FAMILY VALUES IN CHRISTIAN MOVIES

Fireproof

A secular assault is threatening the family institution on every front. Rotten fibre is closing in on family values through the arts and other keynote social engines.

Billy Graham tells of an endgame in this morality war whereby the “world’s sewage system” is out to contaminate Christian thought.

When one considers the neck-break speed at which mainstream Christian denominations are rubber-stamping situational ethics and biblically incompatible practices such as co-habitation, abortion and same-sex unions, it is clear that the church is losing its mojo.

“Much entertainment is slanted to those who feed on violence, sex and lawlessness. It seems that some diabolic mastermind is running the affairs of this world and that his chief objective is to brainwash Christians and to get them to conform to this world,” Graham says.

Christians are ceding ground chiefly because they are using a one-drug-treats-all formula to fortify society against new and more lethal moral diseases.

The solution is plain. Christians must toughen up, upgrade their strategies, buckle down and fight the secular agenda, argument for argument, text for text, medium for medium.

Film, music and the Internet have emerged as outlets of choice for anti-family crusaders bent on marking down standards of decency and permeating society with nudity and profanity.

Instead of passively complaining about on Sunday retreats and assimilating back into the compromised system for the rest of the week, Christians must put the same mediums to effective use in the service of the gospel.

Fortunately, a growing section of Christian artists are waking up to this realty and responding in kind, lately through overtly Bible-oriented movies.

“Monumental,” “Courageous,” “Time Changer,” “Genius,” “Gone Back Home,” “Woman Thou Art Loosed” and “Fireproof” are among the swelling inventory of movies for the family cabinet.

“Monumental,” a fairly recent 80-minute documentary starring Kirk Cameron, decries the collapse of society and rallies Christians to get off the defensive and get on the offensive, art-wise that is.

 “Everybody is telling me the world is going to hell,” Cameron opens his documentary in-between flaming interludes to which warn viewers as to the urgency of the situation.

“Morally, the family is falling apart: divorce, teenage pregnancy, teenage suicide, drugs, alcohol. You go on to a local high school and what was once morally unthinkable and shameful is now not only normal but celebrated,” Cameron says.

Although American in context, the movie is universal in significance. It makes reference to moral conditions which have run rife in most countries and declares that “our families are worth fighting for.”

Cameron points out a major drawback which has restrained Christians from taking action against decadence. The notion that Christians must confine themselves to the spiritual scheme of things has rendered Christians terminally ineffective and left society in the monopoly of secular thought-leaders and shape-shifters.  

“I have friends in church who tell me that the worse things get, the better, really. It is because it means that the end is near and that Jesus is returning: ‘Don’t worry that the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, just get out of the hand-basket. It’s part of the plan. It’s meant to be that the whole thing is going to burn,’” Cameron says.

“Really? Because I have kids in this world, I have friends in this world who have kids and I want a great future for them. And are supposed to just let it go? But if we just take our hands of the wheel and just let it fall off a cliff, aren’t we creating a self-fulfilling prophecy?

“So I turn on the news and find that most people are playing the blame game, the right blames the left, the left blames the right, governments blaming big business, business blames big government, Hollywood blames the church and religion and the church is blaming the media for all of the problems,” says the father of six.

Cameron points out that with everybody blames everybody else, there is no clear voice, giving a solution on how to get out of the mess.

He then shouts out the loud and clear call to action. He shows that Christianity came and created liberty and responsibility for that freedom is in our hands: we either champion the Bible unapologetically in every social sphere or we suffer the consequences for shirking our evangelistic mandate and straying from the faith.

“Courageous” is a must-watch for fathers, especially with Fathers’ Day having freshly elapsed. The movie demonstrates the need for paternal responsibility under the subtitle “Honour Begins at Home” even as fatherhood is under threat from adverse world-views such as radical feminism and sodomy.

The key men in the movie are police officers who show commendable commitment in their fight against crime and in the service of their nation. Sadly, some of the characters’ commitment is confined to their profession.

At home, they become altogether different personalities, detached and irresponsible. That is until a series of events connive to make them realise that home is their foremost port of call.

“Fireproof,” starring Cameron again, is one of the more influential Christian movies. It copies on the blueprint “Never Leave Your Partner Behind” from fire-fighters and pastes it on husbands and wives.

Caleb (Cameron) leaves like a fellow tenant with his wife and shuns her to navigate “trash on the internet.” The young family is dysfunctional and on the brink of collapse till the firefighter’s father comes along with a revolutionary “Love Dare” formula.

“Gone Back Home,” from a Nigerian Christian drama ministry, Mount Zion Film Productions, is targeted at Christian youths, some of whom concede grave mistakes when confronted off-guard with sexual temptations.

A young Christian couple gets unduly close before marriage and the girl conceives. Worried about his squeaky-clean record as a youth leader, the man convinces his girlfriend to abort and she dies shortly after going through abortion.

The movie guides unmarried youths to avoid sensual proximity and keep their relationships under the watch-care of godly elders till they are procedurally wed. It also comes down hard on double standards and abortion.

The movie is part of a growing range of productions by emerging Christian film-makers in Africa. Hopefully, Zimbabwe also develops a viable Christian film industry, especially with new gospel channels coming aboard.