'Beware of christians' at the orchard on Sunday

On Oct. 23, “Beware of Christians,” a documentary that digs into the journey of four students exploring Christianity in Europe, will be shown for free at the Orchard in Oxford. 

“‘Beware of Christians’ is a hilarious Christian documentary about four guys trying to get past the label of ‘Christian’ and calling themselves one while trying to figure out how to take on the lifestyle,” Will Bakke said.

Bakke travels with his best friends, Alex Carroll, Matt Owen and Michael Allen to 10 different European countries. Their trip begins at Barcelona and ends in Munich during the summer of 2010. The four explore seven different topics that all tie in to issues college students face.

The four attended three different colleges but collaborated to produce the film. 

Carroll triggered the idea, and the remaining three ran with it. Bakke said they realized they were good at making God part of their lives but not all of it. They started discussing the idea, and realized they had been wrong most of their lives. Next, they hashed out a plan to travel to Europe.

Allen and Bakke first made a documentary, “One Nation Under God,” which focused on views of Christianity in America. In the process, Allen and Bakke realized the state of today’s Christianity. 

“From putting that documentary together, we started to realize that there’s something kind of wrong with American Christianity,” Bakke said. “We all seemed to not really know what Jesus we were following or what God we were following; for us, that was very disheartening.”  

Carroll and Bakke joined together with Owen and Allen and began the new movement, “Beware of Christians.” They used funding from showings of their first documentary “One Nation Under God.”

“(We) all sat down and just started talking about what it looks like to follow Jesus in a time like college were you have every temptation thrown at you,” Bakke said. “We tried to look at our own lives and realized that we let God into just the routines of our lives, like we’d go to church, we’d go to a Bible study and at the same time our lives didn’t really reflect what we were saying. I think that’s what kind of stirred up this whole idea to make this movie.” 

As plans went on, they realized staying in America wouldn’t accurately illustrate the issues they were trying to see in today’s Christianity.

It’s hard to solve a problem when you’re sitting right in the middle of it, Allen said.

“That summer we decided to take about five weeks and go to Europe and take almost like a sabbatical trip to kind of get grounded and back in the word and talk about all these topics, kind of force ourselves to do it because it probably wouldn’t have happened if we had just done it in our own back yards,” Bakke said. 

The name alone is causing a stir said senior social work major, Sam Siviglia, who interned for “Beware of Christians” this summer, after a clear up of the too often first impression of the group. 

“I thought it was an anti-Christian movement,” he said. “When I looked into it and saw the trailer I fell in love with it and contacted them right away about getting them to come and do a screening at Ole Miss.” 

Bakke said the title is based on the idea of constantly being told to beware of things. 

“We grow up being told, beware of alcohol, beware of premarital sex and all these different kinds of things, but maybe the problem isn’t these things necessarily, but maybe it’s our hearts that we need to change,” he said. “So for us, really the message was beware of Christians, like it’s us that might have all the right responses or answers for life’s tough questions, but when it comes to actually living that out we fall short.” 

The group toured in the spring, visiting around 30 cities and kicked off another tour this fall, with almost 40 cities on its schedule.  

They showed the film once before at the Orchard in Oxford this past March. 

“The showing at Orchard church was just amazing,” Bakke said. “We got to meet some really amazing people.”

“Beware of Christians” relates easily to students, is fun to watch and is just raw and honest, Bakke said.

“We dive into the Bible, put our own opinion and get over ourselves,” he said. “One of the big goals of the movie is to tell people despite all these things, God is better.”

Siviglia said there is a real need to share what they found in Europe.

“I think they’re going to be shocked,” he said.

“It’s a different kind of Christian film,” Bakke said. “We think it’s kind of a new voice that’s not really being put in the film making these days. It’s honest, it’s refreshing and I think that’s why students will gravitate to it. Come out, see a hilarious film that will push you to think deeper than most films will.”

The show begins at 7 p.m. at the Orchard in Oxford on Molly Bar Road, followed by a question and answer with the members of the film, as well as merchandise on sale for “name your own price.”

“It’s a reminder to ourselves what’s most important, the message is much more important than us making a lot of money off this movie,” Bakke said. “There’s really no reason why anyone should have to walk out without a DVD.”

For more information and to watch the trailer, visit bewareofchristians.com.