The Best Christian Movies of All Time
http://www.christianmovies.biz/
Some of you may not realize that I own a web site dedicated to Christian movies. I majored in film criticism at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, back in the 1970s. Before the days of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, Hollywood was starting to look very much like an industry on its last leg; so I switched to art - a far, far more stable profession. 
Then the motion picture industry made its incredible comeback, thanks to independents like Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas. I don't regret my decision to switch professions; yet, film has remained one of my passions, and I have looked forward to the day when Christian films would be able to stand alongside non-Christian films and hold their own. With movies like Blindside and Soul Surfer, I think that day has come.
There wasn't always a need to distinguish Christian films from non-Christian, because most films before 1968 were Christian, in worldview if not in theme, thanks to the Hays Code. There was a genre called "Biblical Epics," which, technically speaking, is what we today would call Christian films. But there was as much Christianity in movies like Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, and It's A Wonderful Life as in any Biblical Epic. It seems unfortunate that this division between what is Christian and what is not exists today. It was The Passion Of The Christ and its $400 million gross sales that convinced us that this may not be a bad thing.
Three well-respected writers take issue with this dichotomous thinking:
A Christmas Carol
The Best Christmas Story Ever - 5-Star Masterpiece
How Christmas Was Saved, and So Were We
In the mid 1800s, Christmas was a dying holiday, much as it is today. Many of its traditions were being neglected, and even the idea of "Peace on earth, good will to men" was considered passe. Then something extraordinary happened: Charles Dickens published "A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas." It was an instant success, and launched one of the biggest comebacks in history: not of Dickens, but of Christmas.
The English poet Thomas Hood once wrote, "If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease." That's how powerful a tale it is. And it doesn't take that long to read.
Over the course of my life, I have enjoyed many and sundry versions of A Christmas Carol on screen and stage. But only a few years ago did I finally get around to reading it. To my surprise, it turned out to be a Christian story. I knew it was inspiring, but I never dreamed there were so many references to Christ, because only a few of them have survived in the many dramatic productions. (There have actually been fifty or sixty different film versions of A Christmas Carol made. You can read about most of them on the definitive Christmas Carol web site, http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/christmas-carol/christmas-carol.html.)
The amazing thing about this five-part story, which is one of the shortest in Dickens' career, is that we never tire of seeing or hearing it. We seem enthralled by the idea that Christmas can transform us, if only we'll let it. In A Christmas Carol, we see the Victorian Christmas we have always dreamed of. In the miser Scrooge, we see the best and worst of ourselves. And in the conclusion to the tale, we see the hope that we, similarly, can be transformed by the Spirit of Christmas.
Why Things Aren’t Working: or, The Parable of Bedford Falls
I believe the movie, It's A Wonderful Life, holds the answer to why our nation is in trouble. Almost nothing in America is working right now: not our economic system, not our political system, not our housing system, not our educational system, not our health care system, not our immigration system, not our banking system, not our social system - not even our postal system, which has always been the government agency that worked the best. Nothing in America is working right now, and the reason is pretty simple.
In the movie, It's A Wonderful Life, there are two towns: Bedford Falls and Pottersville. (They're actually the same town, but under different circumstances.) You'll remember that Bedford Falls is the town that George Bailey, the hero, grows up in, and that Pottersville is the town it would have become had George Bailey never been born. It's a dramatic contrast, presented by Heaven to show George that his life really has made a difference. If George is a Christ figure in the movie, which he is, then you could say that we get to see how a town with Christ looks, and then how it would look without Him. If George is also a Christian, trying to love his neighbor as himself, which he is, then you could also say that we get to see the impact that one Christian life can make.
Here's my contention: America, which was once made up of homey little communities like Bedford Falls, is quickly becoming a country of Pottersvilles; and we, who were once a nation of caring citizens like George Bailey, are becoming a nation of Potters.
One Hundred Eighty – 180 Movie
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To learn more, go to Heart Changer.
This is a production of The Way of the Master and Living Waters.
Things to Come – Predictions for the Future
Everyone is wondering what is going to happen in both the near and distant futures. The prophets of doom are everywhere, and they're selling their books, CDs and online classes by the truckloads. I'm no Nostradamus; but I do believe I have a pretty good handle on where things are going, based on history and observing our planet over the past 50 years. Care to hear my predictions?
THE INTERNET
This one is a no-brainer. I've heard the age we're living in called a lot of things, but I don't see how it could be called anything other than the Information Age. The Industrial Age, which we just left, was about the invention of machines that caused a boom in industry, thus creating the Industrial Revolution. Our own age is about the invention of the Internet, which has caused a boom in information, thus creating the Information Revolution. So, to be consistent, our age is the Information Age.
In 1990, when the World Wide Web was launched, we officially, though not practically, left the Industrial Age and all its trappings and entered an entirely new age. What that means is that everything that was part of that previous age is going away and something entirely new is going to take its place. (So, why bemoan the fact that our manufacturing has gone overseas? It was inevitable.) Let me give you a few examples of how things are going to change.
Real Stories
The Best of Waitsel.com
For the past five years, I have been writing articles for my ten websites that come under the umbrella of Waitsel.com They cover everything from art, books, character, culture, health, history, knighthood, leadership, manhood, money, movies, music, nature, technology, travel, writing - even heaven. Over the course of those five years, I've tracked which articles people have liked best, not only from their comments, but also from the vast numbers of people that have found my articles on search engines. I have put the creme de la creme on my site RealStories.com I hope you find some that interest you. Enjoy reading!
Read more:
Reading is a gift that we often take for granted and neglect. It's also an art. Someone once said that "Leaders are readers." Read something you don't HAVE to read every day. It will do your soul good.
Waitsel Smith, August 15, 2011
Hit the Road!
For generations, Americans have "found themselves" by hitting the road and discovering America, and many of them did that on Route 66. It's time we hit the Mother Road again.
In the early 1970s, I decided to hitchhike across America. I was discontented with college and had decided to be a missionary for awhile. I had a couple of months to kill before my training started, so I decided to spend them on the road seeing America.
I wasn't the first in my family to do this. Back in the 1920s, several of my granddad's brothers and cousins decided to drive from North Carolina to California, working their way across. Keep in mind that Route 66, the first interstate road in America, did not exist until 1926. Even then, it was just a patchwork of backroads and main street,s loosely joined together, that meandered from Chicago to LA. It wasn't until later that the "official" route was built. So my great uncles were setting out on a true adventure.
My adventure started in Lenoir, NC, my hometown, with my dad letting me out on the highway to hitch to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where I was going to hook up with my high school class for a couple of days and then head out for California. Dad had done his best to talk me out of my trip, but my mind was made up. His eyes were filled with tears as he let me out on the side of the road. He thought he had lost me forever. What he didn't realize was that I had been hitching back and forth from college in Chapel Hill for a year, and thought I had a pretty good system down for getting rides. Just that little bit of success emboldened me to take the plunge and head west.