Movies... and the Bible? (and Jews)

     Our modern world is so steeped in the works of the motion picture industry – it is now about a hundred years since Hollywood began its march into our hearts and our minds.  There is hardly anyone around who can remember when there weren't movies.  But even unbelievers recognize the detrimental effects of Hollywood but do not dare to censure it.
     Franz Pieper knew the detrimental effects of the film industry in June of 1921 when he wrote about it.  But the following comments that he made weren't just about the general film industry, but about films about the Bible.  Surely he wouldn't criticize films made about the Bible... would he?  Here is what he said in Lehre und Wehre, volume 67, page 192:

Just like here in the United States.   A consistently "liberal" theologian [Gottfried Traub- translate this page] complained in the "Iron Sheet" [Eiserne Blätter] (volume 2, pg. 352) the lack of Biblical knowledge in Germany.  At the same time, he describes the attempt to acquaint people with the Bible through the "cinema" (motion picture theater).  He says:

"The people who were at home in the Bible, were more straightforward, pithy, healthier and active than our distracted generation today.  They knew far more than us, even if occasionally not all knew what we consider worth knowing today.  Above all they were deeply rooted and breathed in the strong, pure air of the Bible which can be the for the plant biting like the East and mild like the spring flower.  What are all stock market losses against this lack in character!  A Goethe bent [?] before the Bible.  Today there are Goethe enthusiasts who make a stupid face when they recall him.  But nowadays we have a substitute. Be glad, German people!  Your Bible is 'filmed'!  One sends a caravan of traveling city folk for good daily wages in Egypt and Palestine, and locates there on the site and spot of the 'Bible'.  Then afterward they can marvel at the girl in the cinema between the 'love frenzy' or the best detective story.  Have we become so insensitive that we all can be taken in?  These people are much too shrewd calculators that they would do something for which they know that nobody wants to see.  Unfortunately, they know the masses too well – they will flock to them.  It is a pleasant tickling to be pious in the movies between all the others for an hour.  If the German people are still Christians [?], they do not allow that Christ is made junk for themselves.  Or should he be crucified once again by the same people who led him mocking and jeering to Golgatha?"

If it is also a fact what has been reported occasionally, that even in the United States the owners of the movie theaters are in the majority Reform Jews, so it stands but firmly the other fact that our American sect churches largely rave for films as an excellent means to disseminate knowledge of the Bible.  We have been repeatedly approached by sect pastors for advice on which biblical events are best suitable for the "cinema".    F. P.

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     When I first began translating this article, I figured that the "liberal" German theologian (Goethe was not a Christian) would praise the movie industry for doing "Bible" cinema.  But wow!... was I surprised because even he, a "liberal" theologian could see through the movie industry.  And what did this German theologian say?

Or should he [Christ] be crucified once again by the same people [the Jews!] who led him mocking and jeering to Golgatha?

     What about the films "The Ten Commandments" and "The Bible" and others?  When the Lord brought me back to the true faith, I wanted to watch these films again ... to, you know, strengthen my faith in the Bible.  And even though there are portions of these films that have correct depictions of certain Bible events, yet even they betray a lack of spiritual understanding of the Bible's message.  For example in the movie "The Bible", George C. Scott depicts Abraham as railing against God when God told him to offer his son Isaac for a burnt offering in Genesis 22:1-18.  The Bible records nothing like what the movie portrays.

In our modern world, truly "anything goes"... Cole Porter did not say it any better:

The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today,...

than Martin Luther in paragraph 26 here:

they [the Jews] must believe their rabbis,
even if they said in the same matter that
the right hand would be the left and the
left would be the right one

Not only the movie industry but also television is basically controlled by unbelievers, especially Jews.  Turn on your TV set, let alone go to the movies.  There is virtually nothing that does not cause you to question the Christian faith, the Bible.  And who are these people that largely control what we see and hear and read?  They will tell you who they are.  Joel Stein, a Jew, said it best in the LA Times here:

Jews totally run Hollywood.... But I don't care if Americans think we're running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government.  I just care that we get to keep running them.

They are openly proud of it!  There is one institution that Mr. Stein didn't mention – universities.  But Pieper wasn't fooled by them, nor was he fooled by preachers who claim we need their motion picture shows for our faith.

• Henry Ford capitulated to the Jews.
• Today's LC-MS has capitulated to the Jews.
• Not so the old (German) Missouri Synod!  Franz Pieper continually guided it until the day he died in 1931... by following Luther – they believed God at His Word.

Let the LC-MS make their motion pictures of C.F.W. Walther's life!  I will be content with holding to his doctrine, and so I will keep on reading and publishing him.  Thank God for Google Translate.