Many of us want to believe that, in the face of severe adversity and risk, we would try to prove worthy of a memorable legacy. Indeed, should circumstances ever turn sour, we hope to fancy ourselves as brave, courageous, and willing to stand firm no matter the cost. And yet, for the vast majority of those who have not been severely challenged in such ways, how could we know for sure the way we would react? This is why examples of people who did stand firm in the midst of trial are not just important, but necessary.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer is one of those examples. Maybe you’ve heard the name — maybe you haven’t. Nonetheless, it’s a name worth knowing. Bonhoeffer was a German theologian, pastor, and author. But what makes him stand out in ways not many can is that Bonhoeffer was also a spy and an assassin who sacrificed his life to take apart Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime’s Third Reich as they sought to exterminate the Jews. Bonhoeffer’s story is powerful, and at its very heart is the call to boldly oppose what is wicked — a call applicable to all.
For these reasons (and more), a team has been working tirelessly for over a decade to create the film, “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” According to one of the producers, Camille Kampouris, the hope behind this movie is “to raise up men and women, old and young, to be like Bonhoeffer, to speak out when there’s evil.” According to The Christian Post, “Releasing in theaters this Thanksgiving weekend, the movie explores the theologian’s decision to shift from preaching peace to allegedly plotting murder, a crime that could alter the course of history.”
Angel Studios has brought Bonhoeffer back to life by taking viewers on a cinematic journey of danger and determination. As Kampouris added, this movie also highlights both the failures of the church as well as “what a real Christian should be like.” Filmmaker Todd Komarnicki explained how “Bonhoeffer is unlike who we are today.” He added that this movie is not targeted specifically at a Christian audience, as Bonhoeffer’s story could impact anyone. He stated, “His singular courage, his willingness to lose everything, and he had a lot to lose, really stands out in a time where I don’t see a lot of political courage now. The way he grappled with his faith, in the way he was honest about his doubts … [and] followed his calling from God, all the way to the foot of the cross. This man’s life is so extraordinary.”
On Friday’s episode of “Washington Watch” with Family Research Council’s guest host Jody Hice, another producer of the film, John Scanlon, unpacked this striking narrative. According to Scanlon, “The movie is a beautiful production by top Hollywood talent about an amazing story.” More than that, Bonhoeffer is “an inspiring character and someone that will make you come out of the movie wishing that you could be a better version of yourself.”
Hice asked, “What was the experience like in filming a movie like this that you know is true?” For Scanlon, “[T]he experience every day of being on set was deeply spiritual.” He continued, “Bonhoeffer’s life is so rich and … he wrote so many wonderful works. … He was a very prolific author. And, of course, his experience in Harlem in the United States [and] his experience in Germany traveling around the world, all changed him and influenced his thinking.”
Ultimately, Scanlon emphasized, “the Bonhoeffer that we bring to the screen is complex. He’s a man of action as well as a man of thought and words. … I think that he can be an inspiration.” He concluded that for anyone of any worldview “who’s facing evil … I guarantee … they’ll find something in this film to inspire and encourage them. And that’s what we’re hoping for everyone in the audience.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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Pure and cinematically pleasing movies are hard to find. Thankfully, Christian band For King & Country (Joel and Luke Smallbone) produced an easy pick for Friday family movie nights. Their film, “Unsung Hero,” was released earlier this year and is about their Australian family’s immigration journey to the United States. Alongside other recent Lionsgate releases (“I Still Believe,” “The Jesus Revolution,” “American Underdog”), the film was a box office success. It also has a unique and encouraging message that is scarce in the modern film industry.
What is this lesson? It is worth being a family under God. This message repeats throughout as viewers are reminded that being a family takes hard, faithful work, but it is worth persevering together in the pain and placing trust in the Lord.
Here are just a few of the truths Christian families can gather from this countercultural film.
Warning, spoilers up ahead!
1. Marriage can be difficult, but it is worth remaining faithful.
In the movie, we see the parents, David and Helen Smallbone, process differently about what is happening in their new life. The mom is a godly example of submission to her husband, even when he is not making the best decisions and struggling in his grief. When she finds out that they need to stay longer in Tennessee due to her husband being rejected a promised job, she breaks down and cries in her room. She realizes she needs a break instead of taking out her anger on her children and husband. Helen is also willing to love David amid his cynicism and emotional struggles, especially as life continues to get harder for their family. Helen does stand up when needed, but knows when to do so and makes sure their children know their dad does love them, even when he shows his flaws.
Concerning David, he wants to provide more for his family. But he is trying to understand how to make it through, reacting in pride and frustration. However, he respects his wife and is not willing to give up working for his family. It is clear as the story unfolds that Helen and David know marriage is a sacred covenant before God by continuing to honor, love, and stay in all the brokenness together. They picture what it means to remain in marriage “for better or worse” through their personal conflicts.
2. Parents must be intentional and present with their children.
One of the most inspiring and convicting themes throughout the film is Helen Smallbone’s parenting and biblical leadership. She continues to shepherd her children’s hearts during each circumstance and multi-tasks working, comforting her husband, and experiencing pregnancy. One way her biblical parenting stands out amid other films is her willingness to lovingly teach her kids in a way that each will understand.
In one scene, she is playing pretend pirates with them on a playground. At one point, they must “abandon” their ship to be safe. The kids are wondering what to do next on their pirate adventure, and Helen sees this as an opportunity to speak into her children’s hearts while continuing their story.
Helen: We burn the ships. All of them.
Joel: Even ours?
Luke: How do we get back?
Helen: We don’t. It’s gonna be dangerous and scary, and it’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna be so hard that you’ll want to go back. But if you know that you can go back, you will. And giving up, giving in, is not an option. We’ve gotta fight our way forward. We have to win. Do you understand?
In the next scene, they pretend to surrender or “burn” their ship by each throwing make-believe torches. The acting, the sound effects, visuals, and dramatic music tie everything together to show it is about each of them courageously surrendering this new season of life to the Lord. Such a scene is rare to witness in the film industry today, because it includes a healthy parenting moment about reflecting God’s glory with eloquent, cinematic creativity. This scene and others can encourage Christian parents they can be the loving, biblical teachers their children need because the Lord will be their strength.
3. Christian fathers can make it right with their kids.
What makes the end amazing is that the father is willing to listen to his wife, get up after grieving the loss of his dad, and apologize to his children. These actions are right and chivalrous, but the last one is especially poignant: The father apologizes to his kids. It does not show him making excuses or overthinking it. It did not matter if the kids remembered his sins — he went to them and apologized. This is marks a turning point in the film because God’s love and forgiveness meet to change their family.
After apologizing, he calls a music producer for his daughter to have a record audition when he rejected her and his wife’s idea beforehand. Throughout these ending scenes, David Smallbone is defining biblical fatherhood and headship by owning his mistakes and assuring his children they have a present, loving dad.
It is particularly significant for a child when his or her dad looks at them lovingly in the eyes and admits his shortcomings. Whether the child realizes it or not, it teaches the son or daughter that this is what it means to be a man of God.
In Genesis 1-3, God points out that man is made to have biblical headship of his household. The opposite of this is a husband being domineering over his wife and provoking his children in anger (Genesis 3:16-19, Ephesians 6:4). Children only have one biological mom and dad. In a Christian home, the kids are watching how their mom and dad steward their special, biblical roles to love God, them, and their marriage well.
So, what we witness at the film’s ending is the biblical truth that fathers can be willing to be the specific example Christ has chosen for them. It is never too late for godly dads to look at their families and say assuredly, “I love you. I want to make it right. And I understand my role in your life.” It is so encouraging and convicting for fathers to know they can correct their mistakes for their family through repentance and be the biblical leader of the household under God.
Overall, “Unsung Hero” exemplifies on the big screen how to glorify God in Christian families and what it truly means to be a hero.
AUTHOR
Annabelle Pechmann serves as a Communications intern at Family Research Council.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2024-08-01 07:57:042024-08-01 07:57:04‘Unsung Hero’ Brings Family Values Back into Hollywood
The most common question transgender activists use to bully parents into approving their daughter’s lifelong dependency on experimental hormone injections is: “Would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter?”
But the tragic story of Abigail Martinez’s daughter, who took her own life after attempting to transition to life as a boy, proves what a false dichotomy that is.
A hard-hitting new film reveals how the trans movement inflicts death, depression, and familial estrangement in service of the pharmaceutical industry.
The story of Yaeli Martinez forms the heart of “Gender Transformations: The Untold Realities,” an original production of The Epoch Times. Though technically classified as a “docudrama,” the term does not do justice to the reality that plays out on the screen: The majority of the film consists of real people sharing heartbreaking true stories, without an interviewer’s prompting. Through their eyes, the 85-minute Epoch Original production traces the transgender contagion from its funding sources in Big Pharma, to ideologically extremist teachers who radicalize children behind their parents’ backs, to trans activists who brainwash and kidnap minors, to the irreversible damage the industry causes teens and young adults. Abigail Martinez sheds real tears for her daughter’s suicide — and real footage shows trans activists mocking her grief.
The “docudrama” label comes from the movie’s dramatization of the short life, radicalization, and death of Yaeli Martinez. The film renames Yaeli “Evie,” who transitions to “Evan.” But the recreation of Yaeli’s life — which can only be reconstructed, since she stepped in front of a train at age 17 — forms the narrative arc turning patchwork of first-person vignettes into a mosaic picture of lives callously shattered for profit.
Yaeli became indoctrinated in extreme gender ideology through a school LGBT group, where she eventually joined her “friends” in identifying as transgender. One night, Yaeli’s “friends” pulled up outside Martinez’s home, picked her up in an unmarked car, and whisked her away to an unknown location to live with other transgender-identifying young people. “They even took the license plate off of their car,” Martinez remembers.
Things got worse when the government got involved. Yaeli said her mother refused to affirm her identity, causing the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services to put the minor into a group home. A judge would authorize the minor to receive transgender injections against her mother’s will. Eventually, Yaeli — who now identified as “Andrew” — brought her mother back into her life, just as newfound friends began to desert her and reality began to assert itself.
“She told me, ‘Mom, I realized that no matter what I do I’m never going to be like my brother. I’m in pain. I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate,’” Martinez recalls. “’It’s not working the way that I thought.’”
One day in 2019, law enforcement gave Martinez the news that her daughter had committed suicide. “I was screaming. I said, ‘No, I want my daughter,’” Martinez later told The Daily Signal. She pleaded to be able to spend time with the body of her daughter, whom she had not seen since the child ran away.
“The gentleman from the funeral home told me there’s nothing really that you can see or recognize,” Martinez recalled.
All that remained of her child’s legacy was the undying hatred of the radical LGBTQ movement. The movie includes real footage of Martinez sharing her story, as trans activists yell, “Cry more!” and “What a sob story!”
After removing a child from a loving home and transitioning her, the Los Angeles government refused to acknowledge any responsibility for Yaeli’s death. “We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Andrew M., as well as to the LGBTQIA community which advocates relentlessly to protect its youngest and most vulnerable members from such tragedies,” responded the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.
The statement said nothing about the role of the transgender movement — top to bottom — in creating the tragedy.
That story falls to Martinez and the movie’s ensemble of grieving parents, whistleblowing therapists, investigative journalists, and remorseful detransitioners.
The origin story of transgenderism’s social contagion begins by tracing the money back to the Big Pharma companies that manufacture these drugs. “If you’re going to look for anything in this country, you’re going to follow the money, because it will always tell you the truth. Who’s funding these LGB organizations?” asked writer and investigator Jennifer Bilek. “What I found was a whole lot of very, very powerful moneyed people in the highest echelons of finance, Pharma, and technology.” Dr. Katherine Welch, a concerned physician, agrees that pharmaceutical companies “fund the activists and the NGOs to stir up a lot of passion.” Then the companies ask for emergency use authorization, based on “a mental health crisis among our youth.” Thanks to their combination marketing-and-lobbying efforts, there is now “a $1.5 billion industry for surgery alone,” said lawyer Erin Friday. “And I think that’s an underestimate.”
The trail extends to dishonest researchers, such as John Money, and subject criteria set by organizations such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). The academic cohort produces the shoddy research trumpeted by the media, entertainment industry, and school officials. When Erin Friday learned her daughter had secretly begun identifying as a boy at school, administrators told her, “We need to be a safe space” for her child. “By extension, I’m unsafe,” said Friday.
The message promptly filters down to young people. A few confess to being amazed at the virtually godlike power they hold over their own bodies. “When I went into the Planned Parenthood building to [talk about] the surgery … I could pick from 25 sets of breasts,” said detransitioner David Bacon. “I could build myself.”
But most seek to rebuild themselves from a trauma, or they naïvely believe the transgender industry’s claims that the silver bullet for their depression lies at the end of a needle. Continually hearing the (scientifically inaccurate) mantra that children who identify as transgender will commit suicide if not immediately “affirmed” caused at least one woman to become profoundly depressed. “It made me feel even more hopeless, because I thought there was no way to accept myself. I had to get these painful surgeries and take hormones,” said detransitioner Catt Catinson. Her psychological evaluation “affirmed me immediately” and “just sort of overlooked my eating disorder” and childhood sexual abuse. Abel Garcia received the same treatment, even after telling them, “I might be autistic” and that he felt unsure whether he identified as transgender.
“The worst part, honestly, is that I was allowed to do all this, and that nobody was willing to stop me and have a second opinion,” says Garcia. “Instead, I was affirmed, I was love-bombed. I was allowed to destroy my body.”
So, was Yaeli Martinez, to whom the movie is dedicated.
“This pain never goes away,” says Abigail Martinez. “You breathe and you can feel the pain.”
Yet the movie ends with the hope that some victims of the transgender industry survive long enough to live as their authentic selves, the ones reflected by their biology. “It took me about a year to fully deprogram from gender identity ideology,” said Cattinson. “I feel like it was the act of deprogramming, just changing my beliefs, that allowed me to recover from my depression.” Now, she has reconnected with the family her embrace of gender ideology estranged. “It’s been very healing, having that family connection again. We can just be together and love each other.”
That gives hope to Pamela Garfield-Jaeger, a therapist and social worker who believes adults caught up in the transgender movement “didn’t realize just how harmful this was.” One day, Americans will look back at this chapter as “a dark time in our history, but I don’t think this is going to last.”
But until then, the testimony of Martinez and other grieving families torn apart by extreme transgender ideology, preserved in this Epoch Original, reveals the incalculable consequences when darkness triumphs, even briefly.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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I really didn’t want to see this movie. Does anyone want to see a movie about horrific crimes against children and the systems that support or fail to stop child sex trafficking? But I felt an obligation to support “Sound of Freedom.” And I was happy to hear the buzz in the conservative media sphere. “Sound of Freedom” was making noise in all the right places.
So I bought my tickets online and told myself that I had at least done my duty to financially support this worthy cause. My seat was sold, and if it went unfilled, the movie theater would still make money. Despite my best efforts to be somewhere else, I found myself in the seat on July 4.
I still don’t quite understand how I left the theater feeling hopeful. I had expected to feel hopeless and disgusted after watching a movie about child sex trafficking. And there were certainly moments of those feelings during the course of the movie. But the power of art to move the human heart is very real, if hard to describe, even after experiencing it.
It’s also hard to describe a movie without spoiling the plot for others. Here are five impressions this movie left on me, and I hope they inspire you to see the movie.
1. “God’s children are not for sale.”
This is the motivation for the main character to move beyond the soul crushing work of tracking organized pedophile networks to rescuing their victims. “Sound of Freedom” made me reflect, once again, on the work we ask others to do in our name: policing, soldiering, guarding. It is hard work, mostly done by men, who lay down their lives to protect and serve others. We ask them to deal with many of the things we do not want to face. Many do this work because of a higher calling, one that needs our support in prayer.
2. “I feel like she’s my daughter.”
Mrs. Tim Ballard texts this message to her husband while he is away searching for a victim. Her love and support for him and his work is beautifully communicated in this movie. She is also asked to bear part of the burden her husband shoulders on our behalf. She represents a much larger group of people who deserve our gratitude and our prayers.
3. “I was that darkness.”
A man contemplates his role as a consumer in the adult sex industry. His redemption from direct involvement is by the grace of God. But this character made me think about what I could or should be doing to address this grave injustice against women and men, girls and boys. At a minimum, opposing the legalization of “sex work” would be a start. Removing pornography and pornographic content from school libraries and curricula is also imperative.
4. “You’re on your own, Tim.”
Government redress of grievances is limited. Tim Ballard, the main character, had to operate on his own to follow the call to protect God’s children. But as Christians we have an obligation to prove that Tim is not alone. Each of us is called to combat the sex industry, whether through promoting organizations like Covenant Eyes that guard against pornography, by speaking out against endeavors to normalize pedophilia, or simply by living a life that upholds the dignity of every male and every female as a human being — not objects for exploitation.
5. “Could you sleep if your child’s bed was empty?”
The plea of a father for his trafficked daughter. This theme was the main reason for my initial reluctance to see the film. And it was one of the reasons why, if I had to see it, I would see it in a theater. Hearing a question like that asked in a movie theater for me is very different from hearing it asked in my living room, with my own children’s beds right upstairs.
There are some movies to see and “leave” at the theater rather than experience them at home. But this movie is one to share with others, at a theater or at your church, or even in your home. While it is not for young children, this movie is a remarkable work of art about a horrific topic. I’m grateful to Angel Studios for distributing the movie, and I encourage you to see it. I am glad I did.
Creator of "Sound of Freedom" movie taking on Hollywood elites to EXPOSE child trafficking reacts to BEATING woke Disney's "Indiana Jones" in box office sales:
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2023-07-06 14:44:402023-07-21 14:42:435 Reasons You Must See ‘Sound of Freedom’
This special edition of The Glazov Gang presents The Stephen Coughlin Moment with Stephen Coughlin, the co-founder of UnconstrainedAnalytics.org and the author of the new book, Catastrophic Failure.
Stephen discussed 13 Hours – Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, focusing on a few crucial things not covered in the film.
And make sure to watch The Stephen Coughlin Moment: The “Countering Violent Extremism” Deception, in which Stephen unveiled how the CVE narrative was fostered by the Muslim Brotherhood -– and how it negates countering terror: CLICK HERE.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/13HoursYoutube.jpg360640Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)2016-01-22 06:10:312016-01-22 06:10:3113 Hours – Secret Soldiers of Benghazi a Stephen Coughlin Video Moment
It is essential for you to review ALL the information on our Indigogo site so that you fully understand the nature and purpose of this investigative documentary – to change the restrictive, deadly and absurd Rules of Engagement that our brave war fighters must follow when engaged against a bloodthirsty, inhumane Islamic jihad fighter. Please take a look at our Indigogo and our Face Book sites so that you can become part of our production team helping fund and promote this very important movie!
The Editorial staff as DrRichSwier.com have all donated to make this documentary a reality.
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The ethnic and religious purging of Christians today is exactly like Hitler’s ethnic cleansing of Jews in WWII,” [film director Peter] Spencer said. “True Christians are today obligated to rescue the perishing from the blades of [the Islamic State].”
Brave and bold words, and all too rare in America these days, where naming the evil is all but illegal. The ‘Orange Resistance Movement’ seem like a strong and creative response to Muslim persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Africa. Judging from the endorsements on Mr. Spencer’s site, the message seems to be catching on among Christians and Jews. Let’s hope so.
“Filmmaker’s ‘Chilling’ Warning About the Islamic State and His Message to ‘True Christians’ About Why They Must Fight Back,”by Billy Hallowell, The Blaze, September 17, 2015:
The writer and director of a feature film about a group of young people who fought to save the innocent during the Holocaust has unveiled a new movement aimed at raising awareness about the dire religious persecution of Christians in the Middle East.
Peter Spencer, director of “Return to the Hiding Place” — the sequel to Billy Graham’s “The Hiding Place” — exclusively told The Blaze about his new Orange Resistance effort to rescue Christians being harmed by the Islamic State, and the “chilling similarities” that he sees between what’s happening now and the horrors that unfolded during the Holocaust.
“The ethnic and religious purging of Christians today is exactly like Hitler’s ethnic cleansing of Jews in WWII,” Spencer said. “True Christians are today obligated to rescue the perishing from the blades of [the Islamic State].”
The Orange Resistance movement is named for the both the color of the jumpsuits worn by victims of Islamic State extremists and for the Netherlands’ historic association with orange; the setting of the ”Return to the Hiding Place,” which is based, in part, on Dutch Christian Corrie ten Boom’s heroic acts to save Jews in the Netherlands.
Spencer said that the campaign will employ a number of tactics to get the word out about the plight of Middle Eastern Christians.
“We are working with denominations across the country to schedule screenings of our film followed by a panel discussing the terrifying parallels between Nazi Germany’s extermination of the Jews and the current hate-onslaught of [the Islamic State] and their mission to liquidate Christians, starting in the Middle East,” he said. “Groups won’t even need to sell tickets to the event.”
“Return to the Hiding Place,” which is based on a true story, tells of ten Boom’s refuge for Jews, as well as an “army of untrained teenagers” who helped rescue the most vulnerable from the horrors of the Holocaust.
“We know viewers, often intimidated and discouraged by today’s frightening news will see this film and be mobilized, encouraged that there is hope,” Spencer told The Blaze. “Resistance is not futile … even one person can make a revolutionary difference.”
Spencer will also be selling Orange Resist shirts and bracelets in an effort to raise money to help organizations that are actively working to rescue Christians from the region, while also featuring these organizations in special video posts that will be distributed via social media.
The goal, Spencer said, is to cause “America to become aware and involved in politically vocalizing the need to intervene on behalf of Christians and Jews worldwide experiencing a second holocaust.”
“The only hope for coping is by taking action. The only way we can cope is if solutions are at hand,” he said. “These solutions will not present themselves — we have to stand and fight, get behind the cause, and put our resources into saving lives today.”
Spencer invited people to learn more about Orange Resistance here, and to purchase copies of “Return to the Hiding Place” here.
Watch the trailer for ‘Return To The Hiding Place’ here.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/bloody-cross1-e1490102137147.png416639Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2015-09-20 06:29:442015-09-20 06:44:15VIDEO: New Film to Expose Muslim Persecution of Christians
It is not surprising that Paramount/Viacom Inc. would choose the opening weekend of Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation to unveil the first trailer for their early 2016 release 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. We now have the first trailer to what will surely be the first water cooler movie of 2016. The film is based on Mitchell Zuckoff’s acclaimed moment-by-moment account of what went wrong when the embassy was attacked by armed militants on September 11th, 2012.
Oh yes, we are all going to be talking about this one on January 15th, 2016. I won’t pretend I am an expert on the book or the incident just because I read some lengthy reviews of the book in order to prepare for this piece, but the book seems to focus on the handful of private security officers who attempted to defend the trapped civilians, as opposed to throwing partisan blame in one direction or another. I’m sure we’ll see Paramount, director Bay, and stars John Krasinski and James Badge Dale stressing the non-political nature of the story, how it’s about the bravery of the men who fought regardless of who was to blame, etc, etc.
But that won’t mean that this film won’t be something of a lightning rod basically a month away from the Iowa caucuses which will basically kick off the primary election process for the 2016 presidential race. [Emphasis added]
Watch the trailer for ’13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi’ set for release on January 15th, 2016:
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/13-Hours-The-Secret-Soldiers-of-Benghazi.jpg398640Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)2015-07-29 06:13:282016-01-15 08:40:37Will the Film ’13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi’ impact the 2016 Election?
I enjoy epic movies, particularly epic science fiction movies. Star Wars, Star Trek, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind are all epic science fiction. Ridley Scott’s new film Prometheus does not rise to the level of Star Wars, but its visuals are stunning. Many science fiction movies deal with human struggles; Prometheus tries to deal with the greatest question of all: Where did mankind come from?
Ridley comes firmly down on the side of Darwinism. Prometheus is no more than Darwinian propaganda.
The opening scene is of a human-like alien coming to earth where he self-destructs. His DNA then flows into the pristine waters of a new Earth, and from that comes mankind. This scenario is used by atheists to describe the origin of mankind. Some scientists and atheists suggest that lightning struck a primordial soup of chemicals and suddenly life began. Ridley promotes the idea that we came from extraterrestrials. That is the theme of the movie – man’s quest for his alien origin. A fool’s errand if there ever was one, as the movie demonstrates.
The characters are scientists on a quest to a distant galaxy seeking the “engineers” of mankind. What they end up finding is, surprise, the last of a race of extraterrestrials who are bent on killing mankind. At the end the alien species is co-joined with a slimy alien species to create a new alien species – pure Darwinism. Get ready for Prometheus II: Darwin Evolving, the sequel.
Of course Ridley does have one character who clings to a cross given to her by her father. That cross, symbolizing another reasonable explanation for the origin of man, is never fully developed. At the end it is this character who survives, wearing her cross. Ridley does not end his movie on a positive note but rather on a negative note. Because of that, he lost my interest and he devolved into commercialism.
I would like Ridley to address intelligent design by a supreme being – a.k.a. God – in a future movie. Now that would be an epic.
Ridley could have made the argument, that “yes there is a God” and he designed us. There are more rational arguments in favor of intelligent design than not. Perhaps the most powerful argument for the existence of God is offered by William Lane Craig, author of Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics and On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision. Dr. Craig presents the Moral Argument for the existence of a supreme being as:
1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.
Ridley deals with this in his film. Each character is faced with objective moral values and decisions. Objective moral decisions such as: seeking immortality, using science to further nefarious ends, robotics, cloning and even the creation of alien biological weapons of mass destruction. Evil does exist within each of the characters in Prometheus and good does somehow triumph. However, evil is reborn in the form of another alien being, a hybrid portrayed in his original film Aliens.
I would have wished Ridley had delved into a rational and scientific analysis of God as the most likely “engineer” of us all.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/prometheus-michael-fassbender-e1387669160796.jpg420640Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)2012-06-22 07:59:072013-12-21 18:39:30MOVIE REVIEW: Prometheus An Epic to Darwinism
