Tibetan Refugee (2004)

I recently came across a short, low-budget documentary about Tibetans who have fled their homeland because of oppression by the Communist government of the People’s Republic of China. I must admit I have never followed the saga of Tibet that closely, so I gave this film a try because I wanted to learn more.

This particular film appears to have been made by novice filmmakers on a shoestring. As a result, I’m not sure I learned quite as much as I might have learned from a more expertly made film. Nonetheless, I was quite moved and would definitely recommend Tibetan Refugee to others.

The bulk of the film is simply spent interviewing Tibetans in exile in India. The vibe is less that of a documentary film, but more like a collection of Tibetans’ testimony to prove up the oppression that the People’s Republic of China claims is not happening. Common people--not celebrities--tell about their experiences in Tibet under Communist Chinese rule.

From children to young adults to older exiles, their stories are heartbreaking. Over and over again they tell of religious oppression and ethnic marginalization. Young kids tell of making the journey to India on their own because their parents wanted them to have a better life. Monks tell of torture and abuse at the hands of Communist authorities.

Over and over, inteviewees describe their dreams that motivated them to leave Tibet—they sought education and they sought the freedom to practice their religion. Those two dreams seem so simple, so basic to us in the United States. Our nation was founded on the dream of religious freedom. And despite the many serious problems we have in our educational system, there are a lot more educational options and opportunities in this country than people have in most places around the world.

I felt humbled and quite moved as I listened to the interviewees. I am not Buddhist, but I certainly sympathized with their cause. I cannot imagine being tortured for wanting to practice one’s religion openly. After watching the film, I felt gratitude that I could go to church, read my bible, display crosses in my home and talk opening about my faith. Those are privileges that not everyone around the world enjoys.

Psalm 119:134
Redeem me from the people who oppress me so I can keep your precepts.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Life Lessons About Appearances & Perceptions)

In addition to reflecting on the futility of seeking power, in watching this documentary I was also struck by the futility of worrying about appearances and the opinions of others. I have no idea if the allegations in the film were true that in his final days Mr. Atwater told many that he was a frequent reader of the Bible, but never actually took his own Bible out of the cellophane. For the sake of argument, just assuming those allegations were true, that alleged hypocrisy is instructive and worth reflection.

Maybe the rest of us are not facing a terminal illness while under media scrutiny and worrying about public perceptions of us as we head into eternity. But that does not mean we are immune from the same type of pointless vanities that were alleged in the documentary. Such concerns are just on a smaller scale for most of us.

It seems to be human nature that we worry about what others think of us. Am I liked? Am I popular? Am I respected? From an early age, we are preoccupied with such things. But if we step back, we realize how silly and what a waste of time such trivialities are. It can make us feel good to be liked or to have others think well of us. Alternately, it can make us feel sad to be rejected or disrespected. But at the end of the day, how other people perceive us and what they think of us are really irrelevant.

Imagine that it is true that Mr. Atwater was more concerned that other people thought he had found God, but was not interested in actually finding God for himself. How tragic would that have been? As one is heading into eternity, it could not be less important what other humans think of us. What really matters is what God thinks. How sad it would be to spend one’s final hours on this planet cultivating public and private opinions instead of preparing for eternity with God. What a tragic waste. What a colossal juxtaposition of priorities.

If most people believe something about an individual—whether it is a positive or negative belief—it does not alter reality. Even if large numbers of Americans thought Barack Obama was born in Kenya, that would not make it true.

And particular gauges (e.g., class rankings, employment reviews, US News & World Reports rankings, etc.) are not always reflective of the reality that many believe. A student who ends up with the lowest score in a class is not necessarily someone who is lacking in skill or knowledge. Such a person may have mastered the course material quite well, but is forced by a mandatory grade curve to get a sub-par grade because others did relatively better on an exam.

If a person graduates second in her class from a third tier school and goes to work at a company in the Fortune 100, who really cares? In reality, those are pointless labels that simply reflect various elitisms and petty pecking orders. Such things always strike me as incongruous in a nation built on democratic values.

I would never dispute that that others’ beliefs and those types of gauges can have a huge influence on the decisions that people make. And some of those decisions have huge economic repercussions. Such perceptions can determine which house a person buys, which candidate gets a job offer, and which employee gets a raise, among other things. As a result, it is important for economic self-preservation to be aware of such economically important perceptions and to do one’s best to make sure perceptions are positive when they are associated with you.

But when economic repercussions are not at stake, we should realize that others’ opinions of us are just not important. If others don’t like you or think ill of you, who cares? Each of us should strive to be the best person we can be, but if others don’t appreciate who we are, tough cookies. As I have gotten older, I’ve realized that more and more. It is freeing to have that epiphany. I feel very fortunate to not be in my teens or twenties anymore!

Even when there are economic repercussions of others’ opinions, we should not become consumed with what others believe about us. We don’t have complete control over what others will think of us. Everyone has baggage. People may make judgments or prejudgments that negatively impact us and over which we have no control whatsoever. If one obsesses over what one cannot control, one will be unhappy and waste a lot of time.

We should never lose sight of the fact that perceptions are not necessarily reflective of reality. We should not buy into labels that ultimately are just words and may be quite different from whatever lies beneath. As Christians, we should always seek the truth and recognize that some will try to deceive us. Truth is not always easy to discern. It can take effort and time. Labels are easier. But that does not always make them true.

Proverbs 8:13

All who fear the Lord will hate evil. Therefore, I hate pride and arrogance, corruption and perverse speech.


Luke 6:22

What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man.


1 John 3:18

Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.


1 John 4:18

Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Life Lessons About Power)

At the end of the day, this film taught me more about what people thought about Lee Atwater than what Mr. Atwater actually believed or experienced. I’m still not sure what his core values or beliefs (if any) were. But maybe that doesn’t matter. I still came away from the film with several lessons that may or may not have been particularly applicable to Mr. Atwater’s personal experience, but are nonetheless important truths for any of us.

First, I was struck by the futility of seeking power. Mr. Atwater lived his life in a profession focused on seeking to amass power. I’ve never found that appealing. As I’ve already mentioned in a prior blog post, I discerned early on that I’d not be a good fit for politics. I do not make a living by getting others elected and I have never run for any public office. Indeed most of us don’t do those things. But that doesn’t mean that we are immune from the thirst for power that allegedly consumed Mr. Atwater and tempted him to do unscrupulous things. We should not sit on our high horses and look down our nose at his choices.

Mr. Atwater’s quest for power was on a huge scale most of us cannot even fully image. But the rest of us face similar temptations on much more modest scales. Maybe it involves the possibility of stabbing a co-worker in the back to curry favor of a boss or management. Maybe it involves trying to get on a particular committee of a church or HOA to make important decisions for the community. Maybe it involves an intra-family power struggle to be the one to make decisions for the family or for a loved one. Just because we are not strolling the corridors of power in the capital of the free world does not mean that we are immune from the seductive attraction of power.

As humans, we want to be in control. It seems innate. We want to control our children’s decisions, our career trajectory, the remote control, and what we have for dinner. But the truth is, we have limited control over most things. We may work hard as parents and employees. But at the end of the day our kids will have opportunities to make decisions when we won’t be around to have any direct influence. And bosses and clients will have a lot of influence over our career and they are going to be guided by some factors beyond our control. We cannot control the weather, how long we’ll be in traffic on Monday or even the people with whom we will work. It is part of the human condition that we need to learn to accept that we have limited control in many important parts of our lives. Ultimately, God is in control and we have to learn to trust his plan.

And as Christians, we are called to love God and our brothers and sisters. As many theologians have noted, love and power are not equivalent. Indeed, one might assert they are mutually exclusive concepts. Choosing to love means a loss of control and a loss of power. Those who love are particularly vulnerable. That comes with the territory.

Watching this documentary about Lee Atwater was a good reminder to me about the futility of seeking power. That is a reminder we all need, even if we live far from the Beltway and are not involved in politics.

1 John 2:15

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.


1 John 4:16

We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Struggle with Cancer and Deathbed Conversion)

The final part of this film of course deals with Lee Atwater’s struggles with brain cancer beginning in 1990.

Tucker Askew describes Atwater as being consumed with fear during this period. Askew also noted that fear had been a staple of tool chest in politics. Ironically, when the gravity of his illness became apparent, Atwater had an attitude of sheer terror with respect to the imminence of the after-life.

In an interview in the film, Ed Rollins indicates that as Atwater’s health deteriorated, he and Atwater reconciled. Atwater asked for his help and indicated Rollins was the only person he could trust as others were trying to get him out of the RNC.

It was also noted that during this period of his life Atwater went on a frantic search for spiritual meaning, and had clergy of many faiths waiting in the halls to meet with him in the hospital. One friend indicated that Atwater told all of the clergy he was on board with their beliefs in the thought that if one of them were right, he’d be ok.

Another friend indicated Atwater told him he had never read the bible until his illness. He indicated he was consumed with the verse from the New Testament: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”

Despite the “boogeyman” person he cultivated, Ed Rollins expressed in the film the belief that Atwater was not evil, he was just insecure. His whole life was spent trying to gain power and prestige, and when he achieved it, Rollins believed he was terrified of losing it.

Mary Matalin expressed disgust with the misrepresentation of Atwater’s death bed conversion stories. I found this to be a fascinating attitude, but unfortunately it was not explored sufficiently in the film and I am not sure what exactly provoked her disgust.

The final scene in the film involves footage from the interview with Ed Rollins who explained that Atwater had indicated that a Living Bible was what was giving him faith in his final days. Rollins states that he said to Mary Matalin after Atwater’s death, "I really, sincerely hope that he found peace.” In the film, Rollins states, that Matalin responded, “Ed, when we were cleaning up his things afterwards, the Bible was still wrapped in the cellophane and had never been taken out of the package.” Rollins add that that fact “just told you everything there was. He was spinning right to the end."

That was certainly a fascinating way to end the film. However, I was left with certain questions.

Earlier in the film, Rollins had indicated that he himself was a former altar boy, but politics was not a field that typically recruited altar boys. Rollins also described with an incredible tirade of profanity his reaction to Atwater’s betrayal of him and the threats he made against Atwater at the time. Thus, it was evident in the film that Rollins had an extremely negative view towards Atwater and still held a lot of anger for him. Nonetheless, he later professed in the film that his anger for Atwater melted away when he saw how sick he was. The bottom line of all this is it is unclear to me whether one should even believe Rollins’ story about the cellophane.

Maybe Matalin made the statement, maybe she didn’t. Again, it is not clear in the film what provoked Ms. Matalin’s disgust at the deathbed conversion stories. Maybe it was because she had found a bible in Mr. Atwater’s office and it was in the cellophane. Perhaps Ms. Matalin’s disgust was prompted by her belief that Mr. Atwater’s deathbed conversion was insincere. But perhaps something else provoked her disgust. The reaction inside the Beltway towards Mr. Atwater’s tragic illness and death were enough to provoke disgust in plenty of people.

Indeed, that cellophane statement just seems odd to me. I myself own more bibles than I can count. Some were gifts, and others I bought myself at various times in my life. I’m not sure any of my bibles ever came wrapped in cellophane.

Even if Matalin did make the statement and even if it were true, it is not clear that it has the significance that Rollins suggests, i.e., that Atwater’s conversion was insincere. Like me, perhaps Atwater owned multiple copies of the bible and the one in the cellophane was one that he didn’t make use of. That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t reading another copy (or copies) regularly. Many people don’t do the bulk of their bible study at work. And it seems unlikely that Mr. Atwater would have been at his office much in the latter days of his life anyhow.

Although I own a lot of bibles, I have a few that I read more than others. I have one at my office at work that I have consulted most over the years for a variety of reasons. It is pocket size and has a bookmark ribbon that I find helpful. I have another bible with a different, more modern translation that I keep on my nightstand to read before I go to sleep. A third is one that I tend to use when I take a bible to church or when I go to our church’s small group meetings. Many years ago I tabbed the books in that particular bible, so I can find particular passages very quickly. A few other bibles of mine get read occasionally, but others are frankly rarely (if ever) opened. Though none of my bibles are wrapped in cellophane, if you judged my devotion to the bible based on the frequency these latter bibles are opened, the judgment would be skewed.

In the end, it is not for any of us human beings to judge the sincerity of Atwater’s death bed convergence, the sincerity of his statements of religious devotion he made to friends, or the frequency of his bible study. It does not really matter to me. That is not my place.

I disagreed with many things Mr. Atwater did in his earthly life, but I hope and believe he is at peace in the afterlife. As a Christian, I view God as merciful even when we are undeserving—and we all fit that description. Jesus taught us that God is not a vengeful god, he is the joyful father of the prodigal son.

To me, the ultimate take away from this film was that those who generally work in politics do not have the kind of values or ethics that I would aspire to embrace. I cannot ever see myself working in a political capacity. I cannot imagine ever deciding to run for public office or working in more than a casual manner (e.g., stuffing envelopes) for a politician.

These are not conclusions I have come to simply by virtue of watching this particular film. Experiences I had growing up in DC also underpin that decision. That does not mean that I am apathetic about politics or I’m disengaged. I think civic engagement is important. But I don’t have any illusions about politicians and those who get them elected. Even when I agree with the positions they take, I am not always convinced of their sincerity and I frankly doubt their integrity. Perhaps that is a horribly cynical view, but that seems to be a basic truth of the political process. I’m disappointed in the electorate that we’ve allowed that to be the case.

Acts 26:8
Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?

Romans 14:9
For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Bigotry, Deceit & Hypocrisy)

Early in the film, some time is devoted to Mr. Atwater’s early days in Southern politics. There is mention of exploitative, divisive “push polls” that suggested slanderous things about opposing candidates or invoked bigotry. In that vein, there are claims that Atwater exploited anti-Semitism in the Bible Belt to win an early election. It is also asserted that Atwater had said that in a prior era Southern politics required extensive use of the n-word to win, but that day was past and one had to be more subtle. In that context, it is asserted that Reagan’s use of the term “welfare queen” became code for the n-word.

In a similar vein, it was also observed in the film that in 1980 Ronald Reagan began his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. It was a small town off the beaten path, but was known internationally as the site of one of the most egregious, racially charged crimes. Three civil rights workers were killed there in 1964. Reagan famously used the term “states rights” in his speech in Philadelphia. The film asserts this campaign ploy was pandering to the basest instincts in the electorate.

The film portrays Atwater as a workaholic striving for power and recognition. Interviewees stated he had an amazing work ethic, working 7 days per week. People who worked closely with him when he first came to D.C. said they were shocked to hear eventually that he had a wife and child. Interviewees also described Atwater as devious, manipulative, and insecure. They expressed the belief that he was trying to prove himself; he was cynical about politics and not idealistic.

Along those lines, Ed Rollins described his betrayal in 1984 at the hands of Atwater. Mr. Rollins expressed in the film that he had been warned by those around him to not trust Atwater, but he did not heed that advice. Mr. Rollins did decide to trust Atwater, but he indicates he came to regret that decision bitterly. Rollins described Atwater as cold-blooded. He also noted that Atwater’s younger brother had died when they were little children in a tragic, grotesque kitchen accident. It was asserted that early childhood experience warped Atwater, proving to him that God was unmerciful.

The film described that the Bush family treated Atwater dismissively and viewed him as the “hired help.” Barbara Bush allegedly disliked Mr. Atwater’s vulgarity. George W. Bush was apparently assigned by the family to keep an eye on Atwater. The film asserts that George W. Bush ultimately became a fan and admirer of Atwater, learning much about politics from him.

There were a number of interviewee comments about the 1988 election that were interesting. One charged that Ronald Reagan desperately needed to prevent the Democrats from taking over the White House to make sure he did not face investigations and possible prosecution for the Iran-Contra Affair. The plan was to keep Dukakis constantly on the defensive; in such a context, even if you did nothing wrong, you seem guilty if you always have to defend yourself.

One of the things I myself remember about the 1988 campaign and found most insulting at the time was the obvious manipulation of image, which the film attributed to Atwater’s genius. Dukakis was the son of immigrants who had had to work hard for all he had achieved. Nonetheless, Dukakis was successfully portrayed as an elitist by the Bush campaign. By contrast, George H.W. Bush (who was a prep school grad, the son of a respected politician and well-entrenched in the aristocratic Yankee elite) was paraded around in fancy polished cowboy boots eating pork rinds.

As a native Texan whose family has been in the state for many generations, I had found that parody to be deeply insulting at the time. Even worse, I was disappointed that we Texans allowed this quintessential blueblood Yankee New Englander to briefly put on the most stereotypical of Texas costumes to pretend to be something he clearly was not. If you were born in Massachusetts, you were educated in elite private schools in Massachusetts and Connecticut, your home is actually in a place like Kennebunkport, you only came to the Lone Star State as an adult to exploit its oil resources, and your speech does not naturally include the word “y’all,” you are not a real Texan in my book. Nonetheless, the Bush family continues to be quite popular in Texas—much to my dismay and disgust.

The film interviews Mike and Kitty Dukakis. Sadly, Mr. Dukakis seems to still be kicking himself for the decision to stick to the moral high ground and not respond to the baseless negative campaign ads ran against him in 1988. In the interview with Dukakis, the film noted that the Massachusetts prison furlough program, with which the GOP pummeled him in the campaign, was actually initiated by other political leaders such as Governor Ronald Reagan of California.

Psalm 26:4 (New International Version)
I do not sit with deceitful men, nor do I consort with hypocrites.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Overview: The South and “Liberal Elites”)

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story was a fascinating documentary and quite different from what I was anticipating. I thought the film would be a straight-forward description of Mr. Atwater’s embrace of dirty tricks to win campaigns and his deathbed terror at the prospect of having to account in the afterlife for such misdeeds. That was certainly part of the documentary, but the film actually told a much more complex story.

A number of folks from varied backgrounds were interviewed in the film to tell Mr. Atwater’s story—admirers and detractors, Democrats and Republicans, blacks and whites. The film interviewed politicians, political operatives, journalists, as well as non-political, unsophisticated average Joes who knew Mr. Atwater in his home state of South Carolina. The famous people interviewed included Robert Novak, Ed Rollins, Mary Matalin, Tucker Eskew, Mike & Kitty Dukakis, Eric Alterman, and Sam Donaldson, among many others.

There were a number of points in the film that I found fascinating. I’ll explore those points in several different blog posts. The first I’ll address is Mr. Atwater’s intimate understanding of Southerners and his exploitation of that knowledge for political purposes.

Many of the interviewees early in the film focused on the significance of Mr. Atwater’s Southern roots. The interviewees made insightful comments about the role of the South in modern politics. They noted that the South was the only part of the United States that had ever been defeated and humiliated in war, and that experience fostered a backlash and resentment against so called “liberal elites.”

The interviewees mentioned the long-held perception that liberal elites think they are very smart and are generally better than Southerners (who are viewed by the liberal elites as being stupid). One white Southern interviewee asserted that liberal elites are biased against white Southerners in the same way that liberal elites accuse white Southerners of being biased against blacks. The film suggested this lingering resentment against liberal elites was well-understood by Mr. Atwater; he exploited it to his candidates’ advantage.

I think this is an important point of which “liberal elites” should take note. I never supported any of Mr. Atwater’s candidates, but this point about “liberal elites” even rang true with me. Throughout my life, I’ve spent a fair amount of time with folks from the Northeast, and have experienced such attitudes first and second hand. Though the title character in Forrest Gump had an intellectual disability, it has often been my impression that many people raised and/or educated in the Northeast believe the character Tom Hanks created is typical of all white Southerners. A while back I read an interview with Stephen Colbert (another native South Carolinian) who pointed out that when he was growing up popular culture always portrayed Southerners as dummies. This prompted Mr. Colbert at an early age to consciously neutralize his own speech to avoid being lumped in with such stereotypes due to his accent. Of course, it is hard for even the most enlightened of human beings to not find such stereotypical portrayals (and the underlying attitudes they betray) to be offensive and downright annoying.

What is even more irksome to many of us, however, is the more subtle attitude that white Southerners are all racists. I am very much aware of the extreme levels of violence that have been directed against African Americans in the South for several centuries. And despite the formal dismantling of Jim Crow several decades ago, I would never assert that racism is ancient history and no longer a problem in the South. I know there has been huge progress, but deep problems certainly still exist. Nonetheless, in my experience, there is currently as much racism in other parts of the country. This is true though folks in other parts of the country often get self-righteous--acting like the South is uniquely racist but places like Newark, Boston and Philadelphia are harmonious examples of racial tolerance.

I try to be open to and tolerant of all of God’s children, but I must confess one demographic that is particularly difficult for me to stomach is white, politically liberal Yankees with an educational pedigree. I struggle against prejudging people in that demographic; at times it is a real challenge. We may vote the same in most general elections, but such people typically have little else in common with me.
And to the extent that such people dominate or appear to dominate the Democratic Party and major media outlets, such an attitude is a real problem. If such institutions are at times even alienating Southern folks like me, they need to recognize that as a very serious problem and address it.

Proverbs 16:18

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Preconceptions Before Watching the Film)

In prior posts this year, I focused on the tragic lack of civility in public discourse in the modern era. Some people cite Lee Atwater as a chief cause of the polarization, the vilification of political opponents and the general breakdown in civility that we currently see in public life. Personally, I am not sure what the chief causes have been; I haven’t studied the subject enough to know what got us to this point. But I recently came across an interesting documentary about Mr. Atwater. Before I blog about the documentary itself, I think it is helpful to mention the attitudes and impressions I had about Mr. Atwater when I initially watched the film. One’s preconceptions impact how one reacts to new information.

I came of age as an adult in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Growing up in the DC area, I was attuned to politics for as long as I can recall. As a teenager, I volunteered on various political campaigns. It was so incredibly exciting when in 1987 I was finally eligible to register to vote. For the first time, I myself was able to vote for a particular candidate, not just encourage others to do so. It was thrilling and empowering.

Early on in the primary season for the 1988 presidential election, I backed Mike Dukakis. He was a little known, nerdy and frugal governor from a Yankee state. Despite being a Northerner, I thought he was great. He struck me as pragmatic, intelligent and committed. He really seemed to want to make our country better and help as many of us as possible live the American dream. Moreover, he seemed to have the attitude and skills necessary to get the job done. It was thrilling when my candidate actually did well in the primaries and secured the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. When he accepted the party’s nomination at the convention, he seemed well situated to beat George H.W. Bush, who seemed whiney and hopelessly out of touch.

Somehow it all unraveled in the fall of 1988. Our economy was going down the toilet and my fellow college students were pessimistic about our futures. The phrase “McJob” had been coined, and we half-joked we would be flipping burgers after we received our diplomas. Nonetheless, the presidential election somehow focused almost exclusively on red herring issues like flag burning and prison furloughs. I was incredulous, bitterly disappointed and deeply dismayed. When Dukakis lost the election, I shed a lot of tears not just because my candidate lost. That had happened before. It was not fun, but that was nothing new. But in 1988 my tears flowed because of how Dukakis was beaten. Negative campaigning had worked, and enough of the electorate was distracted with red herrings to vote against their own interests and against rationale policies.

The presidential election of 1988 was the first in which I was able to vote and the way that particular election was won ended up having a deep impact on me whether or not I really recognized it at the time. I suppose in retrospect I lost my political innocence and hopefulness just as I was taking my place in the electorate. Although it did not dissuade me from taking part in elections and voting, the 1988 presidential election taught me in a very real way that good guys don’t always win in politics, voters can be manipulated, and to win elections candidates must sometimes play dirty. Prior to that election, having grown up in DC, I think I had always had a vague thought that I might make a career out of politics. The lessons of the 1988 presidential election taught me that I ought to find a different path. I didn’t have the temperament needed to win elections.

By the time George H.W. Bush was inaugurated, the name Lee Atwater was not unfamiliar to me, but I didn’t know a whole lot about him. I knew he was a white Southerner who loved blues music, and he was credited as having turned the election around for George H.W. Bush. I remember him playing blues guitar at the inauguration gala. That was about all I knew at the time.

Several years after the 1988 election, I was taking classes to prepare for my baptism in the Catholic church. Just before my baptism at Easter in 1991, I attended a retreat in Austin, Texas led by a very sweet older priest. He was a white man from some Yankee state; his accent made me think of Brooklyn. But what the heck did I know, he could have been from Boston or Philadelphia. I don’t remember exactly what he was talking about, but the priest made a brief mention of Lee Atwater having converted to Catholicism right before his untimely death. This was a surprise to me, I had not heard about this in the secular news media and it got my attention at the retreat. The priest’s mention of this fact was very casual, he seemed to not find the (deathbed) conversion remarkable or suspicious. I forget the precise context of the priest’s reference to Atwater’s conversion, but he seemed to accept the conversion as earnest and fairly typical. By contrast, I was not so sure.

When Mr. Atwater had died, the secular media had mentioned his legacy as consisting of the infamous Willie Horton ads and being the king of dirty politics. Many of us felt unease that someone who’d apparently lived such an unscrupulous life was going to meet his maker and judgment was imminent. Unlike the priest at that retreat, my intuitive interpretation of Mr. Atwater’s conversion was that he was trying to avoid judgment by embracing a religion that offered forgiveness freely. As a result of this interpretation, I remember feeling very bad for Mr. Atwater.

That mention at my pre-baptism retreat was the only reference to Mr. Atwater’s
conversion I ever remember. I don’t remember hearing much else about his death until I recently watched the documentary Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story. It was a fascinating film, but not in the way I had anticipated.

Exodus 20:16

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

Exodus 14:31

And when the Israelites saw the great power the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

What Would Jesus Buy? (2007) (Troubled by the Style of the Film)

Although I agree with the substantive concerns of the film and I’m generally glad that a film was made to focus attention on the problems of commercialization and materialism, the style of the film was problematic to me.

What Would Jesus Buy? is described as a documentary. It purports to follow a man named Reverend Billy and his choir as they essentially go on a mission trip across the country. Reverend Billy speaks in an exaggerated preachy Southern drawl reminiscent of people like Jimmy Swaggart. Reverend Billy is a white man with a big bleached pompadour hairstyle and outdated, flamboyant attire. He resembles a blonde Elvis in the King’s later years. Reverend Billy is shown to exorcise people by putting his hand on their heads and pushing back in a dramatic fashion. His effect is like something from an SNL skit lampooning Southern Evangelical preachers. In watching the film, I half expected Lorne Michaels to appear at some point.

Similarly, the members of the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir have a caricaturist style. Despite their message of anti-consumerism, they have elaborate matching long robes. They have rehearsed choreography to accompany their singing. And they flail about enthusiastically in (mock?) rapture when Reverend Billy preaches.

I try to be a good sport, and I think laughter is a gift. Satire can be helpful; it helps us see faults that we might not otherwise see. As a result, I’m certainly not opposed to poking fun at Christians. We should all laugh at ourselves from time to time. None of us should ever take ourselves too seriously. And it is insightful for us to see ourselves as others do.

But What Would Jesus Buy? goes beyond poking fun. The film blurs the lines between reality and satire. In watching the film, it is not clear whether Reverend Billy is a street preacher with sincere Christian faith or a mocking performance artist with a social conscience. It is also not clear if the “Church of Stop Shopping” is an actual religious congregation or the stage name of a group of performance artists who are trying to make a political statement.

The film includes footage of Reverend Billy and the choir in several churches. They seem to be leading a worship service, but the reaction of the folks in the pews was telling. The cameras show several with big, dopey grins. They appeared to be audience members enjoying a funny show, not religious worshippers. As a result, religion seems to be the butt of a joke. I’m not sure how that squares with the purported message of Reverend Billy. If the point of the crusade is to save Christmas, why is that goal of any importance if religion is merely a joke? A broader year-long crusade against materialism would make more sense.

Other scenes in the film are even more troubling. At one point, Reverend Billy speaks to several devout members of an African American church. He represents to them that he is a pastor of the Church of Stop-Shopping. They have a serious dialogue, but Billy seems to be taking advantage of their goodwill and hospitality. If he is a street performer mocking Christians, it seems rather mean-spirited to have represented himself as an actual Christian pastor. That portion of the film had a Borat-esque quality.

In another scene, Reverend Billy and the choir take their proselytizing/protest/show to a Wal-mart where they attempt to exorcise the store. After they are thrown out of the store, but while they are still lingering in the parking lot, Reverend Billy purports to baptize an infant of loving parents who are receptive to his message. A Christian baptism is a meaningful, sacred religious ritual, but in my opinion it was ridiculed by Reverend Billy’s spectacle in a sacrilegious way.

In the end, I appreciated the message and consciousness raising of What Would Jesus Buy? However, I was very disappointed by the disrespectful way the message was delivered.

Luke 18:32 (New King James Version)

For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.

What Would Jesus Buy? (2007) (Agreement with the Film’s Basic Premise)

The title of this documentary is a play on the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” That phrase was coined a number of years back as a quick guide to help Christians discern the right choices to make in various situations. It was particularly embraced by Christian youth who wore “WWJD” wristbands, but the phrase became popular more widely in Christian circles.

As a result of this background, when I originally heard of this film, I thought it would be an examination of ethical shopping choices. I assumed there might be a focus on human rights of workers and the destruction of our environment due to practices employed in manufacturing many retail products. What Would Jesus Buy? does touch on those themes, but it is certainly not the main focus of the film. Instead, the film follows “Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir” as they go on a cross-country bus tour before Christmas to warn Americans of the pitfalls of consumerism and to “save Christmas from the Shopocalypse.”

The film was produced by Morgan Spurlock, who is better known for his assault on fast food in the documentary Super Size Me. I liked Super Size Me. In a simultaneously informative and comical way, the film examined a serious problem in our country: the disastrous effects of overconsumption of large portions of very unhealthy “fast food.” The film raised our consciousness while making us laugh. I’m down with that.

Similarly, I generally liked What Would Jesus Buy? As expressed in previous blog posts this year and last, I too have been disappointed and repulsed at the commercial exploitation of this important religious holiday. Christmas has been taken over by marketers in an effort to induce us to overindulge in material consumption. The irony of course is that the exploited holiday is the celebration of the birth of a man who taught us to not focus on material things, but to instead put our attention and energy into more lasting concerns. For that reason, I appreciate the basic concern of What Would Jesus Buy? It points out that Christmas shopping is really just emblematic of our culture’s wider year-long materialism and overconsumption, which the film equates (comically) to a religion unto itself. The filmmakers flag that this focus reduces us to worshipping material things. The film points out that on average Americans spend about 1 hour each week on spiritual pursuits, but about 5 hours each week shopping.

What Would Jesus Buy? explores the notion that Christmas is a marketing coup. Marketers have succeeded in equating childhood love with having material things. The film examines the myth of Santa, noting that parents go to extreme lengths to hide from their kids the fact that toys actually come from stores and do not have a magical origin. It is mentioned that other countries prohibit marketing to kids, but by contrast American kids absorb large numbers of hours of advertising each week and spend significantly less time in meaningful dialogue with their parents. The film mentions that child psychologists say that young children lack the developmental ability to distinguish between entertainment and advertising such that they are particularly receptive to marketing pitches. To illustrate these points, the film also interviews children who discuss the intense peer pressures of having the “right” brand labels on their belongings and the “right” clothes at school. The film also includes interviews with parents who are obsessed with giving their kids “quality” brand name presents, and having their kids celebrate Christmas with a slew of gifts. The film discusses the repercussions of such attitudes, including the financial vulnerability of overextended credit and the exploitation of workers in the developing world due to “big box” stores that emphasize an abundance of cheap merchandise.

Romans 1:25 (New Century Version)

They traded the truth of God for a lie. They worshiped and served what had been created instead of the God who created those things, who should be praised forever. Amen.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) (Extreme Views of Darwinism)

The first half of the film focused on the issue of academic freedom, which I found pretty intriguing and compelling. But then the film took a rather odd turn. After a promising start, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed became more of a documentary in the Michael Moore style. Ben Stein purported to investigate questions, but had a pretty obvious political aim by the second half of the film. After the mid-way point, the focus shifted from an exploration of the persecution of the scientists who embrace or even just explore intelligent design concepts to a full-on attack on Darwinism and Darwinists. And at times, the attack was pretty over the top.

Particularly in the second half of the film, Stein spoke with scientists whose study of science led them to lose all faith in religion. Some of those interviewed even went so far as to express rather shocking hostility towards religion, and the desire to have it rigidly contained or wiped out entirely. It is explained in the film that Darwinism leads to believing that evolution simply occurs, there is no life after death. And from there, it is an apparently simple extension to decide life is not really all that important, it just comes and goes. Essentially, it is explained that an embrace of Darwinism leads to a belief that there is no sanctity of life and no basis for morals. Although they had me with the persecution of dissenting scholars and the restrictions on academic freedom, the film lost me when it came to conclude that Darwinism leads ipso facto to such a nihilistic view of the world.

Interestingly, it is then extrapolated in the film that Darwinism leads to viewing human beings in merely economic terms; the branch of Darwinism called eugenics springs forth naturally. It is noted that Margaret Sanger was a believer in eugenics and founded Planned Parenthood. It is insinuated that the mere availability of birth control is a conspiracy to form a master race. From there, Mr. Stein then goes to Germany to visit Nazi death camps to learn about the Nazis’ embrace of Darwinism and eugenics to exterminate “useless feeders” and those who were viewed to be of lesser genetic pools that were holding back the human race. I’m not kidding. With a straight face, Stein seems to suggest that when we embrace the Theory of Evolution, it is just a matter of time before we start rounding up “undesirables” in torture camps and committing genocide.

It is subtle but the film mentioned briefly that these repulsive views of rabid atheistic scientists and the eugenics supporters are based on just a very radical and extreme notion of Darwinism. I find it hard to believe that more mainstream understandings of the Theory of Evolution lead ipso facto to atheism and genocidal tendencies.

There have been many surveys over the years that indicate most scientists are atheists or agnostics. The reasons for this are not clear, at least to me. I’ve always suspected that it had something to do with the personality type of someone who is attracted to the sciences. Science involves proving laws of nature via evidence-based tests. I have sometimes found chatting with scientists on even non-religious topics to be irksome because if something cannot be proven, they often don’t believe it to be true.

That attitude goes against my orientation as a lawyer. In my discipline, we rarely have absolutes and we live in the grey areas. When opposing parties argue a case, there is not one absolute truth as to who has the winning side. In many respects, it depends on how persuasive the lawyers are in arguing their positions and how inclined the finder of fact is to accept one side or another. Indeed, we have several stages in the appellate process, and different courts often come to different conclusions. And we have nine justices on the Supreme Court. Rarely do they all agree on how a case should be decided; unanimous opinions are quite uncommon.

In light of these observations, I personally doubt that it is Darwinism that leads scientists to be more skeptical of religion. I rather suspect that the sorts of folks who are most skeptical of religion and other beliefs that are essentially not provable and require faith, are the same sorts of folks inclined to like the black or white nature of science. As a result, it seems a stretch to me to argue that Darwinism must lead to atheism. I also don’t particularly see how one can argue with a straight face that believing in the Theory of Evolution leads one to devalue of human life. Unless they were leading a secret double life, none of the science-y folks I’ve know over the years have been sociopathic or genocidal.

And as noted before, not all Christians reject the Theory of Evolution. As mentioned previously, my first high school biology teacher, who taught me what I know about evolution, shared early in the school year that he was a Christian and active in his church. As I recall, he shared that information with us so we would know he did not see his religious faith and his scientific expertise as being in conflict. I think he meant it as an encouragement for anyone in the class who might have been concerned about a potential conflict between their own faith and the subject matter of the course.

Though out my adulthood, I have had a number of friends at churches I’ve belonged to who were scientists. I remember one friend, who was a Ph.D. candidate in physics at the time. He shared with a group at our church that it was sometimes lonely at school because most of the other grad students and professors were non-believers. Yet he described quite beautifully how his study of science fed his religious faith. He explained that the more he learned about the way the universe was organized, the more convinced he was that it did not just come into being by accident but was the deliberate crafting of a higher being.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed seemed to align sanctity of life issues with an anti-Darwinist agenda. As I watched the film, it occurred to me that it was odd that some folks can be so passionate about the sanctity of human life when it comes to issues like abortion and euthanasia, but then that same passion somehow does not carry over to other issues involving economic justice and human rights. Apparently, a slower death from food insecurity, a lack of (safe) housing and inability to access medical care do not always merit similar sanctity of life concerns. Issues involving an affront to human dignity but not death (e.g., torture, hate crimes) also do not seem to warrant the same type of passionate response. I find it highly ironic that some who are passionately opposed to Darwinism in the scientific arena don’t seem to mind Darwinism in the economic context. I don’t understand that, it does not seem to be consistent. And that inconsistency makes me suspicious of a political manipulation of issues like abortion and euthanasia for the benefit of those who would not benefit from similar attention paid to economic social justice issues. Perhaps it is thought that if we in the electorate are encouraged to spend our time on just a few sanctity of life issues, we won't have the time or energy to also focus on other issues that impact the sanctity of human life.

Genesis 4-25

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he madeinto a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

"This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man."
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) (My Own Experiences with the Evolution v. Creation Debate)

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a film that purports to expose the hypocrisy and persecution of non-Darwinists in the science academy. When I first popped the film into the DVD player, I have to admit that I thought this was going to be a film with a rather paranoid, over-the-top perspective. But I try to have an open-mind and listen to different perspectives. So, I must admit that (somewhat to my surprise) I found parts of this film to be rather compelling.

To avoid misunderstandings, let me first make a few things clear about my own perspective on this debate between Creationists and Darwinists. I am no scientist. I took a couple years of biology in high school, along with a fair amount of geology and a bit of chemistry in college. But I was not particularly interested in (or adept at) science. I was a liberal arts major after all. I have studied the Theory of Evolution at a basic level, but that was many (many!) years ago and I cannot say that I ever studied it in depth or pondered its implications deeply.

In the past and the present, I have known plenty of Christians who embrace Creationism and think “Darwin” is a four letter word. Some such folks are people I love and admire very much. I must say though that I’ve never understood the Creationist perspective. When I accepted Christ and decided to be baptized, I did so in the Catholic Church, which is a denomination that does not teach a literal interpretation of the Bible and has no opposition to Darwin. (Maybe the church learned its lesson after persecuting Galileo over the flat v. spherical earth debate?)

In speaking with Christians who embrace Creationism, they have often expressed to me that their belief is rooted in the notion that the Bible is sort of a touchstone for all human knowledge—even scientific knowledge. That perspective does not jive with the faith traditions of the two churches to which I have belonged (i.e., Catholic and Episcopal). Instead, in those traditions, the Bible is viewed as the central text containing God’s spiritual truth as revealed over many hundreds of years to multiple people. Though incredibly important to discern spiritual truths, the Bible does not necessarily purport to have scientific truths to teach. As a result, I have never viewed the Bible and Darwinism as being in conflict, and I’m not alone. I remember vividly that when I was still an atheist, my first high school biology teacher (at a public school) began the school year explaining briefly that he was a Christian who accepted that the Theory of Evolution was well-proven scientifically. And as a conservative Christian homeschooling mom our family knows recently stated, “I keep my son’s Bible study and science curriculum separate!”

I’m cognizant that the Holy Bible came into being in a very different manner than the Book of Mormon or the Qur’an, for example. Those books are considered to be holy scripture by the LDS church and by Muslims, respectively. As I understand, it is believed that the Book of Mormon was given by God (through an angel) to the first LDS prophet as an intact text; Joseph Smith just had to translate and transcribe God’s word. It is my understanding that the Qur’an is believed to have been the memorialization of words spoken by God directly to Mohammed. Per my understanding, in both faith traditions, the belief is that God provided direct revelation to human beings, who wrote down those revelations for others to read and understand God’s words.

But the Christian scripture came into being in a very different way. The Old Testament was in oral form for hundreds of years before it was ever written down. While in oral form, it changed (one might say evolved!) over time and was not a static text. The New Testament had a very different “genesis.” It consists largely of correspondence from the early church fathers to fledgling church communities around the Mediterranean. St. Paul wrote the lion’s share of the text. As I’ve often heard mentioned from the pulpit, Paul didn’t know he was writing a sacred text, he was dealing with real life problems with a far flung set of believers during the infancy of the church. Other portions of the New Testament are memorialized summaries of the life and ministry of Jesus to explain to readers why he is recognized as Messiah. Those summaries—the four Gospel books—were written later in time than Paul’s letters, so they are not written by witnesses with first hand accounts of Jesus’s life. Instead, the early church believed Jesus’s second coming was imminent, so they did not initially feel the need for written accounts of his teachings. The Gospel books are memorializations by four different individuals of stories of Jesus's earthly life that were initially shared orally in the early Christian communities after Christ's resurrection and ascension. As a result of this history, many Christians would never think to rely upon the Holy Bible as a touchstone for all questions, and specifically would never look to it for scientific insights. I have tried but just do not understand the perspective of Christians who look to the Bible for scientific insights.

It is interesting because this issue of the scope of insight provided by the Bible causes a good deal of tension. I have known non-religious people who are very turned off to Christianity—though they often know very little about Jesus and his teachings—because they understand incorrectly that all Christians believe the Bible to contain literal truths such that they deny all modern scientific insights. I have also known wonderful Christ-followers, who initially had a hard time embracing Christianity and finding a church home, because they could not stomach belonging to a faith community that rejected Darwinism. It is interesting to me because the folks I have known in both groups were not scientists. Just as I don’t understand the perspective of non-scientist Christians who embrace Creationism with incredible zeal, I also don’t understand others who lack scientific training who embrace Evolution with unwavering dedication.

So, the upshot of all this is that I have never been aligned with the side of “Creationism.” I certainly believe God created the physical world we know, but I don’t believe the two creation stories from Genesis are literally true. As I have been taught in churches to which I belonged, the two creation stories reflect metaphorically truths about our omnipotent and loving Creator, but they aren't to be understood as insisting that God created the world in six 24-hour days. Personally, I don’t know the details of how God created the world, I'm not a scientist. But on some level, I also have a certain skepticism that any of us can ever know all the details, no matter how much science we use. Maybe I'm wrong.

I guess I tend to favor some form of Darwinism because I understand it to be the overwhelming majority consensus among scientists. I tend to have a lot of respect for those who have studied a subject in great depth. I recognize that until one delves deeply into a subject, one’s understanding and insights might be limited and even incorrect. In my opinion (based on my own life experiences), the opinions people form based on lengthy study of and experience with a particular topic tend to be better informed and more accurate.

Nonetheless, I never feel comfortable fully endorsing positions when I am not terribly knowledgeable about the subject matter. That is my M.O. in the area of science and pretty much every other discipline. Any other approach would require blind faith in the conclusions of other human beings, which just does not suit me.

Genesis 1:1-2:3 (English Standard Version)

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Sand and Sorrow (2007)

Sand and Sorrow is a documentary detailing the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Like many crises, we tend to hear about the key events in small chunks via the daily news. But such explanations are often hard to comprehend because we don’t have enough context. We are given such small bits of information at a time that it is hard to process the big picture and make sense of what is happening. Like many documentaries, Sand and Sorrow rectifies this situation by telling the story in a more comprehensive manner, detailing events over many years.

Although this approach is helpful, as with many documentaries, the viewer becomes numb after a while due to the shear scale of the problems and the scope of the human suffering. This numbness is exacerbated in some sense because—unlike Hotel Rwanda and Night—Sand and Sorrow doesn’t focus for any length of time on the plight of particular individuals. The human suffering is less impactful in some respects because it is relayed in generalities. That is not to mean that Sand and Sorrow is a light film. It certainly is not. It is a deeply upsetting film that documents an immense human tragedy.

Several aspects of the film were particularly noteworthy in my opinion. Sand and Sorrow documents the complete collapse of the stability and former social order of the local population. The film describes the Darfur region as an area that had been self-sufficient; it was an agrarian economy founded on a number of small villages. When the genocide began, that economy and social order collapsed. People that had been able to provide for their families were no longer able to do so.

The effects on families were particularly evident in the film. In genocide, even children are not spared. The film describes children being murdered by the Janjaweed and children witnessing the rape and/or murder of their parents and other family members. Families and remnants of families were run off their homes to live in squalid camps where they are lucky to get food and water, but have no opportunity to build a life. The film profiles the art work of children that shows violent images including killings, rapes and bleeding bodies.

The film also describes the systematic rape of women and girls as a tool of the Janjaweed. Brutal gang rapes are terrifying and humiliating in any context. But the film explains that in the culture of Darfur there is a particular devastating effects. Due to previous female genital mutilation rituals, rape is particularly painful. And there is a deep local social stigma to rape. As one interviewee explained, rape was simply unacceptable and it was better for a rape victim to die.

The film interviews a number of high profile individuals. The footage of Elie Wiesel was particularly depressing. He noted honestly that we always vow “never again” when we hear after the fact of genocide, but in truth genocide does happen again over and over. Sand and Sorrow at times explores why this happens.

The film focuses on the failure of the American media (particularly television) to pay attention to genocide, and to instead focus on celebrities. Because of media inattention to genocide, there is little public outcry and little resulting political pressure for governmental action. Sand and Sorrow focuses on Nicolas Kristoff of the New York Times, who broke the story of the Darfur genocide. The film emphasizes the importance of investigative journalists in leaving studios to speak to regular people rather than media pundits.

Sand and Sorrow also focuses on international political realities that contributed to the suffering in Darfur. China and Russia have protected the Sudanese government at the UN, and other member states frankly have not wanted to do anything. Moreover, the film spotlights the ties between the Sudanese government and the CIA in the post-9/11 era. The film charges that the United States has not wanted to get involved because of the intelligence benefits it has received from the Sudanese government. As a result, President Bush declared the situation in Darfur to be “genocide,” but then consistently failed to speak publicly about the tragedy.

The film tries to provide some hope for a seemingly hopeless situation. It spotlights grassroots movements in high schools, colleges and churches where concerned Americans protest passionately and try to call attention to the suffering. The film encourages more such outcries as the only way to prompt politicians to act.

Proverbs 31:8-9 (The Message)

"Speak up for the people who have no voice,
for the rights of all the down-and-outers.
Speak out for justice!
Stand up for the poor and destitute!"

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

I saw Hotel Rwanda several years ago. This film was extremely powerful, but it was so disturbing that I had trouble watching the whole thing and doubt I could ever sit through it a second time. The film tells the true story of a Hutu man married to a Tutsi woman in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, in which almost a million men, women and children were killed in about 90 days. The film garnered a lot of positive critical attention, and was nominated for several Oscars.

Much of the power of the film is the personalization of the human tragedy that took place in 1994. We have all read news accounts of a generalized nature, and have some generalized understanding of what took place. Such generalized accounts are disturbing enough. My understanding is that no other genocide in history has been as efficient—killing so many in so little time. The statistics are absolutely staggering. But the power of Hotel Rwanda is that it tells the real life plight of one man, his family and co-workers during those terrifying days. We are shown at least briefly and to some degree what he went through, what he witnessed and how he survived. What he witnessed was absolutely astonishing and horrific.

Some modern Christ followers—perhaps especially those of us in relatively peaceful and prosperous Western nations—sometimes tend to doubt the existence of the devil. Indeed, in my observation, some who are well-educated particularly tend to scoff at the concept as being simplistic and out-dated. Indeed, I have witnessed that such Christians sometimes look down upon their brothers and sisters who fervently believe in a literal personified concept of Satan, who is actively interfering in the affairs of man and fighting the will of God. Such well-educated Christians seem to sometimes view such beliefs as provincial and unsophisticated.

Such skepticism may be understandable when one has been raised and has always lived in a relatively comfortable and benign world, and one has never been exposed to people that are all that corrupt. But I think that when one learns in more detail about the horrific evil of which humans are capable, such skepticism does tend to dissipate.

I am decidedly not a theologian. I have spoken to my pastor about the topic, but it is just not clear to me if the biblical representation of the devil is intended to be a literal personification or if it is intended to be a figurative representation of evil. Personally, I’m not sure it really matters. I do believe in evil. I do believe it can and does consume human beings. I remember watching Hotel Rwanda and reflecting on that point. I got chills at the superfluous references to Tutsis as “cockroaches,” the brutality of the agonizing machete killings, the mercilessness of massacring young orphans in the care of nuns, and the overwhelming body count. In my opinion, that inhumanity and evil has a very real source.

Mark 4:15 (Today's New International Version)

Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.


Luke 22:3 (Wycliffe New Testament)

And Satan entered into Judas, that was called Iscariot, one of the twelve.

Miracle at Moreaux (1986)

I don’t think I am going out on a limb here to say that these days most Christians understand that Jesus’s teachings are incompatible with racism. That hasn’t always been the case of course, but in my observation that is the current state of affairs. And I think it is clearly a correct understanding of Jesus’s ministry. On many occasions Jesus violated social norms to associate with folks whom his own culture thought were unclean, outcasts and/or unworthy. He hung out with all sorts of apparently despicable folks: women, Samaritans, children and tax collectors. His approach was revolutionary in that sense. And Paul makes pretty clear in the New Testament that divisions of race or ethnicity are simply irrelevant in Christ. As a result, I have never understood how Christianity could be used to justify bigotry.

Perhaps particularly baffling to me, I have never understood the perspective of Christians who are anti-Semitic. After all, as Christians, our savior was Jewish! How could we hate Jewish-ness when that was such an important part of who Jesus was? How could we hate Jewish people when his family was Jewish? Moreover, all of our early Christian heroes were Jewish. Jesus’s family and friends were all Jewish, as were most of the first generation of Christians. Even today, Christians and Jews share scripture. Much about the Christian faith is rooted in Judaism. As a result of these facts, Christianity and anti-Semitism are just fundamentally incompatible belief systems. (Indeed, though the Passion of the Christ was well-received by many American Christians several years ago, I have yet to hear any Christians express anything but disappointment and dismay at Mel Gibson’s subsequent anti-Semitic and racist rants.)

My husband and I do our best to instill in our children our Christian faith. An important part of that is to teach them about Jesus’s command to love our neighbors, as well as his expansive understanding of the concept of a “neighbor.” We encourage our children to be friends with people of different backgrounds, and to love them regardless of their religious or political beliefs. We explain to our children that that is what God wants us to do because he loves everyone in the whole world very, very much.

Recently, as we have been teaching our children about our duty to love all our neighbors, we’ve been trying to raise their awareness of racism and other forms of bigotry. Our family is biracial, and we have had friends of many backgrounds, so this is an odd concept to our children. They understand moral judgments based on behavior. Like any of us, they instinctively tend to get on their moral high horse when someone else does something naughty (e.g., so-and-so told a lie but I would never do that, that person was a bully so he is bad). But to our kids, it is not intuitive that people would prejudge others simply based on their race, ethnicity or religion. To help illustrate the existence and dangers of such bigotry, we’ve talked at sort of a high level about slavery and the Holocaust. Obviously, we haven’t gotten into all the horrifying details; our kids are too young. But they are starting to understand the grave consequences of bigotry and why we need to guard against it in our own hearts and minds.

To that end, our family recently watched a made-for-TV film from the 1980s. Miracle at Moreaux has a rather simple plot and was a low budget film. Loretta Swit played the lead, but I had not heard of the other actors. The setting is occupied France in the early 1940s. The story revolves around a nun running a small Catholic boarding school in the countryside, and three Jewish children fleeing for their lives from Germany. The nun becomes aware of the Jewish children’s plight and makes a split-second decision to hide them at her boarding school from the local Nazi patrol. The decision is terrifying because the Nazis are searching for these three Jewish children, and remind the nun that harboring Jews is a capital offense. The nun risks her own life, as well as that of the Catholic children in her care, to try to protect the three Jewish children. In the film, she is often shown on her knees praying to God. The situation is anguishing, but she sees no other moral solution but to violate the law to try to protect the three Jewish children.

The Catholic children at the school have been raised in a religious environment and their faith is omnipresent. Most of the children are very conscious of their Christian obligation to love their neighbor, and immediately try to make the three Jewish children feel comfortable by bringing them extra blankets and making sure they are comfortable in their room. One older Catholic child initially spews ugly falsities about Jewish people that her parents had taught her. But even that child eventually comes around after she gets to know the three Jewish children personally and she hears about their horrific experiences in being separated from their parents. The nun and the Catholic children eventually hatch a risky plan to help the three Jewish children escape to Spain.

There was a pivotal scene where a Nazi officer interrupts the school’s rehearsal of its Christmas pageant to interrogate the youngest of the Catholic children. The Nazi coaxes the young, impressionable child, “Do you know where the Jews are?” The child nods earnestly, and the nun looks horror-stricken. The little boy then points to two of his Catholic classmates and himself, “He is a Jew and she is a Jew and I am a Jew.” The nun smiles in relief and explains to the Nazi that the little boy has just identified the children playing Joseph, Mary and Jesus in the Christmas pageant. She points out to the Nazi officer that the Holy Family was Jewish, but he is not receptive to this fact.

The story was a little scary, but very compelling to my kids. The story line was perhaps far-fetched, but it was challenging nonetheless. We are each obliged to help our brothers and sisters in need. When the Good Samaritan stopped to help the man who had been robbed and left for dead, the Good Samaritan was not just being a nice guy doing a little easy charity work. As I understand, he was risking his own life and limb. There was a very real possibility that the same fate could befall him. The road was full of robbers and other outlaws. Moreover, a guest pastor to our church recently taught on the parable of the Good Samaritan and explained that there was another very real danger. The Good Samaritan was traveling in a land where his people were reviled. He risked his own safety by even showing up at a Jewish inn with a Jewish man who had been beaten savagely. In that cultural context, it was not clear the Good Samaritan would be welcomed or even tolerated.

Each of us likes to think we would be a Good Samaritan, but we all fall short of that even when the risks to us are not that great. I am unsure if I would have the courage to make the same choice as the nun in Miracle at Moreaux. I certainly hope I would. But it is always easier to make bold moral proclamations from a position of relative safety and security.

John 13:37-38 (New King James Version)

Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for Your sake.”
Jesus answered him, “Will you lay down your life for My sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times.”

The Footprints of God—Paul: Contending for the Faith (2004)

I think the Apostle Paul is fascinating, so I recently rented this documentary about his life. It is part of a multi-volume series, “The Footprints of God,” but this is the only one I have ever watched. It was produced by a Catholic film company.

To be quite honest, my husband couldn’t get beyond the cheesy film techniques. The narrator was an American who dressed a bit like the Crocodile Hunter. His analogies and theatrics were at times a little over the top. My husband kept laughing and shaking his head.

I agreed the documentary’s style had a high cheese factor, but I was able to overlook these cinematic foibles. I thought the film did a great job of telling St. Paul’s story in greater detail than a lay person can glean from just reading the Bible. The documentary wove together coherently many different parts of the New Testament, as well as the research insights of historians, anthropologists and archeologists.

I would characterize the film as being like an episode of Rick Steves’ show if he became a televangelist with a Catholic bent. The narrator told the story of St. Paul’s life while traveling to the various places the apostle lived. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to visit the places where the people described in the Bible lived, so it was fascinating to at least see what those varied places look like via film.

There were several aspects of the film’s telling of Paul’s life that struck me in particular. I have always been amazed at the conversion story of Paul. A devout, zealous Jew goes from persecuting Christians to becoming the most celebrated Christian evangelist and missionary of all time. What a dramatic 180! The film talks about Paul’s prior confidence in the righteousness of his own observance of the Mosaic laws and persecution of the Christians. Then he has a miraculous encounter with the post-Easter Jesus, who asks “Why are you persecuting me?” The narrator emphasizes that Jesus did not ask why Paul was persecuting the church or his people, but “me.” The film talks about how that encounter laid the foundation for much of Paul’s later theology.

Subsequent to the encounter, Paul is humbled; he is physically blinded and led to Damascus like a child. The Bible tells us that the miraculous encounter on the road to Damascus convinced Paul that some of his most strongly held beliefs had been incorrect. What tremendous humility Paul must have had to accept that. It is probably human nature to be very confident in our own beliefs and think others are wrong. I’m not sure all of us would have had Paul’s humility to admit he had not been as correct as he thought. What a great example for the rest of us.

The film also describes Paul’s later presentation to the leadership of the early Christians, and how he spent a number of days alone with Peter, who gave him instruction in the faith. How remarkable that Peter, who had much to fear and mistrust from Paul, was able to see that God was going to use Paul to spread his message of unconditional love. And it was striking that Paul, the learned scholar, would humble himself to take instruction from Peter, an uneducated fisherman. How amazing that God can use each of us, regardless of our backgrounds, to do great things. I admire Peter’s courage. And again, I admire Paul’s humility.

It was also amazing to me that Paul was almost constantly in trouble with the authorities. He was often jailed, or he was fleeing those who wanted to arrest him. I guess I had not previously thought of St. Paul as an outlaw. But indeed that is exactly the point that the film made. The film demonstrates quite dramatically the daring escapes Paul made to avoid capture by the authorities, and it describes how he was often fleeing just one step ahead of the law. It is interesting to me that Paul did not just turn himself in to authorities when they were looking for him. On at least one occasion, God did perform a miracle to get him out of jail. And Paul trusted God fully, constantly putting himself in harm’s way to do what he understood to be God’s will. Paul survived all kinds of things that ought to have ended his life, e.g., shipwrecks, a snake bite, a stoning. As a result, Paul did not have reason to fear the authorities. But perhaps Paul did not equate compliance with misguided human laws or fallible human authorities with compliance with God’s will.

Acts 16:25-26 (King James)

But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.

Letters from the Other Side (2006)

In all the highly-charged posturing and debate in the United States recently with respect to illegal immigration, it saddens me that the rhetoric often overlooks the human side of these issues. Like many issues in our public life these days, the issues often get oversimplified. Often the discussions I have heard seem to degenerate to pro-immigrant v. anti-immigrant stances. Oversimplification is a problem we have with respect to a number of issues; illegal immigration is one example.

I serendipitously came across a documentary on PBS recently, Letters from the Other Side. The link below provides some information about the film:

http://www.pbs.org/aboutpbs/news/20060828_HispanicHeritage.html

I thought the documentary did a good job at providing Americans with some insight into the experience of Mexican families with relatives who come to the United States. The documentary chronicled the experiences of several Mexican women in small towns in Mexico, who have had male family members leave to cross the border illegally and work in the United States. The women explain in some detail the economic challenges of simply providing food for their families. There are no jobs and their entrepreneurial efforts yield discouraging results. Some of the women in the film cite NAFTA as the prime culprit; they indicate that local Mexican markets are now flooded with cheap goods from the United States and the local Mexican producers cannot compete. They explain that in desperation over the dire economic situation, the husbands and sons of these families have left for the United States to help support their families.

The women describe the resulting heartache of the separation of their families. Because of the life-threatening dangers (and high economic costs) associated with crossing the border illegally, the men rarely come home once they have arrived in the United States. To do so would be to risk their lives. Consequently, fathers are seldom home for holidays or major family milestones. The documentary shows the impact on children who grow up yearning for--but never knowing--their fathers.

Moreover, men who go north sometimes start families there. One woman in the documentary looks longingly at a video of her American-born granddaughter whom she may never meet. The woman cannot travel to the U.S., and it is too risky for the little girl’s father to cross the border to bring her to visit her family in Mexico. The documentary shows the separation causes irreparable harm and leads to the disintegration of the family unit.

The documentary emphasizes the acute physical dangers of crossing the border illegally. One man, who has done it successfully, describes in the film the dangers of crossing the barren desert, and how he has seen men traveling with him die. He describes how those experiences have impacted him deeply. Two of the women in the documentary are the widows of men who died horrific deaths at the hands of human traffickers as they tried to make their way through Texas without interception by the authorities.

Through out the interviews, the documentary also provides insightful statistics. They note a stark increase in the number of people who have crossed the border illegally in the last decade, and the rise in remittances as a percentage of GDP. Remittances from relatives in the United States are now the second largest revenue source in Mexico, just after petroleum. Remittances now account for more revenue than derived from tourism. The statistics also describe a build up of manpower along the United States side of the border during this same time—particularly since 9/11. There are also grim statistics about the frequency that people crossing the border illegally die in the process.

I am the first to admit I don’t know the root causes of Mexico’s current troubles. Poverty has been a problem in Mexico for decades, but it seems like the economy is worse than it has been in the past. I don’t know if NAFTA is the cause or not.

Beyond the economic issues, security is also a serious problem. Warring drug lords have killed thousands of Mexicans in recent years and parts of Mexico are under military control. Many of us Americans, who have in the past loved visiting Mexico, no longer feel it is safe to go there. In the 1990s, my husband and I enjoyed visiting vibrant, cosmopolitan cities like Monterrey and Mexico City. We would love to take our children to see the sites in those cities, but it doesn’t seem safe enough any more.

I also know a lot of people in El Paso, Texas. In the past, folks in that border city enjoyed going to Juarez frequently to shop or to eat in one of the many excellent restaurants. Those activities have largely dried up. Americans aren’t crossing like they used to. The small businesses in Juarez that relied upon those visitors used to support a middle class on the Mexican side of the border metropolis, but many such businesses have failed in recent years. I have read that in El Paso there is now a growing business in renting middle class homes to Juarez professionals who find it is no longer safe to live in their home town. I am not sure why the drug wars have become so much more violent than they used to be. But it seems clear that Americans are at least in part to blame; it is our country’s demand for those drugs that fuels the illegal drug trade in Mexico.

It seems to me that the current bitter American debate about illegal immigration is misplaced to some degree. Surely we can all agree that it is no long-term solution to Mexico’s problems for a large number of the country’s citizenry to emigrate (legally or illegally). The separation of families and the dependence on remittances deeply harms Mexico and its people in social, cultural and economic ways. In my opinion, building an eyesore of a fence and enacting state laws to scapegoat illegal immigrants are not productive ways to deal with the situation. Those are mean-spirited actions that at best put a band-aid on a gaping wound. To find a long-term, effective solution, it seems to me we in the United States must look to Mexico as an equal partner to work together to find ways to build up the economy on both sides of the border.

1 Samuel 26:24(Amplified Bible)

And behold, as your life was precious today in my sight, so let my life be precious in the sight of the Lord, and let Him deliver me out of all tribulation.

Rated R: Republican in Hollywood (2004)

Rated R: Republican in Hollywood is an hour long documentary by Jesse Moss, who honestly admits his ties to the Democratic Party at the beginning of the film. He describes the impetus for the film as the election of Republican Hollywood icon, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as the governor of California. Moss viewed the timing as ideal to explore issues including whether the liberal reputation of the entertainment industry is deserved, and whether Schwarzenegger is an anomaly (or whether there are other conservatives in Tinsel Town).

To explore these issues, Moss interviews a number of Hollywood conservatives including Drew Carey, John Milius, Lionel Chetwynd, Vincent Gallo, Michael Medved, Pat Sajak, Ben Stein, Sam Haskell and Patricia Heaton. (I have to admit I had not heard of most of these folks before watching the film.) Rated R: Republican in Hollywood seems to do a fairly good job of sensitizing viewers to the apparent difficulties of “conservatives” in the entertainment industry including ideological bigotry that limits career opportunities, as well as the hypocrisy of “liberals” who shun those with opposing political views. However, the film brushes over specific ideology and lumps a seemingly diverse group together as if they were ideologically homogenous.

The interviews rarely give hints as to why the various interviewees are Republicans such that they should be included in the documentary. It is not clear what these individuals actually believe that makes them “conservatives.” Indeed, it is noted that Schwarzenegger himself is not considered to be a true conservative by many due to his stance on hot button issues such as abortion rights. In his interview for the film, Drew Carey indicates he actually considers himself to be more of a libertarian.

For purposes of this blog, I had hoped that the film might explore the motivation of Christian Republicans in embracing the GOP. In that respect, I was disappointed.

Although I disagree with her on many political issues, Patricia Heaton is rather a fascinating person to me, and I was initially excited to see that she was featured in the film. Heaton is probably best known for her Emmy winning role in Everybody Loves Raymond. She has also been outspoken about her Christian faith. She produced the film Amazing Grace, a biopic of William Wilberforce, the English MP whose embrace of Christianity inspired his long fight to end the slave trade. Heaton is a consistent life ethicist, which means she has take “pro-life” positions against embryonic stem cell research, abortion rights, euthanasia and capital punishment. I have read that she apparently supports gay rights to some degree, and is affiliated with Feminists for Life. Nonetheless, her interview in Rated R: Republican in Hollywood glosses over her faith and her reason for affiliating with the GOP. The interview makes it apparent that she was an enthusiastic supporter of George W. Bush, but it is not clear why.

Even more disappointing, the film spotlights Act One, which is described as a Christian screenwriting group founded by a former nun. Moss never explores why this particular group should be included in a film about Republicans. Per their own interviews, the other people featured in the documentary seemed to be well-aligned with the GOP or at least with conservative causes and candidates. But the political affiliations of these Hollywood Christians was just assumed and not actually explored. I was left wondering if all of the Act One Christians were actually Republicans. To me, that would seem an amazing coincidence. As a Christ follower, who has not aligned herself with the GOP, I certainly did not appreciate the film’s apparent assumption that the Hollywood Christians were all Republican. This just perpetrates the seemingly well-entrenched myth that all Christians are political conservatives. In turn, this implicitly feeds the misimpression of many that Christianity endorses militarism and economic Darwinism.

I assume that Moss chose to gloss over ideology due to time constraints with his film. Unfortunately, that decision helps to crystallize Christian stereotypes that have been especially prevalent during and since the presidency of George W. Bush.

Ephesians 4:1-3

“I...urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, accepting one another in love, diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit with the peace that binds [us].”

Religulous (2008)

Being aware of the basic premise of Religulous, I honestly cannot say I looked forward to watching it. But I appreciate that Bill Maher is an intelligent person and he feels a lot of hostility towards religion for a variety of reasons. I try to have an open mind, and force myself to listen to perspectives that are different from my own. I encourage my law students to do the same thing because it is often possible to find common ground that was not previously apparent. (And pragmatically, when common ground is not to be found, listening to different perspectives also helps you understand the position of others so that you can more effectively refine your own rhetoric.) With that attitude, I was hopeful that Religulous might have some beneficial insight for me on the role of religion in a secular society. I’m not sure I gained a lot of insight. Instead, in the end, I was just deeply disappointed in Maher.

Any person of faith who has had the awkward experience of having to defend his or her beliefs to a belittling skeptic with a gift for oratory would likely feel a flood of unpleasant flashbacks while watching this film. It can be painful enough to attempt in vain to put into words spiritual concepts that are frankly difficult to verbalize. But the task is even more uncomfortable when the belittling skeptic has prepped ahead of time with witty one liners, and the person of faith is essentially the victim of a barrage of hostility. That is essentially what happens through out this film.

At the beginning of Religulous, Maher declares he just doesn’t understand how otherwise intelligent people can believe in God and religion, and he wants the film to be an exploration of that mystery. However, the exploration starts out with Maher and his team heading for a humble North Carolina chapel for truckers to interrogate the men who are gathered for a modest worship service. Some of the men become frustrated and insulted when Maher’s bent becomes apparent and it does not appear to jive with what they had been told prior to the filming. As a result, the film often has a Borat vibe to it. Moreover, starting off with truckers in North Carolina seems to set an unfortunate, though accurate tone for the rest of the film.

Through out Religulous, Maher does not attempt to speak with theologians or philosophers who could eloquently answer his difficult questions because of their years of study. Instead, he picks on average Joes, whom he must know will not have sophisticated answers to his zingers. It is a little like if Venus Williams for some reason challenged me to a tennis match. I’m thinking Ms. Williams would never do such a thing even if she knew who the heck I was. I would be so outmatched if I had to play against her, she would look like a bully for even agreeing to step onto the court against me. Though she could definitely beat me in straight sets (and likely in record time), it would frankly be a waste of her time and energy to play with me. She would simply be humiliating me for no apparent reason.

There were numerous other examples of Maher picking on average Joes in Religulous. There was an “ex-Jew for Jesus” who earnestly tries to tell Maher about the “miracles” that led him to his embrace of Christianity; Maher cruelly rejects his experiences as unremarkable coincidences. There was a Jesus-portraying theme park actor who patiently listened to Maher’s belligerent questions and tried to answer them until Maher finally stumped him with references to obscure Mediterranean mystics who lived prior to Jesus Christ. These types of scenes leave the viewer with the inescapable sense Maher is not really exploring the mystery of faith; he is just trying to make those with faith look silly. In turn, this approach makes Maher look like a big ole bully with a giant chip on his shoulder, which is just not becoming or even persuasive. I can’t imagine it swayed any agnostics who were sitting on the fence. And poll after poll has demonstrated that most Americans believe in a higher power of some sort. So was Maher going after that small demographic of angry American atheists? Maybe I’m wrong, but that would not seem like a wise marketing ploy.

I’m not sure why Maher permitted this ugly, bullying tone in his film. For the most part, I do respect Maher. I disagree with him a lot, but he generally seems to be a sharp guy, he seems pretty well read, and he often has good insights on politics. And I admire his bravery to speak his mind despite all the flack he gets for it. I very much respect anyone willing to stand up and voice unpopular opinions publicly—whether or not I even agree with those opinions. That is not easy; it takes a lot of courage. And I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. For example, I am not inclined to think Maher is a bad guy who wants to hurt people. Indeed, he seemed quite familiar with the Bible and he seemed to admire Jesus a lot, though he was deeply cynical of Christian leaders whom he believes have corrupted Jesus’ teachings. However, because he seems to admire Jesus, I just cannot fathom why he would make a movie out of belittling people and insulting what they hold most dear.

When he was purporting to explore each religion, he certainly did not highlight a representational cross-section or the most shining examples of each faith. He focused on the low hanging fruit—those who were easiest to ridicule (or religicule?) such as wealthy Christian pastors preaching a “prosperity Gospel,” a man claiming to be the incarnation/descendant of Jesus Christ, an anti-Zionist rabbi, and gay Muslim barkeepers. Where were the missionary families who gave up their worldly goods to live in remote, impoverish parts of the world to minister to brothers and sisters whom the rest of the world has forgotten? Where were the Christians who rescue women from brothels and care for children in orphanages? Where were the Christians engaged in human rights activism? Where were the Christians working in American inner cities to give kids an alternative to gangs and the drug trade? Maher didn’t talk to any of them. Instead, the end of the film includes an over-the-top apocalyptic vision of mankind killing itself and the planet due to religion.

I’ve been concerned for quite a while about the degradation of public discourse in our society. Jefferson envisioned a well-educated, enlightened electorate. But the most cited representatives of right wing thought these days are demagogues who play on people’s base frustrations to incite their anger and their embrace of cynical anti-government political positions. Government needs to get out of our way; government is the problem, not the solution! (Isn’t that really just advocating anarchy?) By contrast, the most cited representatives of left wing thought are comedians who encourage viewers to mock politicians at the slightest foible. After all, they are all corrupt and greedy. (In such case, why vote?) Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michael Moore, Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher are entertainers, but people seem to disregard that fact and quote them as if they are deep political thinkers. In their line of work, they are successful if they get viewers or readers riled up or make them guffaw. Their success is not measured by the quality of their political analyses. I think Jon Stewart is a very funny guy, but that doesn’t mean I’m pleased that the Daily Show on Comedy Central is the main source of news for a large segment of young adults.

1 Peter 3:8-9 (Contemporary English Version)

“Finally, all of you should agree and have concern and love for each other. You should also be kind and humble. Don't be hateful and insult people just because they are hateful and insult you. Instead, treat everyone with kindness. You are God's chosen ones, and he will bless you.”