Fall From Grace

About a week ago, I went through the movies that were going to be on the movie channels that I have a free subscription to since switching to DirectTV (which by the way, I love!)....One of the movies that I selected to record was a movie called Fall From Grace. Now, I must admit that while the description caught my attention, I was very skeptical about watching this movie. It is a documentary based on Westboro Baptist Church and their pastor Fred Phelps. Many may know this church based upon their ministries and their controversial tactics. My skepticism came that this documentary would be extremely biased one direction or the other and also that simply by watching this documentary it would be giving more exposure to this group that clearly thrives on exposure. Perhaps by writing this blog, the same argument could be made...To be very clear, I absolutely disagree with this church and their pastor. I find their actions to be more than offensive and quite frankly I'm not sure that I have words strong enough to describe just how disgusting and awful that I find their behavior and beliefs to be.

That aside, I was surprised at the documentary...There was a slight bias, and maybe bias is not the right word, but for most people who hear the message or see the signs would clearly know that the message that they bring forward is ridiculous. There are interviews with Fred Phelps and several members of the congregation (which just so happen to be his family...) as well as city officials, lawyers, pastors, and a professor from St. Paul School of Theology. The hate filled speeches from the church members themselves is enough for them to hang themselves on rather than needing a monologue or counter point argument from a director or another person. There are certainly those speeches, but it almost seems as though the two are in conversation and debate rather than "you are wrong" kind of speak...

Some very interesting interviews were done with 2 of Fred Phelps' children who have left the church and by extension the family (4 of his 13 children have left)...The way they describe their childhood and their view of their father is very interesting and completely makes sense in the way that he lives what he believes to be his calling from God...

I was surprised at the way that this documentary approached a clearly devisive and controversial subject...I was really glad that it progressed also from showing the violence that is perpetrated against the protesters to the non-violent counter protest shown from a motorcyle group...The final comment was interesting and it validated my original concern in so much as they basically said that this group thrives on attention...The conversation went something like...this group has been practicing this for years and knows what they're doing and how to react and how to draw attention...The best thing that you can do is ignore them and walk away and unfortunately most people don't have as much experience as they do and that's not what happens.

I wouldn't go so far as to reccommend this documentary, but I wouldn't not suggest it either. It is decently done but for most people it's not new information or a new way of thinking. It seemed very practical to me and just provided further proof that this group is not spreading a message of the Gospel, but a message of hate...