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March 6, 2005

Mixed Message

My British colleague Clive Davis recently posted a couple of interesting links. The first is to Chuck Colson's obtuse assessment of "Sideways," which made me agree with Clive that Colson should definitely not be a movie critic.

The second is to an article about how, at press screenings of new films, the "Christian" (meaning evangelical) reviewers are the only ones asking serious questions. This rings true to my experience. One of the talks I gave relating to "Hole in Our Soul" was to a group of young rock and rap musicians who used those styles to convey their evangelical message. They asked me whether I thought there was such a thing as an "evil sound." After battling the blandness of CCM (Contemporary Christian Music), these young people clearly did not think there was. But they had given the whole topic a lot more thought than most of the many other groups I encountered on that circuit.

That's why I'm glad not only that Colson is not a critic but also that people who think like him do not, generally exert censorship power over their co-religionists - never mind the rest of us!

Posted by at March 6, 2005 8:00 AM