LOL, Ben.
But Freyr was right, he did ignore it again.
I think you missed a key point I was trying to make. I’m fine with making a movie about the “end times,” but I find it very, very curious that the “end times” as portrayed by Cloud Ten seems to revolve about The Evil UN One World Conspiracy. Surely there are Christians (well, like me) who don’t believe in right-wing conspiracy theories?
If anything’s going to mute the message of “Judgement,” that’s it. Let’s bear in mind that while the story is nominally fictional, the studio’s quite upfront about the central thesis (Christian God exists, end times, rapture, and so on) being the absolute truth, and the corollary to this is that you’re going to hell if you don’t believe it. That’s fair; you can promote whatever religious beliefs you like. I have problems with a message of “Christianity” that concentrate on this fairly insignificant part of the Bible to the exclusion of Christ’s central messages but that’s a different issue.
The implication-by-association I’m uncomfortable with is that they’re also throwing a heap of nonsensical conspiracy theory on top of it, the sort of stuff people living in armed compounds who wear fatigues all the time believe. Cloud Ten is not doing an impressive job of separating the message of the apocalypse from the message of The UN Is Out To Get Us.
And if you don’t see the connection to Jewish conpiracies and the “ZOG,” not to mention the CFR, Bilderburgers, Illuminati and God knows what else, you don’t know your conspiracy theories. Trust me, it’s next. The pyramid symbol on the One World Government logo in “Judgement” isn’t there by accident.
Let’s say that, having followed both this thread and the original “A Movie That May Change Your Life…” thread, as well as reading numerous messages from you on various other threads, I can safely conclude that if you’re gushing praise for Left Behind, it’ll probably be giving me dry heaves in the theater (something which hasn’t happened since I saw Star Trek V on a bargain matinee and realized I was ripped off nonetheless 
).
I make it a general rule to check out movie reviews before I see a film, so I’ll know what to expect and avoid the turkeys. This is why I can say with almost 99% total certainty that I won’t watch Battlefield Earth – which is, coincidentally, another case of religious-message-disguised-as-fiction-resulting-in-crappy-waste-of-celluloid…
FWIW, the only place I’ve even seen any mention of Left Behind outside of the SDMB has been on a video running at Costco. Speaks volumes about its quality, IMO.
Thank you for the links, FriendOfGod, ITR Champion. So far none of the reviews I’ve read have convinced me that seeing any of the movies in the OP would be a valuable use of my time. I won’t even mention the review I read in the Los Angeles Times of the “Left Behind” movie.
I think I get more interesting discussions on the issue of religion here at the SDMB than I could get from any of those movies.
**Foggie wrote:
On the flip side, Left Behind seems to have several goals: entertain, educate about End Times events, and win souls. They have succeeded in all three! On the LB movie website, I’ve chatted with several of those who have given their hearts to Christ as a result of the movie. Truthfully, it would be worth ten times as much money as you quoted if just one person came to Christ.**
Of your 3 points above, I think it fails on the first and third. Honestly, 10 million dollars (not sure of the real figure of production of a film like Left Behind), but that much money spent to win a pittance of converts? You’re doing the equivilent of flushing dollars down the toilet hoping that nickels will rise up when the bowl refills. :rolleyes:
Let me put it this way: I believe Christians should be involved in every aspect of culture, and thus money needs to be spent in every aspect of culture: from art, to film, to drama, you name it. It’s not an “either or” thing (ie, either spend money on the poor or movies), it’s a “both and” thing.
I hate to point this out, Foggie but Christianity ALREADY IS a major aspect of Western culture. Prehaps not your particular flavor of Christianity, but the mythos of it already fills every nook and cranny. I would argue that the money used to make that movie would be better spent on social services and outreach rather than provide entertainment for people who already are Christians. If you really want to prosleytize, there are many better ways to do it.
What is interesting to me is that fundamentalist Christians actually think that the Book of Revelations is in fact Christian.
Speaking as a NON-fundamentalist Christian myself, all I see in in Revelation is a tragic absence of the grace that is the crucial point of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. By emphasizing Revelation, fundies do a real disservice to their faith and to those they hope to communicate their message to.
And so, all I see in movies and books like “Left Behind” and similar ilk is hysterical fear-mongering. The model of God presented in such is of a beast with the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
Why, exactly, are fundies so obsessed with hell and damnation? Why not focus on God’s love and salvation and leave it at that? Why threaten? It probably does more to drive people away from Christ than to draw them closer. And if someone does become a Christian out of the fear of eternal hell, what does that say about the quality of their faith?
RickJay said:
Ah, this explains it. The reason every end times movie will contain something about a one world government has nothing to do with conspiracy theories … it has to do with one thing and one thing only … that the Bible predicts there will be a one world government at the end of time, or at least during the seven year tribulation. In other words, an End Times movie without a one world gov’t would be as incomplete as an End Times movie without an Antichrist.
Ready for a shocker? This blew me away when I first heard it. 28% of the Bible is dedicated to prophesy. That’s not insignificant.
rjung and Arnold … I read your posts and don’t really have a response … hopefully a Christian movie will be made some day that will be to your liking.
Freyr said:
Well, the first (‘entertain’) is a matter of opinion, whereas the third (‘souls saved’) is a matter of fact. I know of several who have come to Christ as a direct result of the movie. I don’t know the stats and don’t know that anyone ever will 100%. I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree, because I will contend to the day I die that 10,000,000,000 and more spend on something that results in one single life being saved from an eternity in hell is WAY more than worth it. Remember Jesus left 99 people who were dedicated to Him to find the one that wasnt.
bungie said:
There is one reason for that … it is during the period of the book of Revelation that this period of grace, which has lasted from the time of Jesus until now, will come to an end. God has been WAY more than fair with the world in giving it chance after chance after chance to come to Him. To be honest, God is way more patient than any of us could hope to be. It is genuinely bewildering to me that He hasn’t already thrown up His hands, but He’s a lot more patient. He is waiting until the last possible minute for this season in history to end so that as many as possible might come to Him.
Nonsense. There’s no reason for God to EVER throw up his hands. All you’re doing here is imposing your sense of human frustration on God, who by His very nature has infinite love and infinite patience. And, according to your ilk, infinite wrath. You may personally not like the fact that many people in the world aren’t your brand of pseudo-Christian, but the one sure way that God has of allowing as many as possible to come to him is to skip the Revelation altogether.
My problem with fundamentalist Christianity is that it’s about revenge first, grace second. Sorry, but I’ll skip the bloodlust myself, and stick with the grace.
Now it’s time for you to whip out “the Bible said it so it’s the truth” argument (as if real life humans had nothing to do with it), and then I counter about the internal contraditions of the Bible requiring us as humans to interpret and distill to find the truth, then you’ll counter and I’ll counter blah blah blah.
Like I said, you can keep your bloodlust. I just wish there was some way to get you to quit preaching it. We need to stop preaching threats and damnation to people, because you’re not bringing people to God, you’re simply dragging people away from hell, . . .maybe. And as good as you may think that sounds, it misses the grace. You got people looking over their shoulder bragging that they’re not going to “that place.” That’s sad. Focus on the grace. Focus on the grace.
Focus on the grace.
Re bungie-us’s last two posts:
I have not lived in vain! 
Actually, FriendOfGod, I have seen a movie on this very subject: Michael Tolkin’s movie The Rapture. I would highly recommend this movie to anyone interested in a fictional portrayal of the end of times. You can read Roger Ebert’s review here.
While the movie provided much food for thought, it did not convince me to believe in God.
If any dopers want to do a critique of that movie, e.g. try and rent it and then discuss it (e.g. in this thread), I would be more than willing to participate.
SPOILERS…SPOILERS…SPOILERS…SPOILERS
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I MEAN IT, BIG TIME SPOILERS!
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OK, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Aside from David Duchovny in an orgy scene, which puts The Rapture head and shoulders above most movies anyway 
I like that the filmmakers allowed an unhappy ending. Her character refuses to repent because she’s angry with God, so she ends up in outer darkness for all eternity.
It shows how vital free will is to salvation to an almost Pelagian degree. Really, her refusal at the end showed how serious her belief in God really was. You have to have loved a great deal in order to have that much anger.
Friend of God:
You forgot goal #4 - the main goal of “Left Behind” and any other form of Christian entertainment: The opportunity to make pots of money from a captive and quite agreeable audience.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make money. But that’s why movies get made, and distributed to video, and promoted on websites. Trying to pretend that the Christian entertainment industry is somehow much more altruistic than any other is a little naive IMHO.
You may find “Left Behind” and its ilk very entertaining, or you may find it worthy of ridicule, but you cannot deny that they are succeeding admirably at milking a large and starving market.
Put me down in that “Disagree with FoG” category as well. Personally, I’d rather see money being put towards helping out people in THIS world. What good is having the word of God if a person is hungry and homeless?
Just my opinion, of course, although it’s probably not uniquely mine.
Quix
P.S. Hey, I’ll take you up on your offer. Get a Christian organization to give me $10 billion, and I’ll re-convert. Hell, I’d re-convert for $1 million. I swear, I will dedicate my life to Living the Word if you’d pony up that kind of dough.
Agreed - this reminds me of when a religious group in Alabama decided to send a Jesus video to some 2-3 million postal addresses in the state, to spread the word of Jesus. First, last time I checked, 'Bama is pretty much Christian and thus they spent all this money preaching to the choir. Second, what kind of a mental midget (no offense to midgets) would be convinced by an overly dramatic retelling of a story we already know?
On the bright side, the Alabama Freethought Association decided to set up a program to accept the Jesus tapes from people who would rather see them recycled rather than tossed out in the trash - they erased the tapes and then distributed them to secular charities for their own uses.
Imagine the good that could have been done with the money they spent on producing, cutting, and mailing those tapes. It boggles the rational mind.
quixotic78 wrote:
Actually, if you really wanted to save as many souls from an eternity in Hell as possible, your best bet would be to gather up all those Christians who are having a Crisis of Faith and are thus in danger of abandoning Christianity, encourage them to make one more great big personal “push” of belief in Christ, just for a few minutes – anyone can convince themselves to be a True Believer if they don’t have to sustain it for long – and then shoot them all in the head while they’re experiencing that short moment of True Belief. Instant salvation by the roomful.
bungie_us said:
Actually this is an incorrect depiction: any belief that shows God as being about “revenge” at all is skewed. Christianity IS in fact about grace first, then JUDGMENT (not revenge) second.
We are living in the season of grace right now. ANY person on earth, no matter what their background or skills or attractiveness or beliefs, can come to Christ and be forgiven of their sins and have a life-long relationship with Him that lasts for eternity. At some point in history that season will end, and God will reveal his justice.
Its easy to read the comfortable parts of the Bible and skip over the difficult parts, but I don’t believe you can pick and choose which parts you like and don’t like. God is BOTH EQUALLY 100% loving, forgiving, and merciful AND 100% just. He can’t and won’t deny either part of Himself.
Arnold said:
This movie came up during my last thread quite a bit, and I have to admit my curiosity has been piqued. I just rented the movie this afternoon and will probably watch it later tonight, after which I’ll give my review.
stolichnaya said:
I couldn’t agree more that making money is one of the goals of the LB movie and book series. While many of us are an “agreeable” audience, you’d be surprised at how many non-Christians enjoy the series (and how many Christians do not enjoy it).
As for being a “captive” audience … all I can say is, I’m not. I discovered Left Behind in my Christian bookstore in 1997 before the series was astronomical in size. Every time I went to this store, I was browsing Christian fiction looking for a title or subject that looked interesting. Except for Frank Peretti novels and a handful of rare exceptions, my search was always in vain. I remember seeing Left Behind several times before I bought it. The back cover made it sound like a more-realistic-than-usual account of the rapture, and I eventually was won over. Needless to say I loved the book and the sequels.
So anyway … no one made me buy the books … I bought them because they were and are the best Christian fiction I can find (along with Peretti).
quixotic78 said:
Without dragging this out too much … let me just say I think both are important. If I met someone who had physical needs, I would attempt to meet those needs long before spiritual needs. But I would do them no good in the long run if all I did was meet physical needs.
And what about those whose physical needs are met? They need to hear the gospel too, and Christian film is one of many ways to reach people in that category.
super_head said:
Hey now, pipe down, I got a free video out of that! 
Yes, I’m from Alabama. A lot of assumptions are made about our state, one being that we are “pretty much Christian”. There ARE admittedly a large number of Christians here, but believe me that secular society is alive and well here in the Bible belt as well. As for whether it was a waste of money … to me there’s only one criteria: did it bear fruit? Are there families or individuals who saw the movie that were nudged a step closer to Jesus because of it? I don’t know the answer one way or the other, but that’s what I would use to determine if it was a success or not.
FriendofGod wrote:
Then I hope you don’t eat ham.
You’re kidding. Really?
Looking foward to it.
I just finished watching ‘The Rapture’, a movie made in 1991 that many of you have referred to in this and my previous ‘movie’ thread. I’d like to throw out a few comments on it (SPOILER warning: I will probably reveal key plot elements in the following, so if you want to see this movie, read no further).
If I had to summarize the movie, I would say one of the following two things, depending on how certain scenes are interpreted:
Possibility # 1 : ‘The Rapture’ is the story of a woman who gets involved in a quasi-Christian cult and converts to this cult’s religion, believing she has actually found God when in fact she hasn’t. Because she never truly learns God’s character, she begin to believe in the cult’s warped view of God and rejects this false God, believing it is the true God she is rejecting.
Possiblity # 2 : ‘The Rapture’ is the story of a woman who gets involved in a quasi-Christian cult, yet somehow comes to a relationship with God despite their warped beliefs about God. However, because she never truly learns God’s character, she begin to believe in the cult’s warped view of God and rejects this false God, believing it is the true God she is rejecting.
In other words, whether you believe she actually comes to God or not (and I lean heavily toward believing she did not), the God she keeps hearing about is a false God, a warping of God’s character. To be honest, there were several scenes where I laughed out loud at things that weren’t intended to be funny (‘Just say you love God mommmeeee! Then you can go to heaven!’) I kept thinking, ‘This is why nonbelievers don’t need to make Christian-themed films. They genuinely just don’t get it.’
One line in the movie stands out to me more than any other. When the woman finally realizes she doesn’t love God (after she’s gotten arrested), the first words out of her mouth after saying she doesn’t love God is:
“He has too many rules”.
And therein lies the heart of the deception she has swallowed. She believes God is a God of rules. She believes God just requires that you ‘say you love Him’, with no real reason behind it. Never once in the movie does she learn God’s character and realize that He’s actually and legitimately worthy of our love. No, she sees a harsh taskmaster who just says, ‘Love me, period!’
And of course she sets herself up for the deception by her jaunt into the desert to ‘wait’ for the rapture. She has no grounding in what the Bible teaches and listens to some kid who thinks he’s a prophet. She believes God is speaking to her, yet if she knew the Bible and was surrounded by healthy believers, she would realize quickly she was not hearing correctly. Her expectations of God are totally backwards, and so this warped image of God lets her down.
This movie is, in many ways, a case study in deception. This is how people get sucked into cults. They reach the point of desperation in their lives, realize they need God, but then they turn to a warped false God rather than the one true God. And then they end up worse than they were before! Now they think they know what God is like, and they reject Him, never knowing what He’s really like in reality.
This movie also exposed the most dangerous cult in America. It’s what I call “almost-Christianity”. The thing that’s closest to the truth is the best lie. This group has a handful of partly true doctrines, but they have totally missed the heart of what knowing God truly is all about. They have no understanding of God’s true character.
The sight of Mimi Rogers standing on that rock, realizing that she would be separated from God forever, nearly brought me to tears. It is, I believe, an accurate depiction of those who choose to turn their backs on God. I believe hell will be filled with people who still are justifying themselves, accusing God, and saying they got a raw deal. What is really sad in this case is, this character didn’t even really know the God she was rejecting.
The biggest failure of the movie, to me, was in not showing the truth. I didn’t really expect any truth in this movie so I can’t say I was surprised, but one can hope. I wish they had shown the true charater of God. I wish they had shown genuine believers in Christ. Instead, they focused on a deceived woman and the tragedy of her foolish and misguided choice.
To sum it up: the movie is a case study of how incredibly deceived a person can become if they don’t know the true character of God. It shows the importance of basing your life on the Bible, not on what you ‘feel’ God is telling you, and to surround yourself with healthy, Bible believing Christians who can help keep you on the right path.
Gaderene,
Well my local library is closed until April! Arrgh! So I decided, what the heck, I’ll just buy the thing. I just bought a copy earlier tonite so I will start reading later this week.
As for ‘Judgment’, the feedback I’ve gotten so far is that only a handful of video stores have it available for rent yet. It might be a while before it can be rented unfortunately :(. My local Blockbuster has all the other Cloud Ten movies but not Judgment because it’s so new. I’ll be they’ll have it soon.