Longtime friend (and former CT film critic) Jeffrey Overstreet recently was asked to compile a list of “Five Movies Christians Hated for All the Wrong Reasons” for Seattle’s CityArts magazine.
Top of the list: Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which many Christians think mocks Jesus. “Not true,” writes Overstreet. “It makes us laugh as we watch gullible, fickle, arrogant humans chase a false messiah, exploit religious teaching for their own gain and misunderstand Jesus.”
The piece written partly in response to Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll’s well-publicized rant against Avatar as the “most demonic, satanic movie I’ve ever seen.” In response to Driscoll, Overstreet told CityArts that Christians should know movies in the way that St. Paul knew and quoted pagan poetry in Athens. “And what’s the place where Paul did this?” Overstreet asks. “Mars Hill!” Driscoll’s church name? Mars Hill.
