Disappointed

A few years back, I heard about a group called the Rational Response Squad. These folks spend their time combating Christianity and figuring out ways they can fight against "theism." They see religion as being detrimental to society (specifically the Christian religion), and the group's leader, Brian Sapient, has implied that he is fighting against the forces of God for the betterment of humanity. The group enjoyed a brief stint in the national media by encouraging their followers to video tape themselves "blaspheming" the Holy Spirit and post it on the web. They also gained some exposure when Nightline held a debate regarding the existence of God between them and the people from The Way of the Master.

When I first discovered this group, they were pushing a newly released documentary called The God Who Wasn't There. The title of the film is a play on Francis Schaeffer's long-appreciated work, The God Who Is There. When I first learned of the film, I of course had a desire to see it, because the website promised me that I wanted to see what arguments these atheists had for the non-existence of God. But alas, my local Blockbuster did not carry the movie, and I was definitely not going to cough up the $20.00 and purchase the movie. But then, through the miracle of Blockbuster online, I was finally able to see the movie.

My original thought was that I would take a few notes while I watched the movie, and I would then post some of my thoughts and rebuttals in this blog. Well, I did not take notes, and I am not going to post any thoughts I had on the content of the movie, nor am I going to rebut any arguments with my own. Let me refer you back to the title of this post: "Disappointed." That's exactly what I was after watching this movie. After being promised that I would be astounded, have my faith challenged, and have my belief in God "fixed," I was utterly let down that none of these things even came close to happening. I wanted something to write about, an idea to challenge me to work, read, and study so I could give a response! But alas, it was nothing more than the usual atheist dribble. And even worse, it was extremely poorly put together atheist dribble. Let me share with you a few reasons why I was extremely disappointed by this movie:

1. The movie was less than an hour long. You don't even have enough atheistic arguments to fill an hour?!

2. The maker of this movie had/presumably has no credible knowledge of Christian history, or even secular history for that matter. His ridiculous, unhistorical, undocumented claims about Christian history and tradition were actually embarrassing. I actually felt bad for the guy. (NOTE: if you want some more info about just how bad this was, take a look at this guy's review of the lack of/misinterpretation of historical evidence cited in the move. NOTE AGAIN: the guy who wrote these reviews is NOT a Christian - he just knows bad scholarship and reasoning when he sees it).

3. Atheists seem to have no knowledge of traditional Christian theology or biblical interpretation. If you're going to make claims about scripture, at least do the work to know how and why scripture is interpreted the way it is. If I need to explain to you that the gospel of John is NOT based on Mark, and why the Bible does not endorse the stoning of homosexuals, you need to do some homework.

4. If you're going to cite/interview Christians in your movie, don't cite/interview the fringe, radical, religious activists that only represent 1% of 1% of all people who actually call themselves Christians. It should be obvious that Fred Phelps does not speak for Christianity. This gets back to the "knowing traditional and historical interpretations of scripture" issue. Come on.

But I think what really disappointed me most is that absolutely nothing new was presented by this movie. It contained no arguments or "evidence" that I have not heard a million times before. It was the same old tired line, and I'm sick of the same thing over and over again. If you want to be challenging to Christians, at least come up with some stuff that hasn't been done before, answered, explained, and reasoned out. Come on guys, get creative!

The website that promotes the movie has quotes from the LA and New York Times that say, "Provocative - to put it mildly," and "Explores the many mysteries of the Christian faith as never before," respectively. I'm afraid there was absolutely nothing "provocative," and nothing that explored the many mysteries of the Christian faith as never before to be found in the movie. Like I said earlier, everything about the movie has indeed been done before - and done much better.

All of this leads me to this closing statement: atheists, if you can't come up with something better than this, don't even bother. I am absolutely ready, willing, and able to have an intelligent dialogue about Christianity, history, tradition, etc., but let's do it intelligently, with a genuine pursuit of the truth. This movie was anything but.