 My lord Daniel of Vito. I am here today to receive your blessing May my writing be focused and organized. May my worlds follow internal logic May your light shine out of my every orifice at every hour of every day There is no God but God and Daniel is his prophet thy kingdom come thy will be done May your directing career be forgotten You think I want to do this. I don't have a choice. I didn't get campfire blaze Campfire blaze is a browser based suite of tools that keep track of all your world-building and story notes with character sheets Maps timelines encyclopedias and more this sort of organization is great for world-building RPG campaigns and any other sort of writing you can think of your creations can be shared publicly with others But only if you want to even real-time collaboration on projects is possible And it's way more intuitive than Google Docs or anything else comparable All these modules can be yours or you can pick and choose the parts you need at either a one-time purchase or a monthly subscription Campfire blaze can be customized to suit whatever purposes you need it for and whatever price you can afford Not sure if you want to commit to paying all this There's a free tier so you can try everything without paying a dime It even has a month-long free trial and a refund option so you can change your mind at any time Click the link in the description to see if campfire blaze is right for you Don't be like me save yourself while you have the chance This isn't exactly an uncommon opinion, but it needs to be said. Have you ever heard of pure flicks? It's a production company that exclusively makes Christian movies by which I mean they pander to the American evangelical Right by crafting narratives in which they are the angelic victims beset upon by evil atheists who hate God and also don't believe in him And also think that differing religious beliefs should be allowed to coexist without one enforcing its will on the others Because they're evil God's not dead old-fashioned faith of our fathers the Trump prophecy the case for Christ one nation under God Unplanned and many others have all been shout out in an attempt to keep Kevin Sorbo from going bankrupt You know the weird part though There are tons of terrible religious movies that aren't even made by pure flicks There are other studios out there making basically the same thing over and over There's a whole renaissance going on Rick Santorum the former senator who once almost dropped the n-bomb in public has even made a couple himself There are tons of other channels on YouTube that have covered pure flicks his various fecal droppings disguised as cinema So I'll try not to get into those too much rather I want to talk about some of the crappy Christian books I've come across over the years and point out exactly how and why they're terrible because books are cheaper to make and that means there are So many of these when I say Christian novels I don't mean stuff that utilizes Christian imagery and mythology like the mortal instruments or hush hush for all their flaws Those are about different things. I'm talking about balls to the wall God is the center of the story constant talk about the main characters relationship with Jesus There's no doubt about which religion is the correct one That's what I mean by Christian books things like the shack or left behind or a voice in the wind There are a lot of these and they're all pretty bad Mostly, I'm here to observe this phenomenon and have a few hearty chuckles This isn't an attack on anyone in particular unless otherwise stated I know every religious denomination has their own crappy media, but this is the kind I'm most familiar with My choice of topic has nothing to do with my own religious beliefs or lack thereof If you think atheists don't make cringy self-flating books just read reapers Creek You'll change your mind for what little it's worth I don't care what your religious beliefs are as long as you don't force them on to others So let's start off easy with something I read as a kid the time-bender series Time-bender sounds like a fine kids adventure on the surface and in some ways it is a kid named max mccrain Invents a time machine out of an old Volkswagen Beetle, and then they go on adventures There are four major characters in this series max is the lead as the inventor of the time machine He's the resident nerd character the guy who understands high-level math and physics yet is still in middle school for some reason He also has no social awkwardness health problems disabilities or anything else that might count as a character flaw Ali is a girl Grady is the black one Okay, he's more than that In fact, he's the only member of the main cast who has a character arc His father is dying of cancer at the start of the story and early on he finally succumbs Sending Grady into a depressive state where he loses his faith in God. It's pretty heavy for a kid's book Toby is a stereotypical troublemaker who's always in detention and stealing stuff He also seemingly has no friends only hanging out with the others because he accidentally gets swept up in the time travel stuff once He's honestly such a little asshole. I wonder where they keep him around at one point They need some pennies to make a battery and Toby hands his over then he spends the rest of the book moaning that max Oh some his money back This is all over four cents in the first book battle before time max goes to test the time machine with the others They accidentally go back too far and see some dinosaurs then there's some technical difficulties that strand them in the past You know how it works They run into beings which are presumably angels having some sort of space battle against something called the silver dragon in an era before time began The silver dragon is pretty clearly a metaphor for Lucifer He's the source of all evil who whispers in mankind's ear to make them do wicked things. I could explain more But let's not pretend either of us cares for the most part It's just an inoffensive kids adventure one that slips out of your mind almost as soon as it enters There's a higher than average number of references to God and Jesus But there's only one thing that really stands out to me like I mentioned earlier Grady loses his father to cancer early in the story It's handled well and is surprisingly sad later when they're watching angels battle in space One of the angels tells them to pray for guidance to help them on their journey Max and Ali both pray on it because they're good Christian soldiers Grady and Toby don't now Grady's case makes perfect sense his father just died It's fine for him to have a crisis of faith dare I say it's handled well the issue comes with Toby when asked to pray He snorts through his nose and asks do I look like some sort of religious geek? Look there are a million reasons to become an irreligious person some good some bad Some people reach that conclusion through careful thinking and studying scientific or philosophical writings Some people just weren't raised in a religious household and never took time to ask themselves difficult questions about the state of the universe This book takes the one character who disagrees with the main cast's interpretation of Christianity and makes him a mean spiteful bully who doesn't disbelieve in God. He just thinks he's lame and dumb This is the same kind of crap that pure flicks films are made of the idea that the evangelical Christian Ideology is the default that all humans are born with all of its tenets are so self-evident that you don't even need to argue for them The only people who disagree don't actually disagree. They just hate God because they're evil and stuff. Yes. I Hate God. All I have for him is hate It's just a way to feel like some sort of oppressed victim while also being in a dominant position in society Even when I was religious this part annoyed me Anyways, Grady briefly goes to heaven sees his dad again then decides he loves God and stuff Toby continues to be a twat for the rest of the series More time travel shenanigans come about in the second book doorway to doom In this one a different guy in the Middle Ages invents a time portal using a door which then leads into Max's house His name is Jesus Christ. Really? Yeah, his name is Dr. Delirious He kidnaps the main cast and holds them hostage to convince Max to make rocket weapons for the evil King Weavern So they can conquer their neighboring kingdoms I'll admit that the parts where Delirious psychologically tortures Max into making weapons for him is pretty good And the kids coming up with an escape plan is fine Other than that this is bland and forgettable much like the first book and much like the first book It contains complaints about stupid shit that isn't real See the evil King Weavern's land is in Great Britain somewhere the exact time period is vague But it was before the unification of England when there were tons of petty kingdoms constantly fighting each other more important It was after the Christianization of Great Britain was completed King Weavern outlawed Christianity sometime before the story began and mandates worship of the Silver Dragon Get it? He's a Satanist He also boarded up the church near his castle instead of demolishing it or converting it into a dragon temple Which would have been more efficient, but whatever This would never happen in a million billion fucking years The instant and early medieval monarch tried to get rid of the religion held by all his subjects nobles administrators and neighbors He would be removed from power Maybe peacefully maybe in revolt or war, but he would be removed. They wouldn't tolerate any sort of paganism But you know gotta remind the kids that Christians are terribly oppressed in modern-day America Anyways, they defeat King Weavern and Dr. Delirious with an army that has crosses painted on their shields Constantine style The third book is called Invasion of the Time Troopers, which sounds like a rejected Goosebumps book Max takes a classmate back in time and then she sends the time machine back to the present without them on purpose Because she thinks she can do magic to get them home. She also expresses disgust when she sees Max wearing a cross necklace Oh fuck off, Jim Denny. You're literally making someone up convincing yourself that they exist then getting mad about it Anyways, Time Troopers track them down, tell them they're causing too much trouble with their time travel nonsense and give them a citation alongside a strongly worded letter That is not a joke. There's a fourth book that I never read, but I've heard it's about the heroes going to Mars and converting aliens to Christianity I'll take the internet's word for it So basically all these combined kids adventure stuff with grievance Christianity and because of that the kids adventure stuff never rises beyond being average Barely average Imagine a parallel version of this series focused on being a decent story first and religious second Toby could start off as a troublemaker who changes for the better when he sees his friends act like good people They could come across villains who are being influenced by Satan and that causes them to do awful things Without getting rid of the church. Maybe they could even be clergymen So you could show that while God is always good those who profess to worship him sometimes aren't Max could try to reconcile his love for science and verifiable facts with his faith in a higher power that doesn't have definitive proof of its existence The heroes could be heroes for helping people rather than just getting into trouble and then escaping through their relationship with Jesus or whatever The irony is that this would send a stronger positive message about Christianity One that emphasized caring for your fellow humans and utilizing your faith in God to make positive changes Not only in yourself, but in the world around you. It might even make the adventure stuff better However, this alternate version misses the point Timebenders was not written to provide kids with something fun to read that also improved their relationship with God It was written to tell them all about how they are constantly under assault by dark powers and how anyone who disagrees with their Religious views as being manipulated by Satan. Please don't think about things. That's the path to evil They failed that being good books because they were never trying to be But they're still better than left behind Left behind is probably the most famous example of terrible Christian books You might know of it through the terrible movie adaptation with Kirk Cameron The three sequels to the terrible movie adaptation with Kirk Cameron or the terrible movie adaptation with Nicholas Cage It's a story all about the rapture a prophesized event in which all the true Christians are taken up to heaven Leaving all the heretics and sinners and people born into the wrong religions to deal with the rise of the Antichrist if you think that sounds cool You're not alone. That sounds like a crazy fantasy adventure story and in many ways it does succeed It has a compelling villain who isn't just Satan under a different name It has main characters who commit heroic deeds sometimes It has a story which is only sort of result by an act of God But you know that I wouldn't bring it up here if it didn't have at least some awful stuff in it The series is 16 novels long and ran from 1995 to 2007. There's even a spin-off called left behind the kids Individual books are long too So I have only read the first two books and detailed synopses of the rest if I get any details wrong I apologize. I would have read them as a kid, but my mom wouldn't let me She thought they were too violent and would corrupt me with heresy since we didn't believe in the rapture Not her exact words, but that was the basic idea She may have had a point though. The books are bizarrely Anti-Catholic claiming that they don't get raptured with all the quote real Christians Except for the Pope who only got raptured because he decided he agreed with Martin Luther right before the rapture came Like I said, the books start with the rapture making a large part of the world's population disappear and throwing the rest into chaos Among the chaos a Romanian politician named Nikolai Carpathia becomes the head of the United Nations and reforms it into a global Government with its headquarters in a city called New Babylon built on the ruins of old Babylon Then Carpathia becomes a tyrant ruling through force and fear at first then later Resurrecting after being assassinated and being worshipped as the Messiah Except he was literally created by Satanist through genetic engineering because he's the antichrist and he resurrects through the power of Satan Instead of the power of God the way Jesus did or by being God in human form the way Jesus is it it kind of depends on your position on the Holy Trinity But then rebels fight against him and stuff I couldn't even begin to go over all the twists turns and absolute insanity contained in these pages So I'll just go over the most pertinent bits The entire idea of the rapture is what I'll refer to as righteousness porn It's saying the almighty creator of the universe thinks that I'm a good person and all will be brought to an eternity of bliss by His side while you suffer an agony for not being like me That's what you get for letting premarital sex happen in your neighborhood The very concept is so up its own ass that even people who are only familiar with left behind through cultural osmosis hate it You don't need to dive into the smaller details to find Christian dominionism distasteful and I could stop there That's the basic idea for why left behind and basically every other piece of Christian media sucks It does nothing but push a message about how much better people who agree with the creators are than everybody else But it's more fun to continue mocking it So let's keep going in the form of a numbered list number one The main heroes are called raffer steel cloy steel buck williams ryan driller and bruce barns Four of those are real characters from the books. The fifth is a porn star. Have fun figuring out which is which Number two Carpathia the antichrist takes control of earth by being elected the secretary general of the united nations And then just sort of taking it over He reforms it into the global community That's actually the name and then he's suddenly the dictator of earth ruling from his capital of new Babylon This is weird for a couple reasons the un in the real world is just a form for diplomacy It has very little real power if carpathia managed to take over a real country in the same manner He would have access to certain instruments of power such as the military police Tax collectors and any industries that might already be nationalized. The un has none of that It would all need to be built from scratch I get that carpathia is supposed to be very convincing and good at getting people to follow him But there would be resistance. That's the whole point of the story without any sort of leverage There's no way he could crown himself the potentate of the world Seriously, who uses the word potentate? Number three new Babylon is also a weird idea since it's just a new city built in the middle of the desert on the site of old Babylon not for any practical reasons just because the prophecy says so Also, the ruins of ancient Babylon are contained in the modern city of Hela about 35 miles south of Baghdad People already live there. So the bit about it being in the middle of the desert isn't even accurate Number four when the rapture happens all the children and infants are taken to heaven by default since they're innocent Makes sense unless you believe in original sin Which Catholics do So this feels like one more way of shitting on them But what about the unborn fetuses? You probably weren't asking Well, those all disappear causing pregnant women's bellies to deflate as the unborn children ascend Which makes me wonder what form they take in heaven. Are they still half finished fetuses? Do they stay that way forever? Do you have to keep the body you have when you died in heaven? Do you just not have one? I don't know, but it made my old priest uncomfortable when I asked so I'll do it again now Number five this line exists and deserves to be shared To say that the Israelis were taken by surprise was like saying that the great wall of china was long There are other bad lines. That's just my favorite Number six in 1976 One of the authors released a book about how christian married couples should have sex and based it off of stuff in the bible And this book I read in its entirety It includes rants about how french kissing is bad going down on a woman is an act of submission Which atrophies the family unit birth control leads to satanism and it even has worksheets to track your kegel exercises That's not directly related to the topic at hand, but it's still funny Speaking of which remember that time kirk cameron made a movie about kidnapping children telling them they were dead and forcing them to work on his farm That's really the plot. I'm not making it up Number seven in one of the final books. Jesus christ finally descends to earth and just hearing his voice kills the bad guys What? How does that work? And wouldn't the holy ghost be the one killing bad guys? Oh, that's right. The holy trinity is for heretics Jesus also only speaks in quotes from the bible like some sort of action figure Hey j-man remember in matthew 543 when you said love your enemies pray for those who persecute you How does that gel with massacring armies that pose no threat to you? Number eight the main characters don't care about civilian casualties that come around due to their actions because if they were good guys Then they would all go to heaven Um, wouldn't that mean that murder isn't bad? If killing anyone is fine regardless of who they are because god will sort them out doesn't that negate the entire sixth commandment Oh, fuck it. This seems like a fantasy in the sense that the authors want it to happen rather than just a story with fantastical elements There's this glee that seeps through the page whenever someone who had premarital sex or is a non-believer meets their grisly end at the hands of the satanists Which prevented me from having as much fun with the concept as I otherwise would have Still more fun than the immortal nicolas The immortal nicolas is one of the worst recent christian novels out there At least that's the conclusion I came to after finishing it because I don't remember a fucking thing about it Basically, it's just a story about a priest or something who becomes saint nicolas while he follows jesus around as he performs miracles and shit Then he dies and nicolas carries the spirit of christmas to the world. I guess Crampus is also there which is odd since crampus comes from german folklore not the bible That's why his name is german He has epilepsy too There's nothing offensive or hateful in here as far as I found It's just boring Imagine the summary I just gave spread out over 336 pages with nothing else added that might be interesting or entertaining not even on accident It's just bible fanfiction with the excitement level of a coffee shop au This book was written by glenn beck and it contains surprisingly little anti-semitism considering Beck claims he wrote it to teach children about the true meaning of christmas as opposed to the commercialized materialistic version He felt is focused on nowadays Which sounds fine until you remember that glenn beck and his news organization views people who don't put up enough decorations in december As soldiers in the war on christmas I guess he just hates commercialism when he wants people to forget that he has a net worth of 250 million dollars Please the only way to fight against the destruction of your entire way of life is to buy my book that covers events from the bible That you already knew about and in the end that's what makes christian fiction so awful It refuses to push boundaries or give you something new It's written for the people who tried to get south park taken off the air because they were offended by the bad language words The people who try to ban books from schools that feature gay characters The people who tried to end the dixie chicks's career when they dared to speak out of turn and criticize the american government The people who tried to get a lil nos x music video banned because he gave satan a lap dance Whatever their protests these people are the moralizing cancel culture freaks and they always have been Most of it isn't a story. It's propaganda. I know I said that already. I just want to hammer it in These don't make arguments or observations They assume that reality is a certain way and that anyone who doesn't see things the way they do is either stupid or evil Sometimes both There's a subset of the population that simply cannot comprehend that others have different beliefs than them Whether they be political religious or even something unimportant such as opinions on movies and video games You have any idea how many death threats. I've gotten over the years a lot This isn't an issue of disagreeing or having a different interpretation This is people that simply can't understand that other people have their own thoughts and feelings And that if you just go around shouting you not only won't change any minds But you're miserable to be around It's great that pure flicks has become bigger in the past few years because their movies are Hilarious and easier to laugh at with an audience than with a book While I hate many of the ideas and messages being pushed bringing them to the attention of the mainstream is a way to air them out Most people see arguments against abortion and evolution as ridiculous when david ar white is filmed like the villain in a horror movie It says here that you work in the church now So an army ranger who's now running an outreach at a church in the city I'm thinking of starting some boxing training for the sake of fairness Here are a couple of christian movies that I like prince of egypt is an epic retelling of a classic bible story Courageous is an exploration of fatherhood and how to be a good person that you don't even need to agree with the religious perspective To find something valuable in silence is an intelligent analysis and criticism of faith from a time where christians really were mistreated by their society As for good christian books Uh, I'm not sure I've come across any of those Share your suggestions in the comments But I haven't touched on every terrible christian novel out there not by a long shot They have such a low barrier to entry that there are literally hundreds of thousands to be found and enjoyed slash laughed at I haven't even talked about the christian children's horror series written by my sixth grade english teacher Wait No No, no, no, no, no, no. I can't do it again. I'm not strong enough Thank to patron People donate money to me. Thank to ten dollar and up patron Appo Savilane and Olivia Ray and brother santotes carolina clee christopher quinton embiss great gibo Joel carcat kitsune Liza rudakova lord tiebreaker madison lewis benet microphone sad martigan tobacco crow tombini vei victus Thank for make channel doable You good you help If you want name on here donate to patron Bye