Our Morally Superior Nation: Movies That Reflect The Corrosive Influence Of Religious Extremism

With a couple of recent celebrity scandals, a troubling aspect of the American character has reared its head once again: a moral absolutism and extremism fostered largely by the fanatical religious right -- be they fundamentalist, evangelical, or the more orthodox wing of the Catholic Church.

 Their vocal and powerful presence in the social discourse of America marks ours as a country populated by more than a few intolerant, unforgiving prudes and, worse, hypocrites.

 Just consider the Letterman case: the prevailing attitude seems to be that he got off pretty easy. Still, let’s not forget the inevitable media circus that came with his disclosure, with a growing list of young employees stepping forward with all the tawdry details of their encounters.

Of course, the press plays right into this shameless exploitation: in decline and desperate to milk any salacious tale that will drive sales, they assume (too often correctly) that their audience wants to know every last grimy detail. And as we in turn get drawn into the feeding frenzy, whatever position we take, we play right into the hands of the zealots: if we take a sympathetic stand, we are seen to wallow in the trash and expose our own low natures; if we take a more judgmental view, we appear to wag our collective finger at a miserable, dissolute sinner.

To me, it all feels grotesque.

 My perhaps old-fashioned view is that in this specific instance the attempted crime was extortion; the fact the adultery was involved, while it can hardly be kept secret, should largely remain an issue between Letterman and his wife. Is this so odd? After all Dave is no role model, neither politician nor priest; he is a talented and famous TV personality.  Those outraged that men in power are prone to straying are simply living in a fantasy world -- this is nothing new, nor will it ever go away through the power of prayer.

 Personally I preferred the days when reporters and their public actually respected individual privacy to some degree. Maybe it was a silent acknowledgement of our shared, highly imperfect humanity, and perhaps also a belief that an Orwellian, “Big Brother” society should be avoided at all costs.

 Times have certainly changed, in that today’s technology ensures most everything we do can be tracked. And in this environment where there is virtually nothing off-limits to the public, the rigid, black-or-white influence of the original Puritans endure, as far-right factions promote a culture of intolerance, character assassination and fear-mongering, and as they themselves trample on individual rights and commit crimes (like working to deny women's right to choose), all in the name of righteousness and morality.

 The saddest part of this is that these corrosive forces undermine all the most positive aspects of organized faith and religion: the ideals of human generosity, humility, and forgiveness all recede amidst lies, corruption and condemnation.

 The most recent Bush administration may have done more to empower these groups than any administration preceding it: our “born again” ex-President who relied on the Almighty to guide his decision-making.

 However, this disturbing, persistent vein of religious fanaticism and corruption existed in this country long before those interminable dog days of George W., as the following timeless titles indicate:

Inherit The Wind (1960)- In this courtroom drama based on the landmark Scopes Monkey Trial of the 1920s, defense lawyer Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) and fundamentalist prosecutor Matthew Brady (Fredric March) face off when schoolteacher Bertram Cates (Dick York), is put in jail for teaching evolution in tiny Hillsboro, Tennessee, with the arrest instigated by his girlfriend's disapproving father, Rev. Jeremiah Brown (Claude Akins). Kramer's spellbinding film features a deft performance by Tracy as the rumpled, deceptively plain-spoken Drummond (modeled on Clarence Darrow), matched by March's larger than life, virtuoso turn as Matthew Brady (based on William Jennings Bryan). Just sit back, pretend you're sitting in that humid courtroom, and watch two old pros at work. You'll re-live history. Also look for Gene Kelly in one of his only serious, non-dancing roles as a cynical journalist based on H.L. Mencken.

Elmer Gantry (1960)- Though obviously dissolute, charismatic street preacher Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) teams up with touring tent revivalist Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons), and before long the two are making money hand over fist. Falconer falls in love with Gantry, and with her new spoils, builds an enormous house of worship by the ocean. But the mercurial minister's womanizing past is about to revisit them in the person of Lulu (Shirley Jones), a jilted prostitute out for a little payback. Based on the bestselling novel by Sinclair Lewis, this tale of a lustful, larger-than-life charlatan's fall from grace owes its strength to the force of Lancaster's dynamic, Oscar-winning performance. His Gantry preaches hellfire and brimstone, but loves life -- and women -- with a hearty gusto that is as pure as Sister Falconer's vanity is unbecoming. Jones also took home an Oscar, playing against type in a sultry turn as a minister's daughter who became Gantry's lover. Also great is Arthur Kennedy as an atheist journalist modeled on the legendary H.L. Mencken. Fiery and sharp, this satirical take on Bible-thumping hypocrisy and hucksterism speaks volumes in today's world.

Marjoe (1972)- This skin-crawling exposé of the tent-revival circuit focuses squarely on one Marjoe Gortner, a former child evangelist who returns to preaching as an adult, charging up sold-out audiences throughout the South with his fire-and-damnation-style sermons, and bilking them for every cent they're willing to cough up. A convert himself to the sixties counterculture movement, the groovily clad, charismatic preacher invites a film crew to trail him around when he decides it's time to end his sham double life and leave the lucrative "business" behind.  Like a lightning bolt to the heart, the Oscar-winning Marjoe hits its mark with illuminating mercilessness. Opening with old videos of Marjoe preaching hellfire at age 4, the directors give us a taste of what the openly fraudulent evangelist, a flower child who professes no spiritual belief whatsoever, can accomplish with a microphone, as he works his congregations into a moaning, epileptic fervor. Even more fascinating is how honest the narcissistic Marjoe is about his personal misgivings, his atheism, and the profit motive behind these Pentecostal meetings, which he headlines with a mix of rock-star bravado and sanctimonious humbuggery. Marjoe is infuriating, but also strangely cathartic, as we witness Marjoe’s mask falls away.

The Apostle (1997)- After discovering that his wife Jessie (Farrah Fawcett) is having an affair with younger minister Horace (Todd Allen), devout Pentecostal preacher Sonny Dewey (Robert Duvall), a father of two young children, loses his wits and attacks the man with a bat, sending him into a coma. Fleeing Texas, Sonny assumes a new identity in Louisiana, opens a church, and revitalizes the faith of mostly black locals with his spirited, inspirational sermons. But Sonny’s past sins aren’t so easily washed away. Veteran actor Duvall wrote, directed, and starred in this stirring evangelical drama about faith, personal passion, and moral responsibility, a pet project he spent over a decade bringing to the big screen. Duvall is nothing less than sensational as Dewey, a pious yet deeply conflicted man whose belief in salvation is never in question. Excellent performances by Fawcett, Miranda Richardson, and Billy Bob Thornton as a bayou racist tweak the picture, but Duvall throws himself into the marquee role heart and soul. The Apostle will make a believer out of you.

Deliver Us From Evil (2006)- Grappling with the pedophile scandals that have brought the Catholic Church to its knees in recent years, Director Amy Berg has a harrowing heart-to-heart conversation with Father Oliver O'Grady, one of the most notorious child rapists, who recounts his crimes in painfully specific detail. Berg then interviews his many victims, still scarred by their encounter with O'Grady, and still angry at the unconscionable harboring of this serial molester by Church authorities. Of course there is something revolting and horrifying about O'Grady, now living safely in exile in Ireland thanks to the exertions of his superiors, but how remorseful can we really expect a sociopath who viciously assaulted children over three decades to be? Scarier still are the Church bigwigs, like L.A. Cardinal Roger Mahoney, who prefer to arrogantly deny their role in protecting a monstrous man of the cloth rather than remain true to their spiritual calling. This is disturbing stuff, but luckily Berg contextualizes all of it for viewers wondering how -- yes, in God's name -- these crimes were ever allowed to happen.

Jesus Camp (2006)- This eye-opening documentary trails Pentecostal children's minister Becky Fischer in her quest to, as she phrases it, indoctrinate the next generation of evangelical leaders. Glimpsed mainly at a "Kids on Fire" summer retreat in North Dakota for those under 15, these youths dutifully pray for theocracy and the vanquishing of Satan in cathartic sessions and hear tough-talking teach-ins about sin and salvation, abortion and politics, and laying down their lives for Jesus. By focusing intently on a single woman's efforts to raise a theocratic revival in America, film-makers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing have supplied us with a thumbnail sketch of this country's fastest growing, most influential social movement. Home-schooled by evangelical parents who teach them creationism instead of evolution, amiable preteens like wannabe preacher Levi and proselytizer Rachael are urged by Fischer to pray for George W. Bush and pro-life Supreme Court appointees, then given over to fervent prayer sessions in which they speak in tongues. The filmmakers opt to showcase radio talk-show host Mike Papantonio in lieu of critical voiceover, but they really needn't have: Fischer and her juvenile God's Army are alarming enough on their own.

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Comments

[3fingerbrown]

Interesting that two of the films contain depictions of H.L. Mencken--such was his standing as America's house atheist in the mid-20th century. And in both films the Mencken avatar is depicted as a less than admirable with a cheerful disbelief in all spirits except the 90-proof variety.

"Gantry" and "Inherit the Wind" were made around the same time, a transitional period between the studio system's childish morality and the anything-goes secularism of the late '60s. Both films wish to expose religious quackery while reassuring the audience that the filmmakers do believe in God.

That's where the Mencken character comes in: The mountebanks who peddle religion like patent medicine in both films are vanquished, but the resident atheist also gets spanked for having the temerity to mock religion. Mencken's public atheism was unbelievably courageous in his day, but in both films it has made him small, empty, effete, and in the end he's humiliated by manly believers Tracy and Lancaster. (Making Clarence Darrow, of all people, into a closet Christian is one heck of a literary whopper, probably the biggest reason the playwrights changed his name to Henry Drummond.)

The filmmakers made a fool of Mencken in the name of box office: American audiences didn't mind seeing phonies exposed or primitive fundamentalists thwarted, but they would stay away in droves from a movie in which the atheist triumphs. They probably still would today.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

you are so right...
kelly plays mencken as the ultimate cynic.

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

It was quite a new type of role for Kelly too. He'd always been the sunny, tap-dancing, care-free guy, or the heel (as in PAL JOEY on Broadway, and in his first movie), but a hard-headed cynic was a new role for him. But he was primarily there to be someone whose atheism Tracy could disavow at the end, so the movie could escape its own essential atheism into cop-out agnosticism.

But while I find the use made of the character within the film odious, as a career acting stretch for Kelly, it was wonderful. (and was probably clioser to the real man than anything he'd played before.)

[expatstudent]

Well, I have one issue with this article, and that's the concept of who is a role model.

If someone looks up to you, you are a role model. You have no say in the matter. Charles Barkley used to argue this because he wanted the freedom to act the way he wanted. Whether or not he SHOULD be a role model is different from whether or not he is.

If Letterman comes into your home night after night (granted you choose for him to do so), he becomes part of your life, if only in a minor way. Granted, if anyone has had issues with stalkers, it's Letterman, but the personability and "he's just like us" mystique has been crafted by him over the years. It's his image. When he insists that the road to the White House runs through him, as he has for at least the past two presidential elections, he claims to be part of the American community. And in communities, even our personal actions have impacts on others. SHOULD they have the impact in terms of sexuality that they do? Probably not. But they do to some extent. The only way people will stop caring about Letterman is if they focus on what's going on in their own lives instead of his. And this usually requires turning off the TV and talking to the person next to you. There's no off position on the "part of the community" switch.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

so true..
but I still say dave has never pretended to be a role model or moral beacon, to his credit.

[Andre Lieven]

What anyone who someone else chooses to use as a "role model" gets to say and do, is "No, thanks". No one owes anyone else to live within the strictures of role-modelism.
If YOU choose to model yourself on someone who has made any human mistakes, well, that was YOUR choice, so the consequences of YOUR choice and also... yours. Not the unwilling "role model's".

[raprap373]

Another interesting read. I will not post my comments on religion as I feel it is

very personel. Thank you John for sharing your thoughts

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

i feel the same way about my faith.
thanks.

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

A man's sex life is supposed to be a private matter too, but the country has helped themselves to Letterman's.

[believethelie]

This is one of the most important and compelling articles I have read in years

When you wrote - these corrosive forces undermine all the most positive aspects of organized faith and religion: the ideals of human generosity, humility, and forgiveness all recede amidst lies, corruption and condemnation.

That is when you pointed out the true choice that is front of individuals
To choose to conform
or choose a personal path that is about love and forgiveness

Incredibly well spoken article

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

thanks for your kind words.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

thanks for your kind words!

[Steamboater]

There's several films where religion's often shows it's ugly face, "MIss Sadie Thompson" (based on Somerset Maugham's "Rain" which he based on a prostitute he met while traveling the south seas, "Brigham Young" where Moromons are both victims and victimizers and the recent film of the Mormon massacre of innocents (forget the title), a documentary I saw recently on either HBO or PBS about Gays in Iran forced to become transexuals because Gay men get the death penalty in Iran whereas if you have an operation and become a woman, Islam allows for that according to Iranian and Islamic law there and lets you live, although those who have had the operation live lonely lives without family and become prostitutes in order to survive. Then there's the TV movie anout Tecumseh and his crazy brother who was seen as a some kind of religious sachem and sent his tribe into battle thinking they wouldn't die from bullets because he had blessed them and and the clothes they wore would protect them. It's happened. Of course there's a been a few films about the Catholic church covering up sexual mosletation of young boys too. There was "The Devils" about nuns in medevil (sp?) times based on actual events of nuns going mad and decadent and the church heirarchy even madder.. Almost sure Vanessa Redgrave was in it. Of course, if you want sacharrine religion, there' s always Bing Crosby in collar playing innocence.

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

Vanessa Redgrave was indeed in THE DEVILS, made some 38 years ago, playing an orgiastic hunchbacked nun who was nothing if not an hysteric, though its 16th Century setting (Cardinal Richelieu was the villain) was hardly "medieval". About as ugly (yet visually stunning. Pure Ken Russell) a movie as was ever made, yet disconcertingly true to what actually occurred in Loudon, France, very similar to the witch trials of Salem.

[Steamboater]

If religion didn't exist we never would have had the Salem Witch Trials. Two film versions of Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible", as I remember, exist and very good ones too. One made in 1996 and the other a french version in 1957--" Les Soercières de Salem" with a screenplay by Jean Paul Sartre.

[Zanti]

Well, let's take that to the logical limit--if institutions didn't exist, we'd have no institutionalized evil.

Are you all for doing away with institutions? I suspect not!

[Steamboater]

Sure there's institutionalized evil and we have recourse through our legal system to fight it. Religion abides no exceptions to it's dogma aand those who were tortured and persecuted duing the Salem Witch Trials, The Spanish Inquisition and other religiously based agressions against humanity didn't have any recourse either except to give in. Those who didn't were the true heros, even if they paid for their truths with their lives.

[williamwilliam]

No, there would have been some other 'reason' trumped up for all the
fun and frolic in Salem, even if it erupted some other place and time.

Religion, easy a target as it may be, is a symptom, not a cause.

This is not to say however, that symptoms should go untreated.

[Steamboater]

The Salem Witch Trials were nbased on the belief of a divil and evil. Religion forstered that image. Without religion, there's no devil. Religion requires someone to poke at as evil because without it, a giod can't exist. Who needs a god when there's nothing to make you feel guilty about or when there's no symbolic evil such as a devil to point the finger at for 'making' you do what the religion demands you don't do so as to keep you enslaved to religion.

[rzan1]

Robert Duvall should have won the Oscar for The Apostle. I almost felt like converting (but not quite) after seeing it, he was that compelling. Instead, the Academy, in it's knee-jerk lack of wisdom, gave it to Jack Nicholson for some inferior movie whose name escapes me.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

duvall was great.
the nicholson movie was "as good as it gets."

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

Oh, one should warn folks to watch ONLY the INHERIT THE WIND with Spencer Tracy. The TV movie remake with Jack Lemmon is lousy. I love Jack Lemmon, but his performance never APPROACHES Tracy's great readings. With Lemmon, the great speeches just lie there limp.

[rzan1]

Why do they bother with remakes? Especially of truly great films.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

would love the answer myself!

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

For the same reason actors keep playing HAMLET, each new generation wants to try their hand at it. Jack Lemmon clearly wanted a shot at playing Henry Drummond. Also, the Kramer version is in black & white, and lots of young idiots won't watch B&W films.

In any event, as the current Creationists very existence shows, the lessons of INHERIT THE WIND haven't sunk in yet, espeically in the deep South, so new reminders are needed.

It's just a shame they did such a poor job.

[Zanti]

I saw the movie yesterday (or the day before?) and it was so comically overstated, I had to laugh. Sad to see an otherwise serious actor (March) in Milton Berle mode. Hollywood's view of religion would be hilarious if it wasn't the standard reference for so many. I often wonder how much smarter people were before movies made them less so. Probably a great deal smarter.

[Steamboater]

Frederick March was brilliant as in "Inherit The Wiond". His characetr was someone he never played befroe and he did it so well. When he gets flustered in court with an almost apoplectic attack, he almost stole the picture. There was nothing Milton Berlish about him. What was milton Berlish was that the trial even took place.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

I think you're wrong here.

[3fingerbrown]

And the Jason Robards/Kirk Douglas version is even worse.

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

"the fact the adultery was involved, while it can hardly be kept secret, should largely remain an issue between Letterman and his wife. "

WHAT adultery? Letterman was not married at the time of the relationship he was extorted over. Adultery is NOT an issue in the Letterman story. There was NO adultery involved. Cheating on a live-in relationship, yes, but it's not adultery when they're not married.

The minuscule, theoretical "good" done by religion is VASTLY outweighed by all the evil which religious delusions have wreaked, and continue to wreak on mankind.

It's the 21st Century. Time to put aside the silly superstitions of our primitive ancestors.

But try and find any mainstream atheist movies. Name one! Even INHERIT THE WIND cops out to embarace agnosticism at the end, but it at least points out, again and again, the pile of baloney that The Bible consists of.

The best and most honest religious movie ever made is MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN.

[rini]

Good old Monty Python... Leave it to the (mostly) English to tell it like it is. There's no big daddy in the sky to save us and religious tenets are actually idiotic. I agree that atheism is still far from mainstream. It is ridiculous that every religion is to be respected but if you don't have one people think that something is wrong with you.

"Every sperm is sacred...."

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

But then, the article was about American films, and LIFE OF BRIAN was a British film, shot in Tunisia.

But still, the best religious movie ever made, though I rather liked the extremely obscure film THE PASSOVER PLOT, which portrayed the crucifixion and resurrection of this supposed "Jesus" person as a conjob.

[Zanti]

"It is ridiculous that every religion is to be respected but if you don't have one people think that something is wrong with you."

Which, of course, explains the extreme popularity of religion-bashing in our popular culture. Richard Dawkins, for one, probably wishes he could get an atheistic best-seller written. Ditto for Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. Alas, no one is allowed to say an unkind word about faith in our time.

[Steamboater]

Letterman wasn't married at the time but the issue is also about someone in a powerful position sexually involved with an employee and that's a real issue to take up. It happens too often and most of the time the employee has few options but to give in or quit. It happoejnd to me when my supervisor years ago at an airline would come over to my desk as I was on a headset and rub his crotch into my arm. He disgusted me. He asked me out and I told him no and he continued to do it. Finally, when he did it again, I got up and knocked him across the room. I was fired. He kept his job. Even if I had found him attractive I would have never gotten involved with my boss.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

terrible, hope you could charge sexual harrassment today!

[rzan1]

I deplore violence, but I'm glad you slugged him just the same.

[Zanti]

There's a long pop-culture tradition of making fun of evangelical Christianity. It was a staple of Vaudeville, for one thing. A standard part of "rube" humor. Totally class-based, just as it is today.

It's just that the tone has gotten a lot nastier, now that it's become a function of blue states picking on red states and/or the HBO class vs. the Bible Belt, and with many a leftie insisting that evangelical C. is somehow the model for all. Far too many (self-titled) progressives base a huge portion of their liberal cred on ritual denunciation of faith. Religion is a metaphor for, not only the right wing, but (worse, in the eyes of many on the left) the dreaded bourgeois. Much of the left has fallen into line behind the anti-middle-class trend in pop culture.

[rini]

There may be an anti-bourgeois tint to many who criticize the religious.

It doesn't mean that the criticisms do not have merit.

And, in my opinion, most religious beliefs are as ridiculous as the fundamentalist evangelical agenda. It's just a matter of degree.

[Zanti]

Well, your view is the fashionable one of the moment.

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

"most religious beliefs are as ridiculous as the fundamentalist evangelical agenda."

For myself, I'd change "most" to "all."

[rzan1]

I have seen all these excellent films except Deliver Us From Evil.. I did want to comment on Becky Fischer in Jesus Camp. I actually thought she was rather gifted and could achieve something great if she turned her abilities to a positive pursuit. But this documentary was certainly frightening.

[Frank Smith]

You do know the Scopes Monkey Trial was just a giant publicity stunt designed to draw tourists and Scopes himself was in on the charade. Inherit The Wind is not history at all, almost a secular attack on people of faith, but it is damn entertaining . . . and that's all it is.

[Steamboater]

Those who favored the biblical version were very serious and still are. This was no charade. When I lived in TN there was a case pending of another Scopes-type trial there.

[kwinter]

And your evidence for that claim can be found where?

[rzan1]

It did not pretend to be other than a fictionalized account. They changed the names and actual events. The name William Jennings Bryant was not used in the movie, for example. If it were the actual historical account, the Christians would have been flipping out.

[Frank Smith]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=%22publicity+stunt%22&as_epq=scopes+monkey+trial&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=100&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=off

It's common knowledge. Scopes wasn't a full time class room teacher. He was the school's football coach. ;O)

[Steamboater]

Fiction maybe but the not the mindset of Tennesseans a great many southerners at the tiome and still now. You habe to have lived in the area to know that bible thumpers are as common today as then and that evolution is not something that's occured to great many people there. Even in the 21st century, there are some people still living in holes in hollars without electricity and in extreme poverty; I saw them. They get their stamina from their bible but still they live in ignorance and refuse to accept science as anything but science fiction. Theer's religious cults in the hills 'survive' dancing with poisonous snakes, and paranoid rants on local radio about the dangers of women who wear pants tec. A lot has changed in the south but a lot hasn't.

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

What a desperate load of denial.

[Frank Smith]

In what respect, man who assumes the identity of a fictional female character online? :O)

[rzan1]

Is your information from Wikipedia or a religious web site?

[Frank Smith]

Actually I knew it long before there was an internet. Like I said, it's common knowledge. I love the movie and read up on the actual case. There are plenty of internet links that back me up. Do you consider AbsouteAst­ronomy.com­, AmericanHe­ritage.com­, CNN and MSNBC religious sites? ;O)

Are Michael Shermer, who wrote "Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design", or Donald Prothero, who wrote, "Evolution: what the fossils say and why it matters," fundamentalist fanatics?

http://books.google.com/books?id=QeKWpRX77JgC&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=%22publicity+stunt%22+%22scopes+monkey+trial%22&source=bl&ots=h2wT0W-0yC&sig=Qq0Tjo9ODkPiWv-TQfRAMruXHSA&hl=en&ei=-aznSpD1FsnYlAf5kt2BCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=23&ved=0CFUQ6AEwFg#v=onepage&q=%22scopes%20monkey%20trial%22&f=false

[myzenthing]

I just saw "Marjoe" for the first time recently. I would also highly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.

[CollinJE]

I'll also add "Hell House" to the list.

It is particularly disturbing.

[k1dork]

Honestly, I'm about sick of hearing how horrible religious people are. Do you not realize that RELIGIOUS people played a MAJOR role in the abolishing of slavery in America and the Civil Rights movement?

How about some movies on how SECULARISM can be negative--­-Communist­s China, Pol Pot, Stalin?

And what do you mean by "committing crimes" by "working to deny women's right to choose"? Protesting abortion and trying to get the HORRIBLE decision to legalize it reversed is NOT a crime. It doesn't take a religious fanatic to think that terminating fetuses is wrong.

I don't know, man. I'm getting to the end of my rope with having to constantly hear from the left how horrible religion is. As a black person, religious faith is a cornerstone of who I am, and was key to giving hope to slaves and those struggling for civil rights.

It's as if the options are coming down to pick the right and ally with "racists" or pick the left, and ally with people who hate your religion. Enough!

[CollinJE]

Why does being black have anything to do with believing in God?

Their is nothing noble about accepting your religion simply based on your ethnic background or tradition.

[k1dork]

Being black doesn't have anything to do with believing in God. BUT, faith in God has been a vital aspect of the black experience in America.

The slaves looked to the Bible and Biblical stories like Exodus for encouragement.

The Civil Rights movement relied HEAVILY on religious principles from the Bible.

Sorry, but I don't appreciate having my religion crapped on, even by those who claim to be on the side of minorities regarding other issues.

[booktone]

K1dork,

There's nothing inherently horrible about being religious. I was raised a devout Catholic, but chose to stop subscribing to the religion because it no longer made sense to me.

That said, I clearly see the value religion plays in the lives of devout followers like yourself. It provides a firm basis of behavior and readily accessible system of values, which I confess still informs my daily behavior as it relates to other people. (The Golden Rule, for example, still works mighty well even though I don't attach it to any specific faith.)

The problem arises when the deeply religious--and this is an extremely small sliver of the religious community--become intolerant of those who don't share their faith. Committing crimes in the name of the Lord (such as murdering abortion doctors) is not a statement of faith; it's merely the act of a sociopath.

Unfortunately, these extremists reflect badly on all people of faith, who don't deserve to be painted with the same brush as the kooks.

[k1dork]

I understand your concern, but don't we already know that religious extremists are bad? For how long must it be harped on? I'm just sick of hearing the negativity about religion, especially Christianity.

How many Christians have you heard of throwing ACID on little girls for having the audacity to want to go to school?

How about problems that arise from the deeply secular, who ALSO are intolerant of those who don't share their "faith" in secularism? Committing crimes in the name of "tolerance­"---vandal­izing churches, anarchists, and environmental terrorists?