QUESTION: Will the Church’s Answer to NOAH Continue to be More Cheap and Shoddy Films with Bad Actors?

The movie Noah has ironically spawned a flood of hullabaloo, eh? Personally, heretofore, I haven’t seen the flick, but I plan on watching it this afternoon.

Yes, I said it. I’m going to check it out even though I’ve been warned by the brethren not to because it isn’t “biblical”. I guess I’ll have to wear a disguise so my more persnickety readers won’t recognize me. I think I’ll go as Carrot Top. That’ll toss them off my scent trail.

Now, when the anti-biblical criticisms began to fly against this pic in its ramp-up for release, I was like, “You … you … you mean a film about a biblical narrative that Hollywood has churned out sports an inaccurate exegesis?” Well, slap my mama. Here’s my shocked face.

I guess the next thing you’re going to tell me is that the X-Men never really happened either. Ruin my life now, why don’t you?

Look, folks, I expect nada that Tinseltown turns out to be true to the Verbum Dei. I was surprised they even kept Noah’s given name and didn’t rechristen him Tanya the Cross-dresser.

All cheekiness aside, I do appreciate the many cultural watchdogs looking out for us. That said, what are we, the church, doing about it? Are we content just to sit back and blather about how much the movie Noah is all wet?

If Christians are going to rail against Hollywood, I suggest getting into the fray and besting ‘em at their own game; or don’t bitch when they put out gay cowboy movies or when they morph Moses into some ganja smoking Rastafarian or something.

Is the church’s answer to LA’s lunacy the Left Behind movies? Or the ubiquitous and underfunded Jesus flicks that always have him looking like an angst-addled Jared Leto? Nothing like trying to beat something with nothing, Church.

Which leads me to dig the knife further and ask the church the tough question of why haven’t we championed serious involvement in the arts by our congregants, versus just hissing from the lattices of our stained glass windows? I have actually heard pastors condemn those who wanted to pursue a career in Hollywood and yet, I can’t think of a more needy place for serious and excellent Christian involvement than the arts.

At this moment in American history, I’m hard pressed to find a focal point more in need of our missionary budget than the entertainment industry because, as the culture goes, so goes the nation; and after seeing pics from Miley’s Bangerz concert in Atlanta, I think we’re doomed.

America is ripe for intelligent and creative Christian artists to effectively infiltrate it. Given the huge influence pop culture has on all of us, the internal rot our nation is undergoing in its character, virtue and faith and the dicey 21st century environment we have thanks to our external and internal enemies, we must try to influence the realm that has the maximum impact on this nation.

The call to impact the entertainment industry is just as legit as the call to go to the mission field or to be a pastor, and any minister who tells you artists any different is straight up goofy.

Look, Church, impacting our nation doesn’t just entail passing out gospel tracts, throwing up a pre-fab metal building, buying 16 tambourines, preaching outdated, boring sermons to a self-marginalized people group while picketing and protesting things we hate. There is greatness to Christ’s great commission that takes the Christian, motivated by love, out of the four walls of our churches to the institutions and industries that influence our nation – and the entertainment industry figures in big time to that call.

Historically, Christianity had a huge impact on Western society. Not just in a ministerial sense through the Church or politically through our government, but artistically upon our culture. Believe it or not, the Church communicated a Christian worldview; it mainstreamed character, faith and virtue, and not just through preaching or through legislation but via the artist’s brush, the writer’s pen, and the poet’s verse.

So, my Christian reader: picket, protest and boycott whatever and whomever in Hollywood you think needs an economical smoke signal alerting them to the fact that you think they suck. However, at the same time, get on the offense. Sharpen your skills, you artists. Put down your E-cigarette and your frappachino. Get off your butt, quit playing with and preaching to the converted, and go get dirty in the real world where there is a real impact to be made and true rewards to be had.

And with that, I’ll climb down off my soapbox.

Now, here are the three real reasons I’m going to watch Noah.

1. I like Russell Crowe. I think he’s a damn good, or a blessed, actor.

2. I like massive, epic flicks where nature convulses, lightening strikes and bad people die. That’s why I’m such a die-hard Brady Bunch fan.

3. Lastly, and most importantly, as a hunter I have to go see it. Why you ask? Well, it’s at this stage of the biblical game that God gathered all those critters on the ark, not just to save them for an elaborate menagerie, but for the express purpose for them to be hunted, killed and eaten on this newly washed and baptized terra firma. Yum. Yum.

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.’ – Genesis 9:1-3

Oh, BTW. If you wanna see something biblical watch House of Cards. That’ll scare you straight.

And if you’d like to see a great pic on dating from a biblical perspective check out, Think Like a Man.