Anti or pro Christian?

I know this movie took some heat for what some considered its anti-Christian stance, but I'm not sure it's really even all that anti-Christian. In some ways, I would argue it has many pro-Christian sentiments.

It's true that many of the characters in the film who call themselves Christians are less than immaculate in their conduct. It's also true that they frequently use their supposed Christian 'faith' to justify their own hypocrisy.

However, the film never once implies that Christians are generally bad people - or even that people who call themselves Christians who commit acts Jesus probably wouldn't have approved of do so just because they call themselves Christians. Rather, it simply presents Christians as being like everyone else. We all consider ourselves to be on the side of good - and most of us are most of the time. It's just so easy to fall into the trap of believing whatever you call yourself means you're always serving a higher cause - even when you're just being a self-serving jerk.

I've often noticed that Christians - who traditionally consider themselves to be politically conservative, and non-Christians - who traditionally consider themselves to be politically liberal - can be remarkably similar when it comes to personal behavior that seems to contradict the values they publicly proclaim everyone should abide by. And liberals and conservatives are even more similar in their propensity to dismiss accusations of their own hypocritical behavior by rationalizing their own selfish actions as serving a greater cause.

In the movie, many Christian groups were particularly offended by the scene in the final act where Hilary crashes her car into an effigy of Jesus as an attempt to convey a belief that Jesus and Christianity are phony. Personally, I don't think that's what the movie was trying to say. I rather think that it was trying to say that what is phony is the belief that calling yourself a Christian - or calling yourself anything for that matter - means you can be an *sshole without actually being an *sshole.

And I think it is most certainly not a coincidence that the movie strives to convey what Jesus was really all about. Recognizing that there is good and bad in everyone - and that the most important aspect of life is not being perfect, but being forgiven.