Comments (0) |

A film to surprise atheists

By Rich Copley rcopley@herald-leader.com

Jamie Moffett feels a certain kinship with Bill Maher.

Like the comedian who just released the documentary Religulous, Moffett doesn't think he has enough information to say with any certainty whether God exists or not, but, unlike Maher's work, Moffett's new documentary celebrates a group of Christians.

"I saw Religulous, and Bill Maher was right on a lot of points," Moffett says of the film, in which the comedian questions the tenets of a number of world religions. "But I don't think he's met people like this." The people Moffett refers to are the subject of his new movie, The Ordinary Radicals, to be shown at the Kentucky Theatre Thursday night as a benefit for Kentucky Refugee Ministries. The film follows ministers and authors Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw on a tour to promote their book, Jesus for President. Claiborne is the founder of the Simple Way community in inner-city Philadelphia, a group that seeks to follow Jesus in "a way of life standing in stark contrast to the world of militarism and materialism," according the group's Web site (www.thesimpleway.com).

"I wanted to document what they were doing and how different they were from stereotypical evangelical Christianity," Moffett says. "I'm really hoping people like me who left Christianity because they were hurt by it or it wasn't what they needed will see this new movement in American Christianity and how different it is from stereotypical American Christianity."

Claiborne's ministry is geared toward social justice and peacemaking, taking cues from his interpretation of the Bible and particularly the Gospels that tell the story of the life of Jesus. The film includes interviews with evangelist Tony Campolo, one of the most outspoken advocates of social justice in mainstream Christianity today, and Jim Wallis, president and executive director of Sojourners, another social justice mission.

Moffett himself became acquainted with faith-based social justice while he was a student at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pa., and he was part of a group that worked to help a homeless family that had taken refuge in an abandoned Catholic church. Claiborne is also an Eastern graduate and then attended seminary at Princeton.

Since The Ordinary Radicals was completed, Moffett has been traveling to screenings of the film. He will speak and take questions after the Lexington showing.

"I've talked to a lot of atheists who said they were really disarmed by this film," Moffett says. "They were surprised that there were Christians who really lived this way."

Though he has had close contact with a group of Christians he reveres, he still says he struggles with questions about faith.

"I know that I don't know enough to say I am certain," Moffett says. "But I am excited by people who do, and I want to learn from them. I feel like I'm a student in this, and fortunately for me, I get to make movies about them."