True story: a few years back, I was hanging out with a young member of ACC watching movies. Somehow or other we got on the subject of how cool it would be if a big-budget Hollywood studio got ahold of the stories of the Old Testament and turned them into films. From Moses to Samson, David to Daniel, there's more than enough blood and gore and drama and intrique and special effects to go around - it would be amazing!

A month ago or so, I got a Facebook message from that same ACC member that said, simply: 'Someone took our idea. And it's awesome.'

He was talking about, of course, the History Channel's 'Bible' miniseries, which, if I'm to believe the entirety of the congregation at ACC that talked to me about it, is, indeed, awesome. Not being a cable or sattelite customer myself, I waited until it was released on DVD to snatch it up, which I did yesterday from Amazon. And it was then that I made a mistake: I decided to look at the reviews.

Yes, the majority of the reviews are positive. But others are so negative you can practically feel the anger spewing from your computer monitor. And those reviews - the scathing, hostile, vitriol filled reviews - aren't written by skeptics or atheists or people mocking the idea the the bible is the truth, as one might expect. Instead, they're written by devout Christians.

A quick skimming of these reviews reveals that there were details wrong, the messages were not clear enough, and sin was not condemned enough; the series is deceiving, blasphemous, and from the wrong translation; the writers are representing a politically correct, watered down, false gospel, and they're doing so maliciously, to turn people away from the truth about God.

Now, obviously I haven't seen the series, so I can't speak about just how good it is or isn't. But the hostile reviewers are people I've seen in the church as long as I've been in it. For these people, the History Channel making a 10 hour documentary about the bible isn't cause for celebration; it's cause for crticism. For these people, their differences in opinion aren't evidence that there's diversity and variety in the church; it's evidence that there's apostacy and blasphemy and false Christians.

For these people, nothing is ever good enough.

And that makes me sad. Really, truly, profoundly so. Because what type of life is that? What type of faith finds fault with everything and everyone around them? What kind of security can there really be when one finds the need to shout down anyone with a different perspective than them? And what type of peace can there possibly be in the heart of a person who thinks that angrily typing out reasons why the rest of the world is going to hell is a good use of their Tuesday?

This is the very worst of religion. And it breaks my heart to see it.

After I ordered the series, I went back to reading the book I had filled my afternoon with. It's the newest from a personal hero of mine and my favorite 'Christian' writer going today, Rob Bell. The book is called What We Talk About When We Talk About God, and it just so happens that he was writing about the way many in the church view the gospel. According to his experience, there are tons of people in the church who trust in grace, mercy or love, but instead, a point-based merit system to earn God's favor. That, he said, is not the gospel of Jesus. Instead, he writes,

Gospel is the shocking, provocative, revolutionary, subversive, counterintuitive good news that in your moments of greatest despair, failure, sin, weakness, losing, failing, frustration, inability, helplessness, wandering, and falling short, God meets you there - right there - right exactly there - in that place, and announces I am on your side.

As I read those words, I had two thoughts. The first one is one I have very often when I read Bell's work - 'I wish I had written those before he did.' The second, however, is the reason I'm writing this blog:

I wish religious people could see that the gospel of Jesus is as amazing as it is. It is, clearly, the best of religion. 

There is so much freedom in knowing the truth about Jesus. We don't have to be right about everything; we don't have to be better than anyone else; we don't have to have answers to the entirety of life's questions.

We are loved, just as we are, exactly where we are. And there is nothing better than living life according to that fact, trusting in the Savior who paid everything to separate us from our mistakes, failures, and closet skeletons. In that faith there is real peace, honest security, and a faith that is anything but heart-breaking.

That's a true story, no matter what you think about the History Channel.