"The Jewish community has long fretted over the so-called “December Dilemma,” in which Jewish kids are teased for not having Christmas trees and gifts from Santa. To paraphrase Kyle from “South Park,” it’s hard to be a Jew on Christmas, especially in a Christian-dominated society.

Which is why you may be surprised to learn that Christians themselves — particularly, the right-wing conservative kind — believe, sincerely, that they are a persecuted, oppressed group in America.

You read that right. The same people flooding our airwaves with carols, and indeed, arguing that saying ‘Happy Holidays’ perpetuates the deicide of Jesus, are, themselves, the martyrs.

That’s the takeaway from the new Christian documentary entitled “One Generation Away” — as in quoting Ronald Reagan this time, “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” (Personally, I prefer Janis Joplin’s version, but that’s another story.)


The film is part of two recent trends in conservative Christian America: the resurgent right-wing “religious liberty” movement [[http://forward.com/articles/173100/the-movement-to-rebrand-discrimination-as-religiou/]] and the spate of new films like this one, aimed at Christian audiences yet attempting Hollywood-standard production values. A few weeks ago, I reviewed — and live-blogged — the biggest of these, “Left Behind”, an atrocious mess starring Nicolas Cage."

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/211588/live-blogging-jewishly-in-a-weird-evangelical-chri/#ixzz3NrdCvI9G








"It Was the Worst of Times: ‘Left Behind’ features a theological argument between an end-timer and someone concerned about Theodicy."

"Why am I here? The question arises on many levels. On the surface, clearly, I’m here to review “Left Behind,” based on the second-best-selling series of books of all time (“Harry Potter” is the first).

In theory, LB should be the biggest of a run of terrible Christian movies, including “Heaven is for Real” and “God’s Not Dead.” In practice, I’m not sure. But of course, there’s no way to tell by the attendance in a New York theater (besides me, there are eight people — all African-American, which maybe is interesting)."



Read more: http://forward.com/articles/207423/live-blogging-the-rapture-and-the-demise-of-nicola/?p=all#ixzz3NreV59Jp