![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/62\/2011\/11\/machine-gun-preacher-movie1-300x185.jpg\" "\\"machine-gun-preacher-movie1\\"")
<\/a>\n<\/p>Sam Childers, the subject of the new movie \u201cMachine Gun Preacher,\u201d doesn\u2019t exactly fit in at the swanky Georgetown hotel in which we had our interview. Clad in black leather, sporting biker mustache, and gnawing on a toothpick, he looked like an extra from the biker drama \u201cSons of Anarchy,\u201d only tougher. Despite his appearance, however, he wouldn\u2019t necessarily fit in at your neighborhood biker bar either because his talk centers on Biblical passages and God\u2019s requirements of His people.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sam Childers is the real-life Machine Gun Preacher, played by Gerard Butler in the film. Once a drug abuser and criminal thug, he gave his life to Jesus, as he says, and was born again. On a church trip to Africa in the late 90s, he ditched the group and traveled into the civil war zone in Sudan. The brutality he saw there would change his life.<\/p>\n
Childers built an orphanage in the war zone, hired guards to defend it, and provided a safe haven for the youngest victims of the conflict. Roving militias in Africa routinely round up scores of children, kill their parents, and press the little ones into prostitution or force them to become soldiers. Childers didn\u2019t stop at providing an orphanage for children who came to him. He picked up a machine gun and actively hunted militia to rescue children.<\/p>\n
He just may be the first real-life Rambo pastor.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, if someone is killing one child, that\u2019s a problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rated R, the film features disturbing violence against children as well as biker-level profanity and one married sex scene. It also unflinchingly portrays Childers\u2019 faith in its complexity and doubt, as well as the profound motivation it gives him.<\/p>\n
As the war rages on and Childers finds himself unable to protect all the children he feels called to serve, he distances himself from his wife and child and struggles with God.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m born again, spirit filled preacher,\u201d he said, \u201cEvery Sunday I\u2019m preaching somewhere. But most of all, I let people know I\u2019m only human. I don\u2019t try to hide the fact that I have struggles and I deal with things just like everyone else does.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cIf you\u2019re living the Christian faith, we all get to that point where that day is just a crappy day and we gotta come back to where we was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jason Keller, the Hollywood scribe tasked with turning Sam\u2019s life into a movie, doesn\u2019t consider himself religious, but he came to respect Sam\u2019s faith, doubts and all. \u201cWhat I started to see in Sam and what moved me, we started to discover a man who\u2019s a preacher, who\u2019s a good Christian, who was flawed, who was to this day transforming, but trying to be the best man and Christian he can be, and sometimes succeeding and sometimes not succeeding \u2026 it was something I could identify with, he\u2019s a real human being.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Keller met Childers, the preacher was mourning the murder of several children he had been forced to leave behind in a place of danger. \u201cHe was the darkest human being I\u2019ve ever met,\u201d Keller said.<\/p>\n
Childers recovered from that horrific event, at least enough to function again. Since the establishment of the new state of South Sudan earlier this year, things look better for his orphanage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere hasn\u2019t been anyone killed in northern Uganda in three years, there hasn\u2019t been anyone killed around the orphanage in two years, but you could drive six to eight hours from the orphanage and you can be into what you would call an active war area,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean the fight is over. The energetic Childers has projects in the works. He wants to open feeding centers for the starving in Ethiopia and plans to restore the crumbling homes of elderly people in Uganda.<\/p>\n
He allowed the movie to be made because he hopes it will move people to action.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to live in the United States,\u201d he admitted, \u201cOver there [Africa], every day you can do something good. You raise money to have a feeding program; you don\u2019t know what that does to you inside. It is hard coming here and adjusting to the U.S. We\u2019re so concerned about our parties and having a big Christmas, there\u2019s so many concerns that we have here in the U.S. that are senseless.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Sam Childers, the subject of the new movie \u201cMachine Gun Preacher,\u201d doesn\u2019t exactly fit in at the swanky Georgetown hotel in which we had our interview. Clad in black leather, sporting biker mustache, and gnawing on a toothpick, he looked like an extra from the biker drama \u201cSons of Anarchy,\u201d only tougher. Despite his appearance, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":83,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,13,11],"tags":[40,41,39,42],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith-on-film","category-interviews","category-new-movies","tag-gerard-butler","tag-machine-gun-preacher","tag-sam-childers","tag-sudan"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>\n<\/p>