Thanks to Dave Buckna for pointing me to “Dr.” Ted Baehr’s latest missive, this time on the alleged biases and historical inaccuracies of Kingdom of Heaven. Buckna states:
It would be interesting to compare the number of historical inaccuracies in “The Kingdom of Heaven” with the number of historical inaccuracies in “The Patriot”. Funny, I don’t recall anyone in the U.S. Christian media writing anything about “Brits Get a Bad Rap in The Patriot.”
Buckna then links to this classic article from Salon on The Patriot‘s wildly unhistorical demonization of the British.
I assume my own review wouldn’t falsify Buckna’s point, since it was written for the Canadian Christian media. But FWIW, I have always found it interesting that, when Christianity Today linked to my review of The Patriot five years ago, they made a point of alluding to a possible reason for my Anglophilia (“But Peter T. Chattaway, a Canadian writing for BC Christian News (the BC is for British Columbia), complains that the film’s rah-rah nationalism is mere pandering, achieved by unfairly vilifying the British”).
I am also somewhat bemused by the way some Protestants, who in an earlier age might have nodded their approval of a film in which Catholics are depicted violently enforcing their religion’s control of a political territory, have been inclined to defend the religious wars of that era. Maybe it’s my Anabaptist heritage speaking, but I can’t say it bothers me all that much if the film portrays the Knights Templar and their ilk as religious fanatics.
AUG 15 2007 UPDATE: I just realized, a slightly different version of my review of The Patriot is also up at ChristianWeek.
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