Four college students take on their generation’s worldly view of Christianity and ask what it truly means to follow Jesus
“How can we get past a label and take on a lifestyle? What happens when we give up on religion and try following Jesus?”
These are some of the questions asked in the new film from Riot Studios, Beware of Christians. Directed by college student Will Bakke, this documentary takes an honest look at the comfortable, self-righteous American Christianity this generation has grown up with. It dares to consider whether or not our idea of religion is truly what Jesus asks of His disciples.
When Will Bakke and three fellow college students, Alex, Matt, and Michael, realize that there’s something missing in the so-called Christian culture surrounding them, they leave their routine lives for five weeks to seek a new perspective on faith. All the answers they seek can be found in the Bible, but because that isn’t quite dramatic enough for film, they embark on a European adventure. They stop in eight countries to observe different views of Christianity around the world and then compare them with the Bible. They capture several interesting and revealing conversations with passersby and address issues relevant among their college peers.
Will, Alex, Matt, and Michael were raised in upstanding, church-going families. At some point in their youth, they “asked Jesus into their hearts.” Then they went on to pursue their own goals, their own pleasure, and blend into a self-centered world. But they have come to realize that being a Christian is more than a label. It’s not just going to church on Sundays. It’s not just being more scrupulous about drugs, sex, and alcohol than your friends. So if it’s not those things, what is it?
They set out to discover what it truly means to be a follower of Christ. They set out to discover what the Bible has to say about issues they face every day. In London they discuss Christian identity, in Paris they encounter materialism, and in Barcelona they take a look at sexual purity. They move on to Rome where they examine church structure, Budapest where they discuss wealth, Vienna where they address entertainment, and Munich where they take on alcohol use. Their last stop is Lucerne, Switzerland where they take time to process their findings and reach a conclusion.
Beware of Christians is both entertaining and interesting. Shot in a raw, contemporary style with lots of movement and edge, the documentary captures the excitement of the journey and magnitude of the locations. Overall Beware of Christians is a well-produced project.
Beware of Christians, however, won’t appeal to all audiences. Older generations might find Will, Alex, Matt, and Michael’s pop-culture lingo and loose slang annoying. A lot of their antics come across as immature. Serious Bible scholars probably won’t be impressed either. Will, Alex, Matt, and Michael don’t pretend to be experts. Their dialogue is riddled with like’s, dude’s, and more like’s.
But Beware of Christians isn’t necessarily trying to reach the mature, the elderly, or the scholarly. Not too spiritual to admit their own faults, Will, Alex, Matt, and Michael have a realness to them that will appeal to their peers. For average high school and college students who have a lot in common with these guys, Beware of Christians might be the nudge they need to set out in their own pursuit of Christ.
Perhaps this is why the creators of Beware of Christians leave it slightly open-ended. It asks more questions than it answers. It looks into the Bible for solutions but doesn’t flesh out every aspect of each topic. Instead, it inadvertently invites the viewer to ask his own questions, to shed his presuppositions and intellectual baggage and to seek Truth.
By the end of the film Will, Alex, Matt, and Michael reach the conclusion that Christianity isn’t a checklist or a prayer you said in Bible camp. It’s a way of life that demands passion for Christ and His commands. Beyond that, they leave viewers to figure out for themselves exactly what that is going to look like in their own lives. They leave a lot unsaid, but hopefully what they don’t say will provoke the curiosities of others and inspire them to seek a Christianity that isn’t based on human tradition but is founded on the person of Jesus Christ.
- Grace D Williamson