Rambo
Do The Missionaries Join In?
Last week at the L.A. Times, John Mueller somehow got his hands on a screener of Rambo (which is not officially screening for the press) and totted up the body count of the new film, comparing it to its predecessors. Here are some of his findings:
Number of good guys killed by bad guys
- First Blood: 0
- FB Part II: 1
- Rambo III: 37
- Rambo: 113
Total number of people killed
- First Blood: 1
- FB Part II: 69
- Rambo III: 132
- Rambo: 236
That’s a pretty remarkable trend. Mueller didn’t comment on this, but we have to presume that some of those 113 good guys killed are missionaries.
Also of note in Mueller’s analysis: 40 of the bad guys who die are killed by Rambo’s accomplices. Does this mean the missionaries take up arms, too? Talk about militant zeal.
Read more of HJ’s coverage of Rambo, with links to external resources…
Copyright © 2008 Hollywood Jesus. All rights reserved.
January 22nd, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I was listening to a pastor’s podcast and he said something that intrigued me. He said, “Christians shouldn’t pick a fight, but they shouldn’t lose any either.”
I like that! It’s interesting to see the death count and even more interesting to ask about whether the missionaries take up arms…I guess my follow up question would be was it in self-defense? It’ll be interesting to find out…
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:35 am
Not to pick a fight (!!!!), but… Were the Apostles in the book of Acts simply lacking a developed theology of self-defense? ‘Cause it sure looks like they lost a ton of fights, and badly. Should Stephen have picked up as many of those stones as he could and chucked ‘em back?
I’d say something different than the pastor you heard on the radio, something that Martin Luther King, Jr. might have agreed with: “Christians should pick a TON of fights and fight back when necessary, but never resort to violence — even in self-defense.”
(All rhetoric aside, my personal feeling is that the first issue is not physical life at all, but the fate of souls. The stakes are not temporal, but eternal. The second is not self [that is, the saved] but others [that is, the lost]. So if we do unto others as we would have them do unto us, our decision-making should be guided by what gives others the best chance for their souls. And if my soul is already secure, but the other’s is in doubt…)