as simultaneously whiny and helpless yet obsessively self-important. Bible Boy Julian calls the depcition of family in MOMS’ NIGHT OUT “scarier than THE HANDMAID’S TALE” and we think our gentle listeners will agree.
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The ominously named Wallbuilders organization, founded by David Barton, have a mission to “[help] Americans remember and preserve the true history of our great nation.” That’s great I guess, but what exactly is it that they… do? One of their main cultural outputs seems to be a documentary series affirming the Christian history of the United States, so we at Boys’ Bible Study couldn’t think of a more fun and enlightening way to celebrate Fourth of July than spending two hours absorbing THE SPIRITUAL HERITAGE OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL. Basically, someone let David Barton in the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., and he spent his night there filming a guided tour of the art and artifacts within the space, showing how each piece proves that the mission of the Founding Fathers was explicitly Christian. We learned a ton about the Christian habits and exploits of the greatest guys of all time, and we see fun art objects such as a painting of the baptism of Pocahontas, and a cool statue of an astronaut (not Christian.) Curiously, David Barton and the Wallbuilders never say in the documentary what the conclusion is that they draw from poring over all of this evidence. It seems like they want to say that the idea of a separation between church and state should be abolished, but they don’t ever actually say that — instead, they just kind of drone on about how it’s sad that public schools don’t teach that John Quincy Adams read the Bible once per year. Despite there being some genuinely interesting facts dispensed, and they filmed fun historical reenactments of guys in powdered wigs talking about stuff, we can’t help but conclude that if the Founding Fathers thought Christianity should be the explicit law of the United States, they would have written it in the damn Constitution. No one was stopping them. Next!
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We continue our study of the great Kenya Cagle’s filmography with this psychological thriller about the most dysfunctional family to ever live… and die. Stacy’s family is haunted by tragic violence, from the disappearance of her mother to the imprisonment of her brother Leroy in a mental institution after he killed their father. Stacy now hides with her grandma “Momma” in a remote cabin in Long Island, but their plans to lay low are thwarted one dark and stormy night when Leroy shockingly turns up at their door, having escaped the institution. Leroy fixes himself a sandwich in an excruciatingly long scene as Stacy and Momma plan their escape. Guns are drawn, tires are slashed, and a helpful policemen is stabbed as the grandma/daughter duo attempt to reason with Leroy, who they’re worried could kill them in a confused rage. But is Leroy really the danger here? Food related memories, from Leroy’s bologna sandwich to Stacy and Leroy’s favorite gumbo as a child, could unlock the secret to twisted family history. This “Caglevision” film is barely a Christian movie, but it’s worth a watch to experience yet another one of Cagle’s overwrought family dramas where a mother figure is painted as the ultimate evil. Kenya Cagle is a truly inventive storyteller who directs compelling performances out of amateur actors, and even though he has a tendency to “lose the plot” and focus on story details we as viewers really don’t care about at all, it’s always impressive and entertaining to see what he can accomplish on a shoestring budget.
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To celebrate Father Dads’ day, we watched another film by the genius Kenya Cagle, the auteur behind the extremely watchable faith-based films THE BOY WHO SAW CHRIST and MY KING. We’ve noticed that all of Mr. Cagle’s films have in common that they are not afraid to show edgy adult themes in the context of presenting a faith-based message. FATHER DAD is no exception — it’s the first Christian film we can ever remember watching with an extensive rape scene. In the film, Madge has remarried a kindly man her kids call “Father Dad” after healing from her previous relationship with the evil Lucius, who until recently has been in prison for attempted murder. Lucius is out now and will do anything in his power to destroy Madge’s new life to get his kids back. Lucius’s evil schemes reveal dark truths about the prison system, mainly that many inmates are having gay sex with each other behind bars and becoming infected with HIV, endangering the women they pursue once they are free men. It’s a thrilling tale about sex, lies, and intrigue that never lets up its breakneck pace for the entire 2 hour runtime, a very rare quality in Christian films, so we can’t recommend FATHER DAD enough. Show it to your father who stepped up on this special Sunday.
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Happy NBA Finals! Helmut Brink is a little German boy who wants nothing more than to play the brand new sport called “basketball”. I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t we just fight a World War against the Germans? Why would we let them enjoy our (second) national pastime? But Helmut is a special little boy — he and his sister Brigitte were adopted as war refugees by a kindly Reverend of a little farming town in Washington, USA. They do their chores and say the Pledge of Allegiance like any other American schoolchildren, so they are allowed to have a little basketball as a treat. That’s the philosophy of school teacher Martin Conlon (played by Peter Coyote) in THE BASKET, a feature film for families released theatrically in the year 2000. Martin sees the men of his town struggling to pool their finances together to buy a new harvester machine, so he hatches the crazy scheme of putting together an amateur basketball team to compete for a tournament’s cash prize, having been trained in the exotic art by none other than basketball inventor James Naismith himself. Christians seem to love movie plots about people playing old timey sports — we’re reminded of SPIRIT OF THE GAME, a more recent Kevin Sorbo-fronted film about an early basketball tournament set in Australia. But THE BASKET goes beyond sportsmanship to weave a surprisingly complex plot with themes of war and immigration, set around the story of a fictitious opera DER KORB that was actually originally written and composed for this film. It’s still hard to imagine a film like this would ever have broad enough popular appeal to be released in theaters — it’s slow, goofy, pastoral, and much of the dialogue is delivered in a fake German accent. It speaks to a bygone pop cultural era where Christian stories were accepted in secular contexts because people appreciated their overt wholesomeness. Although THE BASKET may not be the most exciting sports film, it does feature one of the most shocking endings to a basketball game ever imagined. We can only hope James Naismith is smiling down at this film from heaven — in between teaching Jesus how to land the perfect free throw.
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Since the beginning of recorded history, it has never been possible for people with opposing viewpoints to agree on anything — until now. Los Angeles-based media company Jubilee Media describes their extremely popular MIDDLE GROUND YouTube series as a “social experiment” bringing together individuals with opposing identities or viewpoints for some civilized discussion (for a change.) Some of these matchups that were viewed millions of times include “Flat Earthers vs. Scientists”, “Men’s Rights vs. Feminism”, and “Millionaires vs. Minimum Wage Workers”. These are all juicy concepts, but this week Ash and Julian choose to review MIDDLE GROUND’s format by discussing their episode “Progressive Christians vs. Conservative Christians”, where Biblical literalists and deconstructionists smack down over discussion topics like abortion, LGBT rights, Black Lives Matter, and more. We notice that MIDDLE GROUND’s flawed format is actually a great way for both sides to reveal their own classic biases and fallacies. Conservative Christians tend to claim their favorite Bible passages are literally true while blatantly ignoring others; meanwhile, progressive Christians love to just make stuff up that sounds nice and claim Jesus would support it. We spin our wheels about this for a while before moving on to a debate between Polyamorists vs. Monogamists, for no reason other than to gawk at its participants. We conclude that Jubilee Media, like Dhar Mann (another popular YouTube media production company who we have studied in multiple Boys’ Bible Study episodes), thrives on creating emotionally exploitative content that disguises itself as wholesome and balanced. No matter who wins on MIDDLE GROUND, we lose!
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God wants you to be kidnapped! Or at the very least, Christians are particularly equipped to endure a kidnapping because their faith in God keeps them patient and strong. This is the experience of Ruth Peterman, an ordinary Minnesotan woman whose life was turned upside down when she was kidnapped by two incompetent thugs who used her as bait to try to procure money from her husband, who works at a bank. We can’t find a lot of information on Ruth and her alleged kidnapping, nor can we find much of any info about the production of the film HELD FOR RANSOM, which is loosely based on her story. Her character has been renamed Eunice for some reason. Eunice is abducted from her own driveway in broad daylight and held for days by two criminals she names “Bill” and “Jerry”, who are continually stunned by her calmness and strength while being kept prisoner in a farmhouse in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She engages her kidnappers in lively conversation, attempts to convert them to Christ, and listens to hymns on the radio, while her faithful husband works with the FBI to ensure her safe return. Most of the dialogue in the film appears to be improvised for some reason, lending a weird gonzo tone to an eerily calm crime film set in the ultra-polite northern midwest region of the USA. There is a 20 minute section of the film that seems to be barely connected shots of cars driving around Minneapolis at night. It would be an otherwise straightforward crime film with an inspirational message, but bizarre production choices such as these and a luridly saturated color correction that make HELD FOR RANSOM a strange artifact of faith-based filmmaking. The message of the film is that faithful Christians need do no more than sit back, relax, and pray through the toughest moments in their life. Apparently Ruth’s faith was so inspiring it caused her real life kidnappers to write to her from prison, begging for her forgiveness; you’ll be begging Ruth for forgiveness too if you don’t add HELD FOR RANSOM to your watchlist!
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This Christian thriller shows how even a situation as scary and inconvenient as a bus hijacking can become a one-way ticket to salvation. Izzy is a privileged yet rebellious goth teen with a streak of dye in her hair, much to the disappointment of her Christian parents, who accidentally reveal to Izzy that she is adopted during a heated family discussion. Izzy’s life suddenly becomes a quest to find her birth parents. Fortunately, her boyfriend Grayson has an uncle Rex who is a private investigator and is able to locate Izzy’s mom, inspiring Izzy and Grayson to hop on a bus to meet her. Suddenly, a nightmare becomes reality — the bus is hijacked by a group of goons who kidnap Izzy, Grayson, and other passengers, demanding Izzy’s father pay $2 million for her safe return. The psychological torment the kidnappers inflict on the passengers is the focus of most of SENSE OF URGENCY, and a series of bizarre plot twists transpire that would surely keep viewers on the edge of their seats if any of the surprises followed a coherent internal plot logic. Since none of them do, the final shocking reveal that spurs our protagonists to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior is way more insane than inspiring. Still, SENSE OF URGENCY is a fun and watchable faith-based film because it understands that a lurid story about domestic terrorism is more exciting than a dull chamber drama of people talking to each other about God. But what if I wanted a dull chamber drama about God? Don’t worry — since every character is trapped on a bus for an hour, we have plenty of time (and hostages) to kill.
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A short documentary that arguably changed the media landscape forever, KONY 2012 became a viral international sensation due in part to its evangelical tone, inspiring everyday people to gain a quasi-religious awareness of the “original sin” of Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony who could be defeated through the power of collective consciousness. It’s no surprise that the mastermind behind the KONY 2012 documentary, Jason Russell (founder of Invisible Children) is a devout Christian who grew up in a family dedicated to Christian ministry through youth theater, although Russell intentionally chose not to broadcast his religious views in order to make the KONY 2012 movement palatable to as broad of an audience as possible. Still, the documentary, which at the time of its release was a media phenomenon and the most “liked” video ever on YouTube, shows strong evidence of Christian influence. The video argues that the belief of a group of people creates a tangible psychic force with the ability to affect world events, and it promotes the hypothetical arrest of Joseph Kony as a cathartic cleansing event that will lead to global harmony. KONY 2012 even contains a Millerite rapture-esque ritual in its “Cover the Night” happening, meant to take place on April 20, 2012, when the anti-Kony faithful would blanket their entire city in Kony propaganda overnight so that sleepers folk would awaken the next day to a completely new world of full Awareness. Unfortunately, the evil Joseph Kony was not arrested and is still at large to this day, but Jason Russell’s movement left a noticeable impact on society at the very least by creating an internet video with full cultural penetration, something that is basically impossible to do nowadays in the ever-expanding universe of social media. The larger-than-life success of KONY 2012 also impacted Jason Russell’s life when he suffered a public mental breakdown weeks after the video’s release and was arrested for stripping naked and ranting on a public street, an event that was captured on video by phone cameras and disseminated through the same internet channels that Russell had used to spread his gospel in the first place. Many humans throughout history who encountered the divine dealt with issues that we now recognize with contemporary scientific framing as possibly being “manic episodes”; Joan of Arc is just one example. It’s possible that Jason Russell’s public struggles are simply another piece of evidence that KONY 2012 is the work of a modern-day prophet.
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A random act of kindness can make someone’s day… but what if I really didn’t need my day to be made? In A WAVE OF KINDNESS, a man named Ernesto shows kindness to strangers by waving at them from the side of the road every day while wearing a hat that says “I ❤️ JESUS”. No one can really explain why this is kind or helpful, but Ernesto does it nonetheless, and attracts a local reputation for his efforts. When Ernesto fails to show up to his usual spot for a few days, a young journalist named Lance (played by Braeden Sorbo, son of Kevin) decides to try to locate and profile him, after his boss at the local paper (Kevin Sorbo) threatens to fire Lance if he can’t come up with a happy, inspiring news story by the end of the week. Working on the story about Ernesto has a healing effect on Lance, who has buried himself in his work ever since the death of his mother in a texting and driving accident, a tragedy that fractured his family. Lance’s father drinks and Lance’s younger sister stays out late partying and smoking cigarettes, but when Lance finds Ernesto in the hospital, the whole family unites to help him the way that he helped them. A WAVE OF KINDNESS would be a heartwarming movie except for the fact that it is completely incoherent from start to finish, and it never proves its claim that Ernesto’s actions have any effect on the world around him. It’s a common Christian pop cultural trope that symbolic actions can have real world power, but A WAVE OF KINDNESS still manages to be one of the least believable faith-based films ever made, despite its very simple premise.
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When Christian teen David Gutierrez arrives at his new high school, he is immediately mortified by being the only kid who says “Under God” during the pledge. He is ruthlessly mocked by the school bully and called into the headmaster’s (Casper Van Dien) office to be reprimanded for breaking the school’s “religious tolerance” rules, which of course mean that all religions are tolerated except for Christianity. David’s debate club advisor (Kevin Sorbo) encourages him to take a stand for his beliefs; this leads David to cause a “viral moment” by asking a visiting presidential candidate (Antonio Sabata Jr.) to put God back into politics, the video of which is then spread online like wildfire. ONE NATION UNDER GOD is a relatively high-budget film for the Christian genre, directed by Lisa Arnold (This Is Our Time), which delightfully hits all the most cliche beats of the faith-based films we know in love — atheist teachers, precocious Christian kids, a preoccupation with “going viral”, and a climactic showdown debate where the Christian kid owns his opponent with logic and reason. It also stars a pantheon of Christian film royalty, with one of Sorbo’s best film performances ever, even though he’s playing basically he same character he plays in all of his films. ONE NATION UNDER GOD is the perfect Christian film to put on with your friends because it’s not too depressing, has several laugh out loud moments, and might even give you a few talking points for your next debate. You’ll be proud that our founding fathers made the Constitution go viral!
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