Homeschool News & Views

Issue 89, October 5, 2008

From Homeschool Helpers

In association with Pass It On Ministries

By Dan L. White

Listen to this article.

Two movies have been released recently on opposite sides of the world.

The spiritual world, that is.

One is called Religulous, a word made from religion and ridiculous. The movie’s purpose is to make religion look ridiculous.

Religulous was written by Bill Maher, who has made a career out of insulting everything he can. He had a show on ABC television called Politically Incorrect. It was canceled right after 9/11 when Maher praised the Muslims who attacked the World Trade Center towers. Later HBO picked up his program, under another name.

Immediately we see a contradiction in what Maher has done. He praised the Muslim terrorists as brave warriors, and yet made a movie to ridicule religion.

Maher is 52 years old and has never known the love and commitment of marriage. Wikipedia says that he supports legalized gambling, prostituion, gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia, and the taking of all drugs. He is on the board of directors of PETA. PETA is sometimes called People who Eat Tasty Animals, but it actually stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. However, that brings up another contradiction. If there is no God, how can there be ethics?

Oh, yes – we don’t have God but we have liberals to set ethics and morals.

Mostly it’s the Bible and the God of the Bible that Maher is ridiculing. He told Harry Smith of CBS TV that his motivation for making the movie was “sowing the seeds of doubt.” Maher makes people who believe in God look ridiculous. He uses extreme examples to support his mocking.

The Seattle Times said that the movie included “(r)ednecks in a trailer church. A Jesus actor in a theme park where dinosaurs and humans coexist. A Puerto Rican televangelist who claims to be the Second Coming of Christ. Muslims. A Jew selling gadgets to circumvent — I said circumvent — Sabbath restrictions. Maher exhibits hilarious nerve with all of them, and ridiculous vintage film clips accentuate the discussions. He doesn't get the pope, but standing outside the Vatican, he asks if it looks like anyplace Jesus would live. Detractors might accuse Maher of taking cheap shots by picking on obvious nut jobs and idiots, but this is a comedy and not "Frontline.”

That paper thinks mocking God and the Bible is OK if it is done in a comedy and not a documentary. However, Maher himself described what he was doing as a documentary.

Either way, it’s not OK.

Maher duscussed his movie on Late Night with Conan O’Brien: “Well, I mean, Sarah Palin believes in the Bible literally. You know, she believes the Earth is 5,000 years old and it all started in a garden with a talking snake. I mean -- [makes cuckoo noise, audience laughs] I just felt it was time somebody really presented this, marshaled all this evidence and made a very funny movie.”

He elaborated further to the New York Times: “It's a pet peeve of mine, because I'm confronted with this notion that ‘Oh yes, you only go after the extremists, and by doing that you make religion look silly.’ Anyone who's religious is extremist. See, we're just used to religion. It's like what Matthew Arnold said about a tree. It's not that there are no miracles. A tree is a miracle. You're just used to it. And conversely religion is something we're just used to. So the notion that God had a son, that he's a single parent, and the son went on a suicide mission, and you're drinking his blood on Sunday, that a man lived inside a whale and that the earth is 5,000 years old — all the essentials of religion that are in the Bible or the Koran — we're used to them. But it doesn't mean they're not crazy, doesn't mean they're not ridiculous. And so to be religious at all is to be an extremist, is to be irrational.”

Maher is an Obama supporter, and doubtless hopes to affect the election with his attack movie.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, spiritually speaking --

Some of the local Christian homeschool grads went to see the new movie released by the same folks who gave us Flywheel and Facing the Giants. Those were very popular Christian movies put out by Sherwood Pictures. That’s a film production company started in 2002 by Alex Kendrick, the associate pastor of media for Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia. They did it with $20,000 in donations. They use volunteers from the church for the cast and crew. The cast of their second movie Facing the Giants was all volunteers with Kendrick, the producer, playing the lead role himself.

Their new movie is named Fireproof. Stephen Kendrick co-wrote the film with his brother, and Stephen produced it. The supporting cast is made up of volunteers from Sherwood Baptist Church. The film features Kirk Cameron, a well known Christian actor, whose last movie, Left Behind: The Movie, was in theaters in 2001.

Our daughter Carrie White said this about Fireproof:

“Provident Films/Sherwood Pictures has done it again - another great movie that is real and makes you think about your life, the purpose of it, and how you live it.

I think this movie will touch many people by showing just how dramatically different from the world a person is when they have that truly unselfish love that comes only from God. It is that sincere love for others above oneself.

Also this movie speaks on the importance of marriage and how God wants it to be. Next to our relationship with God, marriage is the most important relationship here on Earth. Christ gave Himself for us, loving us more than we can know, while we were sinners and undeserving of that love. So Christian marriages should be -- loving your spouse no matter what they may do, until death do you part. Instead of having the mindset that “I get you for me,” it should be "I give myself to you,” just as Christ gave himself for us! His covenant with his people is forever and He would never leave them.

I think the big thing I got out of the film was just what an impact it makes when someone has turned his life around cold turkey to follow God. When he tries to live as God wants him to live, filled with that true unselfish love that God gives to us, people can't help but notice, simply because it is so different from the normal human way of thinking.

I was really touched by this film and can't wait to see it again. One of the parts of the movie that sticks out in my mind right now is when the married man asks “How can I love someone who again and again keeps rejecting me?” speaking of his wife. It is then that he realizes just how much our heavenly Father loves us - that when we have again and again rejected him, He loves us with an undeserving never failing love that will welcome us back into His arms.”

Now let’s compare the attitude of those two movies.

Religulous is mocking and sneering, arrogant and cocky, mean and hateful. Its very purpose in being is to put down God and people. Kind of a reverse of the two great commandments. Those who see Religulous and agree with it will be filled with hate and enmity. Maher spends his whole life just mocking people. The sum total of his life is a sneer.

Fireproof seeks to lift up people’s lives and make them better. Those who see Fireproof and agree with it will be filled with a desire to love their mates more than they ever have.

Those two movies and their attitudes typify public school education and Christian homeschool education. The public schools are Godless, self-seeking dens of liberalism. They are violent, dirty places, and the prevailing attitude is self-exaltation and bitterness. Christian persecution is now becoming common, as in the egregious movie Religulous. This will move right into the public schools, and any public school students who claim to be Christian will be mocked.

Christian homeschooling, on the other hand, is not perfect, but it holds up Him who is perfect. The prevailing attitude is, as the homeschool grad said, to be filled with “that true unselfish love that God gives to us.”

That’s quite a difference between two movies and two educations.