The past few weeks have been filled with some pretty random things, including two absolutely fantastic documentaries. Both were sponsored by the campus Ministry and Service department and open to everyone to enjoy. The first was centered around modern day slavery, and the second about the hypocrisy of Christians in today’s world. I’m just going to give you all a brief overview of both of the documentaries.

Call and Response is a documentary created by a musician named Justin Dillon and inspired by learning about the mass amounts of slavery still going on in today’s world. It’s being called more of a ‘rockumentary’, featuring around 20 artists and many big political names, basically everyone from Moby and Cornel West to Madeline Albright is featured. This graphic, moving film depicts not only what modern day slavery has become, but what can plausibly be done about it in today’s society. You probably don’t know this, but right now, today, there are 27 million slaves in the world, more than at any other point in history. It makes you wonder if we as humans have truly advanced socially, or rather, if we have just learned to hide our secrets better.

Lord Save Us From…Your Followers is an equally as controversial and informative film with its basis in the fact that many Christians in today’s world have been going about living their faith on a day to day basis in a not so Christ like manner. The film quotes Gandhi, as saying “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ” and in my opinion, this is a great summary of the film in general. It’s stressing the fact that we as Christians are not living like the Christ we proclaim to follow. Many times we choose to ignore the problems that would greatly disturb Jesus, and do not treat the people Jesus would most likely be friends with if He were here today with any respect or kindness. In essence, this film “explores the collision of faith and culture in America”. Again in this documentary, big names such as Al Franken, Rick Santorum, Bono, as well as many more voice their opinions on the matter. Whether you are a Christian or not, this is a great documentary to view that brings to light many of the shortcomings of today’s Christianity.

Moral of the story: Go out and find something that moves and shakes the way you think, in a productive way. Take those opinions you hear, check them out, see if they’re based on fact or fiction, and then form your own. Get together with friends and talk about your opinions on some big issues that may be bothering you. Basically, open your eyes and ears to the millions of people around the world that are screaming for your attention, screaming for your opinions and awareness that may one day change the way we look at them, and the situation they are in.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 3:53 pm and is filed under dan merchant, lord save us from your followers, justin dillon, moby, cornel west, change, madeline albright, ministry and service, call and response, friends, Chicago Excursions, clc, documentary, christians, slavery, chicago. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.