It seems that the current trend in Christendom is to promote movies from out of Hollywood. Seriously, every couple of weeks there is another new movie that comes out and I receive all kinds of "resources" that I can purchase to create sermons and other "experiences" for my Church.
Hollywood loves Christianity right now (the generic version anyways). A few years ago you couldn't find a "Christian" movie anywhere in Hollywood. Now, they're making them all the time. Fox even has "Fox Faith" which makes faith based films. As long as they can get the Christians to flock to the theaters they keep making the movies with some kind of faith based theme - at least enough of one to get the Churches to load up their vans and haul their people off to the theater. I'm not real sure if we should be thankful for the recent boom in "Faith" films, or if we should be grieving...
What really bothers me about this whole trend is how the Churches are being sucked into it all. I seriously grow tired of Sermon Central's push for pastors to create sermon series based on the current movie that's out. There are even some pastors who all they are doing anymore is preaching about movies! Some pastors are so driven by the desire to be "relevant" that they preach more about Shrek and Spiderman than they do from the Bible!
I can't tell you how many emails I've received with glowing reviews of Evan Almighty which came out this weekend. Seemingly every Christian organization in the country has had rave reviews for this movie. (Dr. Dobson has expressed his concern) I even received a free invitation to see an advanced screening of the movie because I am a pastor (I passed on the opportunity). Of course all of the sermon sellers on the internet has all kinds of resources to go along with this movie, and I'm sure a bunch of preachers preached about Evan Almighty this past Sunday.
A few weeks ago Sermon Central had its usual free stuff which featured some materials called "Ark Almighty." I didn't pay much attention to what it was, I figured it had something to do with Kids Church stuff, and it was free, so I got it for my wife. When I received it a discovered that it was all a play off of the Evan Almighty movie. It's supposed to be evangelism - basically you do random acts of kindness for people and this will win them to Christ.
For those of you who may have no idea what Evan Almighty is about, apparently it's a modern retelling of the flood. Evan is Moses in the modern day. This movie is supposed to be "A comedy of Biblical proportions" is how it's billed on its website.
I was curious about the movie. After all, I had received countless emails singing its praises. So, I went to its website and watched a preview for it. In one portion of the preview, Evan (Moses) came out of his house naked (there was a strategically placed hedge so you couldn't see anything). A lady walking by (mail lady I think) made a comment to the naked Evan, "Cold out today huh?" Of course this is hilarious, and the next cut in the preview shows the actor who plays God laughing hysterically.
In this modern retelling of the flood, apparently the reason God sent the flood was because mankind had not been doing enough Acts of Random Kindness - hence God sent the ARK. (This explains why I received a kit called Ark Almighty in order to help my church do evangelism using acts of random kindness.)Now, what's my point of this post? I'm really not an old grouch who doesn't like to laugh, but my problem with this movie (which I have not seen) is that it takes a catastrophic event which God used to destroy the world because of sin, and turns it into a big laugh fest. It's not just the humor part that bothers me though. It's the fact that the reason for the flood was changed to be because man hasn't done enough acts of random kindness, rather than for sin. Another problem I have is that this movie is being used to push global warming/environmentalism. It won't take you long to discover this if you just take a look at its website. Or you can read this news story about it.
I'm afraid that the Church is making an unholy alliance with Hollywood. Rather than us being salt and light in this world and changing it, we are allowing the world to change us. May God forgive and help us!
We are in a heightened age of deception. The story of the flood, and the reason for it, has been changed to correspond to current geopolitical goals for shepherding the population by extensive control mechanisms and check points. The reason for the popularity of loosely storyboarded biblical themes is to insinuate God's blessing applies to these messages, and to deceive the Church into believing that the world is taking a turn for the better. Certainly, bringing the Church along for the ride is worth a lot of money to investors, and is a big endorsement for child-safe movies and related post production toys and games.
ReplyDeleteTo sell this blasphemy, the producers wrap it in artificial kindness. Notice that the good deeds are performed by the power of the individual, who can then get the credit (as an incentive to perform them), and the Acts of Random Kindness (ARK) replaces the Holy Spirit as the motivation and the power of God to enable us.
This new unholy spirit of ARK, which acts as the guide for those under its influence, is a malleable governor designed for use by political leaders who can set its direction to match politics (global warming for now), but more importantly, it is controlled by the spirit of deception under the ruler of this world.
Thank you Pastor, your thoughtful post gave me cause to review these verses, for which I was blessed:
I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2Ti 4:1-4)
David
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