Lord, Save Us From Your Followers [affiliate link] is the title of a new documentary that just came out on April 20th. My wife and I were able to watch the whole thing online the day it came out and I want to recommend this resource to you.
In this documentary, Dan Merchant asks the question, “Why is the gospel of love dividing America?” With interviews, quotes and clips from people like George Bush, Barack Obama, Bono, Al Franken, Tony Campolo and Rick Santorum, Merchant does a great job of presenting a balanced and reasonable look at the way Christians are engaging culture.
Merchant uses a variety of approaches to getting everyone’s perspective on the “culture wars” in America between various faith communities. He interviews Dr. Tony Campolo who is a noted evangelical scholar but he also interviews Sister Mary Timothy who is a cross-dressing “nun” in San Francisco. In addition to dozens of great interviews, Merchant also does some pretty interesting “man on the street” style interviews. He walks around in a big white jumpsuit with various bumper stickers espousing Christian or non-Christian values. His point is to show that when we reduce the conversation down to a bumper sticker we aren’t really engaging anyone with our beliefs and values.
This documentary has animations, clips from popular culture, and a quick moving pace that keeps you interested in the content. Overall, this is a well-researched and compelling documentary on how followers of Christ should be acting. Merchant even shows up at a gay pride event and opens up a confession booth with a hat tip to Don Miller of “Blue Like Jazz”. When he begins confessing the sins of Christianity (like how many hate rather than love our homosexual neighbors) to many of the gays and lesbians who enter the confession booth many of them are visibly moved and appreciate his willingness to take the first step in reconciliation between the two sides.
There aren’t too many people creating Christian films on par with what Hollywood can produce but this documentary is a refreshing change. The message is sound and compelling and the video and production are done with excellence. This documentary needs to be seen by churches and families as we consider how to show love to our neighbors.
Here’s the product description from Amazon:
Whether someone is Atheist, Agnostic, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, – or yes, even Christian – all can identify at times with the cry, “Lord, Save Us from Your Followers!” Fed up with the divisive bumper sticker mentality overtaking America, director (and follower) Dan Merchant donned his Bumper Sticker Man suit and set out on the daring search for meaningful dialogue and the true face of faith. Appearing in the film:Senator Al Franken, Dr. Tony Compolo, Former Senator Rick Santorum, Sister Mary Timothy, Paul Young, Bono, George W. Bush, and many, many more.
How are you engaging culture? Are you sharing the radical “Gospel of Love” to your neighbor or are you reducing the Gospel to a bumper sticker length message of condemnation?