Ever since the critical and box office success of movies like Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 9/11,” the atheist, left-wing elitists in the mass media have stepped up their attacks on the patriotic, traditional and orthodox values of America and Christianity, say officials of “Movieguide: A Biblical Guide to Movies, Entertainment and Culture for Families.”
Clearly, these people feel threatened by the success of conservative evangelical Christians and other traditionalists in the entertainment industry with such hits like “The Passion of the Christ” and “The Chronicles of Narnia,” not to mention their success in electing George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, maintains Movieguide.
According to the Biblical Guide, not only has there been an increase in the number of explicitly left-wing, anti-American, anti-Christian documentaries in the last two years (such as “The Road to Guantanamo,” “Jesus Camp,” “Jimmy Carter Man from Plains,” and “For the Bible Tells Me So”), but there has also been an increasing number of anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-American mainstream movies such as “The Da Vinci Code,” “Brokeback Mountain,” and the recent box office bombs “In the Valley of Elah” and “Rendition.”
Two upcoming movies will continue these attacks, Robert Redford’s already outdated propaganda movie against the War in Iraq, “Lions for Lambs,” and a new movie, “The Golden Compass,” based on the first book in secular humanist Philip Pullman’s anti-Christian children’s trilogy, “His Dark Materials.”
Redford’s new movie, which we have seen already, contains a slew of shallow arguments against the Republican Party, the War in Iraq, the Vietnam War, and the United States military, spiced with a vague secular humanist call to political action, presumably against those “evil” conservatives in the Republican Party and their supporters, the so-called religious right.
Pullman’s books not only mock and belittle God, they also attack the Christian Church (labeled “the Church” and “the Magisterium” in the books). In the trilogy, Pullman rejects the orthodox view of God and presents a nebulous, personal and demonic-sounding spirituality with no philosophical roots or ultimate meaning.
Pullman’s world is a sad, animalistic universe. Since this is the only world there is, the trilogy ends in hopelessness. Love is not selfless giving, because that would be useless in a materialistic world. Love instead is the lust of pleasuring each other.
In Pullman’s world, there’s no hope of eternal life where the lame and the blind and the deaf and dumb can walk and see and hear and talk, where the old are made youthful, there’s no heavenly banquet, there’s no loving God, there’s no order, and there’s no peace.
The logical consequences of Pullman’s atheism can be found in the lives of the leading atheists of the 20th Century – Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot – men who killed millions of their own people and had no respect for justice or love. Ultimately, it is a road that only leads to meaninglessness, murder and social chaos.
Reportedly, the new movie based on Pullman’s book has toned down some of Pullman’s virulent attacks on the Christian religion. Whether or not that is true, however, we do urge people of faith and values not to bother to corrupt their children with this odious atheistic worldview.
Of course, there are other attacks to come next year, including another movie based on one of “DaVinci Code” author Dan Brown’s scurrilous attacks against orthodox Christian teachings and the Bible and perhaps a movie about the religious right planned by none other than Michael Moore.
Every year, however, we present an Annual Report to the Entertainment Industry, which looks at the content of the Top 250 Movies at the Box office each year. Year in and year out, our statistics show that movies with very strong anti-biblical, anti-Christian, anti-American values don’t do well at the box office.
For instance, movies with very strong anti-biblical, anti-Christian content only averaged $23, $22.6 and $21.4 million at the box office in 2004, 2005, and 2006, respectively.
Movies with anti-patriotic, anti-American content did even worse on the whole, averaging only $26.8, 10 and 19.6 million, respectively – as much as two to six times worse than movies with very strong biblical, Christian, patriotic, and pro-American content.
Thus, movies in 2007 like “In the Valley of Elah,” “Delta Farce,” “Home of the Brave,” and “Rendition” have made only $6.6 million, $8 million, $40,000, and $7.8 million in North America, but movies like “World Trade Center,” “Spider-Man 3,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Forrest Gump,” “Top Gun, “Passion of the Christ,” and “Sergeant York” have made $70 million, $336 million, $302 million, $516 million, $315 million, $393 million, and $317 million when adjusted for inflation!!!
Of course, the antidote to all of these attacks on America and Jesus Christ is to teach your neighbors, and your children and grandchildren, to reject the bad and support the good.
Supporting the Good, the True and the Beautiful is what our upcoming 16th Annual Movieguide® Faith & Values Awards Gala and Report to the Entertainment Industry, set for Feb. 12 in Los Angeles, will be doing. There, we will reward movies like “Amazing Grace,” Spider-Man 3,” and “The Game Plan,” movies that inspire, enrich and celebrate our lives, our country and our faith, and that give glory to God, His Word and His Church.
Note: Dr. Baehr is founder and publisher of Movieguide®: A Biblical Guide to Movies, Entertainment and Culture for Families. Dr. Snyder is editor of Movieguide®.