Rambo, sigh... MY hero.... HARDLY!

Okay, if you're reading my blog for up-to-the minute news flashes, you're not very good at assessing your sources. I'm usually behind the times, and that doesn't just refer to my fashion sense. However, I've been meaning to blog about this for some time, it just hadn't made my priority list. For some reason, perhaps reading about more killing in Africa, it finally has.

See, Sylvester Stallone is my enemy. I have to pray for him. I really do. I was never a fan of his, but then about a year ago, I read a book entitled A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Solider by Ishmeal Beah.

That was the icing on the cake. My status changed from not-fan to enemy.

As I read the sobering story of Ishmael Beah, the tremendous loss of his family and the unbelievable destruction of life in Sierra Leone, Stallone revealed himself to be a real problem. Definitely not Good America. I learned how one makes boy soldiers from reading this book, and I learned how the adults running the war hyped the boys up to kill and slaughter entire villages of innocent people. The adults would get them high, and then have them watch.... Sylvester Stallone movies. In fact, the boys would watch the movies to get ideas of how to kill people, and try to re-enact scenes from the movies when they were attacking villages!

I'm sure Sylvester's very proud of what he's inspired. What a legacy.

Well, now, my enemy (God love him), is offering his services, in the form of Rambo, to some poor Christian missionaries. Really, this was never front page news when the movie came out in January because, well, Rambo is so.... yesterday anyway. But, in search of a plot for yet another Rambo movie, this was the best they could come up with.

Never mind the fact that Christians are supposed to love their persecutors and pray for them, Rambo has to save them! Never mind the fact that God is WAY MORE POWERFUL than their enemies and could easily save them if that was His intent.

What is really disturbing, though, is that people who call themselves Christians have actually watched this movie and given it a positive rating!

Here is a quotes from christiananswers.net:

"I was simply overjoyed by its obviously Christian themes and good portrayal of justice and allegorical display of God's wrath.' -- yourmom, age 25

I wonder what Christian themes she means? Turning the other cheek? Praying for your persecutors? Loving your enemies?


How about this one:

What bothered me about the movie, and this may seem trite, (and it don't mean for it to) is that Stallone is apparently a new Christian. I don't know if he was converted before or after filming. However, Stallone used the f-word several times in the movie, and it stunned me hearing this, if he is a Christian. --Bill Boylston, age 49


First of all, I think if Rambo has truly become a Christian then the public would see a completely repentant Stallone who would openly disavow all Rambo movies and put his wealth into stopping what his movies have inspired in Sierra Leone. He would repent like Zacheus.

Secondly, what in the world is wrong with the world view of a person who can watch hours of bloody violence, anti-christian choices, rape and who-knows-what else and be offended at someone using the F-word!!!!!!

This website listed 11 positive/neutral reviews by people who had watched the movie, and only
2 negative (including a Christian who walked out of the theater while it was still playing).

What is wrong/sick/disturbed with the church in America that people don't see how the theme of this movie is completely anti-Christian? That people don't see that killing people is worse than saying the F-word? That people think that justice and God's vengeance (which, from my understanding belongs to God, not humans) win out over Christ's love, and mercy. That people don't understand that it takes MORE courage to be Christ in those situations that to be dumb stupid violent Rambo?

I guess we can apply the gospel when we want to and then hire Rambo to kill whenever the gospel doesn't fit us. Maybe we can even run a war that way --- and claim it's God's call to bring peace by killing...

We're really really messed up.