Appropriated Footage Project
Dr. Falwell or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Church
The presence of Evangelical Christianity in the United States presents many unique conflicts and duplicities within our culture as a nation. While this sect of the Christian faith only makes up about one quarter of the American population, it seems the other three quarters have taken up the role of the silent majority, allowing the outspoken church to have its way in shaping politics and social structure here and abroad. I compiled this film because I rarely see the depth and severity of the struggle between Evangelical Christianity and society at large portrayed in the media with any kind of justice.
There are two major conflicts presented by the Church. First, There is the obvious clash between the faith’s idea of a “righteous� society and the society that actually exists. Evangelicals feel they are living in a sick, sad world, the end of which will be a blessing. As they ascend to heaven on the day of the Rapture, the sinners and unbelievers will remain to suffer on the earth forever, without any hope of finding Christ. So one might say that in this video, Evangelicals are represented by people who die in in the divine wind of a nuclear attack, while the survivors are unbelievers left to wallow in the fallout. Then there is the battle between evangelism and other, more moderate sects of Christianity (which I chose to represent in the video with a man solemnly reading the bible in a dark room). While Methodists, Lutherans, moderate Catholics and Episcopalians attempt to talk sense into Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, they are accused of depurifying the faith and supporting a liberal agenda.
I chose to incorporate into this film footage from both fictional and documentary sources. Most of the soldiers in the film are actors, but the Japanese bomb victims are real. I felt this was a justified and even appropriate response to the conduct of the Evangelical church, which feels perfectly comfortable confusing fact and fiction on a regular basis. You could say that this is a fantasy film in that it portrays realistically the ultimate goals of the Evangelical mindset.