A Christian movie without the Christianity

The books favored political intrigue, a form that better suited the medium of books; the film, in response, is just a run-of-the-mill disaster flick, where the Rapture is the MacGuffin driving the plot. Consider: one of the characters proposes that the Rapture was caused by aliens, and the movie would be no different if this were true.

Or consider this line from director Vic Armstrong:

[My agent] David Gersh said, “Well, what about the religious aspect?” And I said, “What religious aspect?” He said, “Didn’t you find it strange when people disappeared on the plane and everything?” I said, “David, I did Starship Troopers, and I didn’t question it when great big bugs came climbing over the hill and ripped people’s heads off. That’s the world I live in!”

In fact, most Christians within the world of the movie—whether the street-preacher lady at the airport or Rayford Steele’s wife—are portrayed as insistent, crazy, delusional, or at the very least just really annoying. Steele’s wife’s conversion to Christianity is shown to have pushed her and her husband apart; we see that she’s decorated her house with crosses, throw-pillows that say “Pray” across the front, and encouraging posters.

That is the deepest conception of Christianity that this movie has: posters, pillows, and crucifixes.

If the Left Behind books were just pulp novels injected with Christianity, then the Left Behind movie is just a disaster flick injected with the slightest, most infinitesimal amount of Christianity possible. This is, in one way, good—no one needs to be upset, or get angry, or be offended, or question their beliefs, or the beliefs of those around them, or anything, because the film takes no stance on anything. The film is so inept, confused, and involuted that there’s no danger of even accidentally cobbling together something that could necessitate a defense of Christianity.You know how you feel when you hear the name of your hometown, and your ears perk up, and you want to talk about it? Or a band you love, that means a lot to you? Or a book that changed your life? We all bond over these little things, which become pieces of us, which we want to represent, which we want to support somehow, any way we can.

This isn’t a bad thing.

What’s a bad thing is that Hollywood producers now know that American Christians feel that way about their faith—that Christians so desperately want to participate in the mainstream, that they’re tired of having sanctioned music that’s like other music and movies like other movies and politicians like other politicians but always still being on the outside, that Christians just want to feel identified without having to carve out little alcoves or niche markets that exist alongside the Big Boys. And, now that they know it—that is, now that they know they can make back 5x their initial financial investment—they want to exploit that, by pumping out garbage (not moral garbage, just quality garbage), slapping the “Christian” label on it, and watching the dollars pour in.They want churches to book whole theaters and take their congregations, want it to be a Youth Group event, want magazines like this one to publish Discussion Questions at the end of their reviews—want the system to churn churn away, all the while netting them cash, without ever having to have cared a shred about actual Christian belief.

HT:  Paul McCain

This also explains Noah and all but the first Narnia movies.

Has anyone seen HBO’s Leftovers?  I haven’t, but I understand that it’s also about a “Rapture” and those left behind without any Christian pretensions.