I don’t know why I watch Christian end-times movies. I know what they will be. They will be
Dispensational Pre-millennialism is different. In that scheme, Jesus returns in a secret
rapture either at the beginning of the Tribulation or in the middle of it,
takes away his believers, and leaves the rest for the remaining part of the
seven year Tribulation. Then He returns
again and starts the millennial reign on the earth.
This view is not at all historic. No Christian ever has believed it until the
1800s. Beyond that, it is simply not
biblical. And I don’t have time here to
explain why, though I do recommend Kim Riddlebarger’s extended lectures on this topic. I’ve listened to all of them, but
if you get through the first few of them, you’ll get the gist of what is being
said. Scroll halfway down the page and
you’ll see them on the right.
But that makes for interesting movies, because Jesus coming
back and things end is actually the very definition of a Deus ex Machina, which is something you’re not supposed to do when
telling a story. But if part of the
world disappears, leaving the rest in a terrible Tribulation with all sort of
problems and craziness, then that’s more interesting.
This movie is a little odd in that it is really just the
first volume in a three-hour movie that they split into two. I haven’t seen the second part yet. I’m reviewing this movie only half-watched.
Well, if they wanted to prevent that, they probably
shouldn’t have split it. I will,
however, review part two once I see it.
As a story, it’s actually pretty good. A traveling salesman, an unbeliever with a
mysterious past, comes into the worst
town ever. He is literally robbed
three times in a single day – twice at knifepoint and once at gunpoint. He also encounters the most annoying
Christian ever, a shopkeeper who promises to buy from the salesman as long as
the salesman answers religious questions properly.
Well, during one of the robberies, the salesman unleashes
his past and whoops up on a bunch of bikers.
This is the past he’s been trying so hard to change, but now he’s
realizing that he hasn’t changed at all!
He’s not mild salesman; he’s guilt-ridden ninja man!
Of course, the biker gang wants revenge, so starts snooping
around to track this guy as well as the shopkeeper who was witness to the
unleashing of the Jack Bauer-ness.
We’re already like an hour into the movie, and no rapture
yet.
So I don’t have a lot of the endtimes stuff to critique
here. I will talk about that a little at
the end.
But first, let’s deal with something else.
Goofy Evangelism
“I’ll buy your product if you answer these three questions
and I like your answers,” says the shopkeeper.
Those questions are:
-First, are you a family man?
-Do you believe in God?
-What are you trusting to protect your family, God, or
something else?
There is so much bad here that it’s hard for me to know
where to start. So let’s start here – is
there anything distinctly Christian about these questions? I mean a devout Muslim would actually answer
better than a nominal Christian, but the Muslim has no hope in this life or the
next, while the weak Christian that does have faith, however small, does.
Now, I will assume the shopkeeper would use these questions
to launch into a Gospel presentation that was interrupted in the story. He does, later, though it is not one of
repentance and faith, but more of the “Jesus is your bridge to get you across
the chasm to God” type, which is not at all the way the writers of the Bible
expressed it. We are dead in our
trespasses and sins, deserving of death and damnation! It’s not that we work really hard and we just
need a bridge to get across the last pass.
It’s that we need life to even cry out for help!
That aside, this is also no way to run a business. If I bought products from everyone who
answered questions about God right, I would have a lot of unnecessary stuff. I would also not have stuff that I really need.
We are called to be good stewards of what we have, and that includes a
business. We have been put in a
particular place to serve our family by making money and serve our neighbor in
the products and services we offer. We are
not being good stewards by forcing people to pray the sinner’s prayer with the
promise of monetary reward to follow, which is exactly what is happening here.
We cannot buy peoples’ souls. We shouldn’t try.
It also makes us look stupid. Because we are. But it also makes the faith look stupid,
which it is not. That’s the real shame
here. The “Christian” character in this
movie looks like a goofball. He gets
better as the story goes on, but this sort of strange evangelism makes the
faith once for all delivered to the saints look like a cheesy self-help program
or something.
The Actual
Eschatology
**spoiler warning**
So we have an extended rapture scene, which is odd. Most Dispensationalists will say that the
rapture will come all at once, right away.
This one starts with an electrical storm that lasts hours, and then people
glowing white for some time, and then they disappear, leaving behind a pile of
ash. Very odd.
By the way, the movie did make me want to re-listen to a
really great U2 song called “Electrical Storm.”
Well, since a pre-tribulation rapture is unbiblical anyway,
I will criticize it for having one at all, and not because it’s version differs
from the one in Left Behind. It seems silly to say that this unbiblical
depiction is more accurate to an unbiblical system than another unbiblical
depiction.
Then, what is really odd is that Jesus immediately calls to
one of the unbelievers audibly and protects her from the bad guys. Some stuff in this movie suggests that the
writers are Arminian, so how they justify having this one character chosen by
Jesus directly, I don’t know.
Jesus does appear then and hides her from the bikers, making
it so they can’t see them. But the lead
biker knows something is amiss, and he stands near Jesus and the girl, saying
that he can “feel” her.
So this biker is so spiritually powerful that he comes this close to breaking through Jesus’
power to hide the girl. Really?
Jesus so far just seems like a guy who is slightly more
gifted than the bad guy, and he’s trying really hard to make things work out. But that’s not the Jesus of the Bible, is
it? The one who comes on a horse to
destroy His enemies, a sword coming from His mouth?
Conclusion
The film was actually pretty good except for the “Christian”
parts, which is a real problem. I wish
it had been kept as a secular story about this guy kicking butt against the
bikers instead of the lame attempt to make an end-times tale out of it. But we’ll see where things go from there!
