The son and I, actually one of them, the eight and very eager to be nine year old, saw “Unstoppable” a few days ago. I don’t go to many movies, time, popcorn and soda prices you know, but this got such great reviews for the kind of movie I would not expect such great reviews, that I had to check it out. It even got an 85% at Rotton Tomatoes, which I gather is pretty darn good. And it lived up to the hype. It was thrilling and moving in many ways. And Denzel Washington was his usual spectacular self.

But one thing stood out to me in the hours after it ended. For a story where human mortality is a central character I would expect people would at some point acknowledge, in fear or hope or faith or anger, a supreme being, i.e. God. But the only time God was mentioned, or Jesus Christ, was as a curse.

There was a good amount of cursing, it was PG13 after all, but how could that be the only mention of God or Jesus?

I wonder about the writers. Are they so thoroughly secularized that they think nobody in the rural Pennsylvania towns where the story took place would think to call upon God in the midst of potential cataclysmic catastrophe? Not one person?

I’m sure not every Hollywood writer, producer or director is that tone deaf to the real lives of average Americans. Yet it is indicative that those who embrace conservative Judeo-Christian values have largely abdicated this very influential cultural influence profession to those who have little or no awareness of God. So instead of this being a condemnation of Hollywood, it is a complaint about those of us who feel slighted by the secular values of this specific cultural elite.

If those who embrace conservative Judeo-Christian values do not actively encourage their next generation to enter such culture forming professions, then they have little right to complain when said profession either acts like they or their values don’t exist, or openly mocks them. Politics is important, as are other professions, but the direction of our culture is more heavily influenced by what people see in their local multiplex or on TV than who wins the next election or how well the American economy is doing.