I was attracted to this movie primarily because I have been
wary of Christians all my life. From the do-gooder Methodists who ran the Orphanage I grew up in like a Stalag, to the Fundamental Evangelists who drive the extreme Political Far Right in this country intent on ensuring that all gay men are 2nd class citizens at best. There are, I assume, moderate ones who are actually quite good sorts even, but as a committed atheist I don’t actually come across any in my day to day life.
wary of Christians all my life. From the do-gooder Methodists who ran the Orphanage I grew up in like a Stalag, to the Fundamental Evangelists who drive the extreme Political Far Right in this country intent on ensuring that all gay men are 2nd class citizens at best. There are, I assume, moderate ones who are actually quite good sorts even, but as a committed atheist I don’t actually come across any in my day to day life.The Christians in this documentary are four very likable articulate college boys who genuinely want to find some answers as to how they can equate their beliefs with everyday life in America. So they come up with a plan. They decide to take a sabbatical from their studies for a while, and with little more than a clean pair of underpants and a passport and a few US dollars, they set off on a journey across Europe to see if together, far way from home, they can take a closer examination of what being a christian really means to them.
Armed with just a video camera (and no crew at all) their first stop is in London, and the quest to interview and talk to other Christians (and non-believers) begins. From London, these four virgin travelers move on to Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Vienna, Munich, Geneva and Budapest and on each stop they take time out to consider a different topic on which they feel they want some answers on how it affects their commitment to leading a christian life.
I am obviously not the intended audience for this movie and whilst I am unconvinced by any of the suppositions these rather earnest young men make, I do however totally believe in the sincerity of both their own faith and also of the quest they have set themselves. They are tremendously affable, extremely articulate, unguardedly honest with self-depreciating humor and such a wonderful joie de vivre. I was expecting them to be first class nerds, whereas the reality was they were extremely likable and by the end of the movie, I had wanted them to feel like they had arrived at the answers they had desired no matter how much I may disagree with them.
It was of course not what they ended up with that mattered so much, but the journey itself together with each other that strengthened both their resolves and their faith. The movie they made was well filmed and entertainingly produced and it kept me totally engaged throughout. And even though I am not a teenage boy (or girl) in Bible College that this is obviously intended for to persuade to keep to the straight and narrow, I still enjoyed it, in my own perverse way of course.
P.S. The movie is doing the round of Bible Colleges but if you don’t happen to live in one (!) you can catch it on Netflix.
