“Gimme Shelter”: The Pro-Life “Fight Club”

[Valin]

Intercollegiate Review:

Stephen Herreid

1/19/14

 

I’d like to begin by telling you that Gimme Shelter, starring Vanessa Hudgens, James Earl Jones and Brendan Fraser, is the pro-life event of the decade. (You’ve got to see this! It’s the best pro-life film ever!) In fact, it is. But there are two things you’re not going to get out of Gimme Shelter that you might get at some other pro-life events.

1. A feel-good reminder that “God always wins in the end,” that “babies go straight to Heaven,” or that you’re totally awesome for showing up. “Seriously, thanks so much for doing this for the babies” (that is, driving to a theater). That’s a kind of artificial victory, with pizza and coke at the end.
2. A long list of Holocaust-style facts and figures in a dimly lit church basement, such how many boys vs. girls are aborted each year in the US, how many weeks it takes for a fetus to develop eyeballs, or how many percentage points more likely it is for a post-abortive woman to get breast cancer. This sort of event may look more promising to right-brained people, but all too often it’s just a horror fest. After the “show,” we all go home, feeling a secret satisfaction that we’re now good and miserable, and that at least we’re not “of this world.” As we retreat, we call out “Lord, come quickly!” As much as we dwell on the horror of abortion, we won’t even take the first step into the battle for life.

There’s something’s missing in these ways of presenting the pro-life cause. In Gimme Shelter we see a horribly realistic beginning that struggles into a beautiful and just as realistic ending.

 

(Snip)

 

Gimme Shelter The Movie