Parental Guidance: Christian Themes



The MPAA has given the new film Facing The Giants a PG rating for what they consider to be thematic elements from which parents might want to shelter their children.

What are those thematic elements? Frank discussion of Christianity.

According to the Christian website World Views, the movie is...

...a gentle film about a burned-out, depressed football coach at a Christian high school, whose life takes a miraculous turn for the better. While there's none of the usual PG-worthy stuff in the movie, the MPAA said the film's strong Christian content may offend people of other religions.

Emphasis above was mine.

One has to wonder, if the movie depicted a character who was a devout Hindu or a practicing Buddhist, would the MPAA have had the same concerns?

According to World Net Daily, one scene in particular might have drawn the MPAA's scrutiny. That scene involves...

...a discussion between a football coach and a wealthy brat.

When the coach said the student needed to stop bad-mouthing his father and get right with God, the boy said, "You really believe in all that honoring God and following Jesus stuff? ... Well, I ain't trying to be disrespectful, but not everybody believes in that."

The coach replied: "Matt, nobody's forcing anything on you. Following Jesus Christ is the decision that you're going to have to make for yourself. You may not want to accept it, because it'll change your life. You'll never be the same."

The MPAA has been a dysfunctional, meandering mess for a very long time now. Many of the decisions they've made regarding film ratings have offended me, but this is the first time they've offended me by suggesting that one religion in particular (Christianity) has the potential to cause offense. It's nonsense.

If you are interested, Wendy wrote a long piece about the disaster that is the MPAA a long time ago. She wrote it for a college project and it's posted here in plain text format.

HT for the story: Nehring The Edge.

  ¶ 9:49 AM