is a ‘comedy’ – ‘documentary’ with the stated purpose of allowing religion to poke fun at itself – according to Bill Maher, its star and creator. Maher also says that he is not being judgemental, he is. I saw it yesterday and was dissapointed…
Maher tries to take on his view of Catholicism and then Christianity in a ‘wider sence’ (I do not seperate Catholicism from Chrisitanity for those of you who are now wondering), Judaism and Islam, he also takes on Mormanism (which I do seperate from Christianity) and Scientology. With regard to Christianity and Judaism, Maher focues his resources on the fringes… in some cases the thread hanging from a tassel on the fringe… I am no expert on Islam, so I will not evaluate what he said there.
Here is my main reason for disapointment with the film: Maher was not able or did not try to seek real answers for his self-proclaimed ‘seeking’ (what a laugh, the only thing he seeks is to ridicule) from real thoughtful experts. He was abe to catch people off guard and these were not very well prepared people to start with. Well meaning, yes… thoughtful? No.
Maher brings to the table all the arguments against Christianity from the last three centuries and asks people who are not well preapared and then edits thier responses.
In fact the editor gets the kudos, the use of stop motion where Maher and his subject are just looking at one antoher in effective. They make some Arkansas senator look like an idiot, or maybe Maher didn’t have to make him look like one, maybe the senator took care of that all by himself.
Maher asks good questions. But Maher doesn’t seem to be really seeking answers, he only wants to ridicule.
Why is Maher so angry? What was done to him to anger him so? We, who are followers of Jesus who think about our faith, need to learn from this film at least two things. One, lets make sure we love people and treat them with justice so as to limit the number of antagonists like Bill Maher. People need love first and then maybe they will listen to answers. But the second thing we should learn is this, we need to know why we believe what we believe. These two things are what the truckers did near the beginning of the film. They gained Maher’s respect and he even let them pray for him. THEY were Christ-like, as we should seek to be.
kingdom travelin' 