FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS, volume 8, number 9, February 26, 2009

To the pure all things are pure . . . Titus 1:15

Can Any Good Thing Come Out of Hollywood?

I had the privilege recently of attending the 17th Annual Faith and Values Awards Gala in Beverly Hills, an event sponsored by Dr. Ted Baehr and Movieguide. When Ted first began this event he met for lunch in a Hollywood restaurant with less than one hundred people in attendance. Now the Gala is a celebrity affair with executives, directors, and screen writers from the major film companies in Hollywood. A number of awards were given to films that portray family and faith values. The highest award is called the Epiphany Prize, given for the most inspirational movie and television program of the year. The big winner for film was Fireproof, produced and directed by the Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, GA. Talk about vision— Sherwood Baptist Church’s vision statement is, “We can change the world from Albany, Georgia,” and they certainly are. This film grossed $48 million at the box office and cost the church $500,000 to produce. The award to the best television program was a Hallmark production entitled The Christmas Choir, a story about homeless men who put together a choir to sing Christmas carols. It is Christ-centered, as is the movie Fireproof. Each received $100,000 from the Templeton Foundation. The Grace Award was presented “to the actor or actress, who through their performance, best exemplify God’s grace and mercy towards us as human beings.” The winner was Adriana Barraza for her performance in Henry Poole Is Here.  The Gala also awards the Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays. The primary purpose is to further the influence of moral and spiritual values within the film and television industries. It was established to help insure first time screenwriters to produce compelling, entertaining, and spiritually uplifting scripts. Oren Aviv, President of Production at Walt Disney Studies, presented the awards.  The three prizes are for $25,000, $15,000, and $10,000. The second runner- up was a PCA pastor named Rusty Whitener from Pulaski, Va., and the winner learned to write scripts by going on line.

At the risk of stating the obvious, by no means is Hollywood totally embracing Movieguide and its values. One prominent film company refused to allow any of their people to attend until Ted put some pressure on it. While most of Hollywood is malevolent or at least ambivalent toward Ted Baehr and Movieguide, and rejects his notion that family and faith values need to return to Hollywood and film media, his “Report to the Entertainment Industry” (see www.movieguide.org for the entire report) ought to cause them to pause and reconsider their opposition to producing family films. After all, money talks to the movers and shakers in Hollywood. Ted cited one statistic after another to prove that conservative, moral, family value movies that portray Christ and the church, as well as capitalism in a positive light far out perform at the box office movies that promote violence, anti-Christian bias, homosexuality, and sexual immorality. Of the twenty-five top grossing films fourteen of them had strong Christian, redemptive, and moral content. Nearly all of them had some of this content.

Knowing that numerous Hollywood executives would be in the audience, I was not expecting the unashamedly Christ-centeredness of the Gala. It was begun and concluded by prayer in the name of Jesus. Everyone who attended received a beautiful, leather bound study bible, along with Kirk Cameron’s autobiography entitled Still Growing. Many of the winners spoke of their faith in Christ, giving glory to God for enabling them to win their awards. I was also amazed at how honored the winners were. In a post Gala breakfast the next morning we heard one story after another of winners who said their award meant more to them than any they had received. One well known presenter who was very reluctant to serve in that role, said that he felt very comfortable there, and was delighted to take part.  A prominent film executive said that he had never been made to feel so special and honored.

Ted Baehr began his ministry over twenty years ago when he realized that the sordid slide into iniquity in the film industry was taking over Hollywood, and corrupting America. He told me many years ago that this began when the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Church discontinued their examination of all the movie scripts in Hollywood. He is seeking to turn the tide and there can be little doubt that his efforts are succeeding.

So— can anything good come out of Hollywood? Yes it can, and we should applaud Ted Baehr and Movieguide for their efforts. You may wish to subscribe to Movieguide: A Family Guide to Movies, Entertainment, and Culture. Go to their website www.movieguide.org for details.

FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS is a weekly devotional by Reverend Al Baker, pastor of Christ Community Presbyterian Church in West Hartford, Connecticut.

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