UPDATED::FLDS exiles praise documentary film on prophet's abuses

UPDATE::  The Fundamentalist Mormon Sect That Blends Polygamy, Child Rape and Organized Crime

Jeffs made the FBI’s Most Wanted list in the mid-2000s, spent several years as a fugitive, and was ultimately convicted on two counts of sexual assault against children by a Texas jury in 2011. During Jeffs’ two trials (an earlier conviction in Utah was thrown out), Mormon fundamentalism became an object of cultural fascination, inspiring the HBO series “Big Love.” That has faded, and Jeffs is almost certain to spend the rest of his life in prison. But as filmmaker Amy Berg’s new Showtime documentary “Prophet’s Prey” makes clear, the FLDS empire of rape and misogyny and child labor and relentless ideological and psychological domination appears to go on much as before. Despite his isolation and his precarious mental condition, Jeffs continues to command the devotion and obedience of his 10,000 or so followers from behind bars, like an old-time Mob boss with a direct line to God.
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Along with author and journalist Jon Krakauer (and arguably now Berg, whose documentary features both of them and is based on Brower’s book of the same title), Brower has done more to expose the enormous but almost invisible criminal empire built by Warren Jeffs than anyone in the world. Furthermore, in the larger context of social and religious history, Brower is clearly correct that the disturbing story of the Jeffs family and the FLDS Church reflects issues that go far beyond the contradictions of Mormon theology and the weirdness of the American West.

More on Warren Jeffs, 'Prophet's Prey' and the FLDS:

• New details released about Polygamist sect leader, ‘seed bearers’ 
• Nothing Can Stop Mormon Cult Leader Warren Jeffs
• ‘Prophet’s Prey’: Inside Warren Jeffs’ Polygamist Cult
•  Children of Warren Jeffs accuse him of sexual abuse

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Ben Thomas, a former work manager for Hildale’s Phaze Concrete, watched with some discomfort Friday night as he was projected on the big screen at Springdale’s O.C. Tanner Amphitheater during the DOCUTAH film festival’s premiere showing of “Prophet’s Prey,” a documentary on the local polygamist community.

“I thought it went really well. … It was really well done,” Thomas said prior to being invited onstage at the film’s close for a question and answer panel.

“But it was really hard to watch,” he said. “My brother-in-law runs (Phaze) now – as far as I know. They feel like I threw them under the bus” by deciding to appear in the documentary.

A few hundred people made the trek to the outdoor amphitheater on the doorstep of Zion National Park to see the insiders-on-the-outside accounts of life under Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the film’s name. DOCUTAH officials estimated about 800 more filled Dixie State University’s Cox Auditorium nearly to capacity Saturday for the film festival’s final-day showing.

Among those viewing the film for the first time were a number of the film’s participants, such as Thomas. Thomas’ role included talking about how he monitored the contractor’s large commercial concrete jobs from Seattle to New Mexico and helped funnel money to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints under the direction of Jeffs’ religious hierarchy.
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Following DOCUTAH, the movie will have its East Coast theatrical premiere in New York City at an event attended by its executive producers, including famous director-actor Ron Howard. Then it will debut on the West Coast in Los Angeles, followed by additional showings in big markets across the country, Brower said.

On Oct. 10, it will premiere on Showtime’s television outlet and completes its bid for consideration among Oscar and Emmy award nominees.

FLDS exiles praise documentary film on prophet's abuses

“He Named Me Malala”: An inside look at Davis Guggenheim’s new film

It’s been almost three years since the world came to know Malala Yousafzai. On Oct. 9, 2012, the 15-year-old Pakistani girl was shot in the head by Taliban men for standing up for her right to go to school. 

After months in a hospital bed, Malala picked up right where she left off in her fight to give every girl the chance to get an education. She has become an activist and symbol for girls’ and women’s rights around the world. In December 2014, she became the youngest person ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

Oscar-winning documentary director Davis Guggenheim spent 18 months with Malala and her family, capturing her travels to schools across the world as well as her quite normal family life in Birmingham, England. Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric sat down with Guggenheim to talk about his new film, “He Named Me Malala,” which will be released tomorrow.  

“I realized that there was this very complex relationship between her and her father,” says Guggenheim about setting out to make the film, adding, “I wanted to unpack the mystery between this man and this girl.”

“He Named Me Malala”: An inside look at Davis Guggenheim’s new film

A Heartbreaking Story From One of the World's Most Transphobic Places | Jonny von Wallström

When President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda signed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law, he changed the lives of all LGBTI people in Uganda, one of the most dangerous countries for gay and transgender people. For my friend Cleopatra Kambugu, February 24, 2014, was one of the worst days of her life. In the same week, Cleo found her name on the front page of The Red Pepper, a Ugandan newspaper. She lost her job and was abandoned by most of her family. But she wasn't the only one.

With homosexuality illegal in the country, everyone was forced to conform to the norm or hide from the authority and even from their family and friends. Gay and transgender people lost their jobs and were forced to live in isolation to avoid persecution or violence, to live alone away from the people they care about. The Anti-Homosexuality Act encompasses prohibitions for all sexual orientations, gender identities, and expressions that are not considered normal. So, while Cleo is not gay, she is still subject to the harsh, inhuman stipulations of the law.
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Nevertheless, the signing of the Anti-Homosexuality Act changed things for Cleo drastically. Four days after the act was signed by the Ugandan President, she found herself on the cover of The Red Pepper. Realizing that the crackdown on them had begun. Fearing for their lives, they went underground.

During this time, I received a heartbreaking letter from Cleo, telling me about the harsh effect the law had on their lives. They had been forced to live behind closed doors for over a month. With Cleo's mother coming in the nights with food and supply. Cleo was trying to get out of the country to Sweden, USA or Norway. Anything would help.

But at this time, countries like Sweden, who is known for supporting LGBTI activists in Uganda. Turned their backs to the activists. Many were refused to attend international conferences because of the fear of them overstaying their visas and that they would use it as an excuse not to go back home.

A Heartbreaking Story From One of the World's Most Transphobic Places | Jonny von Wallström

A MUST READ::The Dark Side Of Jesus People USA, America's Most Influential Christian Movement - BuzzFeed News

“I really struggled with speaking up, with documenting what I found, because it was so disturbing to me, and so painful to relive. But someone had to tell the truth. Someone had to tell the story of what happened there.”

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He wanted to believe the council spoke for God, but already he had his doubts. He’d heard dark and ugly rumors about their founder, a bearded Messiah-like figure, and he’d heard stories that horrified him about the Farm, a remote and secluded resort in the Missouri woods. But he knew better than to ask about any of that.

And yet, for as much as he tried to keep his troubles to himself, something was amiss. For weeks, he’d caught his parents whispering about him. He figured it had something to do with the day one of the men in the commune touched him. Prater had tried to forget that moment, the feeling of terror that washed over him, the searing shame when it was over, but he couldn’t move past it. Since then, he had been acting out in strange ways, desires he couldn’t control aroused inside him. Eventually he told the council, and now he wished he’d never said anything at all.
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On that morning, Prater’s isolation began. Over the next two years it would increase until he was forbidden from contact with anyone in the commune outside of his parents and his brother and sister. He took his meals in his parents’ room, but he spent his days alone at Magnolia, tutored in a broom closet and shunned from the other children, who were instructed to never speak with him again.

“I didn’t understand it at the time, but they were trying to keep me quiet,” Prater says today. “They still are.”
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In 2014, Prater self-released No Place To Call Home, a film documenting his years inside Jesus People, one of the strangest and longest-running religious experiments in American history. The church in which Prater grew up, officially called Jesus People USA, is one of the final vestiges of what may be the last great religious revival in America. Known as the Jesus Movement, it swept up as many as 3 million people in the late 1960s, many of them burned-out hippies who felt disillusioned by the free-love and drugs ethos and ached for some kind of spirituality outside the confines of traditional Christianity.

The movement spawned hundreds of religious communes across the country, including Calvary Chapel, one of the largest and most influential megachurches in America today, as well as the Children of God, the notorious sex cult that once claimed as followers Joaquin Phoenix, Rose McGowan, and Jeremy Spencer, one of the original members of Fleetwood Mac. Most of these communes collapsed within a few years. Jesus People USA, which today has about 300 members, is one of the largest that has survived.

The influence of the Jesus People movement on evangelical Christianity is profound. “It gave birth to Christian rock,” says David Di Sabatino, who made a documentary about Lonnie Frisbee and the Jesus People movement called Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher. “The contemporary Christian music industry wouldn’t exist without the Jesus People.”

The Dark Side Of Jesus People USA, America's Most Influential Christian Movement - BuzzFeed News

A scary read for me, I didn't realize how close my interactions with this cult really were till reading this.  The Cornerstone Festivals - went to 3.  The Christian rock band Revelations saw them twice AT my college; had two or three of their  albums.  Billy Graham, lost count of how many times I had to watch him on TV, but went to 3 of his Crusades,,,

ADDENDUM::IF YOU ARE A HUMAN, I recommend this film

As I was re-reading Linda Robertson's story in my previous post, I was reminded of a video that was sent to me back in August.  A video I thought I had posted about; a video I should have posted.  To correct for that misstep, I am "re-posting" my original thoughts with a few additions.
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Back in August I received a message from a fellow atheist whom I highly respect.  Some one who has at times been an impetus for why I continue blogging.  And yes even at 50-years old there are people that inspire me or in my friends case, he makes me think.  Here is what he posted:

I wouldn't have known about this documentary - currently available on Netflix - had it not been mentioned by VVVVV XXXXX, and I watched it a little while ago (after I watched the very campy "King Solomon's mines"). What "For the Bible Tells Me So" does is to provide some background about fundamentalist Christianity's marginalization of LGBT people, and shows both why it's wrong and what the real-life, personal effects are. In some of these cases, fundamentalist Christianity's methods destroy lives, and it others, it makes people reject it. But in BOTH areas, fundamentalist Christianity suffers a net loss in believership and support.

I'm glad I watched it.

A few of the key points:

Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal church is featured. James Dobson (Focus on the Family) is ridiculed by former supporters, including one one who's lesbian daughter committed suicide. (It took that event to change the mother's mind.) Dick Gephardt (remember him, from the 2004 presidential campaign?) is also prominently featured, along with his lesbian daughter, Chrissy. The Grahams (both of them) are shown, along with Swaggart, Falwell, and Robertson.....and Dubya.

And this caught me by surprise: XXXXX XXXXXs former boss at Fuller Theological Seminary, Richard Mouw, is featured in a segment, with a clip from a talk / sermon that he gave saying that he believed that the only way to look at homosexuality was through a Biblical literalist perspective.

(Oh, and BONUS! The animated PSA in the middle of the feature is narrated by Don LaFontaine! It's definitely a voice everyone will recognize.)

This isn't the kind of documentary that you'll sit down and be angry about. It's not about flinging feces everywhere. This is a well-developed, well-produced, and thoughtful film that will make you think. The theologians featured in this film, including Desmond Tutu, all make some very important theological points, especially about what "abomination" actually means. The stories are captivating, compelling, and meaningful. And, viewing it in the light that I tend to view these kinds of things in, it goes far deeper than just the fundie-Christian-vs-LGBT idea.

If you're LGBT, I recommend this film.
If you know someone who is LGBT, I recommend this film.
If you're an atheist, I recommend this film.
If you're a theist, I recommend this film.

IF YOU ARE A HUMAN, I recommend this film.

My initial response prior to watching said video:

Funny you should point this out as it came up on my radar a few days ago.  Was planning on watching it tomorrow as I am off.  Will be interested in what Tutu has to say concerning "abomination."  This may tie in nicely with what I have been working on the past few weeks.  Transcribing (or maybe I should say translating) 25+ years of handwritten notes concerning the subject matter (all told 6 loose-leaf binders).

Forgot all about Mouw, that is a blast from the past.  I know I have stuff from him somewhere in my cluster of notes as I do with all that you mentioned.  Dobson just makes my blood boil even to this day from crap he said way back when.

My biggest gripe with the fundies besides the obvious translational and interpretive differences (malakio and arsenokoite) is their total lack of consideration of social and cultural context.  Something I have touched on briefly in other postings.  I will be curious if they even broach that aspect.

So I began watching, trying to maintain an open mind and not allow the bile to rise.
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Thanks a lot Dave Foda I'm having flashbacks!  Mel White was an early influence as was Gene Robinson.

I'm about half way through and I guess in some ways I am thankful I never had to deal with the whole coming out aspect, I just always accepted who I was and really didn't feel the need to tell anyone. I figured if people couldn't figure it out for themselves so be it. I still have never actually told my parents although I do assume after all this time they have figured it out.

I find that I agree with both Holloway and Keene in regards to literalism. Although in my schooling in hermeneutics and interpretation we called it literal vs leteral; with leteralism equating to their concept of literal or as Holoway states, a "pronouncement;" the "letter of the law." Keene's idea of taking in context, language, culture and custom would be literal.

There ares some powerful words and actions of wisdom, "What I was embarrassed about was that I was thinking totally of how she was having sex and not about her as a person." Dick Gephard speaking of unconditional love. And Gene Robinson's parents trying to learn and understand.

But there is also tragedy which makes the work of Trevor Project so very important.

The standards clobber passages have been brought into play. And of course Sodom & Gomorrah's cultural and social implications are ignored by the leteralists. Although, Mouw, up to this point is playing it safe by focusing on the Paulianity of Romans 1 - he still gets it wrong. Baines and Caplan do a good job of discrediting the asshole,,,err Dobson. And Kudos to the Reitan's.

The last chunk is amazingly powerful and I am at a loss for words. My only "criticism," which would have made my flashback complete, they didn't include Rev. Jane Spahr (now retired), now that is going back a few years.

It is the "last chunk" that I will focus on in my next post.  The video "For the Bible tells Me So" is still available on Netflix and I highly recommend it.

HBO to make film of Scientology book, hires 160 lawyers - CNN.com

HBO is backing a documentary based on "Going Clear," a book about Scientology and Hollywood -- and isn't taking any chances with the legal side of things.

"We have probably 160 lawyers" looking at the film, HBO Documentary Films President Sheila Nevins told The Hollywood Reporter. (HBO, like CNN, is a unit of Time Warner.)

"Going Clear," by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Lawrence Wright ("The Looming Tower"), digs into the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and the influence his church has had on its believers, many of whom have close ties to Hollywood.

Among Tinseltown's famous Scientologists are John Travolta and Tom Cruise.

HBO to make film of Scientology book, hires 160 lawyers - CNN.com

The Cultural Impact of ‘The Exorcist’ - The Film Stage

I am not much of a movie person and definitely not a horror flick type.  Hell I had nightmares for 6 weeks after Jaws, I can just imagine what my bipolar brain would have done with this back in the day.  But an interesting mini-doc for those so inclined.

To take us back over 40 years ago to examine the craze surrounding the film we have a 20-minute documentary from a Westwood, California broadcast. Featuring interviews with theater employees and audience members, they discuss the dozen or so spells of fainting and throwing up during every showing at the theater. Some of the best interviews are with cinemagoers who have left mid-screening and can’t compose themselves; if only more studio films were daring enough to have that raw power today.

The Cultural Impact of ‘The Exorcist’ - The Film Stage


 

‘Kidnapped for Christ’ Review: Come Because You’re Gay, Stay For Jesus - The Daily Beast

I am eagerly waiting for this documentary to be available on DVD. If it is anything like Jesus Camp, there will not be enough Xanax produced to settle my ire,,,

"Most students were very wary of us, since they could get in a lot of trouble for saying anything negative about the program. We have several interviews where it was painfully obvious that the student was just reciting lines about how great the school was. Later, I found out that many students thought we had actually been hired by the school to catch them saying bad things about the program—that was the level of paranoia they had. Conveying to the students that we were on their side without getting kicked off campus by the staff was a constant struggle. In the end, it was really the bravery of a handful of students who dared to speak honestly with us that made the film possible."

David’s experience at Escuela Caribe, along with the experiences of Beth and Tai, two other American teenagers abducted from their homes and taken to the DR for religious fixes, is the focus of Kidnapped for Christ, an award-winning documentary directed by Kate Logan and executive-produced by Tom DeSanto, Lance Bass, and Mike Manning, that premiered Thursday on Showtime (available On Demand until September 3, 2014) Funded by online campaigns at Kickstarter and IndieGogo, Kidnapped for Christ made its film festival debut in January at Park City, Utah’s Slamdance Film Festival and took home the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Initially, unaware that the school was considered by many to be dangerous and abusive (alleged offenses range from mental, emotional, and spiritual manipulations to sexual and physical abuses), the up-and-coming director says she had no intentions of filming an exposé. But soon, upon meeting and interviewing David and some of the other students, and witnessing the harsh tactics used by the counselors to control teenagers and maintain a fear-driven environment—some tactics that Logan believed were abusive—her filmmaking intentions began to change. In the beginning, the staff at Escuela Caribe trusted Logan, openly answering her inquiries about the ministry’s practices and goals and allowing her to film most on-campus activities; however, a week or two into her stay, when Logan’s camera started showing up at inopportune times—for instance, once her camera appeared while a staff member disciplined a student—her access on campus was limited, her interviews with students monitored, and her personal housing moved to an off-campus facility.

However, despite those limitations, Logan’s firsthand account of offshore American fundamentalism—a kind of Christian fundamentalism that gleefully paddled teenagers, engaged in military-like activities and disciplinary actions, brainwashed students with false “what ifs,” public humiliation, and reprogramming classes, and forced conversion therapy onto teens who identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual—is a fascinating, heartbreaking, and at times, surprisingly fast-paced adventure that keeps you guessing as to how David’s, Beth’s, and Tai’s stories end. Once Logan’s six weeks at Escuela Caribe are up and she’s back in the States, Kidnapped for Christ becomes a thrilling and frustrating tale, a plot that surprises you with several unexpected turns, including some pretty shocking confessions showcasing all too well the varied and long-lasting effects that faith-based behavioral modification programs have on people.

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All three New Horizons Youth Ministries campuses [NHYM is the ministry that ran Escuela Caribe] were donated to another private therapeutic Christian residential program called “Lifeline Youth and Family Services.” Lifeline re-opened a program for teens on the same campus in the Dominican Republic and retained several of Escuela Caribe’s staff members. The new program is called “Crosswinds.” They are also running a reform camp in Canada on the same property that NHYM owned. They are currently enrolling students in both programs.

In December 2013 article by Raw Story, they focused on Deirdre Sugiuchi whose interview did not make the final cut of the documentary:

“My parents were fundamentalist Christians,” she said, “and they didn’t like the way I was turning out.”

So, at 15, Sugiuchi was sent to school in the Dominican Republic at Escuela Caribe. There were only about 40 students at the school at any given time, she said, and from the moment students arrive they are placed on a stringent system of punishments and rewards.

Students were broken down into levels, with lower level students forbidden from speaking or even looking at higher level students.

“When you start at zero level, you then had rules about who you could look at,” she explained. “You couldn’t talk to members of the opposite sex until you were on second level and you had to fulfill a wide variety of requirements to move up.”

“At zero level, you’d have to be three feet away from a staff member or a supervisor at all times. You had to ask to go from room to room. It was insane,” she said. “Prisoners actually have more freedom than we had.”

Sleep deprived and worked to exhaustion, the students are fed on a diet of “sugar and fat,” Sugiuchi said. “It was in no way adequate to the amount of manual labor we were doing. We weren’t getting the nutrients we needed.”

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Sugiuchi is currently working on a book, Unreformed, about her experience at Escuela Caribe. The film “Kidnapped for Christ” is premiering at the next Slamdance Film Festival, the rebel indie festival that now runs alongside the Sundance Film Festival in January. She hopes to raise awareness of these programs, which have deep ties to groups like Focus on the Family — who referred her parents to New Horizons Youth Ministries — and the Republican Party.

“If you follow the money, you’ll see that the Republicans are so, so in bed with these people,” she said. The Romney family contributes heavily to the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP), an umbrella organization for evangelical reform schools like Escuela Caribe — which was briefly closed down, then reopened under the name Crosswinds — and their Mormon equivalents.

Someday, she said, she hopes to see legislation against people sending their children to these types of schools, “but the legislation always gets stalled,” she said.

‘Kidnapped for Christ’ Review: Come Because You’re Gay, Stay For Jesus - The Daily Beast

You’ll Want to Support This Documentary About a Former Westboro Baptist Church Member

I wish I had a million dollars. Please read and support in any manner you can!! Maybe some day thanks to Nate's efforts I will be able to forever close my file on WBC,,,

You’ll Want to Support This Documentary About a Former Westboro Baptist Church Member

See also:
Kickstarter Campaign::Not My Father's Son - Nate Phelps Documentary


Facebook::Not My Father's Son

Ms. Cleo Comes To Hot Docs: 'I'm As Gay As a Two Dollar Bill'|/Bent

Famed phone psychic Ms. Cleo is among the many subjects of Tony Shaff's new documentary "Hotline," which just had its world premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto this week. The film is a thoughtful and eye-opening look at the extensive world of phone hotlines -- from sex to suicide prevention to Ms. Cleo herself -- that expresses the importance of human-to-human interaction.

Cleo gives the film some considerably heartfelt energy as she talks about what being a phone psychic meant to her, and how hurt she was when many people pointed fingers at her when the company she worked for -- the Psychic Readers Network (a company she was often at odds with) -- was sued for deceptive advertising, billing and collection practices. Her name was cleared legally, but she never felt like people came around to believe that she was innocent (though if they see "Hotline," it would become hard to believe otherwise).

She was just as heartfelt -- and incredibly charming -- in person, when she sat down with me at Hot Docs to talk about her big screen debut.

"What I want people to take away from the film is that I'm hoping that we don't forget how to do this," she said, pointing back and forth between us. "That we get so comfortable with all this (points to my iPhone) that we forget. Because evolution is constant. I mean, certain banking institutions in America charge you to talk to a live person. You understand me? What is that? I have to pay $5 to talk to a teller!? Where are we going with all that. And if we don't stay connected now, I got to tell you -- I'm not idealistic about tomorrow. I worry about the children. And I worry about our ability to convey what we are feeling effectively. It's becoming a lost art."


Ms. Cleo Comes To Hot Docs: 'I'm As Gay As a Two Dollar Bill'|/Bent

See also:  
Miss Cleo on Her Allegedly Fake Patois and Getting Ripped Off By the Psychic Readers Network

New Documentary Tackles Being LGBTQ at Wheaton College | The Bilerico Project

I find this interesting as Wheaton was one of my original college choices back in the day. It is considered a "sister" institution of where I eventually ended up. Although I applaud the efforts of the documentarians, it is sad to see that Wheaton has not progressed much in the last 20+ years; not that the college I went to has either.
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One thing that both the right and left tend to agree on is that higher education is vastly more accepting of LGBTQ people than mainstream society overall. We tell young people all the time that their lives will "get better" once they leave for college, where they can start exploring and expressing themselves freely.

There's a reason for the dual narratives that alternately delight the left and terrify the right. Whether we're talking about the LGBTQ youth who goes to college and finds themselves, or the intolerant youth who upon getting to college is exposed to positive interactions/portrayals of LGBTQ people for the first time and ends up becoming an ally, for a huge number of people, one or the other of those two scenarios is exactly what happens.

But for students at conservative and religious colleges, the story is often very different.

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,,, We wanted to create something that would bring this discussion at Wheaton College and other conservative Christian institutions away from political and theological debate and bring it to people, their lives and their voices and their stories. This is of course what this 'issue' is all about.

"Usually the only thing that causes an evangelical Christian to re-examine their beliefs is personal experience -- a friend coming out to them or something similar. We wanted to create that for Wheaton College as a whole. Luke and I both hope this can make some sort of small impact. All we want is for love to win.




New Documentary Tackles Being LGBTQ at Wheaton College | The Bilerico Project

“The Last of the Unjust”: A new look at Eichmann, more evil than banal - Salon.com

Lanzmann found Murmelstein living in Rome in 1975, where he cuts the figure of a sprightly, dapper continental gentleman with an impeccable Italian wardrobe, a bountiful intellect and a sardonic wit. (Although this footage was shot nearly 40 years ago, he seems a strikingly contemporary figure.) He had stayed away from America and Israel, the focal points of postwar Jewish emigration, and for good reason. To many people in the Jewish world, his name became identified with the way some leaders of Europe’s Jewish community had capitulated to Nazi domination and collaborated with a campaign of mass extermination. Gershom Scholem, the German-born Jewish philosopher and historian, suggested at one point that Murmelstein should be hanged as a traitor.

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Murmelstein was a powerful and well-connected figure in the Jewish world; he could easily have emigrated to England as late as 1939. Indeed, he almost did: He accompanied a fellow rabbi to London shortly before the war started, and then returned to Vienna on a nearly empty commercial flight. He could have refused to work with Eichmann and other Nazi commanders, and accepted the alternative: a bullet in the back of the head, or a one-way rail journey to “the East.” (Murmelstein says, by the way, that he didn’t learn the precise nature of what happened to deported Jews in Eastern Europe until 1945, although he knew that none of them ever came back.) Instead, he stayed behind, risking his own life every day in tense diplomatic encounters with murderers and psychopaths. He admits that he relished power and followed a strong drive for self-preservation — largely so that someone would be alive to tell the story. Many people died in Theresienstadt, but nowhere near as many as did in Lodz or Warsaw or Vilnius or the other Jewish ghettoes wiped out by the Germans before the war’s end. They dithered over the place and then they left, and when the Red Army finally arrived in the spring of 1945, Murmelstein and most of the town’s Jewish residents were still there.

“The Last of the Unjust”: A new look at Eichmann, more evil than banal - Salon.com

Christian Filmmaker, Atheist Activist Release Their New Film 'My Week in Atheism'

John Christy, a devout Christian filmmaker and student of religion, and David Smalley, an atheist activist and radio host, have released a new documentary film they made together, "My Week in Atheism," about their friendship caught between the two opposing worldviews.

The film premiered over the weekend at the Crest Theater in Sacramento, Calif., showing the two traveling together to secular conventions, university campuses, and a live talk show, and how they maintain a close friendship while protecting their worldviews and activism.

"The way the world is today, people too often view others with different beliefs as their enemies. But David and I have developed a deep friendship – even though we talk, and argue about religious differences all the time," said Christy in a statement.

"As I've gotten to know David more, I appreciate his challenge to my faith. Rather than digging in my heels to defend myself, I've tried to take an honest, intellectual look at what motivates atheism and why I believe what I believe," added Christy, who has a B.S. in Religion and Theological Studies and plans to get an M.A. in Christian and Classical Studies in 2015.

The film, which is neutral, features theological and philosophical conversations about modern culture, as well as the Christian filmmaker's exploratory discussions with other prominent atheists, including David Silverman, J. T. Eberhard, David Fitzgerald, Matt Dillahunty, Aron Ra and Dr. Anthony Pinn.

Christian Filmmaker, Atheist Activist Release Their New Film 'My Week in Atheism'