I Guess It Takes Courage to be a Christian on Christmas December 23, 2013

I Guess It Takes Courage to be a Christian on Christmas

By Hemant Mehta
December 23, 2013

I don’t know what I just watched but… I’m getting this funny feeling inside… like Jesus and ‘Merica all rolled into one. And it makes me want to take down the ACLU.

WHO’S WITH ME?!

That’s from a real 2012 movie called “Last Ounce of Courage.” Because, as we know, it’s very hard to be a Christian in America.

(Thanks to Christopher for the link)

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  • Cake

    This is a travesty! They just lowered a giant screen and blocked out the view of Jesus and the manger!! They should be ashamed of trying to hide Jesus behind that screen! Keep Jesus in Christmas where he belongs!!

  • Mario Strada

    I know, what about the little angel/girl? Wasn’t she worthy of watching the movie? She ended up on the wrong side of the screen.

    Edit: By the way, is this a parody or is it real( the video, not the movie)? Because if it’s real, it looks like a parody.

  • Terry Firma

    The only thing I missed was a posse equipped with pitchforks descending upon the house of an atheist played by Janeane Garafolo. Other than that, it was perfect.

  • KMR

    I wonder if Stephen King is pissed that they stole a line from his book and then made something stupid from it.

  • Achron Timeless

    Poe’s Law

  • I think a clip like that is a perfect dose. I enjoyed several good laughs along the way, but I know the movie, in its entirety, would be intolerable.

  • I guess it takes ignorance not to realize that Christmas was hijacked from the pagans and that the United States is “not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion”…

  • A3Kr0n

    That’s got to be a parody, like something the Onion would do. I don’t think even the most fundy Christian group would make a movie that cheesy.

  • SkepticsRUs

    That’s very funny, but really, you can’t post such over-the-top parodies if you want to be taken seriously. … It is a parody, isn’t it?

  • Don Gwinn

    Dat look in the truck, right before he murders the truck driver for beat-boxing and rapping “We Three Kings.” That was choice.

    Where are they where the radio stations don’t play Christmas music at Christmas time? I heard Christmas classics on four stations today on a short drive. Maybe we just have more Christmas spirit.

  • Did we just watch a Christian wet dream?

  • Don Gwinn

    The movie is real, but I don’t think that’s the official trailer. 😉

    Did Odin visit him at the end?

  • A3Kr0n

    I don’t remember if I made it to the end? 🙂
    I agree that it’s not like an official trailer, the clips don’t seem to be capturing the proper contexts. It’s more like a quoting mining effort.

  • Robster

    They’re all so gloomy and sort of sad/pissed off. Being a Christian must be really horrible, they all seem so engrossed in their silly nonsense that there’s no room for any fun, let alone fornication. The most amazing thing, at least to this heathen, is that instead of falling about laughing as most who are not afflicted with any of the jesus’s and mo’s etc. tend to do, they take it all so seriously and appear to pretend it’s real or something. How bizarre.

  • Octoberfurst

    Oh the pain! The pain! I can’t believe I watched all 5 minutes and 13 seconds of that! I should get hazardous duty pay.
    Seriously though, that was one of the dumbest things I have ever watched. It had insipid dialogue, bad acting and it seems to have been written by a bunch of 13 yr olds at a youth camp. “You know what would be cool? We could write a movie about how Christians are so persecuted in this country! That would be totally awesome! We could win, like, an Academy award and stuff!”
    Yes indeed only in fundie land can the idea of Christians being persecuted in this country be taken seriously. Bibles banned! Crosses not allowed to be put up! Oh the humanity! Yep the paranoia runs deep in these people.

    I had never heard of this movie so I assume it went straight to DVD and can only be found in the marked down rack at your local Christian bookstore.

  • And the stores. It’s non stop Christmas music, especially from the week or so before Christmas.

  • Considering the number of teenage girls that get knocked up in Fundamentalist churches, there’s plenty of fornicating going on. It’s just accompanied with a little extra shame and guilt. Don’t kid yourself that those kids are all abstaining from sex. Or that the older generation screaming about immorality all waited until they got married. I went to a Christian-affiliated college for undergrad. I know for a fact that most of them were boffing their brains out (and then acting like they weren’t of course).

  • Matt G

    Only if it involves automatic weapons!

  • This sums it up for me.

  • And I give you the real trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5iue0Wi3gY

  • And if you desire to watch the entire 1hr and 38 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkA8JR2p_tQ

  • My work has not stopped playing Christmas music and it is Jesus Christmas music. One song says his name every 5 seconds I swear. I think the song is called Jesus.

  • OhioAtheist

    Lmao…Bob “Revere” is the protagonist. How original.

  • invivoMark

    Hey, it’s true – I went to a Chinese restaurant one Christmas, and there was only one Christian family in the whole place!

  • Carpinions

    So, basically, in their own movies, (right-wing) Christians act like petty, vindictive, law-breaking whiners who lie to their offspring in an attempt to claim victim status for the majority, and rewrite history so they can have their traditions and beliefs validated as they share screen time with the cross and the American flag in a message so abjectly clear it would take a dead person to miss it.

    I seriously can only pity people who think like this.

  • Black Leaf

    I work in a retail store, and I have been struggling to make my Sanity checks every day from the nonstop Christmas music.

  • I honestly wonder what these people think the future a decade from now will look like.

    December 2023: Two emaciated figures hide out in a burned-out Chick-fil-A warehouse

    Dude 1: “Did you hear that?”
    Dude 2: “No, what?”
    Dude 1: “I heard a snapping sound outside by the fence.”
    Dude 2: “It’s probably just another random patrol by Solyndra. They’re always re-positioning their Prius patrol vehicles this time of night.'”
    Dude 1: “There it is again!” *grabs shotgun* “YULE!”
    Dude 2: *distant voice* “TIDE!”
    Dude 1: “Thank god, it’s Madeline. In here!”
    Madeline: “Sorry, it took me a minute. A bunch of IRS footsoldiers were randomly dosing women with Depo Provera over by the Obamaphone factory on Clinton Avenue.”
    Dude 1: “Those animals!”
    Madeline: “Yeah, but we’ll show them. We’ve prepared some victim-operated mistletoe devices. We’ll block Benghazi Avenue with a nativity scene, then when a patrol stops to collect it we’ll hit ’em!”
    Dude 2: “Those secular bastards are gonna get it! We’ve been making a list, motherfuckers, and we’ve checked it twice!”
    Dude 1: For Sarah Palin, Queen of the North!

    …I might have mixed up my references there at the end.

  • Anon

    THEY SHOW A SCENE OF A SOLDIER’S DEATH VIA BOMBING. THE WHOLE THING. Who would clap???? I’d be scarred for life!!

  • johnroe71

    I think I just got a little bit sick in my mouth! The true fundies believe that in the “end days” Christians will be the persecuted ones. Some of their pastors (almost happily ) believe, and spread their interpretation of the bible to fuel the notion that we are already in “end times”. I think they’re partially right, just not the kind of end times they’d like. Religion is under threat, and this kind of mind-numbingly saccharine coated drivel is no great surprise. It will probably win awards at Creation Fest.

  • DavidMHart

    Doesn’t the phrase ‘last ounce of courage’ come from the song ‘The Impossible Dream’, as sung in the musical Man of La Mancha by the character Don Quixote, a delusional mediaeval fiction fan who deceives himself into thinking that he is a brave knight of olden times, fighting giants when in fact he is just trying to do battle with windmills? I think that’s quite appropriate.

  • Rob P

    I only lasted 1:12

  • Dan Weeks

    Bob: “Did you ever think you’d live to see the day when people were offended by a cross in public?”

    Me: “Offended by a cross? No. Offended by asshats trying to cram their kooky superstitions down everyone’s throat while damning them to an eternity of suffering and torment, all without a single shred of evidence or even consistent logic to back it up? Yeah, but honestly, Bob, I thought we’d have that shit cleared up by now.”

  • evodevo

    The fundies I work with are the most hag-ridden, dysfunctional, perpetually complaining, depressed, fearful people I know. No joyous Xtians there !! I don’t know which is the chicken or egg – whether their personality types drew them to fundamentalism, or whether they were already fundie and it just exacerbates the situation. Either way, they’re perpetually NOT happy people.

  • evodevo

    If you are molested, you are expected to take part in a “forgiveness” gathering where you “forgive” your attacker and he/she ?????, but no shame is attached to him/her, only to you. Saw it happen a couple of times, in a congregation that seemed to attract sexual deviants and adulterers. A lot of denial going on.

  • MNb

    On the positive side:
    1. This movies gets a 3,9 on IMDb;
    2. It features Fred Williamson, a Blaxploitation star from the 70’s. He probably also is the best actor of the entire cast.

  • Cdat88

    One of the things that annoys me is the attitude that only Xtians can be “true” patriots. They take the opportunity to parade the US flag around like it is their private banner (sort of like this ridiculous mental masturbation exercise). I always have to laugh when some true believer tells me I am not a true American and I do not understand what it means to sacrifice for your country. This from people that have never had an uncomfortable day in their life. For the record I am a combat wounded veteran (Desert Storm), with almost as much metal and plastic in one leg than flesh and bone. I am not mentioning that for attention, but to prove that you can make a sacrifice, and not be an obnoxious ass about it.

  • SpyPlus

    I had no idea Aronra had a cameo.. awesome!

  • I see the Lie Factory is at full steam

  • Not only was prayer not “banned in school” (school-led prayer was), banning prayer/bibles in school would be a violation of the establishment clause too.

  • skinnercitycyclist

    Yes, the only mistake they made with his character is his mustache is not long enough for him to twirl when he laughs in pure evil.

  • skinnercitycyclist

    I watched the whole movie for camp value just a few weeks ago. I also watched “C is for Christmas,” a much nicer and ever-so-slightly less stupid film.

    It is not clear from the muddled filmmaking, but this film may be set in the “near future, not specified,” in which bringing a bible to school IS illegal. “Bob Revere’s” son was either killed in the first Gulf War or in the second one. If in the second, we are in a near-future dystopia, if the first, it is the hellish secular hell we inhabit now where no Christian dare s to raise his voice.

    As usual, the stupidity is not a single course, but a smorgasbord.

  • tsig

    Bikes and flags and Jesus.

    Jesus!!

  • John Bridle

    That was pathetic in everyway. Sad wooden dialogue, straw man after lie after straw man. Unfortunately their those gullible enough to swallow it.

  • While it may be cheesy, what gives me pause is that I’ve heard every single ridiculous statement in that video spoken by actual sincere believers.

  • tsig

    They keep their congregations in a perpetual state of spiritual blue balls.

  • tsig

    Mental masturbation would help with their spiritual blue balls and at last they could be ravished er, Raptured.

  • tsig

    being stupid for Christ goes back to Paul.

  • jamilleChristman

    When you sit too long in the seat of priviliage, it comes with fear of being unseated. It makes you controlling, irrational and insecure…..apparently.

  • $925105

    How brave to stand with the majority.

  • “Winter Break” …the horror

  • Matthew Baker

    Best accidental argument for secularism

  • Chas Swedberg

    Pretty sure I heard the “TM” when he said “Real Christmas Music(TM).” 😉

  • Chas Swedberg

    Argumentum unawarous?

  • Octoberfurst

    I know what you mean! I had a coworker who was an upbeat, happy-go-lucky guy until he became involved in a fundie church. Over time his personality changed. He became very judgmental, extremely self-righteous and paranoid as hell. (He would go on and on about how the evil secular humanists are trying to ruin this country and destroy Christianity.) In short he became an a–hole and he and I parted ways and didn’t talk to one another anymore.

  • Octoberfurst

    Yeah I thought that was pretty idiotic too. I remember thinking “WTF?”

  • musical beef

    I wonder what goes on in Mr. Persecuted’s head when he sees a burqa or the star and crescent. Warm tolerant fuzzies?

  • Raising_Rlyeh

    I knew the movie was bad, but I didn’t realize how big of a pos it was. Christmas, the bible, and prayer banned in school, in what world? Oh no, they are calling it “winter break” instead of “christmas break” I can truly see now the persecution that they are suffering. I am not offended by a cross in public as long as it’s not on government property. You can have all the religious iconography you want on your private property. The thing that bugs me most about the movie is that it is clearly a mission church that does not appear to be on public property so no one would ask for the cross to be taken down. The ending is just pure right-wing circle jerk and yet it is somewhat realistic. If you show a soldier supporting something then you are unamerican, to many on the right wing, if you not support that soldier’s views.

    Weepy christian mental breakdowns? Check.

    As a final note I have to say I just love the cameo by O’reilly. Plus anybody else notice that one of the only two black character is the evil aclu laywer that kind of looks like jackie chiles from seinfield?

  • Joe

    Merry Fools’ Tide to everyone! (look up wikipedia entry on Christmas in Puritan New England – gotta love the irony!)

  • Don Gwinn

    The movie is real, but this video was not made by the same people as far as I can tell. So this clip is a parody, but the scenes are really from the film.

  • Bob Jase

    Problem is no matter how they stroke for Jesus he never comes.

  • allein

    I was pleasantly surprised to hear Fur Elise in the bookstore last week. They seem to be mixing in some non-Christmas music, which is especially nice since I first heard a Christmas song shortly after Halloween. I used to work in that store and we always started the Christmas music on Black Friday, but it was all Christmas all the time (with the occasional Hannukah song thrown in) from then until December 24.

  • Don Gwinn

    At the end, there were two scenes with a spirit appearing and disappearing to help The Hero. He was an older man with long gray hair and beard, wearing a long black coat/cloak and a black hat with a wide brim. He was either a Cowboy Angel (™) or Odin Allfather on his wanderings.
    Well, it could have been Sam Elliott appearing as himself.

  • Jeremiah Traeger

    My question is… Are they willingly ignorant of what we want when we say “separation of church and state”? Do they realize we are OK with them celebrating Christmas in their homes? Do they realize many of us ALSO celebrate Christmas? Do they realize many atheists (not me, mind you), LOVE Christmas music?

    My guess is, yes, they are willfully ignorant and just want excuses to stoke their enormous persecution complexes.

  • Todd Heath

    I’m also a Desert Shield/Storm veteran. How much do you want to bet that the most vocal of these people have never served a day in their life in the military?

  • Carpinions

    Whenever asking the question of right-wingers (Christian or otherwise): “Are you willfully ignorant of X?”, always assume “yes”. That sounds dismissive and generalizing, but in my experience they hardly ever take what you say at face value on your personal benefit of the doubt because they *need* to believe in one or more subversive forces, the perceived existence of which validates and licenses them to behave in whatever way they feel they can/have to/must in order to protect whatever it is they’re protecting. What I describe can be seen in the daily operation and rhetoric of the GOP.

  • Ed Adams

    and they have comments disabled. surprise. surprise. such courageous christian warriors.

  • Bob… can’t… do… that!

  • DysphoricDiderot

    As though a Bible would be banned. I’ve had a Bible at my school and no one said anything.

  • The Christian War on the Constitution.

    .

  • diogeneslamp0

    This, THIS is what happens when you make a movie without the help of Jews or queers.

  • SeekerLancer

    If you did a drinking game to all of the lies being presented as truth in that movie you would die.

  • Cdat88

    No bet there Todd. I try not to throw money away. For all their words, most of this crowd consider it a rough day if they have to wait an extra 5 minutes for their McNuggets. But that is okay. Some of us put on the uniform for just that reason. So the unpleasantness of the world can remain at arms length. I take the thank yous a bit awkwardly, even after all these years. But DO NOT try and either dismiss it because I do not believe, or assume I have a religious belief because of service. There are atheists in foxholes.

  • David M. Smith

    ROADHOUSE!

  • Al Aquino

    This got a 70% on rotten tomato by users lol. for once I agree with the critics and the 0%. Everyone here should watch this movie its on youtube and then rate it lol.