Summertime is ‘Church at the movies’ time for many seeker-sensitive and biblically illiterate churches, and the usual blockbuster films are prime pickings: Mission Impossible, Transformers, Super Mario, and even the newest ‘Barbie’ film. These PG and PG-13 films are all ripe for industrious pastors to pluck ‘life lessons’ out of and to uncover the ‘spiritual truths’ out of Bowser singing ‘Peaches’ or Optimus Prime ‘transforming’ into a new creation.
One church has upped the ante, however. Blessed Hope Community Church is a contemporary, non-denominational Christian church in Webster, NY. They make a point of saying they meet Sunday morning in a movie theater with comfy reclining chairs and advertise that if you attend their church, you’ll experience “authentic caring people, exciting, upbeat music, messages that are relevant to your life, and even movie clips on the big screen!”
Led by John R. Wurzbacher, they’ve done sermons on The Flash, Transformers, Gran Turismo, and the R-rated Oppenheimer, which, according to reviewing sites, has “several sex scenes with partial nudity, including long sequences with bare breasts.”
They’re not the first time to do a sermon series on R-rated films and Tv shows. Perry Noble and his new megachurch ‘SecondChance Church’ did one on Game of Thrones a few years back.
They also won’t be the last to do one on Oppenheimer, as Liquid Church is likewise planning to preach on it in August, where they’ll explore ‘faith in film’
For the church service, Wurzbacher has his congregants watch the trailer for the film and then asks them whether or not they experienced regret, relating Oppenheimer’s regret at building the atomic bomb to people’s regrets at saying unkind words or eating food that gave them food poisoning. Curiously, when he preached this sermon, the film didn’t even come out yet, and he cautions them, “Now I’m not suggesting that you necessarily go watch this film, especially for the fact that it’s rated R.’
Then why not just preach from your bible?
