Conrad Johnson's Blog, page 15

Movie Review: Leap of Faith Revisited

The 1992 comedy drama, Leap of Faith, starring Steve Martin, Debra Winger and Liam Neeson, now available for streaming on Amazon Prime, is worth a revisit amidst the growing number of nauseously made current films that try to pass as faith based. And even though Leap of Faith does not try to pose as a Christian film, it nevertheless makes the grade far better without false marketing pretense that caters to poorly made movies that fluff out the choices found on venues such as PureFlix.com.

In this movie, Steve Martin shows both his comedic and pragmatic side with equal magnitude, starring as Jack Newton a.k.a. Jonas Nightengale as a Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show huckster born in the Bronx and abandoned to a hardscrabble life of con games and crime. Debra Winger plays Jane, his front person behind the scenes who sets up "miracles" and other well known mentalist con artist tricks that let them roam the Deep South making a comfortable living on gullible believers along with his sizable church posse which includes Meat Loaf as bus driver. He packs revival meetings with an impressive array of charismatic black choirs, stunning stage effects and other gimmicks that, as he says to Liam Neeson, the skeptical sheriff of fictional Rustwater, Kansas, "sells hope to his victims more than an expensive Broadway show".

 Because of a truck breakdown in drought stricken and struggling, farm town Rustwater, Martin takes the opportunity to turn a quick dollar even though the population is nearly broke and praying desperately for rain soon for their corn crops which they pin their last economic hopes on. But he ends up getting more than the usual push back and reaction when a boy named Boyd, played by Lukas Haas, looks to Martin for healing after being crippled in a deadly auto accident which also orphaned him. By the end of the story, Jonas Nightengale, after an amazing turn of unexpected events, throws in the towel and leaves Rustwater on his own, hitching a ride from a trucker with one last spectacular miracle for the road.

The reason I call this film more Christian themed than many others is because it is not packed with sloppy sentimentalism and covered in a thinly coated veneer of questionable evangelical doctrine. It shows truth in life as only the cinema and great acting can do, not covering the warts of sinners nor saints. Indeed, Winger smirks at Martin's attempt to hit on Boyd's pretty, older sister, saying that for him she's just the "holy grail of road p**sy".

Ultimately, what compels the viewer is the providential power of surprise that plays out in the film near the end and testifies to the fact that the good Lord can and does use all circumstances for His glory if He chooses to do so in spite of our bad intentions. Let the unveliever beware: miracles are forthcoming.

But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth--Exodus 9:16

Putin's Russia and Gangsterism Today

Under Vladmir Putin, gangsterism on the streets has given way to kleptocracy in the state. By Mark Galeotti
Iwas in Moscow in 1988, during the final years of the Soviet Union. The system was sliding towards shabby oblivion, even if no one knew at the time how soon the end would come. While carrying out research for my doctorate on the impact of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, I was interviewing Russian veterans of that brutal conflict. When I could, I would meet these afgantsy shortly after they got home, and then again a year into civilian life, to see how they were adjusting. Most came back raw, shocked and angry, either bursting with tales of horror and blunder, or spikily or numbly withdrawn. A year later, though, most had done what people usually do in such circumstances: they had adapted, they had coped. The nightmares were less frequent, the memories less vivid. But then there were those who could not or would not move on. Some of these young men collaterally damaged by the war had become adrenaline junkies, or just intolerant of the conventions of everyday life. CONTINUE READING ARTICLE HERE.

Lying About Gun Violence With Statistics by Daniel Greenfield

Every time a Muslim terrorist shoots, stabs, bombs or runs over Americans, the default response is, “Let’s not jump to any conclusions”. That’s swiftly followed by media spin pieces claiming that the majority of terrorist attacks are really committed by white male Republicans and the Amish based on math so bad that even the world’s crookedest bookie wouldn’t go near it. And anyone who argues that the pattern of Islamic terror attacks is a call for common sense migration reform is regarded as a racist and a coward who wants to destroy the Constitution by blowing a handful of attacks out of proportion. Continue to read full article here.

Examining Premillennialism

Examining PremillennialismBY WAYNE JACKSONA flood of paperback books, advocating the theory of premillennialism, has invaded the religious market in recent years. One of the first widely-popular efforts was titled, The Late Great Planet Earth. It was authored by Hal Lindsey, a graduate of the school of theology at the Dallas Theological Seminary.The thrust of Lindsey’s book is two-fold: First, it espouses the premillennial theory of Christ’s second coming. Second, it interprets present world political trends as signs of the imminent return of Jesus Christ.A more recent production, advocating the same general theory, is the fictional Left Behind series. The popularity of this effort has enabled the originators to develop a parallel film series as well. No doubt, there is great interest in the religious world of end-time events.GO TO FULL ARTICLE HERE

Putin's Revenge (or why Trump loves Russia so much)

Church of Sweden emasculates the God of the Bible

According to the Church of Sweden, it’s preferable not to refer to God as a "he." The official decision to use gender-neutral language will be a change in the way that many Swedish churchgoers worship -- and one that has divided the country. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports on the debate and how it may echo in other countries. Learn more by visiting this link.

The Reality of Jerusalem

President Trump honored a campaign pledge on Wednesday when he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The decision is hardly the radical policy departure that critics claim, and Mr. Trump accompanied it with an embrace of the two-state solution for Palestine that Presidents of both parties have long supported.Read the rest of the article here from The Wall Street Journal.

Amazing-The first word in the Bible says Jesus will die on the cross!

The truth about random mass shootings and violence (excluding Mohammedanism)

 For those of you who like (or like to disregard) statistics, here are some for you to ponder.

Why The Nazis Loved America

By James Whitman March 21, 2017IDEASWhitman is the Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School and the author most recently of  Hitler's American Model .To say America today is verging on Nazism feels like scaremongering. Yes, white nationalism lives in the White House. Yes, President Donald Trump leans authoritarian. Yes, the alt-right says many ugly things. But for all the economic pains of many Americans, there is no Great Depression gnawing away at democracy’s foundations. No paramilitary force is killing people in the streets. Fascism and Nazism have not arrived in the United States.But there is a different and instructive story to be told about America and the Nazis that raises unsettling questions about what is going on today — and what Nazism means to the U.S.Continue to full article...