The Book of Eli

I just received an email today from a source for churches and inside its contents was a link to invite churches to use this new movie called The Book of Eli as a way to have a Bible study.

I clicked on the link and open up to a trailer about a movie cast in the future after the earth, especially the United States has endured a apocalyptic event some 30 years prior.

The movie comes with a "R" rating and contains graphic violence and language throughout. So, my first twinge of consciousness is why are we even using this as a study guide to Bible study? The link above will take you to a page where there are study notes that you can download referring to particular scenes from the movie.

This obviously made me more curious about the movie itself. So I went to the movie's official site to learn a bit more about this movie.

The interesting thing is that the Bible is at the center of this film. That is due to it being supposedly the last remaining copy in existence and Denzel's character, Eli is on a mission to carry it from the east coast to the west coast. Why? We never really get a clear reason other than he has a destiny and perhaps a vision has spurned him on. So for years now he has been making his difficult journey across country to fulfill this mission given him by....well, I guess God.

Now...I know this is a movie. I know that it has many flaws and perhaps some admirable attempts to introduce faith and purpose around a iconic symbol like the Bible. But it is a movie produced by secular minds to present some sort of sordid philosophy about ignorance and education, faith and the power to control through fear and intimidation. Good versus evil in just another setting and in another imaginative way.

From all the trailers and dialogue it reminds me of a remixed version of Mad Max and Waterworld. We have led us to our deserving end and where is the leader that will rise to save the existing world and make the good to prevail?

Ok, enough about movie reviews especially since I have not seen the movie and probably won't since I have a problem with promoting a Christian to see something that even the world says is worthy of a "R" rating.

That leads me to my next thought. Why do we need to use this film to help us promote what is already in the Bible? Why do we need to turn to secular sources and even such violent ones to help us make parallels with the Biblical truth?

Now someone might argue that Jesus took the familiar and the examples around Him to bring out heavenly principles, but I would still argue that He didn't use such examples as "R" rated movies to fulfill His search for an analogy.

How far is too far and where do we start drawing lines in helping us be careful not to condone worldliness in an attempt to be "in touch" or "in tune" with where people are today? I could draw parallels to many of the apocalyptic movies of today and yesterday, because we know that sin destroys and people without Christ are basically zombies, but I still don't think we should go out and bring in clips from "Night of the Living Dead" to help us illustrate the point.

Now we have a movie that uses the Bible as its symbolic icon in a movie that is filled to the hilt with violence and vulgarity and we just have to make sure we use it to help people learn some sort of Biblical truths?

Come ON!