Bible Study

I was recently reading an article about an upcoming documentary on education, said to be quite powerful and effective. A sidebar to the article briefly praised five other existing documentaries that take on other socially important issues. I decided to check out one in particular, For the Bible Tells Me So.

The film is a look at the attitudes of Christianity in regards to homosexuality. It follows around half a dozen different stories of families with strong religious backgrounds who had to come to terms with having a gay child. It also features interviews with a number of religious scholars who go into detail about the passages from the Bible routinely cited as precedent for a moral position against homosexuality.

I'll confess that one of my main motivations in watching the film was to wag a finger from my couch at the ultra-conservative religious nuts and their backward thinking. That was my expectation, anyway. And the movie does effectively skewer a literal reading of the Bible. It explains the true historical context of the oft-quoted lines, it talks about how this hyper-literal reading of scripture is a relatively recent development in Christianity, and reminds how similar religious quotations have been used historically to deny rights to woman, ethnic minorities, and more.

But the movie also shows that tarring all religious people with that brush isn't fair either. Sure, you get moments of hateful vitriol from James Dobson, Anita Bryant, and their ilk. You get a couple not nearly as accepting of their lesbian daughter as you'd hope them to be. But you also get some families that are remarkable, even inspirational. You get the heartbreaking story of a mother who makes the conversion from one side of the issue to the other.

In short, you get a truly measured, nuanced, and rational documentary film. It has some powerful things to say not only to the sort of narrow-minded people I wish I could strap to a chair, Clockwork Orange-style, and force to watch it -- it's eye-opening, informative, and revealing to people on all sides of the issue.

I don't know that a 90 minute movie is truly enough to actually change any minds, but I would recommend this documentary to literally anyone and everyone. Outstanding work; emotional and educational. This is top notch documentary film making. I rate it an A.