Boys' Bible Study

Boys' Bible Study
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Ash, Scott, and Julian are innocent angel babies incapable of doing wrong. They invite guests from Hell to watch and critique the best contemporary Christian movies. God wants you to listen to this podcast!

  1. 1 DAY AGO

    Not a Fan. (2011) TEASER

    Subscribe today for access to our full catalog of bonus episodes, including 2+ new episodes every month! www.patreon.com/boysbiblestudy This millennial-coded 2011 DVD Bible study series uses Facebook lingo, which was very en vogue at the time, to encourage people to upgrade their relationship with Jesus from casual to committed. NOT A FAN, the brainchild of minister Kyle Idleman, uses a clickbait-style title to grab your attention: what do you mean you're "NOT A FAN" of Jesus? What Idleman means is that on Facebook at the time, you could click a thumbs up to "become a fan" of something you liked, a shallow and performative gesture that serves as a metaphor for going through the motions of Christianity without participating with your full heart. Going to church every Sunday is meaningless without loving the process. To illustrate this, Idleman released a serial drama of 6 DVD study episodes about fictitious Eric Nelson, a cutthroat executive and "pleasure seeking rebel" who commits his life to Christ after a stress-induced heart attack. These episodes were condensed to a feature film, which we watched this week, with interstitial sermons narrated by Idleman himself. Nelson's family, shocked at his sudden transformation, does their best to keep up with his newfound enthusiasm but doesn't exactly love the life changes. The Nelsons go from a McMansion in the suburbs to a humble farmhouse, and Eric goes from the boardroom to the soup kitchen. They stay devoted to their patriarch and go along with what he says, but don't really "feel" the love and resent the new Christian austerity. A not-so-shocking tragic ending gives the Nelsons new perspective, and the entire family learns to be Followers of Jesus, not just Fans: people whose devotion to Christ has caused them to take on great sacrifice and inconvenience. Idleman basically says that if you're not feeling the burn of Christianity in your life, you're probably not going hard enough. NOT A FAN is delightful for its now-extremely-dated branding and vocabulary, but is overall a total slog, with constant scenes of death and suffering that don't do a good job of "selling" the Christian lifestyle to casuals. But then again, this DVD is for the Followers, NOT the Fans. 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

    3 min

  2. 22 MAR

    It Ain't Worth It: Athletes for Abstinence (VHS, 1986)

    A team of the world's top athletes has weighed the pros and cons and concluded: sex really ain't worth it. On IT AIN'T WORTH IT: ATHLETES FOR ABSTINENCE, a whimsical 80s VHS tape with obligatory hip hop aesthetic influence meant to appeal to the youth, former pro basketball player AC Green tells teens that sex is an unnecessary temptation best handled by just saying no. Green's career spanned 16 years in the NBA, during which he set the record for perfect attendance with 1,192 consecutive games played. This earned him the nickname Iron Man, which fans mockingly shifted to Iron Virgin in response to Green's proud claims that he remained a virgin bachelor throughout his entire NBA career as a devout Christian waiting for marriage. Green was surely aware of jokes at his expense, but he held firm to his convictions and spent his career running youth ministries, using his celebrity to connect with Christian teens. While that is a nice sentiment, materials like his tape IT AIN'T WORTH IT provide glaringly inaccurate statistics about sexual health topics like contraceptives and also refuse to acknowledge the real reason teens have sex: because they are horny. Green's thesis seems to be that teen sex culture is purely a result of media influence and social pressure, ignoring that biological processes begin in adolescence that make people actively want sex. There are good reasons for teens to manage these impulses until they are more mature, but the clumsy testimonies of Green and his teen cohorts instead rely on fallacies such as claiming everyone who has sex will get AIDS and that condoms fail 50 percent of the time. Unfortunately for Christians, the message remains laughable and feels as if they themselves are asexual (as opposed to abstinent.) If Christians can't relate to sexual desire, they will never reach teens on an authentic level with an abstinence message. Also, although an original rap song seemed to be a requirement for youth media in the late 80s and early 90s, here it does little to help the abstinence cause. It simply ain't worth 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

    1hr 24min

  3. 15 MAR

    A Race of Giants: Our Forbidden History (2015) TEASER

    Subscribe today for access to our full catalog of bonus episodes, including 2+ new episodes every month! www.patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Much of what we know about history is a lie. The biggest lie of them all, both literally and figuratively, is the coverup of the existence of giants. Primary sources such as the Bible (heard of it?) speak of a race called the Nephilim. These larger-than-life offspring of angels and human women have been depicted in documentaries such as NOAH by Darren Aronofsky. Nephilim were said to have been destroyed in the Great Flood, but a race of giant people supposedly persisted on Earth into contemporary times. If this news comes as a surprise to you, there is one group to blame: the evil Smithsonian Institution, whose alleged purpose is to destroy the remains of giant skeletons so the lie of evolution can persist. Fortunately, some brave souls like the creator of A RACE OF GIANTS boldly proclaim this history and were able to sneak it past the censors. The documentary teaches us a few things: 1) that throughout North America, the bones of giant humans and even fossilized remains of their giant tools (pause) have been found and then lost through a series of unfortunate coincidences or outright archaeological malice; 2) that the legend of Big Guys has existed in many ancient cultures for a reason, because sometimes guys are really tall; and 3) that certain findings, such as the famous Guadalupe Woman skeleton embedded in rock formations inappropriate for the generally accepted carbon dating of Earth, supposedly go as far as to disprove the very concept of evolution. Without coming across as overtly Christian, A RACE OF GIANTS makes the case for the young earth creationism described by the Old Testament in a compelling, albeit confusing and roundabout way. 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

    6 min

  4. 8 MAR

    Faraway, So Close! (1993)

    Wim Wenders's intriguing and often baffling sequel to WINGS OF DESIRE reunites several actors from the original but places them in a shifting narrative that can be difficult to follow. At times FARAWAY, SO CLOSE! even transforms into a straight mafia crime thriller, a tonal detour that feels sudden and disorienting. In many ways it is clearly a sequel, tying off threads from the first film and expanding its angel mythology in ways that feel almost like fan service. We revisit Damiel, the former angel now living as a human with his trapeze artist wife Marion, happily running a pizza place called Angel's House. The film even repeats the musical cameo idea from the original. Where Nick Cave performed live in WINGS OF DESIRE, here we get a performance from Lou Reed. But other additions feel like they belong to a completely different cosmology. Willem Dafoe plays Emit Flesti, whose name reversed reveals his nature as "Time Itself." The character functions almost like a demon, tormenting angels who have fallen to the human world. These ideas add intriguing layers to Wenders's angel lore, but they also make the mythology far more complicated than the elegant framework established in WINGS OF DESIRE. That earlier film's bold choices, like casting Peter Falk as himself but secretly a former angel, ultimately reinforced its central themes. FARAWAY, SO CLOSE! often feels both too close and too far from its source. The film's ending highlights the tension. Cassiel is killed during an elaborate plot involving a hijacked barge, only for the tragedy to turn into relief when he is restored to angelhood. It raises an odd implication. If fallen angels can simply become angels again after death, the sacrifice at the heart of WINGS OF DESIRE begins to lose its weight. Still, this is not to say we did not enjoy watching FARAWAY, SO CLOSE! It is a fascinating and often strange expansion from one of cinema's most distinctive filmmakers, even if its ambitious ideas occasionally threaten the elegant foundation of the original. 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

    1hr 32min

  5. 1 MAR

    Escape from Hell (2000) TEASER

    Subscribe today for access to our full catalog of bonus episodes, including 2+ new episodes every month! www.patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Sensationalist Christian filmmaker Danny Carrales has a talent for conveying the urgency of Jesus's teachings. It's one thing to hear the words that those who don't accept God's grace will be doomed to a life of eternal torture; it's another thing to actually see this happen to a guy who seemed like a pretty decent person but unfortunately dropped dead before he decided to accept Jesus. In an instant, he's floating above his body, traveling through a pillar of light, until the direction suddenly switches and he screams in terror as the sky around him turns to fire. This is an example of the high drama level of ESCAPE FROM HELL, cowritten by Danny Carrales and Michael Martin, the team who gave us the high-octane rapture movie THE GATHERING and also HEAVEN'S WAR, a CGI-heavy story of the eternal spiritual struggle unseen to humans. ESCAPE FROM HELL inhabits a couple of well-traveled Christian movie tropes. It takes place in a hospital, a frequent setting for faith-based movies, since it's a hub for souls entering and leaving Earth. Also, similar to Australian thriller TABERNACLE 101, the film's action largely concerns a scientifically minded explorer inducing a near-death experience in himself to prove the idea of life beyond death. Both films are like FLATLINERS for Christians, and both show that taking such a risk costs opening the door between worlds in very uncomfortable ways. ESCAPE FROM HELL is probably the more successful of the two for its tight structure, extremely laid-on-thick melodrama of family members crying while their loved ones' souls are experiencing eternal damnation, and weird, campy experimental techniques, like putting a sign saying "Ducks Be Not Proud" on the hospital roof so dying souls can read it before getting to heaven. Every collector of Christian films should have a copy of this VHS on their Bible study shelf, along with THE GATHERING and FINAL EXIT, the Carrales film we plan to watch next. 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

    5 min

  6. 22 FEB

    City of Angels (1998)

    Did Wim Wenders's WINGS OF DESIRE give a generation of angel films their wings? The seminal German film certainly inspired one major American box office hit: Brad Silberling's CITY OF ANGELS, a loose remake cleverly relocated to Los Angeles. Recently Boys' Bible Study has moved into full-time analysis of the Y2K angel boom in American cinema, and CITY OF ANGELS may be the most essential film of that wave, spawning countless imitations. One of the movie's main draws is its A-list cast. Nicolas Cage plays Seth, an angel stationed at an LA hospital, where he becomes unprofessionally enamored with heart surgeon Dr. Maggie Rice, played by Meg Ryan. Dennis Franz, fresh off his fame from NYPD BLUE, co-stars as Nathaniel Messenger, a hedonistic patient of Dr. Rice who is later revealed to be an angel who chose to "take the fall" and live as a mortal. The idea of angels longing to inhabit the world of flesh is a key trope pioneered by WINGS OF DESIRE, where the fallen angel was portrayed by American actor Peter Falk playing himself. CITY OF ANGELS expands on this idea by making the fallen angel a physically weak, unremarkable everyman, offering Seth a grim preview of the fate that may await him if he gives up eternity for love. After an emotionally intense courtship that unfolds across planes of existence, Maggie and Seth commit to each other, and Seth rejects immortality in order to experience human love and sex. He gets to do this exactly once before a cruel twist of fate, seemingly engineered by a mischievous God, befalls the newly mortal couple. CITY OF ANGELS lays its melodrama on thick and can feel like a tedious watch more than 25 years later, but it remains a well-made artifact of an era when nondenominational angels dominated the airwaves and lived vividly in the public imagination. Humans live briefly, angels live forever, and movies exist somewhere in between. 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

    1hr 24min

  7. 15 FEB

    Touched by an Angel s8e7 "Most Likely to Succeed" TEASER

    Subscribe today for access to our full catalog of bonus episodes, including 2+ new episodes every month! www.patreon.com/boysbiblestudy The urge to self-categorize as either a jock or a nerd seems inherent to human nature, even though those labels are relatively recent inventions. Today's looksmaxxing culture all over social media is really just a jargon-heavy reskin of those same old tribal attachments, complete with terms like "chad," "stacy," and "subhuman." The TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL episode "Most Likely to Succeed" does a great job showing how everyone still feels trapped by their high school caste, because even if you reinvent yourself, that nostalgic self-identification can be a prison. Case in point, Dennis Loggins was a total nerd in high school, complete with thick glasses and a precocious interest in computers. He was clearly in love with cheerleader Melissa, who treated him with sincere kindness, but her boyfriend, football star Ricky Jessup, made Dennis's life a living hell through cruel bullying. Flash forward ten years and Dennis is now a multimillionaire tech entrepreneur taking meetings with Bill Gates, yet he still harbors intense feelings for Melissa and deep resentment toward Ricky. He plans revenge at their ten year reunion by buying Ricky's football team and kicking him off the starting lineup to intentionally destroy his career. This is where the angels come in. Gloria, played by Valerie Bertanelli, is newly created by God and unfamiliar with the human world, and she poses as Dennis's assistant to earn his trust and convince him to forgive Ricky instead of staying trapped in the past. TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL remains one of our favorite pieces of faith-based media, a campy drama that constantly switches from absurd to melodramatic. The show is often at its best when it feels unconcerned with lore continuity, because it is funnier that way. Plus, the "revenge of the nerds" plot feels especially timely alongside the rise of looksmaxxing streamer Clavicular and his quest to mog the world. We highly recommend "Most Likely to Succeed," and if you watch, stick around for a jaw-dropping musical guest performance that comes out of nowhere and is guaranteed to make you smile. 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

    5 min

  8. 8 FEB

    The Senior (2023) feat. Nathan Faustyn

    Powerhouse faith-based production company Angel Studios takes a break from raising awareness of human trafficking to bring us a heartwarming tale from the gridiron. THE SENIOR is an inspiring sports drama about a man willing to do whatever it takes to reclaim his former glory. Haunted by regret, 59 year old strength coach Mike Flynt takes the incredible step of rejoining his former college football team, becoming, at the time, the oldest man to play in NCAA Division III. THE SENIOR is based on Flynt's life, though major liberties are taken to make the story more watchable. In reality, Flynt is a bodybuilder and gym equipment entrepreneur who likely rejoined a college team as a kind of brand building publicity stunt. In the film, however, Mike is reimagined as an out of shape construction worker who grinds his way back to a 21 year old's level of athleticism through sheer willpower. It feels more authentic to watch a man pining over his glory days than to imagine him pulling a cynical stunt. THE SENIOR even shows Mike contemplating three football jerseys on the wall, missing a fourth. But why would a man with a career and family harbor regret for decades over a missed opportunity from when he was barely old enough to drink? THE SENIOR tugs the heartstrings in the predictable way most inspirational sports movies do, but it falters when it comes to showing Mike Flynt learning real adult lessons about moving on from regret. Sometimes the man giving the pep talks is the one who needs a pep talk the most. Our special guest this week is Nathan Faustyn (@loosenate) of the Loose Lips by @loosemeat.biz podcast, back on Boys' Bible Study as a dear friend of the show and our go-to sports movie correspondent. Listen to Nathan's podcast Loose Lips: https://looselipsbyloosemeat.libsyn.com  Subscribe to Nathan's podcast Loose Lips on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/LooseLips/  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

    1hr 40min
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About

Ash, Scott, and Julian are innocent angel babies incapable of doing wrong. They invite guests from Hell to watch and critique the best contemporary Christian movies. God wants you to listen to this podcast!

Information

  • Creator
    Boys' Bible Study
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    319
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    Boys' Bible Study

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