by Munin

Created on: June 10, 2008

No movie, no matter how popular, is likely to have any significant effect on the belief structure of the Christian church-or any church of sufficient historical significance, for that matter.

Simply put, those people who would be likely to see a movie questioning the tenets of their faith and be swayed by it would tend to be those who did not regularly attend a church service in the first place. As such, the presence or absence of a movie questioning their beliefs would make little difference.

On the other side, those people who do believe strongly are unlikely to be swayed by a movie. Most Christian churches preach that the world is inherently corrupt (due to original sin and the like) and that any messages from the world outside of the church will likely either go unheard or be ignored.

Right away, then, the potential audience who might be swayed by a movie is greatly restricted: most of the audience that will see the movie will already agree with its point of view (in this case, that religion tends to be harmful), and most of the people who might be swayed away from Christianity will either not see the movie or will only watch it in order to discredit it with other people.

Further, none of the arguments that the movie makes in an attempt to discredit Christianity are new or unknown to the practitioners of Christianity. Many Christians-at least, those who would tend to watch this movie and engage in a debate over its merits-are aware that Christianity shares many similarities to other religions that they would classify as pagan. They are aware of the similarities between Jesus and other saviour figures. They have heard similar arguments about the evils that have been committed in the name of religion before, and they usually have standard answers-often including quotations from the bible-for all of these things.

Also, in many cases, approaches such as those taken by Zeitgeist may have the opposite effect of confirming the faith of those who defend Christianity. It is one of the basic tenets of the faith that those who are persecuted and opposed are blessed. Granted, most people would not consider Zeitgeist to be an example of persecution-such a classification would be somewhat overstating the situation, making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill-but as it can be seen as taking a relatively hostile stance towards Christianity, there will be some feeling amongst the Christian viewers that they are being specifically targeted.

In the end, no movie is likely to have any significant effect on the membership or the belief in Christian churches or Christianity. The belief system and the structures within it are more than capable of handling any minor incidences of harmful marketing, such as that presented by Zeitgeist; indeed, the Christian belief system is capable of using the messages of Zeitgeist to confirm and strengthen the faith of its followers.

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