Marjoe

Tim Robbins

Hi, (Mod's this might be better in A&A, up to you people)

Check this out.

(From Wikipedia)

Marjoe is an 1972 Academy Award winning documentary film produced and directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan about the life of evangelist Marjoe Gortner. Marjoe was a precocious child preacher with extraordinary talents, who was immensely popular in the American South. His parents earned large sums of money off him up until the point he outgrew his novelty. Marjoe rejoined the ministry as a young adult as a means of earning a living part-time, not as a believer, but as a charlatan. The film Marjoe documents his last revivals before coming out publicly as a phony. At the time of the film's release he generated considerable press, but the movie was never shown in theaters in the Southern United States, based on the fears of the distributor over the outrage it would cause in the Bible Belt.

Although released on VHS, the film had long been out of print and had deteriorated. In 2002 the negative and other elements were found in a vault in New York City. Once the rights were secured, the film was restored with funds provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. On November 15, 2005, in New York City, the IFC Center showed Marjoe as the closing film in a series of documentaries called "Stranger Than Fiction". In their program they called it "a lost gem." The restored film has since been released on DVD.

From youtube.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9018256981579109184&q=marjoe&total=33&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

robindch

Been reading your Hitchens, have you? I passed through the bit the other day where he mentions this strange, strange guy and the Oscar-winning documentary about him and how, at four years old, he learned to manipulate evangelical audiences and extract large sums of money from them. And also what he claims his mum did to him to make him remember his lines -- attempted drowning and smothering with a pillow.

Looks like a 1970's version of The Jesus Camp. Plus ça change, I suppose. The wikipedia page on Marjoe Gortner is worth a quick read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjoe_Gortner

...as is this fairly even-handed page http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/marjoe.htm.

Anybody seen the full doc?

(this topic is probably more appropriate for the AA forum. Mods?)

.

PDN

The phenomenon of child preachers is a particularly bizarre, and repellent, aspect of Southern US evangelical culture. You can see a few of them on youtube as well. It always reminds me of a performing seal.

Tim Robbins

robindch wrote:

Been reading your Hitchens, have you? I passed through the bit the other day where he mentions this strange, strange guy and the Oscar-winning documentary about him and how, at four years old, he learned to manipulate evangelical audiences and extract large sums of money from them. And also what he claims his mum did to him to make him remember his lines -- attempted drowning and smothering with a pillow.

Looks like a 1970's version of The Jesus Camp. Plus ça change, I suppose. The wikipedia page on Marjoe Gortner is worth a quick read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjoe_Gortner

...as is this fairly even-handed page http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/marjoe.htm.

Anybody seen the full doc?

(this topic is probably more appropriate for the AA forum. Mods?)

.

I finished "God is not Great" a few weeks ago and thought it was very poor.
Marjoe is also referenced in "Breaking the Spell" by Dennet. Why can't someone write a simple Atheist book, with the arguments put clearly and simply and suggest some interesting areas of research without insulting people or taking four pages to say something that could have been said in one (i.e. Dennet)?

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote:

The phenomenon of child preachers is a particularly bizarre, and repellent, aspect of Southern US evangelical culture. You can see a few of them on youtube as well. It always reminds me of a performing seal.

Perhaps we can tease this one out a bit.
Why is the practise of them delivering the message repellant but not the practise of them getting the message?

If I tell my kids don't be cruel to animals, I would be proud if they said that back to other people.

What's the difference? I assume there is some, let's tease it out.

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote:

Perhaps we can tease this one out a bit.
Why is the practise of them delivering the message repellant but not the practise of them getting the message?

If I tell my kids don't be cruel to animals, I would be proud if they said that back to other people.

What's the difference? I assume there is some, let's tease it out.

A child is capable of learning how to read (getting the message) but we would not expect a child to have the maturity or necessary skills to teach an adult literacy class (delivering the message).

A child can certainly understand the basics of the Gospel message when they are explained in simple terms, but most preaching also involves a large element of teaching which requires a body of knowledge and the necessary skills to communicate that knowledge effectively.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote:

A child is capable of learning how to read (getting the message) but we would not expect a child to have the maturity or necessary skills to teach an adult literacy class (delivering the message).

A child can certainly understand the basics of the Gospel message when they are explained in simple terms, but most preaching also involves a large element of teaching which requires a body of knowledge and the necessary skills to communicate that knowledge effectively.

A child can learn how to play soccer at age four and they can teach others how to play soccer at age 4. This is ok. They may not be very good at teaching soccer, they won't know formations and probably what offside is but they can still teach some elements of soccer. This is ok. They can still try.

In the same way they may not be very good at teaching the Gospel but it's not ok for them to try. Why is it: "bizarre, and repellent".

BTW I agree with you, I am just trying to tease out why we both think this is "bizarre and repellent".

Zombrex

Its interesting how he picked up the speech patterns of adult evangelicals, the habit of emphasizing certain areas of sentences for impact and authority, they way they almost punch out the words. And this is before evangelical preachers become common fodder for satire on American television. Fascinating

Tim Robbins

Wicknight wrote:

Its interesting how he picked up the speech patterns of adult evangelicals, the habit of emphasizing certain areas of sentences for impact and authority, they way they almost punch out the words. And this is before evangelical preachers become common fodder for satire on American television. Fascinating

Does it say anywhere in the bible what the age restrictions are for preaching?