George W. Bush: Faith in the White House (2004)

Do you ever reminisce about the good old days? We took a trip down memory lane to a time when political decisions were based on strong moral values, and when faith allowed men of consequence to weather tumultuous times. Our source material for this nostalgia sesh is GEORGE W. BUSH: FAITH IN THE WHITE HOUSE, a “documentary” (heavy emphasis on the scare quotes) produced by GRIZZLY ADAMS creator Charles E. Sellier Jr. and hosted by conservative radio host Janet Parshall. The thesis of the documentary is that the 43rd American president’s strong personal Christian faith is what gave him strength during the September 11th terrorist attacks, the toughest circumstances ever beset upon an American president since George Washington. On the DVD jacket for the documentary, it bills itself as alternative programming to Michael Moore’s FAHRENHEIT 9/11, a cultural product also from 2004 that argues active malice among politicians and the media class leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Iraq War. Wanting to be more fair and balanced than Michael Moore, GEORGE W. BUSH: FAITH IN THE WHITE HOUSE takes the funny tone of pretending to present sides of praise and criticism of George W. Bush, but then immediately settling on the most maudlin stories of Bush giving great hugs and being caring to his staffers during hard times in their lives. The obvious point of view here is to launder Bush’s difficult and destructive political decisions through the lens of him being a real sweetie. The stories of Bush’s day-to-day demeanor may be true, but how does that explain his desire to enter the Iraq War? Did God guide Bush to the “lesser of two evils” that protected American lives and liberated the Islamic world? I guess we’ll never know for sure, because God hasn’t allowed us to live in the reality where we saw the other side. It could have been even worse! GEORGE W. BUSH: FAITH IN THE WHITE HOUSE assures us that is probably the case; after all, Bush’s is constantly seen praying in the Oval Office, always wears a suit, and donated money to the evangelical “crusades” of roving minister Arthur Blessitt, whom he met at a Holiday Inn. A guy like that is probably gonna do the right thing, so don’t worry about it! View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Subscribe to our Twitch for livestreams: http://twitch.tv/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

To celebrate Father’s Day, we spend time with the story of one of the most important Old Testament patriarchs as depicted by acclaimed American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. NOAH takes great liberties with the biblical legend of Noah, adding elements inspired by the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch. In Aronofsky’s NOAH, the harsh realities of day-to-day life in Bible times are exaggerated with high fantasy elements. The most notable addition to the story are the giant stone “Watchers”,  towering giants whose stone exteriors imprison the souls of fallen angels doomed to wander Earth. These Watchers have a relationship with Noah’s family, who they see as some of the last remaining humans on earth who care about doing God‘s will. Noah (Russell Crowe) hears the call of the Lord in a mysterious dream, which is later expanded upon when Noah’s grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) feeds Noah an ayahuasca-like hallucinogen, revealing the Great Flood and its brutal cleansing of the earth. Methuselah also gives Noah a seed from the garden of Eden, allowing Noah to carry on the esoteric knowledge of the garden to the new family line he will begin once the earth is destroyed. However, Noah is apprehensive about repopulating the Earth with humans who are by their nature prone to sin. He vows to kill the twins carried by his daughter-in-law Ila (Emma Watson) if they turn out to be girls, so humans will go extinct. He also doesn’t let his incel son Ham (Logan Lerman) take a goth e-girl to be his wife. Fortunately, Noah’s innate sense of human decency prevails (at least with Ila), because if he had killed Ila’s babies, we wouldn’t be alive to have a podcast today. Aronofsky’s adaptation of Noah is similar to THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST in the fact that it executes a Bible story with a mixture of ambitious high fantasy and gritty realness. It’s admirable that Aronofsky is able to turn one of the most implausible Bible stories into something that feels real. View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Subscribe to our Twitch for livestreams: http://twitch.tv/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

Before there was TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL there was HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN, an 80s sitcom that may be the blueprint for the angel media craze that swept American pop culture at the end of the 20th century. HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN was created and directed by American television legend Michael Landon, who also stars in the series as the angel Jonathan Smith. Landon, known for his roles on all-American historical dramas BONANZA and LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, enlisted his former LITTLE HOUSE… co-star Victor French to play Jonathan Smith’s buddy Mark Gordon, a retired policeman (and mortal human) who accompanies Jonathan on his weekly assignments to use angelic influence to improve people’s lives. God is referred to as “The Boss” in the series; this world-building is consistent with TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL’s commitment to never discussing Jesus’s sacrifice or the concept of sin on network television. Both series only refer to a faceless God and His angelic messengers who can impact earthly forces. This week on BBS, we chose to explore this historical television series in our ongoing study of angel media, focusing on an episode with a trope we love: body swap. On previous BBS episodes ME AGAIN and SWITCHED we discuss the sub-genre of Christian body swap stories, and HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN s1e20 “The Banker and the Bum” is a triumphant new entry in that category. When homeless man Willy the Waver (Ned Beatty) has 24 hours to live, he makes a simple wish to tell elitist mayoral candidate Melvin Rich (also played by Ned Beatty) to “be nice”. Angel Jonathan Smith grants this wish by swapping the two men’s positions, teaching Melvin Rich an important lesson on empathy for others. The character of Willy the Waver reminds us of a common trope in Christian media: the homeless person who does unnecessary “kindness” to others that no one asked for in order to prove his unfortunate life is cheerful (in this case, waving to random cars on the road on a strict schedule like it’s his job.) “The Banker and the Bum” is both a charming tale of acceptance and a reminder of the shallow understanding much Christian media has of homeless people. View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Subscribe to our Twitch for livestreams: http://twitch.tv/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

Subscribe today for access to our full catalog of bonus episodes, including 2+ new episodes every month! www.patreon.com/boysbiblestudy For the first time in the history of our podcast, we are reviewing a film in which we co-starred. This is CHI ANN BLAZE OF FURY, the brand new film by 3Angels Power, a Canadian film production company based in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. In 2019, BBS co-host Julian struck up a friendship and artistic relationship with the Karam sisters (Gladys, Mona Lisa, and Jeanne d’arc) whose films he found by accident after misspelling a search term on YouTube. He was immediately captivated by the creative writing and directing of the sisters’ 2013 feature film FRANCESKA FINGER NAILZ, a 3 hour long epic about a misunderstood spirit wreaking havoc on a rural Canadian town. Julian wrote to the 3Angels, offering to film any script they sent to us with a troupe of actors. Weeks later, we had a script in hand for several scenes of a film that would become CHI ANN BLAZE OF FURY. We got about 20 of our friends together, drove to Marina del Rey and recorded a long scene on a beach in which a group of people discuss love and philosophy while fielding phone calls warning them to the existence of yet another evil spirit named Chi Ann. A long time passes and we are unsure about the status of the production; six years later, 3Angels surprise posts the film and we get to watch in its entirety. As fans and promoters of DIY filmmaking, it was so exciting to yield our will to filmmakers we admire and do whatever they asked us to do to realize their vision. 3Angels have a unique command of language and storytelling. No films look and sound like theirs. We’re proud to be involved, and we hope our review inspires lovers of film to watch CHI ANN BLAZE OF FURY, subscribe to 3Angels’ channel, and stay tuned to their electrifying updates. Watch CHI ANN BLAZE OF FURY for free on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NWUde4NBhSM?si=9ptEXxdSHb2pN810 While watching, please like and subscribe 3Angels' channel to support creative DIY filmmaking.

In the 1990s, filmmakers and audiences seemed obsessed with “magic men” who caused chaos in their communities while teaching everyone an important lesson. Some of these men were angels; some of them were just weird little freaks who made a big difference. Some examples of this: POWDER, MEET JOE BLACK, PHENOMENON, and another John Travolta starring film called MICHAEL. MICHAEL is an interesting hybrid magic man/religious film where this “magic man” archetype is also the archangel Michael from the Bible. This device allows the film to be safe-religious while not directly invoking Jesus, a storytelling technique also used by popular Y2K-era television show TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL. In the film, Michael is an angel discovered living in Iowa by tabloid reporters who specialize on documenting unexplained phenomena. When they travel to meet Michael, they find out he is indeed a real angel, but not in the way that most of us would expect to experience one. He is sweet, but with bad manners, and prone to seducing earth women because he’s very interested in sex with them. Michael also introduces new rules of angel encounters on earth: for instance, angels are only allowed to visit earth 26 times and they can only perform small miracles. Inventing fake angel tropes outside of the Bible is a very common device of these safe religious 90s films, usually used to tie up plot continuity issues. In the end, Michael’s secret mission is to unite the characters Frank (played by William Hurt) and Dorothy (played by Andie MacDowell) in a romantic love they will treasure forever. Although it’s a sweet but ultimately quite stupid film that uses half-baked angel powers as a cop out, MICHAEL is an extremely interesting study in trends of biblical imagery in mainstream pop culture of the recent past. View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Subscribe to our Twitch for livestreams: http://twitch.tv/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

This infamous sci-fi film is perhaps the church of Scientology’s biggest attempt to ingratiate itself with mainstream culture. BATTLEFIELD EARTH is based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, whose end goal was to adapt this book into a Hollywood film. Hubbard made an attempt in the mid-1980s to produce the adaptation himself, but it failed, and Hubbard died in 1986. Hubbard had hinted to John Travolta, a prominent Scientologist, that Hubbard would have liked Travolta to star in the film. Travolta took it upon himself to bring BATTLEFIELD EARTH to life in the mid-90s, eventually co-producing and starring as Terl, the dreadlocked 9-foot-tall antagonist of the film. Travolta’s character Terl is a “Psychlo”, a colonial race of humanoid aliens on a universe-wide mission to strip less powerful planets of their resources. 3000 years in the future, earth is one of these planets. Johnny Goodboy is a human “man-animal” living like a post apocalyptic caveman and being hunted by the Psychlos. When Terl meets Johnny, Terl enslaves the human, thinking him inferior, but Johnny quickly adapts to Psychlo civilization and reads the historical Declaration of Independence which inspires him to thwart his captors with a daring escape. Although BATTLEFIELD EARTH doesn’t demonstrate much about the Scientologist doctrine, perhaps it proves that Hubbard’s main spiritual goal was aimed at the lowest heights possible — achieve fame and attention in the Hollywood system.  View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Subscribe to our Twitch for livestreams: http://twitch.tv/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

Subscribe today for access to our full catalog of bonus episodes, including 2+ new episodes every month! www.patreon.com/boysbiblestudy We’re back with coverage of TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, the television series that may hold the key to understanding the American psyche once and for all. The popular 90s and 2000s era show uses an “angel of the week” format as each story is about different angels inflicting themselves upon the lives of hapless humans. This week we focus on SIGN OF THE DOVE, a dueling angel experience which interweaves stories of Andrew (angel of death, portrayed by John Dye) and Monica (the show’s protagonist, played by Roma Downey) helping two humans whose life paths have woven for generations. Andrew tells us the story of a human family he’s been taking to heaven since the 1200s, including delightful time travel skits in period costumes (such as Revolutionary War-era powdered wigs.) Ben Mason is the last of this family; unfortunately he doesn’t know he’s about to perish in a bombing by his neighbor Nick Freeman, who doesn’t mean harm to Ben but wants to collect insurance money and will kill Ben by accident. The history of a freed African American slave could be the key that unlocks Nick’s humanity and prevents him from setting the fateful bomb. While we’re waiting at the edge of our seats, we ponder the angel logic of TBAA. Why don’t angels drink alcohol? Why do they make themselves visible to some humans but not all? What is it they can really do? TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL reviews have become our favorite fodder for podcast episodes because they are so dense with insane moments and inconsistent world building. Hopefully our review of “The Sign of the Dove” will be one you write about in your family Bible to remember forever. View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Subscribe to our Twitch for livestreams: http://twitch.tv/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

This stylized post-apocalyptic thriller is a unique example of a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster with overtly Christian themes, even if it stops just short of a true Christian message. Directed by the Hughes Brothers (MENACE II SOCIETY, DEAD PRESIDENTS, FROM HELL) and starring beloved leading man Denzel Washington, THE BOOK OF ELI depicts the Bible as a source of tremendous power in a fallen world. Eli (Denzel Washington) is a survivor of a nuclear holocaust, wandering westward on a mysterious mission with few possessions except for a large book that he treasures. When Eli crosses paths with local warlord Carnegie (Gary Oldman), Carnegie suspects that Eli’s book may be the Bible, which Carnegie himself has been seeking because he believes reading it will give him the power to control large groups of people. Carnegie is perhaps a metaphor for hypocritical conmen religious leaders who use Christianity as a way to acquire power and money, whereas Eli could represent Christ or even just a true honest believer who has made it his mission to spread faith into the world. This metaphor becomes even more clear when Eli’s quest is revealed to be delivery of the Bible to an enclave of secret archivists who will reprint and preserve it forever. The authenticity of Eli’s faith becomes even more clear when Carnegie does steal the Bible, only to be upset to find it is written in Braille, revealing Eli to have been blind the whole time. Despite being mortally wounded by Carnegie, Eli makes it to the archivists in time to speak the entire Bible to them as an oral tradition, ensuring its preservation. In the final scene of the movie, we see the archivists putting the newly reprinted Bible on a shelf alongside the Torah and the Quran. This ending, which is obviously inspired by the novel FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury, shows that THE BOOK OF ELI is not a truly Christian genre film — few faith-based films would equate the Bible and the Quran. To view THE BOOK OF ELI through the lens of faith-based film criticism is to see it as a religious cop out; hinting that the Bible is the source of spiritual truth but ultimately dismissing it as “just another book on a shelf.” View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Subscribe to our Twitch for livestreams: http://twitch.tv/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

We dip into cinematic classics of the silent age (before people learned how to talk) with 1923 classic SALOMÉ, co-directed by married couple Charles Bryant and Alla Nazimova. The latter stars as the titular SALOMÉ, a Bible character who has achieved historical infamy despite not being officially referred to by her first name. The story is provocative: a teenage princess dances seductively for her stepfather King Herod who promises her anything in reward; she picks the head of prophet John the Baptist, who is summarily executed and presented to her on a platter. Bryant and Nazimova’s SALOMÉ takes cues from the Oscar Wilde play on the subject, adding extra-historical depth to the characters to portray Herod's throne in the throes of self destructive decadence. Male characters are simpering and devilishly gay (note that Alla Nazimova herself was openly bisexual, so this feels like intentional camp rather than homophobia.) Fashions are extravagant and imaginative, seeming both historical and futuristic. Physical acting is taken to extremes: SALOMÉ is a truly exciting watch, showcasing how much depth of character is possible from a silent film. To watch SALOMÉ is to not only experience an avant-garde take on Bible story, but also to see human ingenuity on full display with no boundaries to self expression despite limitations by emerging technology. Unrelated, in this episode the Bible Boys also discuss our new obsessions in ultra contemporary media: Harmony Korine’s BABY INVASION and teen orthodox Jewish influencer Flynn Goldstein. View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Subscribe to our Twitch for livestreams: http://twitch.tv/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

Subscribe today for access to our full catalog of bonus episodes, including 2+ new episodes every month! www.patreon.com/boysbiblestudy If we had to nominate one piece of broadcast media to be “the best episode of television of all time”, in the shortlist would be this compelling TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL episode about human cloning, with a cameo by (an actor portraying) the legendary Albert Einstein. TBAA (as our listeners are well aware by this point) is a famous y2k era TV drama where a Greek chorus of angels inflict themselves upon humans going through moral crises. In this episode, a genetic scientist named Dr. Conover (portrayed by Annabella Sciorra who notably plays Gloria Trillo in THE SOPRANOS) is desperate for a child to call her own, so she fuses her personal longings with work and decides to give birth to a baby cloned from Albert Einstein. This doesn’t sit right with our favorite angels, Monica, Tess, and Andrew, who see human cloning as sacrilegious means for humans to “play God.” Monica becomes a bioethicist to monitor the doctor closely; meanwhile Andrew and Tess go back in time to tend to the dying Albert Einstein in his final days of life, to show Dr. Conover that even a brilliant man like her idol Einstein would be conflicted by the harmful effects caused by his life’s work. Like most TBAA episodes, “The Face of God” takes a hard ideological stance using incredibly convoluted evidence written by humans and delivered by fictional angels as a means to completely eschew narrative continuity and moral consistency. But UNLIKE most TBAA episodes, this one is the origin of the character Gloria (Valerie Bertinelli) who is by far our favorite angel and is created by God out of thin air in this episode as a “flex” by humans for wanting to make cloned animals. Get good! View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Subscribe to our Twitch for livestreams: http://twitch.tv/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy