I'm not getting it.....yet!

I really want to get to the bottom of this movie! My senses are telling me that Dan Merchant is not someone who resides in “the middle of the road” when it comes to political or religious issues.

Here’s what I think about him, and I haven’t even been able to find anything about him on the internet. When you Google his name, or his movie, nearly ALL of the links that come up are in regards to his movie, Lord Save Us From Your Followers, and they are all glowing reviews. Listen: NOBODY GETS 100% POSITIVE REVIEWS. Where are the negative reviews? Something is just not right.

Ok, so what to do? Well, we shall be detectives, and we shall look for clues. Keep searching the internet, but change the search parameters. Here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to research on Google, but this time, I’m going to instruct Google NOT to return any results that have “Lord Save Us From Your Followers” in the article or title. You can do that by entering the following: “Dan Merchant, -“Lord Save Us From Your Followers” ” The hyphen (negative sign) tells Google NOT to show any results that contain those words. By putting the quotation marks around the whole title, it tells Google not to return any results that contain that group of words in that specific order.

Ok. Now, what do I find? Well, there are different things that you find, not many of them very interesting, and none of them having to do with the movie. But that’s ok, because we don’t want to read any more POSITIVE critiques of the movie. If you want to really know about the movie, you’ve got to discover who the man is that is responsible for the movie.

And here is my first clue: I found an interview of Dan Merchant by Robert Schuller, on The Hour of Power. Well, without even looking at the interview, I can already tell you that Robert Schuller denies the exclusivity of the Gospel, preaching Universalism – a belief that all people will ultimately end up in heaven by God’s side. Now, tell me, if you do not believe in Universalism, would you agree to be interviewed by Robert Schuller, and thereby promote the understanding that you don’t oppose his belief in Universalism?

Ok, so that’s the first problem. Let’s take a look at the interview. You’ll find it at this URL: http://movie.teacup.com/video/watchframe/2eb7bad0c4c45171

Notice that Dan Merchant is wearing his “Bumper Sticker” uniform. If you look carefully, you will find left-leaning bumper stickers of a positive nature, such as an anti-war sticker, “Who would Jesus bomb?”, or another one dealing with world hunger. But those stickers which represent the religious right are of a negative nature, such as “Get the Hell out of my way, I’m late for church!”

This unbalanced presentation is evident in all of the materials regarding this movie that I can find. For example, Dan Merchant claims that “I spoke with Liberals and Conservatives, both believers and nonbelievers, and everyone in between.” Yet some of the “conservatives” interviewed are not known for their religious work, but for their political work, such as Sen. Rick Santorum (a conservative Catholic), talk show radio host, Michael Reagan (a member of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel), Tony Campolo (Liberal theologian), and Jay Barnes (President of Bethel University, who allowed gay activists onto his campus under the guise of diversity of opinions: “We have an obligation, if we claim to be a liberal arts university, to credibly represent multiple points of view.”)

You’ll notice that Barnes and Campolo are presented by Merchant as “evangelicals” and therefore “conservatives.” Yet nowhere do we find those that Dan would consider the more strident voices in Christianity who would at the very least attempt to balance a presentation of grace with TRUTH. That’s because Dan Merchant’s agenda is one of marginalizing those on the right.

A telling commentary by Robert Schuller is found in his introduction of Dan Merchant that he “has been invited to speak at some of the most liberal academic institutions in the United States.” Why is that? Not because that is where the battle is, but because that is where his base of support lies. After all, what liberal will argue with Dan Merchant that Christians are divisive and that they spread hate?

What other things can be learned of this movie and the man who made it? Well, he quotes Philip Yancey as stating that “No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the argument.” Really? And this is proven how?

Another technique of Dan Merchant is to redefine the Gospel from that of being one of “repentance” to being one of “grace and love.” In all of the clips I can find that promote the movie, the Gospel is repeatedly referred to as “The Gospel of Grace.”

Dan Merchant asks, “What if the Church became known, not for what it’s against, but for what it’s for?” An interesting concept, but how does that play out in the grand scheme of things? Well, to begin with, there is the old adage, “If you won’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” We must be careful, and understand that Christianity is not simply a proponent of peace of love, but that it accomplishes that through the transformation of lives from one of death and destruction, to one of living for Christ.

You can’t help people accomplish that transformation by simply telling them that “God is love” and ignoring the wrath of God that stands upon their heads. Not only are we fooling ourselves with such drivel, but we are simply sealing their fate to one of eternity without God.