Tribulation Force, the Movie, Part 3

The movie segments are apparently solely for convenient lengths and do not have any logical dividing places. We take up in the middle of the last scene -- Buck inviting Ivy to stay at his huge but stark apartment. Buck says her finance can stay here too. (Ivy is engaged? How come that was never so much as hinted at?) Ivy is vaguely disappointed and points out Buck has a phone message. It turns out to be Steven Plank, wanting to set that meeting with Carpathia. Buck never gave anyone his number. Sinister!

Ray and Buck meet "Chris" outside New Hope Church. I will have to admit I didn't know who Chris was, but Slacktivist was very helpful to me this time. Chris is apparently the copilot on Rayford's plane. They go into the church and Fred points out something else I would have missed. It looks like a church, with people assembling in the pews. What happened to the first aid station and all those wounded people we saw last time? This makes it about the fourth time the church has flipped back between a sanctuary and a first aid station, as per plot convenience.*

In the church, Pastor Bruce tells the congregation of skeptics that everyone who disappeared either chose to follow Christ or was too young to make that decision. People who believed in Jesus Christ are in Heaven with God; the rest of us have a second chance. This is good, really. The first movie talked about God quite a bit, but hardly mentioned Jesus Christ at all and never said a word about taking him as your personal savior. This is, of course, absolutely central to RTC theology, so it really needs to get some air time, even if it can be grating to non-believers, including many in the pews. He then warns then about the terrible judgments ahead, represented by the Four Horsemen. The first horseman, he says, rides out on a white horse to conquer -- the Antichrist. A woman in the congregation asks (reasonably enough) if he is going to kill them all. No, says Bruce, he will triumph not through force, but through diplomacy, through peace and the promise of world unity. Sound familiar? The audience recognizes that he means Carpathia and is outraged. Carpathia only talks of peace! He sounds like a savior! No, Bruce says, there is only one Savior, Jesus Christ who can save you from your sins. (All of this, by the way, quite accurately reflects what was in the book).

About the time Bruce mentions Jesus Christ saving you from your sins, Chris (who has been stirring uneasily up till now) can't take any more and walks out. Outside we see more signs of social breakdown -- trash scattered about, people huddling over open fires, etc. Ray and Buck follow. I am very grateful to Fred Clark and his readers for pointing out the flaws in the evangelism scene that follows, or I might have taken it at face value. Apparently Kirk Cameron, the actor who plays Buck, is a genuine born-again RTC, and the scene that follows was written by him from his advice on how to evangelize. This explains some of the oddities in the scene (which I am very grateful for the Slacktivist crowd for pointing out to me).

So, here is the scene. I will start by saying that something is really wrong with the dubbing here. People's mouths just aren't matching up to the words we are hearing and it is really distracting. But trying to overlook it, Chris is offended by the emphasis on sin and evil. He denies that people are unregenerate sinners; there are lots of good people, including himself. Here Buck jumps in, gets Chris to admit that he has, at times, lied, stolen (once) and lusted after women other than his wife, so he is, in the eyes of God, a liar, thief and adulterer. Defiantly, Chris says, "So what am I supposed to do, get religious?" And this time Ray says, "No, that's what we're trying to tell you. Jesus took your punishment when he died on the cross. God did that so you don't have to go to Hell; that's how much he loves you. Eternal life is a gift. You don't have to do anything religious." This is all a little more than Chris can absorb, so he walks off.

As I said, I might have taken that scene at face value if Fred Clark and his readers had not pointed out a number of its flaws. Thinking it over, though, they are legion. So here goes:

1. Why is it Buck who's doing the preaching here? Rayford is the one who knows this guy; shouldn't he be doing the talking?
2. Buck says what really got him was that whoever looks upon a woman and lusts for her has already committed adultery in his heart. Um, that may have been what brought Kirk Cameron to Jesus, but I'm pretty sure that what brought Buck Williams to Jesus was (a) seeing all those people vanish,** (b) coming across the Antichrist's plans for world conquest and finding out that they all matched Bible verses and finally (c) seeing prophecies he reasonably thought were impossible coming true. All of which leads to the next point;
3. This proof that Chris is a sinner in God's eye may be fine and good for evangelizing under normal circumstances, but circumstances are not normal. Chris lost his family in the Rapture. That seems a lot more immediate and urgent than whether telling an occasional lie makes him a liar in God's eyes.
4. What the hell does this business about Jesus being crucified so you don't have to do anything religious mean. It's obviously important to Evangelical Christians; I have regularly seen it in their literature that they are not about religion but about Christ. So what does that mean? God bless comments threads! I asked in the thread and was told that religion is man seeking God; Christianity is God seeking man. OK, that makes at least some sense, although I am not sure what it means in practical terms. But to Chris, as a non-RTC, it must be just as opaque as it is to me. So why don't Buck and Ray take that into account? Which leads to my final point;
5. These guy have only been born again RTC's for a week. Where do they get all this from? The real answer, as I understand it, is that RTC's live in a sufficiently isolated cocoon that they don't realize not everyone know their lingo and outlook. If you want an explanation that fits within the movie, the possibilities might be (a) Rayford has had a born again RTC wife preaching at him for quite some time now. He probably picked up some of this stuff from her. (b) They have been meeting with Pastor Bruce a lot lately. He probably drummed a lot of this stuff into their heads. (Including, presumably, about Buck being an adulterer in his heart, not a subject that came up in the previous movie at all). (c) The authors of Left Behind may believe that once you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, he will automatically lead you to the correct doctrine and make you understand this stuff. But even so, you would think that Buck and Ray, having been non-RTC's a mere week ago, would remember how confusing and off-putting this sort of talk is to non-believers and adjust their pitch accordingly. (Say, to discussing Chris's lost family).

Meanwhile, back in the church, Pastor Bruce calls everyone who wants to accept Jesus Christ up to the front. Some walk out, but others (including the man who was outraged at the suggestion that Carpathia might be the Antichrist) step forward to be saved.

Out on the street we see people, presumably the newly saved from New Hope Church (one of them is carrying a cross) gathering around the posters of lost loved ones, burning candles to them. (Do RTC's do that?) A mysterious woman in white (Rayford's new love interest?) asks him if he lost someone. Rayford is about to answer when he is interrupted by a call from Chris and leaves her standing.

Rayford rushes over to Chris's apartment and finds him spinning a gun on the table, clearly contemplating suicide. Apparently the evangelizing has gotten to him. Rayford assures him that he lost his wife and son, too, that he knows how much it hurts, but that he can take comfort in the knowledge that they are in Heaven. Chris doesn't believe that Heaven is real; he believes Carpathia, that there is no Heaven or Hell. I'm not sure which is driving this final break, Chris's fear that there is no Heaven (and thus no meaning in life), or his last desperate resistence against accepting it. Either way, we will have to wait till next time to find out because the segment abruptly cuts off in the middle of the conversation. (Incidentally, their lips and works are matched up even worse here; it's maddening).

So, now I am caught up to where Fred Clark is. I will now follow each of his posts on the latest installment with one of my own.

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*I omit the scene with Ray alone in the church with candles on the altar, meeting Irene because that was a dream. Maybe the dream can account for the candles on the altar, too.
**Okay, so he didn't actually see them vanish, but he saw the empty seats in a closed airplane with only their clothes. Come to think of it, did anyone actually see people vanish in the movie? Everyone seems to have been asleep, out driving, or otherwise distracted when the vanishings occurred.