I‘ve long called for a “parental advisory” as to the dangers religion and religious indoctrination poses to young children. Recently, the MPAA took a small but welcome step in that direction.
The film “Facing the Giants” received a PG rating for being “too evangelistic.” Well, it’s about time. The film contains, among other things:
….waves of answered prayers, a medical miracle, a mysterious silver-haired mystic who delivers a message from God and a bench-warmer who kicks a 51-yard field goal to win the big game when his handicapped father pulls himself out of a wheelchair and stands under the goal post to inspire his son’s faith. There’s a prayer-driven gust of wind in there, too.
If you’re going to tell children about a god who helps people win football games, you should be slapped with a parental advisory. Feeding children this bilge is one of the surest ways that America will become a second-class nation. While Chinese kids get rigorous scientific training, our youngsters are surfeited with the gadgets the Chinese are building. Our kids haven’t the slightest idea how the gadgets are designed or built, but many can quote chapter and verse from the bible, and ‘believe’ in things like miracles.
Overt Christian messages are woven throughout “Facing the Giants,” which isn’t surprising since the film was co-written and co-produced by brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick, who are the “associate pastors of media” at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga. In addition to working with the megachurch’s cable-television channel, they created its Sherwood Pictures ministry _ collecting private donations to fund a $25,000 movie called “Flywheel,” about a wayward Christian used-car salesman.
How will we not become a backward country if our kids keep feeding on this tripe?
5 comments
You’ve confused me now! On the one hand is my absolute hatred of the MPAA, battling my admiration for this rating. I love that Harry Potter gets blasted by fundy’s for it’s use of magic, yet they are trying to pass off all the nonsense you mentioned as anything different.
Of course when GOD is involved, its a miracle, but when it’s young British people, its evil.
Ah, fun with semantics!
-olly
Matt–
Good points. The difference to me is that everyone knows Harry Potter is make-believe. The people who make these kind of films are trying to pass their magical thinking off as real.
You are right, of course, and I think that was sort of my point… the fact that one set of is good and the other is evil, is about as non-sensical as you can get.
-olly
That is awesome. Now all we need to do is get age-restrictions on Bibles so that nobody under 18 can purchase one at a bookstore! You know, like in the same way that the porno magazines are age-restricted. ;)
Just kidding actually. In reality, I am against age restrictions for any kind of media or information, but in this day and age, it would be nice to see these already existing age restrictions applied consistently to all media, regardless of the popularity of said media.
I have confidence that my ten year old daughter views such stories as no different than ‘Spiderman 2’. She knows about god(G?) and Jesus and that there are a lot of people that believe it to be true. She also knows about ancient Egyptian gods sun worship etc… so it’s not a surprise that people have beliefs that couldn’t possibly be true , even if it’s someone she knows and likes. She doesn’t argue with the person anymore than she would tell a little kid that Santa’s not real. Remember kids are as intelligent as we are, they’re just more ignorant. God as a tool for winning a football game or spider powers to climb a building why would a child in an agnostic or atheist family believe in one of these ? It’s not going to happen. Let’s just enjoy films and books as entertainment and stop being so paranoid.