Will Bakke and Alexander Carroll want people to avoid Christians, but not Jesus.
The two are part of the four-man cast of the movie "Beware of Christians," which screened two showings in Dudley Hall last Thursday as part of the film's cross-country tour.
Bakke said the film's premise was to document what he, Carroll and their two friends, Michael Allen and Matt Owen, experienced on a five-week trip to Europe to examine the teachings of Jesus Christ as written in the Bible.
"We made this movie after our junior year of college," Bakke said. "And we go to Europe to kind of get out of our Christian routines in Texas, where we're from, and just get a perspective outside of the Bible Belt about what it would be like to really follow Jesus our whole lives and not just the easy parts."
The friends travel from London to Munich, discussing the differences between what they've been taught on topics like sex, alcohol and wealth in their churches in Texas and what they read in the Bible.
Another stop was Budapest, Hungary, where the group fasted in order to study giving. They decided to donate the money they would have spent on food to the needy.
Fearing the language barrier would keep them from meeting anyone, they wandered around Budapest until they came across a local evangelist who spoke English. He helped the group buy clothes and food for a homeless man.
"Beware of Christians" is Bakke's second film. The first, "One Nation Under God," explored views of Jesus and the afterlife in America.
DVD sales from "One Nation Under God" practically funded the Europe trip, Bakke said.
Carroll said Auburn was a perfect place to show "Beware of Christians" because of the area's religious demographic.
"It's in the Bible Belt, and a lot of the colleges we try to concentrate on are schools in the Southeast," Carroll said. "So Auburn was obviously the perfect fit for that."
After showing the film in Oxford, Miss., Carroll said the Auburn screening came together through a connection with Young Life.
Carroll and Bakke fielded questions after each screening, but they want to make one thing clear: they don't have all the answers.
"We don't force answers upon anyone," Bakke said. "These are college students. They like to think for themselves, and we do, too. And for us, we think asking the questions is one of the most important parts to the movie, just asking yourself these questions."
Carroll said the message of the film is that the Christian lifestyle needs to live up to Christian teachings.
"The biggest thing is that what we want people to take away from the film is that if you're going to say that you follow Jesus, and that's something that's important to you, then our lives better reflect that, or it doesn't really make any sense," Carroll said.
"It's not to call people out and say you're doing something wrong, but to just kind of call people out and say proclaiming Jesus' name is a very serious thing to say."
Despite the film's title, Bakke said reactions have been "overwhelmingly positive."
Bakke also said criticisms are not always from a theological standpoint. Instead, most comments come from the group's admittance to not having a definite answer after embarking on the journey--their "immaturity and boyishness," as Bakke called it.
But he said people of different faiths have approached the filmmakers and told them they appreciated their honesty, even if they didn't agree with the group's beliefs.
"We don't come off in the movie as, like, we're scholars, you know," Bakke said. "We don't try to tell people like we have it figured out. I think there's been a lot of grace shown to us because of that."
The 8 p.m. showing almost filled the basement auditorium of Dudley Hall with approximately 150 people attending, but a representative of Riot Studios, the production company operated by the filmmakers, said the 10 p.m. show left no seats empty.
Caroline Stephens, freshman in political science and psychology, said the film makes one pause for thought.
"I thought it was awesome," Stephens said. "It just really makes you think about everything like college life and American culture. I wish it had been publicized a little more because I think everyone should come watch it."
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