The Last Sin Eater Liana Liberato This column has been accused of having bias against Christians

The Last Sin Eater

Liana Liberato

This column has been accused of having bias against Christians. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love reading the Bible because it is filled with stories, so filled with sex and violence that you could only watch on their original HBO series. I particularly like the parable of the Good Samaritan. We have all heard it before. There was this guy. He is walking around by himself where he should not be and got mugged. The gang beats him up so badly that he is near death. We all know what happens next. Three religious dudes see him lying there and walk on by. The thing most of us miss here is that all of them are probably right in not helping or touching him. In that society, you became unclean if you touched anything bloody or that was dead. If they had rushed over to him, picked him up and he had died, well, they would have been unclean and not been able to get into the temple for at least a month. It is weighing all the good they could do over the next month in their religious community against helping someone who is probably a lost cause. We can look back 2 centuries later and be horrified at their actions, but they are following their scriptures as they understand them. It is kind of like how a couple of centuries from now, Christians will look back in disbelief at how we focused on a handful of verses regarding homosexuality but ignored the bulk about caring for the poor and outcast. So, everyone in the crowd listening to Jesus can understand why the religious folk are doing what they are doing and probably agree with their decisions. In a sense, for their time and place, they are right. Well, this guy is lying there and along comes a Samaritan. In contemporary terms, he would be a gay, big city, Arab liberal, probably has an Al Gore button on his “Earth First” t-shirt. He sees the guy lying in a pool of blood and helps. This commie loving liberal takes him to an inn and pays to make sure that he gets the medical attention he needs. Cue the harps and flowers. Not so fast. We forget one person in the story. The dude lying in the pool of blood. Given that he is a good Jew, nothing would be more repulsive to him than to have a Samaritan touch him. The hatred between the two groups was so intense that a Jew would rather die than have a dirty Samaritan help him. So, you can imagine the poor guy screaming, scratching, and punching with his last bit of strength at the Samaritan. Every four letter word that probably existed at that time probably came out of the dude's mouth, but the Samaritan helped anyhow. Jesus asked the crowd who was this guy's neighbor.

I want you to think of the guy lying in the pool of blood as fundamentalist church goers and the good Samaritan as liberals. What? Good bible believing Christians are being helped by card carrying members of the ACLU? Yep. Before you demonize an organization or listen to that guy on the radio who is selling you a bill of goods, you might want to do a little research. Did you know that the ACLU has represented Christians over 40 times in the last few years? They have fought for the right for sidewalk evangelists to share their gospel with others. They have defended students' right to wear pro-Christian t-shirts, sing religious songs, put religious messages in their year books, and pass out candy with religious messages in their schools. They defended a church's right to run anti-Santa Claus ads and even won a victory for a church's right to use a park lake for baptisms. The ACLU has fought to keep the city of Lincoln, Nebraska from evicting a church. This organization even represented Rev. Jerry Falwell when he tried to incorporate his organization in Virginia. I bet old James Dobson and Rush Limbaugh never told you that. Despite what Ann Coulter and Ted Baxter, I mean Bill O'Reilly, says, liberals love their country, especially this thing called the Bill of Rights, a wonderful document that sets the rules for all of us to play by and interact together. Liberals want Christians to have their place in society. They want them to be able to go to their churches and talk about what a great God they have in public. Those on the left want you to be able to buy the books you want, listen to your crappy music, and lie about issues on your radio stations. In turn, liberals also want others to have the same rights. You should be able to watch Touched By An Angel if you want and the gal down the street should be able to watch South Park if she wants. If you are a good Baptist and your job sends you to Utah or a town filled with Scientologists, how are you going to feel if your child comes home from school and says that he or she learned that Joseph Smith was the prophet or how we must fight Xenu? Liberals want everyone to have their place. (So, why are so many on the right smearing groups like the ACLU? The roots go back to the ALCU's defense of African-American's rights in the south.) You might not like some of the people liberals defend but you have got to like the rights.

So what has this got to do with a movie called The Last of the Sin Eaters? There is this truly awful movie about a 10-year-old little girl named Cadi Forbes (Liana Liberato) in 19th century Appalachia. She believes that she is responsible for her sister's death and searches out a man who can help her with her guilt. She finds a sin eater, a man who eats food off a dead body as symbolic way of absolving his or her soul and allowing that person to rest in peace. It is film about God's grace and forgiveness. It is a film released by Foxfaith and is geared towards Christians. If everything works out, Foxfaith plans on releasing a whole host of movies to play in the multiplexes of this country. While it ultimately falls on its face because of script, acting, and directing problems, I want to celebrate this movement. While the far right rubs their hands together and talks about how awful our culture is, they need to be told that things for them have never been better. Children's programming has never been better. Sci-fi is lights out. There are a whole host of dramas and soap opera out there if you are into that. Enjoy comedy or action/adventure, it is there for you. You can even watch hundreds of movies from places like India or Korea. Our television shows, books, radio programs, and movies are a now a buffet table. We no longer have to suffer with just a handful of dishes. You might not like something because it does not fit your tastes buds. In fact, it might make you sick to your stomach, but just down the table is that dish you have always dreamed of eating. If you start bitching to the staff about getting what you don't like off the buffet table, you might turn around and find that dish you so enjoy is gone. I'm just telling you this because I am trying to be a good neighbor.

Verdict: A poor movie