The Light Before We Land

All this and more has made it a favorite of many members of the New Atheist movement, who repeatedly point to it as an example of modern-day evidence of the harmful influence that (in their view) any and all religion can inflict against impressionable and/or undereducated minds.

It is for these reasons that, as a Christian concerned about the future of the faith, it needs to be watched.  It needs to be seen as an example of Christianity gone entirely off the rails – but more than that, it is worth using as a tool of honest comparison against and assessment of the state of our own churches and our own personal theologies.

So, over the next several days, I will be offering up a commentary of the documentary in five or perhaps six parts (this being part one).  Again, if you haven’t watched it, I’ll be introducing the main players below and quoting extensively during the series, so you don’t have to worry about feeling too left out.  That being said, you do have plenty of options available to you if you want to watch the movie - buy, stream, or torrent – one or another of which I highly suggest you do.

If you do decide to watch it, I recommend you have some of whatever kind of music you listen to when you’re frustrated and/or angry at the ready.  If you want to stave off the insanity, you’ll need it.  The first time I watched it, I went for the hardest Tool I had, and I still have to go back to it every so often when rewatching it.  You’ve been warned.

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Becky Fisher is the central adult subject of the film, and is the obvious choice of such (since she runs the camp).  And, wow, is she an interesting character.

It is quite obvious that she has an enormous heart for children.  She believes that children’s ministries that restrict themselves to teaching Old Testament stories about animals off of a felt board (as an example) are detrimental to the spiritual development of the children taught in such a way.  Her opinion is that the children brought up on such methods are being instilled with a weaker faith, which then causes them to become disinterested in the church when they hit their teens.  In addition, she believes that the appropriate response is to teach children a more substantial version of the Gospel, imparting on them “the meat” of the faith, so that their faith is stronger later on in their lives.

The theory is probably a very accurate one, and it seems to me that it would work out wonderfully if the faith she was teaching was anything like the one Christ taught.  The faith she advocates so strongly does not promote assisting the less fortunate or bringing peace to conflicts whenever possible as methods of serving God’s purposes.  If it accepts that sinfulness is a fundamental and unavoidable element of the human condition, it does an excellent job of hiding it.

It is instead a faith of moral superiority, conservative political activism, and rejection of basic science.  It even goes so far as to imply that spiritual warfare, capable of manifesting as literal warfare, is a necessary means to God’s ends of spreading the Christian faith to the entire Earth.  (That last one might hold some water if you consider yourself to be a Calvinist, though as I don’t consider myself one, I’m probably not the best person to say so).

If you look at the world’s population, one-third of the world’s 6.7 billion people are children under the age of fifteen.  One-third.  Where should we be putting our efforts?  Where should we be putting our focus?  I’ll tell you where our enemies are putting it – they’re putting it on the kids.  They’re going into the schools.  You go into Palestine and I can take you to some websites that will absolutely shake you to your foundations, and show you photographs of where they’re taking their kids to camps like we take our kids to Bible camps, and they’re putting hand grenades in their hands, they’re teaching them how to put on bomb belts, they’re teaching them how to use rifles, they’re teaching them how to use machine guns.  It’s no wonder, with that kind of intense training and discipling, that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam.  I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam.  I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel, as, as they are, uh, over in Pakistan and in, in Israel and Palestine, all those different places, because we have – heh, excuse me, but we have the truth.

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Twelve-year-old Levi is one of the two main child subjects of the film.  His parents homeschool him, and as such he has been led to believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, global warming is a non-reality, etc.  His parents’ single-minded understanding of political action have transferred over to him as well.

Despite all this, he is obviously quite bright and articulate for his age, and the adults at the church he attends have encouraged him to use those gifts as a speaker.  In fact, he is not just encouraged to allow those gifts to develop, but he is allowed to actively preach in his church and during the camp on Biblical matters.

I do think I’m different from other kids, because we know Jesus and we’re hungering after Jesus, you know?  But you know what – I wouldn’t be different from other kids if everybody did their calling.  See, that’s the thing with America.  America, you know, is supposed to be, uh, God’s nation, right?  But then things just kinda started twisting around, you know?  And now a lot of people in America just aren’t following God.

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Nine-year-old Rachael is a study in contrasts.  She is at once very enthusiastic about her beliefs and somewhat awkward in normal conversation.  She uses many gestures when speaking about her faith and is generally quite animated and excited about it, yet her ability to form a sentence that rolls smoothly off her tongue is still a little beyond her.

And she is, to me, by far the most frightening person shown in the entire film.

Rachael, more than any other child shown in the movie, is an incredibly sweet and well-behaved child around her church community.  However, get her to talk about people who don’t believe as she has been taught to believe (Christian or not), churches that aren’t as enthusiastic as the Pentecostal church she attends, etc., and she reveals a perspective that is indifferent at best, but more often indicative of a smug sense of superiority – even bordering at times on the malicious.

I’ve been teased several times, and I just thought to myself, ‘Man’s decision, whatever.  God’s decision,’ [nods head] ‘something.’  They think I’m weird - go ahead, you’re not the ones who are gonna be judging me if I’m gonna go to hell or heaven.  God is.  It matters what He thinks of me.  It doesn’t matter what you think.

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Note here that there is another nine-year-old girl named Tory (short for Victoria) who makes a few appearances, but very few.  The two central child subjects are obviously Levi and Rachael, so unless I dig up a choice quote from Tory that would be more relevant to some subject at hand than a quote from another character, I’ll be largely passing her over.

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Mike Papantonio is the fourth major subject of the movie.  He co-hosts a radio program with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. entitled Ring of Fire, which airs on the liberal radio network Air America.  He is not a born-again Christian as Evangelicals would define it, though he is a Methodist, has been since childhood, and by all accounts is very committed to his faith.  The documentary breaks from showing the other subjects every so often to show him on the air, discussing the politicization of Christianity.

If there is any flaw in his commentary, it is in an assumption he makes at one point that the 80-million strong Evangelical movement is of a single mind on the issues he mentions (very largely correct, but not entirely, especially when examining Evangelicals under the age of thirty).  But in general, and especially to those who are already concerned about how religious activism influences the political process (and visa versa), Papantonio provides a few sorely needed oases of rational and theologically sound commentary jammed in between the stretches of sheer craziness.

I mean, yeah, I’ve been raised a Christian all my life, um, I think that’s probably the thing that upsets me most about what’s happening…  So there’s some new brand of religion out there, that somehow [thinks] things have changed since Matthew wrote, uh, wrote about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus told us to be peacemakers.  And right now, they’re- everything they do, they say they do in the name of God, that we need to go to war in the name of God.  They’re being told that George Bush, of all people, is a holy man, who’s been anointed with the job of creating a Christian society, not just in America, but all over the world…  There’s this entanglement of politics with religion.  What kind of lesson is that for our children?

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The next installment will focus primarily on the fundamentalist plus Pentecostal take on what the Bible does and does not have to say, as well as how those beliefs affect (or, in some cases, does not affect) the more everyday lives of the people who believe in this way.  It won’t show up tomorrow, just as this piece didn’t show up on Monday, and I don’t really know when to tell you that it’s coming other than “soon.”

For those of you who didn’t already know, my father just recently went off and got cancer again, and he has a surgery for that on Tuesday the 21st – so the several days leading up to that will be busy with all sorts of stuff that the ‘rents want done before then.  I’d imagine I can get at least one more post up between now and then, maybe two, but realistically there’s no way the whole series is getting done in such a short and unpredictable time frame.

Just a heads-up.

- Dan -

P.S.  I just learned from the Wikipedia article on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that he gave a speech in Urbana in the fall of 2007.  I never even heard that he was in town.  So now I’m pissed at myself for missing it.