September 6, 2005

It was meant as a compliment when preacher-author Leonard Sweet praised his audience as “a kind of homeland security of the church.” Sweet, evangelism professor at Drew University Theological School, was speaking to an unsung national organization of church business administrators meeting in the Colorado Rockies. Nearly 700 church professionals were getting current on auditing practices, on tax and insurance matters, and on how to protect children from sexual predators—just some of the issues that place churches in what Sweet called “a high-risk environment.”

Brian Flemming is that most dangerous of religious creatures: the former fundamentalist. He is also a gifted satirical filmmaker. The two elements collide and create sparks in The God Who Wasn’t There: A Film Beyond Belief, which is playing at selected venues (see thegodmovie.com) and banking on Internet buzz and word of mouth to gain publicity.

For old-school cinephiles who bemoan the demise of the classical European art film, rife with misplaced passion and rampant guilt, a familiar name has come to the rescue. Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish writer-director who introduced a generation of American moviegoers to subtitled movies in the 1950s and 1960s with such influential films as The Seventh Seal, The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly and Persona (to name a few), has made what he says will be his last film.