Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Movie Churches Goes to Court!

November Movie Churches
By definition, an introductory post should be posted before other posts, but sadly, we posted about The Case for Christ even before introducing the month’s theme --  so sue me. That would be appropriate, because this November we’ll be watching movies that feature both churches and the legal system. We’ve had this kind of movies before, but they’ve come up in different categories.


During Science and the Church month, we watched Inherit the Wind (1960), a fictionalized look at the the “Monkey Trial” (The State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes). There are Christians on both sides of the evolution debate, so it shouldn’t be surprising that this topic continues to be argued in churches, or that it continues to come up in court cases.


During Women in Ministry Month, we examined one of my favorite presentations of clergy in film, Dead Man Walking. The film follows Sister Helen Prejean as she walks with a convicted murderer through the legal process of death and the spiritual process of life.


In Clint Eastwood Month, we looked at True Crime, another film about a man facing execution for murder, though it’s a fictional story that dealt with issues of the church and faith more tangentially.


And while it was still in the theaters, we watched God’s Not Dead II (surely a finalist in worst titles ever), a Christian film which had one of the most preposterous takes on the American legal system I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen Legally Blonde, Liar Liar, and Woody Allen’s Bananas.)

Still, I thought it worth officially declaring court is in session. Though the Apostle Paul (in I Corinthians 6) wrote that believers should not take one another to court, don’t worry. I’ll still be very judgmental about the church and clergy found in these films that bring judicial and ecclesiastical issues together.

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