The Roberts’ transparency sends you reeling with emotion but pulls you back in with earthy hope. This documentary by Peter Craig is marvelous, if I can use that word to describe such a difficult yet beautiful story.
Think Tree of Life meets the Resurrection, wrapped in doubt, opening up into faith.
Join us for a screening at Alamo Draft House on April 19, 2014. Hurry, tickets are selling out!
See Parts 1 & 2 at www.raisedbook.com
To accompany the coming release of Raised? Finding Jesus by Doubting the Resurrection (Feb 25), we filmed a gripping journey of doubt to faith. Each of the four shorts reflect the four major themes in the book, but the story also stands on its own. The film Raised? is mixes art and story to trace genuine doubt, the human cycle of failure, the response of faith, and the hope of resurrection.
I’ve been moved to tears in each one of these, not only because I know the Roberts story personally, but also because I know there are many others who are in the midst of a similar story. Like Jessica says, “When we let go of the supernatural, we seep into the darkness.” Take a few minutes to soak in this narrative, pray for those with similar struggles, share it with others, and learn how to better relate to genuine doubters.
Sometimes doubt is generated not by a deliberate philosophical and systemic moral choice but by ten thousand atomistic choices. A man may begin his adult life with full, Christian convictions, worked out in faithful godliness, disciplined prayer and Bible reading, and thoughtful witness. Somewhere along the line, the Bible reading dries up; prayer becomes spotty; the pressures or rising obligations at work reduce church attendance to a bare minimum. A charming colleague or assistant at work seems far better able to empathize with his challenges than does his wife. Several years on, he wakes up one morning after spending the night with someone with whom he should not have been sleeping. He heads off to the washroom, looks at himself in the mirror, and mutters, “I don’t believe all that religious rubbish anyway!â€
But what has brought him to this point? It has not been a deeply thought-out philosophical problem, still less new scientific evidence. It has not even been a principled decision. Rather, it has been ten thousand little decisions, all of them wrong. The result is the same: this man now doubts the fundamentals of the faith.
D. A. Carson, Scandalous
