comMITTed to Romney!

“ARTICLE VI” the Movie Debuts to Large, Enthusiastic Crowds in California and Georgia

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS MOVIE AND THAT YOU PURCHASE THE DVD THAT IS NOW FOR SALE.

Tonight (1/14), with my wife and several family members and friends, we drove to Newport Beach to watch the screening of the new film ARTICLE VI. Atlanta also had a screening of the film tonight at a packed house. The theater at Lido Isle holds about 500 people and it looked like there were about 450.   At the end, Hugh Hewitt, Executive Producer of the film and Reed Dickens, Producer answered questions. Hugh asked the audience by raise of hands how many members of the LDS, Protestant, and Catholic faiths were present. Roughly, the mix was 30%, 50%, and 20% respectively. [see brief review below the film's poster]

Click here to go to the film’s online site ——-> http://www.article6themovie.com/index.php

I highly recommend this documentary to everyone — It is outstanding in every way!

Brief Review:

This film is a documentary. Though I found it very interesting, informative, and even entertaining, it is a documentary. As I listened to conversations around me and with the creators of the movie, people were most enthusiastic.

The movie combines a wonderful mix of music, interviews, video and film footage of historic and current events. Beloved patriotic music was arranged to different melodies and played by a single acoustic guitarist as background to footage of religious strife and intolerance across America. Interviews were primarily of evangelical leaders, including Richard Land, university religious and theology professors, and “woman-on-the-street” interviews among others. There were a large number of different individuals that were interviewed across the country and of many different Protestant faiths.

Some of those interviewed represented the hard-core evangelical point of view of, if-you-are-not-evangelical-you-will-go-to-hell, to the more tolerant, what-would-Jesus-do-if-he-were-here-today points of view, best articulated by David French (co-founder with wife Nancy of EvangelicalsForMitt.org) and Richard Land (at the end, I spoke briefly with Hewitt who said he thought David’s commentary was the best of all those interviewed — David is serving in Iraq as JAG for the Army near the Iranian border today). All in all, I thought the large number of people interviewed and the various points of view provided balance and were fair in presentation.

Fascinating to me, and to most people attending, were the outstanding commentaries by religious/American historians illustrating the many examples of religious bigotry and intolerance this nation has endured from the early days of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts where Quakers were hanged, to the presidential race involving Thomas Jefferson (deist) in which it was feared that the country would become less believing by electing a non-believer. In our nation’s history, various forms of religious intolerance played an important part in many presidential races including that of the JFK who eventually became the first non-Protestant (Catholic) President. In fact, several clips from Kennedy’s amazing and eloquent speech in 1960 to the Texas ministers in Houston were used liberally throughout the film.

Though Governor Romney’s name and photograph (from print articles) were shown a couple of times briefly and there were several examples of religious intolerance against members of the LDS Church (Haun’s Mill Massacre) as well as by LDS Church members (Mountain Meadows Massacre), the film was not about Romney or religious intolerance only involving The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Examples of intolerance involving the LDS Church were simply the most frequent and recent examples of many examples provided in the film.

In the discussion we had with Executive Producer John Carosella, Kevin Anderson asked him why they made a decision to exclude clips of Governor Romney’s “Faith in America” speech from last month. He reiterated that the film was never intended to be strictly about politics or about a current presidential candidate. He said the film is intended to be a cultural statement that is intended to stir debate among people of diverse religions to encourage them to find the humanity and friendship in others of completely different faiths.

The narrator of the film (Bryan Hall, I think??) and the person conducting most, if not all, interviews is LDS. However, I believe all the other creators of the film are of different Christian faiths and political persuasions (John Carosella told us he is “a liberal” and with a great laugh said he will be voting for “someone on the other side!”), including Reed Dickens and Hugh Hewitt who are evangelicals.

After the screening, a question was asked as to distribution to political camps and candidates. Dickens said the movie either has been sent or will very soon be sent to every presidential candidate and many members of congress and other national leaders. So look for publicity eventually as candidates are asked for their opinions about the film. Incidentally, Hewitt responded to a question about whether America has matured to the point in which evangelicals can vote in large numbers for someone not of their faith like Governor Romney, as they have not (more than about 25%) in the first three contests. He said he thinks they can. However, he said he was most disappointed in the level of bigotry he has seen thus far in the race. He also said that he is very disappointed that Mike Huckabee has not publicly demanded the end to all religious intolerance that exists today; that he has the power to make a big difference in this way and he has not (not exact quotes, but my attempt to capture the spirit of what he said in a long answer).

Those present that I saw included Ann Romney’s brother, Jim Davies and John Schroeder of Article6Blog.

For all upcoming screenings, click here and scroll down. I highly recommend you purchase the movie and show it often, especially if you live in a future primary or caucus state! This movie is definitely one you will want in your film library.

~ Vic

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