{"id":40443,"date":"2024-10-10T08:06:32","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T12:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=40443"},"modified":"2024-10-10T12:04:15","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T16:04:15","slug":"journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html","title":{"rendered":"\u201cJourney to Bethlehem\u201d Director Ready to Tackle Spiritual Warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Adobe Stock | Inset: Adamandersmusic \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Adam Anders, the director of movies like \u201cRock of Ages,\u201d the \u201cDirty Dancing\u201d reboot, and the Christian film \u201cJourney to Bethlehem,\u201d revealed to The Christian Post<\/em><\/a> that his next project will veer away from his usual musical format into a much more serious realm: spiritual warfare. \u201cMy next project is a thriller with Lionsgate next about spiritual warfare. It\u2019s going to be a huge movie. It’s not a musical, which is crazy, but a great challenge. I\u2019m very excited. I’m just writing it right now,\u201d he said. Anders admitted the film has been on his mind for some time but that he has avoided it because, \u201copening yourself up to the topic is scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his reservations, Anders recognized it was a calling to tackle the tough topic, especially coming from an industry like Hollywood that is drenched in spiritual warfare. He called Los Angeles, where he lives, \u201cthe epicenter [of spiritual warfare],\u201d and that as a Christian in LA \u201cI\u2019m a man on an island.\u201d However, Hollywood\u2019s own impact on the culture has been far-reaching. \u201cHollywood is where culture is shaped, and it affects the whole world. That\u2019s why the devil does his best work there. He wants to be there and affect culture for the whole world,\u201d he said. He told CP <\/em>that as he\u2019s worked on the project, he has received more peace. \u201cThe more I got into it, the more peace I felt about it, and I felt totally comfortable doing it. I hope that movie will be able to reveal what’s actually going on, so people understand there’s a veil over your eyes. What’s actually going on is there’s a battle for our souls. And we need to show people that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hollywood has long been a place of criticism from many Christians. Last year\u2019s Grammy Awards featured Sam Smith and Kim Petras performing their song \u201cUnholy<\/a>,\u201d while dressed in demonic clothing and using demonic imagery. Many blasted the performance as \u201canti-Christian.\u201d The popular Christian website, \u201cGot Questions<\/a>?\u201d offers cautions against Hollywood. \u201cAlthough there are many Christians living in Hollywood and working in the film industry, much of the entertainment produced there is completely secular,\u201d the site warns. \u201cMany movies promote lavish materialism, adultery, sensuality, self-worship, and idolatry. Some Hollywood movies exhibit a blatant anti-God bias. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16) abound in the movies Hollywood produces. Going to the theater can be a dangerous proposition for believers who wish to keep their minds pure.\u201d The site goes on to say, \u201cIf Hollywood is not reflecting the values we claim to cherish, then we must be careful how much time we spend with it. To honor God, we must compare the values coming out of Hollywood to the unchanging standard of Scripture.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adam Anders, the director of movies like \u201cRock of Ages,\u201d the \u201cDirty Dancing\u201d reboot, and the Christian film \u201cJourney to Bethlehem,\u201d revealed to The Christian Post that his next project will veer away from his usual musical format into a much more serious realm: spiritual warfare. \u201cMy next project is a thriller with Lionsgate next…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":627,"featured_media":40452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies"],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cJourney to Bethlehem\u201d Director Ready to Tackle Spiritual Warfare<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cJourney to Bethlehem\u201d Director Ready to Tackle Spiritual Warfare\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Adam Anders, the director of movies like \u201cRock of Ages,\u201d the \u201cDirty Dancing\u201d reboot, and the Christian film \u201cJourney to Bethlehem,\u201d revealed to The Christian Post that his next project will veer away from his usual musical format into a much more serious realm: spiritual warfare. \u201cMy next project is a thriller with Lionsgate next…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-10-10T12:06:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-10-10T16:04:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem_01_credit-Inset-Adamandersmusic-wikimedia-commons.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\u201cJourney to Bethlehem\u201d Director Ready to Tackle Spiritual Warfare","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\u201cJourney to Bethlehem\u201d Director Ready to Tackle Spiritual Warfare","og_description":"Adam Anders, the director of movies like \u201cRock of Ages,\u201d the \u201cDirty Dancing\u201d reboot, and the Christian film \u201cJourney to Bethlehem,\u201d revealed to The Christian Post that his next project will veer away from his usual musical format into a much more serious realm: spiritual warfare. \u201cMy next project is a thriller with Lionsgate next…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2024-10-10T12:06:32+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-10-10T16:04:15+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem_01_credit-Inset-Adamandersmusic-wikimedia-commons.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html","name":"\u201cJourney to Bethlehem\u201d Director Ready to Tackle Spiritual Warfare","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem_01_credit-Inset-Adamandersmusic-wikimedia-commons.jpg","datePublished":"2024-10-10T12:06:32+00:00","dateModified":"2024-10-10T16:04:15+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/f0820942b588b1bdba133d7ca3c8eb6e"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem_01_credit-Inset-Adamandersmusic-wikimedia-commons.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem_01_credit-Inset-Adamandersmusic-wikimedia-commons.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Adobe Stock | Inset: Adamandersmusic \/ Wikimedia Commons"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/journey-to-bethlehem-director-ready-to-tackle-spiritual-warfare.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"\u201cJourney to Bethlehem\u201d Director Ready to Tackle Spiritual Warfare"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/f0820942b588b1bdba133d7ca3c8eb6e","name":"rdewing","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/61e\/61e772313b3ddff45ee0c1a275e8dfc5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/61e\/61e772313b3ddff45ee0c1a275e8dfc5x96.jpg","caption":"rdewing"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/rdewing"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/627"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40443"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40458,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40443\/revisions\/40458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}