"Divided" gets Expelled!

[hoipolloi]

Oh the humanity!

D6, a conference devoted to discipleship & related topics (d6conference.com/whatisd6), as in Deuteronomy 6:7, has uninvited NCIFC & its movie Divided from this fall's gathering. Of course, given the intended audience & focus groups of D6, you kind of wonder why they accepted Divided in the first place: d6conference.com/information/whoisd6for.

As you might imagine, Dougie is in high dudgeon. Here are a few quotes from today's blog entry (visionforum.com/news/blogs/doug/2011/09/9644/):

"On its rise to 100,000 online views, the film “Dividedâ€, a documentary that raises probing questions about dangers associated with modern youth ministry, has been thrown out of a major conference and barred from advertising in major Christian publications....Ron Hunter, executive director and CEO of Randall House, the sponsor of D6, overturned the NCFIC’s initial acceptance to the conference, stating that the presence of the NCFIC would 'cause tension.'"

"In a similar move, Christianity Today has forbidden the NCFIC from advertising ‘Divided’ on their web site. They turned away “Divided’s advertising dollars based on the film’s subject matter, stating it was 'unbalanced.' Later they ran a harsh movie review of the film on their web site and likened it to 'an angry letter to the editor.' They called it ‘propaganda,' 'categorically dangerous,' and 'filled with scare tactics.'â€

IMHO, there's hope for Christianity Today yet!

[debrand]

The movie is obvious propaganda. I'm not certain if it is categorically dangerous though but it is filled with scare tactics.

[notsocommon]

Ct's article:

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctent ... lical.html

[MamaJunebug]

Hard to take seriously a reviewer who consistently misspells a proper name, but some of the responses are excellent in describing what's wrong with "Divided." The one by youth minister Andy Pull (IIRC) especially.

It tickled me to read Doug puling about "following the money" in figuring out why his project was disinvited from D6.

I wonder if NCFIC/Bradrick Brotherhood will picket the convention. That'd be cool.

[debrand]

Hard to take seriously a reviewer who consistently misspells a proper name, but some of the responses are excellent in describing what's wrong with "Divided." The one by youth minister Andy Pull (IIRC) especially.

It tickled me to read Doug puling about "following the money" in figuring out why his project was disinvited from D6.

I wonder if NCFIC/Bradrick Brotherhood will picket the convention. That'd be cool.

Yeah, he should have checked the creator's name but his points were all on target.

They also used the producer of the film ,Tryg Jacobson(spelling off) as an expert.

[MamaJunebug]

True, debrand.

It also tickles me that they keep boasting of their 100,000 online viewings. If they knew that at least a few thousand of those were by snarkers ....

Y'know, a short version of "Divided" would make wonderful MST3K material.

[hoipolloi]

The indefatigable folks at Wartburg Watch have now posted some more good analyses of Divided and the business relationships between VF & NCFIC (thewartburgwatch.com/).

The comments are also worth reading, such as this one from someone who seems very familiar with the Browns:

[Excerpt]: "Some history behind the FIC dynasty is of interest. If anyone else here has more detail, feel free to contribute. Scott Brown’s wife Deborah grew up in a missionary family. Later in life her father left the mission field to go into business ventures. He was very successful and became a millionaire. When Scott married Deborah he learned the business angles from her father, and he also became a millionaire with his own business enterprise. Many in Deborah’s family, including her own parents, moved to NC from CA years ago. In the town of Wake Forest, you will find Scott’s interest in classic cars evident along with his churchianity in the windows of an occasional storefront. His church currently meets in an old shopping center strip and space is rented in a dance hall named Tuxedo Junction." [Ted on Mon, Sep 26 2011 at 10:56 am at this post: thewartburgwatch.com/2011/09/23/ncfic-vision-forum-and-the-bottom-line/]

Wasn't there someone on the old board who also lives/lived in Wake Forest & was familiar with the Browns' business activities?

[emeraldskull]

Some of the comments are great! Even the pro-vision forum comments are great, in their asininity!

"I must point out the irony of those in the Vision Forum camp who are complaining about a negative review. Their own press release calls the film "controversial" and states that the documentary "threatens to shake the foundation of modern church design" and that it "recommends the dissolution of youth groups." The press release also states that they recognize "the potential divisiveness of this paradigm shift," and the filmmaker, again in the press release, says that youth workers for decades have been "corrupting" the youth generation.

So, when there IS controversy -- which they predicted, and essentially *invited* with that press release -- they complain about it? Hmm . . ."

"I watched it, and I was appalled at the mistaken exegesis in the case of Uzzah, who died because he did something that had been expressly *prohibited*, not because he did something God hadn't asked him to do. Youth Ministry is no more prohibited in scripture than video production, so frankly (following his reasoning) we should be surprised that Mr. Leclerc used this medium rather than speaking from an agora somewhere.

The fact is that this documentary in no way "looks seriously at passages in scripture like no other film today". It's an endless repetition of "the Bible doesn't talk about youth groups, so they're wrong." The Bible also doesn't speak of syncopated rhythms, powerpoints, wealthy pastors (of whom a few seem to have been interviewed), bulletins, websites, video production (maybe these are modern-day 'graven images', right?), cars, airplanes, the stock market, and a whole host of other things."