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What Is Going On At St. James Alexandria; Lord, Save Us From Your Followers; Oh Those Poor Liberals

Is my parish starting the Rick Warren series on the Purpose Driven Church? Going to perhaps do a series on what it means to be Anglican? Having a revival? Nope.

Rather, the rector will lead a class to discuss the new book and upcoming movie, “Lord, Save Us From Your Followers”, which essentially is a quasi-documentary by a liberal Christian ragging conservative Christianity. The main thrust of the indictment is the usual one – Christianity makes gay people, atheists, evolutionists, and other liberals feel bad. Aw, for shame. It does poke some fun at the ACLU for attempting to sanitize the country from all religion, but the main focus of the book/movie is to vilify Christianity as it is under assault around the globe and particularly from secular forces in this country. Perhaps if the author of this movie focused more on what the Gospel teaches and conveying that to the rest of the country rather than vilifying other Christians in the process, perhaps the “Gospel of Love” might touch more people and bring them to know Jesus as Lord and Savior.

I, for one, do not take responsibility for liberals feeling bad simply because Christianity exists, proclaims that Jesus Christ is the only way to God, and commands us to feed the hungry, care for the sick and the poor and visit those in prison. I don’t even feel bad that it tells some folks that perhaps they aren’t living right. Guess what, Christianity says that to everyone.

Basically, the movie is calling for Christianity to surrender in the culture wars, as if that is something Jesus would do. Well, it isn’t. In the end, culture had to kill him to silence him. Moreover, it is not mere intolerance where the church is failing, and making the church more tolerant will not fix it. The Church is lacking obedience to God and his Word.

I will say that the parts where Christians were washing the feet of homeless people was good and a prime example of the message that does need to get out there. I also found that the confession booth at the gay pride event was powerful and very touching as to how God’s love was being shared with the gays and lesbians at the event in Merchant’s confessing to them that he has not loved them. But, the bulk of the movie, while claiming to “hold up a mirror” to Christianity is more of the same stuff liberal ‘Piskies spin – non-liberal Christians are bad. It therefore exercises the same judgmentalism that the film and book claim to deplore.

Well, I don’t think the movie (what I’ve seen of it on the website) is ultimately going to help the cause of Christianity. It is also terribly moronic in its supposition that the Easter bunny has anything to do with Christianity. That is a pagan tradition that was incorporated in it. While “traditionalists” might rail against the removal of the Easter Bunny from the public square, Christians that have actually read the Bible and studied the origins of “Easter”, the bunnies, and the eggs, would realize this is all a farce. What is even funnier is that the Easter Bunny made some atheist feel bad. All I can say is that the stupid bunny isn’t Christianity’s fault.

In any event, you can check out all the short films that are a part of the movie. The book is available everywhere, and the movie will be in theaters in June. If you are in the Cenla area, you can read it with the Sunday School class at St. James. I, for one, won’t be reading yet another rendition of the same old same old arguments I’ve read over that last four years on the HOBD listserv and elsewhere.