The Missionary Position
At the L.A. Times, John Mueller somehow got his hands on a screener of Rambo (which did not officially screen for the press) and totted up the body count of the latest film in the series, comparing it to its predecessors. Here are some of his findings:
Number of good guys killed by bad guys
- First Blood: 0
- FB Part II: 1
- Rambo III: 37
- Rambo: 113
Total number of people killed
- First Blood: 1
- FB Part II: 69
- Rambo III: 132
- Rambo: 236
That’s a pretty remarkable trend. Mueller didn’t comment on this, but we have to presume that some of those 113 good guys killed are missionaries.
Also of note in Mueller’s analysis: 40 of the bad guys who die are killed by Rambo’s accomplices. Does this mean the missionaries take up arms, too? Talk about militant zeal.
Not to pick a fight (!!!!), but… Were the Apostles in the book of Acts simply lacking a developed theology of self-defense? ‘Cause it sure looks like they lost a ton of fights, and badly. Should Stephen have picked up as many of those stones as he could and chucked ‘em back?
I’d say something different than the pastor you might hear on the radio, something that Martin Luther King, Jr. might have agreed with: “Christians should pick a TON of fights and fight back when necessary, but never resort to violence — even in self-defense.”
Copyright © 2014 Cam DelMar