Boys' Bible Study

The capstone of our 7TH HEAVEN September series shows the Camdens, in a bizarre later-series arrangement, taking on powerful social issues. This is "Got MLK?" the irreverently named racial reckoning episode in season ten, where Martin (an "accessory Camden" who used to live with the pastor's family) becomes the victim of a hate crime despite being a white man. The crime? A slur painted on his car, probably by his baseball team cohort Brad, but we don't know for sure. It all starts in class with a report on Martin Luther King. Alex (a black student) wants to do one, but his teacher Mrs. Porter rudely asks him to wait for the next MLK Day. She relents when Martin makes a comment that baseball is more important than MLK, proving the importance of additional focus on black history. Unfortunately, students have to redo their reports, causing resentment that may have led to the "racial remarks" painted on Martin's car. What follows is an insane dialogue tree of arguments and consequences, where no character handles the potential helter-skelter situation gracefully. In typical 7TH HEAVEN fashion, the writers seem to be asking -- how does this impact white people? But this is a special episode for us -- we get an inside scoop into the filming of "Got MLK?" via our friend Jarred Endres, who "starred" in it as "Student #8." Jarred, of popular re-edit Instagram account and YouTube channel Grimy Ghost, was a teen actor at the time and nailed his audition to read a report on Thurgood Marshall to end the episode. Finally, with the inside scoop on the Camden hijinks once and for all, we can rest on our laurels and take the lessons we learned from the Camdens (mainly Protestant guilt and anxiety) into our next life -- as soon as we can escape samsara. Grimy Ghost! on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegrimyghost/ Grimy Ghost! on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFhsSc8ZYXfFkj5URtG-WaQ View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

The Camden family of 7TH HEAVEN are preoccupied with a lot of things. Their spiritual and social anxieties generate most of the show's drama, and the interesting ways they trigger each other in various combinations creates the intrigue that keeps us coming back week after week. SIN AND EXPIATION, a gripping two parter with character arcs for almost everyone in the family, is 7TH HEAVEN at its best: a pressure cooker of Protestant anxiety. Youngest son Simon begins the episodes completely in the dog house because he's caught extending the middle finger at school in an effort to be "one of the guys". His older brother Matt is feeling guilty about wanting to move out of the family home at age 18 despite that being the most normal feeling a legally adult teenager could ever feel. Lucy is the star of her high school's fascist Student Court. Ruthie is alienating everyone with her armpit farting (called "underarm honking" in this Christian household.) Mary (Jessica Biel) has it the worst -- after her basketball team is suspended for the season for bad grades, they vandalize the gym, causing Mary to be arrested and almost ruin her life forever (a story arc 7TH HEAVEN fans consider "the beginning of the end" for her character.) Lastly: patriarch Eric is recovering from a heart attack and matriarch Annie is just plain annoying and bipolar as usual. It's no wonder that the second part of this two episode storyline features Simon and Ruthie visiting various churches of all different major world religions trying to alleviate the guilt they feel inside. This family seriously needs a break from Protestantism. Camdens: have you ever heard about a silent Buddhist meditation retreat? It seems like you guys could really use the peace and quiet, and some space from each other. However, if they ever got that, 7TH HEAVEN would never be the same. View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

The Y2K era was a golden age for Christian pop culture in the United States, especially on television. On our podcast, we've enjoyed the several weeks we get to review TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL episodes, a TV series so quietly bizarre that it basically invented its own spinoff of Christianity. But that wasn't the only long-running show exploring religious themes for mainstream, primetime audiences: enter 7TH HEAVEN, a show exploring the day-to-day drama of a Pastor's family. Airing weekly on The CW, eventually becoming one of the network's first majorly successful shows, the plot follows the Camden family -- Rev. Eric Camden, his wife Annie, and their five children; Matt, Mary (Jessica Biel), Lucy, Simon, and Ruthie. The family grows when twins Sam and David are born in season 3; in season 6, the family takes in Mary's ex-boyfriend Robbie as a kind of adoptive son. In s6e9 "Lost," Robbie becomes involved in solving a kidnapping plot by uncovering evidence of his girlfriend's brother's disappearance. Also, eldest daughters Mary and Lucy ask their parents to play matchmaker by setting them up with boyfriends. Jealous of this tactic, Matt and Simon also employ family-friendly tactics to get girlfriends. 7TH HEAVEN is fixated on relationships, and the Camden family is unusually open about the dating lives of their devoutly Christian, virginal teens. It's supposed to be a celebration of open, honest family communication, but the parents' encyclopedic knowledge of who all their kids have kissed feels more invasive than wholesome. It's also insane just how many partners the Camden kids have -- each Camden teen has intrigue with multiple potential or ex-partners in this one episode alone. Basically, the Camdens are the sluttiest virgins of all time, and the borderline incestuous dynamic of their sexual openness becomes a theme throughout the entire series. We plan to spend all of September with the Camdens, and we really hope some of their "game" rubs off on us. View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

Ray Comfort is just like us! Why? Because he is also doomscrolling and completely at the mercy of his algorithm. You can tell what Comfort has been watching online because it becomes the inspiration for his daily sermons, posted on the Living Waters website and YouTube channel. Right now, Ray Comfort is clearly being haunted by none other than Rowan Atkinson and his extremely famous comedy alter ego, Mr. Bean. The first Comfort video we noticed about Mr. Bean, featuring the charming clickbait title "After Mr. Bean Horribly Mocks God, This Immediately Happened," takes aim at an Atkinson stand-up special in which he takes some frankly unoriginal potshots at Christianity in general. But it must have stirred something deep within Comfort, who only a few weeks later uploaded a new one called "Mr. Bean's AMAZING Skit on Hell. He Got so Much Right." This tactic of feigning support for an enemy's message is typical of Comfort's usual rhetoric; in this case, Comfort ironically praises Atkinson's accuracy in depicting the biblical portrayal of hell, feeling the facts are bleak enough that Christians can use Atkinson's skit as a warning. Comfort also criticizes comedians, asking why they mock Jesus yet stay silent on the Muslim prophet Mohammad. It's a bizarre callout: not only were several employees of French humor magazine Charlie Hebdo famously murdered for making inappropriate jokes about Islam, there are also several high-profile shows that have taken aim at Islam, such as South Park. Ray shows that his media awareness is laser focused on his own biases. But he's also focused on something else: in a stunning lore drop, Ray Comfort reveals that he is deeply fixated on the historical tragedy of the Titanic. In his words, there is an entire room in his "mind palace" devoted to the Titanic, the enormity of which "clouds even his sunny days." It says a lot that Comfort, who takes pains to remind us that hell will be "eternal conscious torment," is also fascinated by the doomed expedition of the Titanic. His fascination with Mr. Bean will surely die down soon, but for the Titanic, Ray Comfort's heart will go on. View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy

This movie about a famous, successful rapper who takes a career risk by giving his life to Christ feels like it was written by someone who has never listened to a rap song before. That writer is Jason Campbell, one of the most prolific auteurs currently active in the Christian movie scene. Campbell has produced 88 films since 2013, and per iMDB has 29 upcoming. When you make that many films, the adage "write what you know" can't apply anymore, because you have too many ideas and need to do something new. Maybe that's why Campbell decided to take on the world of hip-hop despite knowing little about it, even basic terms. In the first scene of DROP THE BEAT, rapper Ace Jay is in the studio laying down some conscious rap when his producer says "You need to hit the beat harder," and the rapper replies "What beat? I hit all of them!" This is not how any rapper has ever thought about music, and it's a fundamental misunderstanding of music itself. But Campbell persists, writing a script about Ace Jay's disillusionment with the industry that made him rich. Ace goes back to his roots, touring the performing arts school whose scholarship was his ticket out of "the hood" and into the big time. Meanwhile, his record label schemes against him, planting a rumor that his delayed album stems from drug trouble. The problem with DROP THE BEAT is there's no story or atmosphere in the script or design that supports the plot. We meet Ace Jay at the start of the film saying he's disillusioned, but why? We see nothing of his former life that gives motivation for a redemption arc. Also, Ace simply has no swag; he looks put together, but not like the most famous rapper in the world should look. Fortunately, frequent Campbell collaborator Dean Cain shows up to inject some life into the film, stealing the show for one scene. Per an unsourced iMDB trivia item, Cain was paid $15,000 for his tiny role. This begs the question: how much money is DROP THE BEAT actually making, and did it turn a profit? It's a mystery, but one thing is for sure: Jason Campbell is an absolute machine of Christian movie making, it's just too bad the films themselves feel cold and mechanical. View our full episode list and subscribe to any of our public feeds: http://boysbiblestudy.com Unlock 2+ bonus episodes per month: http://patreon.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/boysbiblestudy Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/boysbiblestudy