Christianity – Family Council

Guest Column: Spielberg Wants to “Mess With” Your Faith

Jun 24, 2026John StonestreetChristianityChristianity, Church Ambassador Network

Award winning film director Steven Spielberg said recently that his new film will likely “mess with” a lot of people’s theology. “Disclosure Day” is about what would happen if there were a sudden mass revelation about the existence of extraterrestrial life. According to Spielberg, it will force people, especially Christians, to rethink Who God is.

As he told CBS Sunday Morning,

What does this do to the fundamental beliefs that many of us have? … Is God our God only on this planet or is God a God for every system where there’s civilization, intelligent life, and even developing life?

It’s not unusual for celebrity artists to weigh in on things outside of their expertise, but this talented filmmaker is out of his depth. Even if there were a real life disclosure day, it would not alter anything about Christians’ fundamental beliefs. The God portrayed in the Bible created and oversees the entire universe. As the Psalmist said, “The Lord established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.” That could easily include other worlds and other life forms. But of course, there is no evidence of that anyway. This is a film. Spielberg must think that Christianity is barely hanging on from falling into the dustbin of history.

If so, he’s certainly not the first. Expectations of Christian extinction go back to the beginning. According to the Gospel of John, the High Priest Caiaphas thought that killing Jesus would erase His influence. When He failed to stay dead, the Jerusalem authorities thought that bribes and rumors would stamp out the new Faith. Those same authorities hoped that beating and scolding the apostles would keep them quiet.

The Romans spent centuries trying to stamp out Christianity, from Nero who infamously burned believers in his gardens to Marcus Aurelius who believed he could mock them out of their faith. By the 200s, the Church had grown so much that Emperor Decius decreed an empire-wide assault on Christians. By the beginning of the fourth century, Diocletian instigated the Great Persecution. In the end, persecution set the stage for toleration. Eventually, under Theodosius I, the Roman Empire was Christianized.

Later, when the Western Empire fell to Germanic tribes, the Church did not fall with it. Instead, Christianity not only endured but the pagans were converted. Islam tried to take down the Church a few centuries later. After subjugating Christianity in the Middle East, Muslim raiders seemed poised to conquer Western Europe. They were stopped in the middle of what is France. Almost 1,000 years later, armies of the Turkish Sultan advanced to Vienna, twice, before being pushed back. The smart money would have been that Christianity would fall, but it did not.

During the Enlightenment, confidence that the Church would fall was at an all-time high. In the 1700s, the influential French thinker Voltaire claimed that he was “living in the twilight of Christianity.” In 1822, Thomas Jefferson added that, “I trust there is not a young man now living in the U.S. who will not die a Unitarian.” Voltaire’s home later housed a Bible society, and Jefferson’s generation was followed by religious awakenings and an explosion of missionaries sent around the world.

In the twentieth century, the Communists predicted the end of what Marx called the “opiate of the masses.” Everywhere they went, revolutionary groups assaulted religion, especially Christianity. In Russia, China, Cuba, and elsewhere, the first targets of the Communists were churches, pastors, priests, and other religious groups. Often the persecution worsened out of frustration that the Faith simply would not die. In the end, Christianity stood over Communism’s grave, after contributing to its demise.

Whether from internal failings or external threats, Christians can be discouraged. But, to borrow a quip from Mark Twain, predictions of the church’s demise are greatly exaggerated. If emperors and empires and armies haven’t stamped it out, Steven Spielberg doesn’t have a chance.

Looking for God at Disney: Guest Column

Jun 1, 2026John StonestreetCultureChristianity, Culture

Disney Adults are an example of the new festivals, games, and liturgies invented to give life meaning without God.

In 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche famously proclaimed “God is dead” in The Parable of the Madman. In it, Nietzsche warned that the modern zeal to rid the world of the divine would not turn out the way that the skeptics and utopianists hoped. In fact, the deed of killing God, Nietszche wrote, was far beyond what they imagined.

. . . how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun?

Then, Nietzsche asked:

How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?

As far-seeing as he was, it is unlikely Nietzsche could have guessed all the ways this prediction would play out. John Calvin called the human heart a “factory of idols,” and our creativity in inventing “festivals of atonement” and “sacred games” knows no limits.

For example, a recent essay in The New Yorker described the rise of “Disney Adults,” who take multiple trips to the various parks each year, even taking on serious debt to do so. One young woman who was described in the article spent over $15,000 on six park visits in two years. That’s why, author Amelia Tate wrote,

So-called Disney adults have become a subject of online fascination, with many people now questioning how much it costs to be one. … It’s a genre of content that has become more popular, recently, with critics seizing on it as evidence that the Disney-obsessed are not only culturally but financially bankrupt.

Of course, Americans spend a lot of money on vacation, with many wanting to visit the same place over and over each year. But that is not what drives Disney adults. According to a pop-culture historian quoted in a New York Post article about Disney adults, the parks are “very appealing to childless adults who’re looking for a way to recapture or keep alive that feeling of delight and comfort.” One woman told The New Yorker, “It’s the nostalgic feeling of what brought you joy when you were little and you didn’t have the stressors of adult life.”

Anyone who has visited a Disney park can attest to remarkable attention to detail in creating an alternative world. The safety, cleanliness, rides, and even the smells are perfectly calibrated to produce an experience that is unmatched. One can walk through the gates and step back into childhood, and that’s nice sometimes.

And Disney is not even close to being the only way people seek meaning and fulfillment. From youth sports to fast cars to carefully built social media platforms to politics, humans can turn virtually anything into a focus of worship. What we live for become our gods. The practices we build to honor these things become our religion. And, as the Psalmist said, we will see ourselves in the image of whatever it is we worship.

The yearning of Disney adults is just one example of the new festivals, games, and liturgies invented to give life meaning without God. But in the end, even the good things of this world are only vanity, if not built on what is ultimately true and good.

Like all human beings with eternity in their hearts, Disney adults are creatures of longing. They may not know it, but nostalgia will not fill the God-shaped hole in their hearts. Neither will a scholarship or a Lexus or a million new followers. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” Indeed, but Disney parks, though fun places to visit (at least on days that are not too hot or crowded), is not the world for which we were made.

Even the most committed and indebted Disney adults aren’t necessarily crazy. But they are looking for God in the wrong place. Better instead to listen to St. Augustine, who, after many different attempts to fill his own longing, concluded: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

China Working to Infiltrate U.S., Rewrite the Bible

May 21, 2026Jerry CoxChina, Christian PersecutionCCP, China, Christian Persecution, Christianity

Different news outlets have reported recently about China’s efforts to infiltrate the United States and squelch religious liberty and free speech both in its own country and abroad.

The mayor of Arcadia, California, recently resigned after pleading guilty to working as a foreign agent for China.

Last week, a federal court in Brooklyn convicted Lu Jianwang, a U.S. citizen, of running a secret Chinese police station for the People’s Republic of China. Authorities say Jianwang used the secret police station in New York City to “target PRC dissidents in furtherance of the Chinese government’s political agenda.”

CBS New reports lawmakers are cracking down on China’s efforts to buy U.S. farmland and property near U.S. military installations. Chinese ownership of farmland threatens America’s food security as well as its national security.

While China works to spread its influence in America, the Chinese Communist Party is infringing religious liberty and free speech in its own country through its ongoing efforts to rewrite the Bible. In 2018, Xi Jinping announced a campaign to “sinicize” Christianity — meaning, to make Christianity align with China’s core values and beliefs.

The Chinese Communist Party is currently working on its own translation of what it calls the “Chinese Christian Bible,” which drastically twists scripture.

And last year, CBN reported the CCP is requiring churches to ensure their doctrine is consistent with Communist principles.

Chinese organized crime is also dominating black market marijuana in states where marijuana is legal.

NPR has reported that illegal immigrants from China “are taking jobs at hundreds of cannabis farms springing up across the U.S.”

And CBS News has highlighted how Chinese investment is driving illegal marijuana production across the U.S.

For years, pundits and elected officials have expressed concerns about the Chinese Communist Party conducting espionage and stealing intellectual property in the U.S.

In July of 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray gave a report on the threat China poses, saying, “If you are an American adult, it is more likely than not that China has stolen your personal data.”

In 2021 the U.S. Senate passed a measure intended to clamp down on Chinese propaganda on America’s college campuses.

In 2021 the Arkansas Legislature passed Act 1020 by Sen. Mark Johnson and Rep. Mary Bentley prohibiting schools in Arkansas from hosting any entity affiliated with the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party, or China’s People’s Liberation Army. The law helps keep organizations associated with the Chinese Communist Party away from Arkansas’ college campuses.

Arkansas has also taken steps to prevent China from buying its farmland and to crack down on Chinese-owned tech companies that may share sensitive user data with the CCP.

It’s important for Arkansans to understand the threat that foreign entities like the Chinese Communist Party pose here at home — and how our policymakers may be able to take steps to protect citizens from those threats.

We appreciate Arkansas’ elected leaders and their willingness to safeguard Arkansans from foreign influences like the CCP.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.