Can a sucky DVD about Jesus sent free in the mail make converts?

[BurtWorm]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/16/national/16video.html?ei=5094&en=e10ea373f0aea38a&hp=&ex=1124251200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print


<It> does not matter if the movie, a 1979 box office flop, has a gooey soundtrack and a British voiceover, or if the actor who plays Jesus breathes noticeably as he lies in the tomb. If a weapon as unlikely as a jawbone can slay an army, as the biblical story goes, then "Jesus," direct-mailed on DVD to every household in Mecklenburg County, N.C., can offer salvation.

"God uses what God uses," Mr. <Warren> Smith said. "He doesn't check with Warren, or the Motion Picture Academy."

However dated its production values, "Jesus" has come to be viewed by many evangelical Christians as a singularly modern tool for spreading the Gospel. It speaks, though without special effects or quick editing, to a populace fluent in Hollywood. It comes in multiple languages on one disc. It concludes with a "salvation prayer" the viewer can recite with the narrator. Its local distributors consider it so effective that millions of dollars have already been spent toward the goal of delivering a copy to every household in the United States, as if it were free trial software from America Online.

The ministry overseeing this operation, the Jesus Video Project America, calls the mass mailings "saturation evangelism." Since 1992, 20 million copies have been sent out on DVD and videotape, blanketing Alabama, Hawaii and South Carolina and large swaths of Ohio and Texas, with smatterings in the rest of the states. County-by-county distribution in North Carolina is well under way. If the current rate continues, it might take until 2040 or beyond to reach every home.

[davidinalameda]

1. if the movie is the jawbone of an ass

does that make this Warren guy the ass?

:shrug:

[mitchtv]

2. it makes an ok coaster

[Swamp Rat]

4. damn! beat me to it!

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Only if the recipients are desperate for _something_ to fill their lives

[onager]

5. South Carolina? Texas? NC? Wankers!

Talk about preaching to the converted!

They should be sending their coasters, er DVDs here to Los Angeles. We have thousands of atheists, like me. Witches and psychics listed in the Yellow Pages. A large reality-based scientific community at CalTech, UCLA, etc. The Heart Of The Beast itself, Hollywood, and a big gay city in West Hollywood.

Atheist or not, I'm a sucker for cheesy JeeZus flicks and wouldn't mind checking it out. The bit about him visibly breathing in the tomb makes it sound like a good comedy, however unintentional.

Let's see if it can beat one of my personal favorites in the genre, King Of Kings with Jeffrey Hunter. Hunter played a blonde, blue-eyed Jesus who looked so young, the flick got nick-named "I Was A Teen-Age Jesus." He's also so bouncy and annoyingly chipper that you expect him to dance out of the tomb on Easter, flash his nail-holes, and start singing "Oh What A Beautiful Morning."

[mitchtv]

14. that's one Jesus that gave me

an adolescent chubby( sacrilige for a catholic altar boy)

[Vinca]

6. Anything can happen.

The Jesus Perogi (their spelling) on ebay sold for $1,775. Honest. And it looked like Gabe Kaplan from Welcome Back Kotter.

[shraby]

7. I would be leery that it had a virus in it.

[kweerwolf]

8. Dang! All I ever got in the mail from the fundies ...

... was a paper "prayer mat" with a reproduction of Jesus' face from the Shroud of Turin! :(

[Initech]

9. Guess this answers the question - what would Jesus watch?

[tjdee]

10. Couldn't they pick a better film?

I've seen the film. So not worth paying the postage and pissing people off. It's not the worst film in the world, but if you're proselytizing and probably pissing a lot of people off, you probably want to go with a movie post 1990 and with better reviews than "painfully monotonous."

It's kind of like, when you invite the Bollywood stars to Atlantic City for their awards, and they get to Atlantic City and see that it's basically a slum (except for the much hyped casino area).

Okay, maybe not just like that.

And why is that guy using violent imagery to talk about Jesus' film? Methinks he's been spending too much time kissing Bush's Iraq invading arse.

[BurtWorm]

12. La Dolce Vita?

They could say, "While you're enjoying this masterpiece of World Cinema, please remember that it comes to you courtesy of America's Evangelists."

[Fenris]

11. I've actually watched this film...

It is actually worth viewing simply because the production values are so low, the acting is so bad, and the editing so jerky, that the movie actually becomes a comic masterpiece. I encourage Christian evangelicals to continue sending out these crappy movies. If it doesn't convert them, then it is guaranteed to make them laugh.

[FreedomAngel82]

13. Uh no

You have to seriously study and to open your heart and believe. Just spaming people with DVD's doesn't do anything.