Jerry Dubats

Please tell your views.

Arjun Pakrashi
India
Kolkata

Thank you for your blog and your desire to glorify God through it. Thank you also for having a voice that seems to speak with an understandable hatred for the injustice of the world through exploitation and deception. I think that you do it out of a heart that desires God and desires others to know the God that you know.

After reading these responses, several things come to mind. The foremost is this, in the form of a question: “Who’s in charge here?” Is not God the Soveriegn of the Universe and does He not sustain every living person by the power of His Word (Job 34:14-15; Heb 1:3)? So what if Hollywood uses Christians as a “marketing gimmick”? How does Hollywood trump the One who maintains Saturn’s rings and breathes new life into dead men, and then sustain him all his evil days? If satan is a servant of Almighty God, why cannot Hollywood be as well? When we get wrapped up in the wrong, we forget easily the right–God owns Hollywood and every righteous and evil soul within it (Ez 18:4). It is His to do with as He pleases. And evidently He was pleased in these things happening: Mr. Stallone releasing Rocky, Mr. Stallone contacting religious leaders. He said some good things about our Lord, true things. He apparently looks to have had a life change. That is between him and God, and time will tell the making of his fruit. Until then, let us glorify God by thanking Him for exalting His brilliant Name in a very dark area of American life. Let’s go forward trusting God. All our responses to this are ultimately only to God–as praise, or as our judgement on one another (and in the end, our judgement of God’s work).

Another piece of Scripture that comes to mind is God’s Word to us through Paul as he dealt with a certain deception in Philippi:

15Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry [read: or to make a buck], but others from good will. 16The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

We have to remember that none of us are worthy of grace through Jesus. Paul knew the soveriegnty of God! He knew it when confronting this similiar issue. And all he wanted was Christ proclaimed! Yes, that’s it! In some measure (God has it weighed!), Christ is being proclaimed through Mr. Stallone. I live about 14,000 miles from where you live in a country that needs the Truth, employed by our Father for His work. It is so dark here that I must agree with Paul: whatever it takes to save men from hell, make it happen, Lord! Because He is precious and worthy and so many are so lost. Even if it takes fallible and foolish men like me to bring the Light. From beginning to end God choses to use men like us–me, you, and I believe Mr. Stallone ( 1 Co 1:27).

I do not think some writers have treated you with the respect a brother in Christ deserves, and I’m sorry for that. Sometimes we forget our place before God. I will not tell you what you need to do! God knows I fail miserably with myself every day; you’re also not likely to know me, either–but I appreciate any response given to what I’ve written.

May God continue to increase your capacity of your fulfillment in Him to His glory, through His grace.

C. Robinson

it’s rocky seventeen, and he’s about 89 years old. i know people take themselves pretty seriously online, but…

“it’s all just ones and zeros, people”

did he say the one called as an example represented Jesus, or maybe just someone like a pastor?

Your insults will probably not sit well with those they are directed to. Calling this pastor basically a kid on the sidelines is pretty ridiculous wouldn’t you say? Are you engaging this person in a teachable moment or just criticizing?

Just because someone doesn’t agree with your take on this film does not make them more or less culturally astute. As a matter of fact, you will find plenty of critics of this film who will disagree, though many are well educated and articulate.

What I took from this post is that we’re kind of tired of being marketed to just because we represent a currently popular demographic for moviegoers. Also, the gospel is not about pulling yourself up from your bootstraps and making your own way, but that someone made a way for us- namely Jesus the Christ who didn’t live as an example but came to live in our place. It’s not about redeeming yourself but about seeing that it is impossible to redeem anything without redemption being acomplished first for you. Vague, fuzzy, feel good faith themes are as popular in the religions of the world as they are in many Christian circles where we talk about faith without defining it, grace without recognizing the depth of it, and redemption without an appreciation of our own inability to accomplish it.

Art is a wonderful and beautiful gift given to us to inspire us…this is true, and I have a very high view of the arts. I almost cringe at calling Rocky 467 a piece of decent art though, considering the last few (my own personal pet peeve!). The gospel allows us to recognize the beauty and horror of man. In any kind of art where the main promotion is man redeeming himself, I would have to concur with the author of the post that it is a false gospel, a counter gospel, which is no gospel at all. Sure we can read into this film whatever we’d like, but at the end of the day, the main thrust of the film is personal redemption through personal achievement. This my friends, is not the gospel. And let me add, nor does it need to be. I don’t expect Rocky to be a film about the gospel and faith that is definable (rather than the gooey faith in faith that is so popular in films). So, if I don’t expect it to be about the gospel, why would they feel the need to market us just because major themes like “faith” are in it? I guess this film should have been marketed to the Mormons, JW’s, Muslim’s, Hindu’s, etc…

The bottom line is that I think we should engage in discussions about art and film, but let’s not make our own postmodern interpretations of the film where we think we can put our own meaning into it without unpacking and drawing out what the piece of art is actually communicating- Works based, nebulous faith, self-reliant redemption through pure will-power and acheivement. Now, if you think this is the gospel, there are bigger problems than our disagreement about this piece of art. If you think we can use this to show how the gospel differs from the pursuit of Rocky, great! Let’s go at it, let’s get to the heart of justification by faith alone apart from works. Then, then, we’ll have something worthy to discuss. Otherwise…Yo Adrian!

I love the dialog. Tag it as “Controversial.” It’s gotten so hot my laptop’s fan started crankin’!

Gut check for us all. Um, even if it were misguided, Hollywood is not the only entity to exploit the church for money. Some churches are just as guilty of market cannibalism. Hollywood may simply be discovering what some people within our community have known for years. (Permanencer sentados, por favor!) Before you get the tar out…

One man’s marketing gimmick is another man’s ministry strategy. So what is too far? For example, is it ethical for a pastor to launch his book at his own church? Should a church’s money and resources be spent on raising more money and resources? What about prosperity preaching?

Why aren’t we equally as vocal to expose exploitive churches and church figures? Is it acceptable for “us” to find business opportunity in the church, but when “outsiders” try to do it, we panic and piss on the closest fire hydrant? (Sorry for the visual.)

How can we objectively differentiate between the ministry and the marketing? Is it motive? Perspective? Personal gain? Greater good? What if Sly said he wouldn’t make a dime on the film because it all goes to his church – would that change our response about its content?

Wow, clearly I’ve got more questions than answers. I’m glad it is not up to me.

Thanks for the platform. Love the blog. Keep it coming brother!

with all due respect, I here what these people are saying loud and clear about Pastors today, the Christian Ghetto and blogging Host’s. It is pretty apparent that you have a slighty narrow view of what is being promoted and articulated by Jason and J.D.M. It sounds alot like the kid that is not included in the game, so he just ridicules the game and the players. It is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, but from what i have read about this film, it is packed with teachable elements that can engage non believers into faith based discussions. I have read that several credible and trusted ministry leaders have met with Mr. Stallone, screened the film and have given their endorsement of it’s content.

I guess this is the beauty of opinion. One person can see it as a opportunity to reach others, while others just sit on the sidelines and critque without substance.

Jonathon

“You need to get out of the Christian Ghetto and remember that reaching the lost with the Good news of Christ can come from men like Stallone who are strong enough to say‚Ķ.all I know is that I was blind and now I see!” From all Stallone’s quotes, I haven’t seen him say anything as explicit as what you’ve posted. I may be wrong (I hope I am) but I’ve seen him mention faith, spirituality & inspiration, not his profession that Jesus Christ is Lord.

J.D.M, It seems odd that you end your post ‘Respectfully” which contradicts the whole thrust of your message. You ask “People are not afriad of Christ – They are afraid of Christians. Why is this the case? You tell me – you are the Pastor.”

I think this is the case because Christians are quick to judge, make rash comments, they often attack the person if they don’t agree with their position, do drive-by comments in life and aren’t speaking truth ‘in love’ but only to promote their own agenda.

But I guess the same can be said for many people who post comments on blogs, including myself.