This contribution is excerpted from a series of emails exchanged between staff writers and editors at www.hollywoodjesus.com.
First, I am a Michael Moore fan.
Second, I believe Fahrenheit 9/11 is his weakest film to date, not so
much for what it says but for how it is constructed. In interviews, Moore
has as much as admitted that
there is nothing really new in it as far as content goes. What is new is
how the content is assembled, and that is little more than any conspiracy theorist might have done.
Fahrenheit 9/11
is also derisively speculative (Was
Bush thinking, “What’s that kink in my underwear? What field day is
Michael Moore going to have with this footage?”), inconsistent (Is Bush
a genius, brilliant enough to pull off one of
the most stupendous dupings of the voting public in history, or an
indecisive
dolt?), and pointlessly inflammatory (That beheading in Saudi Arabia
that Moore
had us watch, which maybe some of us missed—what was the point of
that?).
Disdain is not a value I hold dear, no matter what the
source or whether I share it. It is possible to both criticize and show respect. Unfortunately, Moore
does not seem to share this view.
Third, I agree wholly that, as www.hollywoodjesus.com
reviewer Mike Furches put it, “The real debate is: do the Democrats really offer
any solutions to the issues [Moore] brings up? Deep down, I don’t think they
do, and that is a large part of the struggle.”
However, I do not agree with Mike’s statement that, “Politics as usual,
by both parties, is certainly something that spells doom for a large portion of
the population that Jesus loves.”
Our hope and the world’s hope has never been the Republicans, Democrats,
Michael Moore, the Green Party, politics, America or any other human
institution—including the institutionalized church, if you catch my drift.
There are very real reasons to be concerned about what is going on in the
world—and there always have been. Nevertheless, there are no reasons to
be pessimistic or to abandon hope. The solution is the power of God
working in the lives of individuals—each one of us. It is not where we are
that matters but where we are headed. And the gates of hell itself cannot
prevail against that.