A film distributor for the movie 'Amazing Grace' has urged Christians to go and see it, saying that by buying a ticket they can have an 'influence on Hollywood.'
"…I've encouraged the church across this country to recognise, that turning up to see a movie in the cinema is something measured by Hollywood … Here in Australia, we can influence Hollywood to a degree," Rod Hopping, the flim distributor told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Lateline program.
The outreach potential of using the movie as an evangelism tool for the secular movie audience has been hotly debated by Australian Christians.
A Christian film reviewer, Mark Hadley, told the Sydneyanglicans.net that the movie had limited 'evangelistic potential' given it was made for a Christian market, which could deter non-believers.
"Amazing Grace, for example, seems ready-made for the Christian market, and that may be the very thing that keeps it from becoming interesting to non-believers," he said.
However, other sees it differently. Pastor Peter Rahme, the senior pastor at the Inner West Baptist Church in Sydney, said this movie would present a 'Golden Outreach Opportunity" for Christians to connect with non-believers.
He said: "Just as The Nativity Story last year, and The Passion of the Christ in 2004, Amazing Grace this year presents the Christian community general and local Churches in particular, with a golden outreach opportunity."
The film re-tells the story of William Wilberforce, a pro-active Christian leader and a productive concerned parliamentarian, who after 20 years of faithfully campaigning to abolish slavery finally succeeded in 1807 with the prohibition of it throughout the Commonwealth.