Waiting for Armageddon
Film Review by Kam Williams
Headline: Faith-Based Documentary Focuses on Fatalistic Evangelical Christians
In America, there are about 50-million fundamentalist Christians whose literal interpretation of the Bible leads them to believe that the Second Coming of Jesus is imminent. These devout Evangelicals refer to that eagerly-anticipated reunion as The Rapture, the fateful day on which the faithful will allegedly rise into the sky with their Savior while the rest of humanity is left behind to suffer for another seven years.
Directed by Kate Davis and David Heilbroner, Waiting for Armageddon is an amusing expose’ which takes an eye-opening look at the worldview of members of the Evangelical community, focusing particularly on their passionate support of Israel. They say politics makes strange bedfellows, and none might be stranger than the unlikely alliance of Jews and the Religious Right.
For if I follow what this documentary is suggesting, these Christian Zionists’ uncritical backing of Israel emanates not out of a sense of kinship or brotherhood, but based on an eagerness to see World War III erupt in the Middle East region. Still, as unsettling as that philosophy sounds, the couples and ministers profiled in the picture seem likable enough, provided they’re not reciting or referring to scriptures, which is rare.
Waiting for Armageddon is the best contribution to the Evangelical genre since Jesus Camp, the flick that indirectly ended up bringing down the career of televangelist Ted Haggard when a male prostitute decided to out the gay-bashing hypocrite. This movie features a preacher with a mega-church, too, Pastor John Hagee, who is shown exhorting his 18,000-strong congregation to gird their loins for the impending showdown with “Islamofascism.”
The scary specter of all-out Holy War as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 74 Minutes
Distributor: First Run Features
1 comment:
Sacchi and his crew who befriended those on the Israel tour and then betrayed them. He left gullible viewers with the impression via his selective editing that all the people on the trip supported the knee-jerk views he captured on video, you know, guilty by mere association apparently. Those who unquestioningly want to buy into what Sacchi is selling them seem to believe, as Sacchi likely intended, that the tourists went to Israel simply to see end-times sites like Jerusalem and Megiddo. Not to disappoint the gullible, but none of what was implied by his film was actually the case. Some of the tourists did not know the tour guide beforehand. Many of the tourists were just as uncomfortable as the Jewish guide on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem at some of the tour guide's comments, not to mention some of the views expressed by the Jewish tour guide on the tour bus! The tourists visted many archaeological sites (including non-biblical ones) all across Israel as well as Jordan and Egypt. Some did not and do not provide financial support to Israel. Some would love to see a two-state solution or at least peace, if possible. Many actually thought Sacchi and his crew were friendly, sincere, and truthful. Apparently many should have been more distrustful of such liberal film-makers. Sacchi's documentary did nothing but fan the flames of the already growing divide between the political left and right. Shame on him and his crew!
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