Chain Letters and God Striking

The other day I received an email. You know those ones that get forwarded and forwarded from friends and no one knows where the original came from. Normally I read these and then just delete, but this one made me respond with a well thought out comment. So I decided to share this email and my reaction to it.


Subject: FW: All I ask...

All we can do is get the word out to everyone! The movie Corpus Christi is due to be released this June to August. I totally agree with the message below. Let's stand for what we believe in and stop the mockery of Jesus Christ our Savior. where do we stand as Christians? At the risk of a bit of inconvenience, I'm forwarding this to all I think would appreciate it too. Please help us prevent such offenses against our Lord. It will take you less than 2 minutes! If you are not interested, and do not have the 2 Minutes it will take to do this , please don't complain when God does not have time for you, because He is far busier than we are.

A disgusting film set to appear in America later this year depicts Jesus and his disciples as homosexuals! As a play, this has already been in theatres for a while. It's called Corpus Christi ' which means 'The Christ Body.' It's revolting mockery of our Lord. But we can make a difference. That's why I am sending this e-mail to you. If you do send this around, we will be able to prevent this film from showing in America and South Africa . Hey, it's worth a shot! Apparently, some regions in Europe have already banned the film. All we need is a lot of prayer and a lot of e-mails. Remember, Jesus said 'Deny Me on earth and I'll deny you before my Father'.

So here's my reaction to this email.

Although I find the subject matter reprehensible, I don't believe in dictating what other people think, create or watch. If these people wish to make this movie (and it's not new, the gay community has embraced the concept of Jesus being gay, and I believe they are the only ones who have embraced this idea), then it is within their rights to do so. Sure they're blaspheming God, but I think He can take care of that.

Those who seek control and power frequently do so by trying to control communications. My father was born in a country where information was closely controlled by the government, much like the Nazi's did with the radio and book burnings.

Imagine if someone decided that The Book of Mormon should be banned, or that movies made by LDS people should not be shown to the public because it doesn't fit in with their view of Christ. Or that the Bible should be burned because it doesn't fit in with secular vision of the world.

It is not up to us to decide what people can see. It is up to us to proclaim the truth. Attempts to ban a movie only makes us look like controlling religious fanatics and no one wants to hear the truth from a religious fanatic. The gospel is better spread by proclaiming the truth with peace, love and service, not by banning the lies.

Even in the War In Heaven, Heavenly Father allowed Lucifer to speak and then He allowed us to make our own choices.

So sure, some people will go to see this movie. That is their choice. What conclusions they come to from it is their choice too.

If you want to make something a success, the best thing to do is get it banned, because then people will want to go to it to see what the fuss is all about.

The other thing that bothers me about this email is the inference that if I don't get on the bandwagon calling for a ban on this movie that I'm not there for God and that I'm denying Him. Nothing is further than the truth. I just don't happen to agree with the overzealous viewpoint of this email. It's actually pretty presumptuous to claim to speak for God as the writer appears to be attempting to do and it's offensive to claim omnipotence as to tell me what my thoughts and actions mean.

Now after sending that email back to my friend I did a little research. Normally I do the research first, but this time I did it backwards because I had a knee-jerk reaction to this particular email.

There is no such movie, again another scam email.

So why am I even bothering posting?

Several reasons...
1. I needed a post subject.
2. As a reminder to please, please do some research before forwarding on these things. In fact, don't forward anything on. They're all scams and overwhelmingly stupid.
3. I wanted to state my opinions on banning anything.
4. My disgust at the manipulation in these emails suggesting (actually, outright accusing) that those who don't forward it along are bad.
5. I've never sent chain mail to 6000 of my best friends before, and I'm not going to start now and I'm still alive.

******

I really, really want to win Lemon Tart by Josi S. Kilpack. So I'm posting the link to Anne Bradshaw's post about it. Not Entirely British Contest. Although, by posting it, it means that all of you will run over there and enter the contest too, thereby making my chances just that much smaller. Oh well, I'm going to have something bad happen to me because of that stupid email anyway.