FINALLY found this film again!

Many years ago, I saw a movie where Mimi Rogers became a "born again" Christian. Though I couldn't remember the movie's title, any other characters in the film, nor any specific scene or scene sets except one (and even that was kinda fuzzy in my memory), this film has been in the back of my mind all these years, since that day.

I am not a Christian. My immediate family has never attended church nor pressured me to do so. I did attend church as a youth and had a supposed born-again experience, but deep inside I never truly believed in Christianity nor this church's or the preacher's teachings, and felt the night I was "born-again" was done more out of peer pressure than true faith.

Tonight I think I've finally, finally run across this movie again, called The Rapture. The movie is not profound in that it changes my religious beliefs, because it did not, does not, and will not.

For me, it is profound as a powerful story of one woman's faithless life, filled with questions so many people have about which religion is really "true" if all religions say they are the "one true religion." Her life changes quickly and completely, to one obsessed, sometimes to a frightening degree, with Christianity's warning of impending rapture, the end of the earthly world as we now know it, and she comes to feel she's going to hell if she does not change her life.

It's not her new-found faith that's frightening or what I remember about the movie; it's the degree of obsession with her faith that has stuck with me all these years. She discards all family, friends and lovers (nearly everyone around her) who don't see the world as she now does. Though Jesus taught we should love everyone, Mimi's rejection of those who don't share her new beliefs is not unusual in real life. Many of those closest to her say there is no god. She feels like a lost soul, with no direction or purpose, and she comes to believe God is the answer to her emptiness and her future. From that moment on, every thought, every action, no matter how small, is in preparation for the rapture. The mortgage, light bill, education, job, clothing, and food; all become mere earthly things that no longer matter now, because the rapture is coming and god will take care of everything.

I do think it's an important film for people of all faiths, and people of no faith, to see. It brings up the most basic questions of life and death, god and religion, prayer and fate, faith and future. Man kills man because "god said so," man condemns and rejects man because god "said so," man tortures man because "god said so." I have little hope the day will ever come where people can discuss religion and accept those of other faiths, or those with no faith, without hate, without humiliation, and without bloodshed.

I'm so glad at finally having run across this film again, as I've wanted to see it again for such a long time. I wonder if this second viewing, after many years and life experiences since the first view, will have the same effect. Will it seem overly dramatic, trivial or ridiculous this time? Or will it be as profound and memorable as the first? We shall see.