Lord, Save Us from Your Crappy Propaganda

All the Christian lunacy lately has left me craving logic and reason. In an attempted knowledge bin, I downloaded all the good-looking documentaries I could find off of Netflix. I got topics covering everything from Carl Sagan's Cosmos, to The Hero's Journey, to Lewis and Clark to the Atheism Tapes and Trembling Before G-D to Gay Sex in the 70's. I haven't gotten through them all, but what I have watched so far has been pretty fascinating and refreshing (namely, Gay Sex in the 70's).

One of the documentaries that I got and put in my "atheism" pile was "Lord, Save me From Your Followers!", which looked like a cheesy, sarcastic and biting documentary about how religious people are douchebags. I was completely wrong. It was a Christian documentary for Christians by Christians.

It had a good 1-minute start, some anti-Christian quotes, and some Christians saying nasty and dumb things. However, my first indication that something was off was the cheesy intro. It had those cheap but "edgy" graphics that old people use when they're trying to look hip, cool and happening to the kids. Words were surrounded by a black rectangular jagged shadow, and the words were aligned at slightly off angles, because that is all edgy. Here's their logo, which perfectly captures the style.



I know that's one thing to focus on, but it was really a symptom of the style of the movie: an attempt to be relevant when it really isn't. I was disappointed with the weird pseudo-hip production quality, but I initially chalked it up to just a poor editor in some indie flick and kept watching.

My first real red flag started when the narrator started talking about how Christians aren't very "Christian", which as you might have noticed, is my pet peeve. Not too long ago, I shredded that little plea in my another. It's very strange to glorify Christianity as a positive thing to aspire towards, it's not an ethical or wise system. The final flag was when the movie portrayed gay rights advocates as intolerant, about 8 minutes or so in. And from then on the movie was a rollercoaster ride of ignorance, bigotry and hate packaged as some kind of positive, loving moral Christian sermon. I was just awestruck at how every turn their evil message was embraced and promoted and excused. I watched that whole thing, and while I knew that I needed to pause and start over to document it, I couldn't look away. So I planned to watch it again, and document each segment.

The narrator starts by giving his background and introduces us to his silly suit - a collection of bumper stickers and Jesus/Atheist fish glued on at random spots onto a white jumpsuit. It looked ridiculous in that same pseudo-hip fashion, like a guy trying too hard to be silly in a youth-orientated way, but is really just demeaning towards the intelligence of his youth organization. Turns out he mentions he's a Christian right off the bat at this point, but I must have missed it in my first viewing.

The nagging begins with various people guilting the audience into not being Christian enough. Bill Maher chastising Christians for not being Christian enough, the one token professor (to give the appearance of intelligence) telling people to look at The Sermon on the Mount and the Red Letters of Jesus. I've already mentioned I've torn apart why it's fantastic that people are not more Christian or Christ-like. He was a nutbag crazypants. And Matt has does a great destruction of the sermon on the mount speech. They transition to talking about how Christianity needs a facelift so that it doesn't look as scary or as hateful. This it turns out, is the core message of the movie. Christianity needs better PR so that it looks loving, while keeping all of the same hate and bigotry.

After taking to people in the streets and getting mixed message about what people think about Christians (equal parts holy, good, loving with fanatical and war-like), he gives the answer - stop framing the question as an antagonistic matter of right and wrong, just come together and don't let it bother you. Now, of course Christians don't want to address these problems and questions in a view of right and wrong, because they will always lose. They are the ones who are wrong. About pretty much everything. So when things are framed in a question of what is true and correct and what is morally superior, they will always lose. Of course they are trying to change the frame. Interestingly, they show an interview with Ann Coulter where she's absolutely right. She believes Jesus would endorse a book that "belittles an entire segment of the American population", and points to the encounter he had moneychangers as an example. The hatred of Ann Coulter is biblically sound, and the makers of this "documentary" have no way to counter that. So of course, they don't. Her hate speech is just glossed over. They never say why this story isn't a Biblically valid example of how to behave. They just give sort of platitude about atheists needing to scapegoat, and give a flashy cut to the next point…

That Christians are no longer able to insulate their youths against arguments and logic outside of the Christian sphere. They can get information from other sources, and this is viewed as a horrible tragedy to them, because of course Christianity crumbles when you give it enough logic and facts and reasoning. It cannot be defended against the onslaught of information. In fact, Christians are realizing this more and more, as you can see in a recent article by Russell at the Atheist Experience blog. Pathetically, the weapon the documentary wields against this anti-indoctrination of teens is a Christian rock band, Battlecry. In addition to the standard songs and sermons, the band also sponsored an anti-gay rally on the steps of the San Francisco capital, which went down about as well as you'd imagine.

The movie rips into the counter-protestors, showing them as blaring bigots, sarcastically calling them "tolerant". In an interview with a Battlecry singer, he admits surprise that he had caused anyone offense, "We had stuck our finger in a hotbed, and we didn't know it." The Christians maintain that they were just innocently holding a rally to praise Jesus, nothing else, and that these rag-tag fags came out to protest that. I absolutely love that they give the standard line, "Oh, we love homosexuals, we just don't like what they do." They came to the gay capital of the world to denounce the evils of being gay, and didn't see why anyone would have a problem with that? How incredibly self-absorbed. It's ridiculous to expect to be able to call someone's love evil, and then be surprised when they disagree.

It's just so clear that it's the same bigotry, the same hate, just repackaged in a more slippery format. After that, they interview a cross-dressing nun, who feels bad that his counter-protest was "yelling at kids". It seems like what they left out or de-emphasized from the interview, was that Sister Mary Timothy means that these kids have been indoctrinated by their parents and by the same church this movie promotes, and that's what needs to really be fought, but these cowards are putting their kids in front of them as some sort of human shield. The movie then goes into this tirade belittling the counter-protestors for being angry and mean, and "sympathizes" that they must have been poorly treated by some Christian in the past, completely overlooking what they are doing right then and right there. They are the ones marginalizing gays, calling them sinful and evil, and calling them to repent. They are the ones protesting an imaginary moral decline. They are the ones doing these things, saying these bigoted statements and pushing these horrible messages.

All of this was only 8 minutes in. I kept intending to follow through and watch more of the video, but I just kept being unable to bring myself to do it. The ignorance, the hate, the self-blame and loathing, the guilt, and so subtly packaged as to be acceptable, mainstream and "moderate". It's disgusting. I can only imagine how much worse it gets, and if I ever get the stomach for it (or a good watching buddy) I'll post on the rest of the movie.