NeoZine

The Revolution is quite different from Hollywood myths in so many ways.  We’re so bombarded with myths, Christians not only let them fall unchallenged, sometimes we pick up the most damaging stereotypes and begin living them.

But it’s only Hollywood! It’s not even real.

The Old “Revival”

“Gimme that old-time religion!” they bellowed, marching down Main Street with a thumping, big brass drum. It was a grand display, such a spectacle! God was going to win, you could see it in all their proud faces and stomp-stomp-stomp right up the steps of the courthouse, where they stop. A politician bellows above the crowd about God’s just cause, and it’s our cause! They will win, and they must win! Everyone cheers, marches into the courthouse, drum-thumping.

But they lost.

Oops.

That’s Christian Revolution, if we believe Hollywood’s version: “the day when Christians owned America.” The brilliant movie was called Inherit the Wind, and they used the Bible’s poetry to chastise Christians:

He that troubles his own house shall inherit the wind:
and the fool shall be servant to the wise. Proverbs 11:29

Spencer Tracy vs. Mr. Hyde

Remember the famous Scopes Monkey Trial? They cast one of the greatest actors in Hollywood history as the brilliant atheist-lawyer:  Spencer Tracy. He performed brilliantly, and his dialog was foolproof.

They cast the monster from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as the Christian politician, and gave him all the dumb-dumb dialog. (He won an Oscar as Mr. Hyde!) So the ugly monster-Christian was up against Spencer Tracy, Dick York and Gene Kelly, all among the most charismatic, talented actors in Hollywood.

It’s brilliant anti-Christian propaganda. Audiences aren’t told about the fiction in the movie, especially in its most anti-Christian moments:

The character of Reverend Jeremiah Brown whips his congregation into a frenzy and calls down hellfire on his own daughter for being in love with Bertram Cates. In fact, no such event took place — Scopes had no girlfriend and the character of Rev. Brown is fictitious.

The 1960 film depicts a prayer meeting during which some express hostility about Drummond and Cates…In reality, the people of Dayton were generally very kind and cordial to Darrow, who attested to this fact during the trial. From Wikipedia.

Educators often show this movie in schools, even though it quotes many Bible passages. (Are teachers allowed to read the Bible in classes?)

Why show it in school? Does it have scientific value? Not much. There is no significant point aside from reviving “Sins of the Past” committed by Church institutions. Kids see how foolish (and scary) Christians are, even if it isn’t the teacher’s motive for showing the movie.

No Complaints, No Apologies

Revolutionaries cannot complain when the Kosmos is virulently anti-Christian. After all, the Je3sus Revolution is set against the Kosmos in a big way (its core values and satanic authority). And whenever a Christian brings someone to Christ, we know it means leading them “out of the kingdom of darkness,” among other unsavory names (See Col. 1:13, discussed in Change). Not many Hollywood movies label Christianity as a “kingdom of darkness.”

Hollywood exaggerates the menace of Christianity, but not by much. Whenever Church pulpits become political thrones, secular thinkers like Scopes are  dominated amd even sometimes persecuted, as the movie points out.

Where did Christian Censorship come from? Censorship was never part of The Revolution. New Testament Christians never worked this way, and there is absolutely no biblical support legitimizing censorship.

Christian-Sponsored Censorship arose only when the Institutions of the Church competed for world domination: the Inquisition, Crusades, monarchies, purges, wars, and more all came from Church. They outlawed free speech in America, as the movie demonstrated. Church moved the Jewish Sabbath to Sunday and passed Blue Laws imposing it on Jews.

But none of this came from The Jesus Revolution. It came from politicians like Matthew Brady. There’s really nothing to apologize for on the behalf of The Revolution. As long as we’re clear about our own allegiance as Christians—allegiance to God’s Kingdom, not man’s—there will never be anything to apologize for.

Not Old Time Religion

When Church 'owned' America--not a pretty picture, not "good old days".

Amazingly, some Christians want to resurrect the “old-time religion” depicted in the movie, and return to when Christians owned America and paraded down Main Street.

But Christians never owned America, and America was never a Christian country. Not for a minute. Yet in recent decades a movement among Christians began claiming our “Founding Fathers” were Christian, so America should return to its Christian roots.

Hold on there! More “Founding Fathers” were not Christian. This fact is irrefutable.

But there was once a greater Christian consensus, this is true. But Christian consensus never came from the U.S. government or politicians or political rallies. It came from real revolutionaries like John Wesley, George Fox and the Quakers, and missionaries like Jonathon Edwards. In fact, no politician ever built the Christian consensus as politicians, not at any time in American history. Never.

Here is the unique quality of The Jesus Revolution: it was never a political movement, not once. Instead, The Revolution was opposed by political regimes, by the rich and powerful, the elite, and other big stakeholders in the World System.

The Revolution is feared by political machines because it wins the hearts of the peoples. Politicians rarely get such allegiance. (More often they get assassinated by their own kind: politically or physically.) This is why jealousy becomes an overwhelming drive to stamp out Christians:

The high priest rose up, along with all his associates, and they were filled with jealousy. Acts 5:17 (NASB)

When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul… Acts 13:45 (NASB)

Becoming jealous and taking along some wicked men from the market place, they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar; Acts 17:5 (NASB)

This was, in fact, envisioned by God from the beginning, as prophesied in the Old Testament:

Moses says, “I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation” Romans 10:19 (NASB)

Revolutionaries don’t become politicians: they make politicians jealous.

Revolution begins with leading people to Christ, which means leading them into the Kingdom of God. Rest assured, the jealousy of the politicians will follow!

Flesh or Spirit

The Revolution leads people into real life-change. If we don’t see revolutionary life-changes, we aren’t revolutionaries, and we aren’t in The Revolution. Life-changes from Revolution looks like this:

Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. Galatians 5:16-17 (NASB)

Revolution occurs when two realms are “in opposition to one another,” Paul says. One realm governed by Flesh, another by the Spirit. One is a cold machine, the other is the person of God. One is prison, the other leads to freedom:

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.  Galatians 5:16-18 (NASB)

Do you know why the Kosmos is so law-dependent? (And the Kosmos certainly breeds laws, legislatures, enforcers and all kinds of power-brokers who own the laws, and bend the laws to their favor!) The machinery of the Kosmos could never operate like the Spirit does, “not under the Law.” Laws are required because the machinery grinds humans into dust and it’s greased with blood:

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19-21 (NASB)

Laws keep the machine running like a clock, isolating the slaughter in ghettos and other kill-zones and away from the power-brokers. All those “deeds of the flesh” require a winner and a loser: a predator and a victim. That’s why the Kosmos can’t operate like the Spirit does, “not under the law” — it would be anarchy.

Never Again!

It’s so futile to tangle The Revolution with the machinery of the Kosmos. Can Christians really win in the realm of “enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes,” and all that follows? Are Christians ready to hate and fight wars like those governing the realm of Flesh? It’s a silly question.

The Revolution launches from a different world of assumptions:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

The Revolution can never become another Kosmos-Kingdom by such principles.

Hence the origins of the Institutions of the Church: whenever Christians tried cramming God’s Kingdom in the World System, they simply left The Revolution behind and began working for the other side. So Church is where we see lots of “enmities, strife, jealousy” and the other “deeds of the flesh”, but not much “love, joy, peace, patience” and so forth.

The Revolution doesn’t work that way.