I admire Pat Robertson. When the history of Christianity of the 20^th century is written, he will be remembered as one of the leading figures. Beginning with a low power UHF television station in the late 1960s, Robertson built it into a Christian broadcasting empire that now includes a graduate university and five star conference center hotel.

As a student at Regent University, the school Robertson founded, I heard him speak in chapel many times. I was inspired by his faith. His faith was contagious.

I did not attend Regent because of Pat Robertson. Like most of the students there, my choice of the school was based upon the quality of education offered. Regent University prided itself on being a Christian version of Harvard with similar academic regiments.

The great voices of Christianity in our time passed through the school in the years I was a student. Listening to German evangelist Reinhart Bonke and the eminent theologian Carl Henry will always remain thrilling memories for me.

Pat Robertson’s faith and insistence upon excellence in all things will leave a lasting mark on Christianity for many decades to come.

That said, I must now respond to Robertson’s recent endorsement of Rudy Giuliani for President of the United States.

“What were you smoking? Have you lost your ever loving mind?!!!”

It is unconscionable that any Christian, much less a high profile leader would endorse or even consider voting for Giuliani. The man is a covenant breaker. Not only is he divorced twice, his current wife was once his press secretary with whom he was having an affair while mayor of New York.

It is the height of hypocrisy for us to criticize Bill Clinton while embracing Rudy Giuliani. Eternal binding covenants stand at the heart of our Christian faith. Those covenants are sealed by oaths. Marriage is a blood covenant containing oaths to forsake all others and be true to only your spouse.

Rudy Giuliani has lied to two wives and broken his solemn oaths to them. If he will lie to his wife and betray her, he will lie to us.

All public officials in America begin their service with an oath. The oath recognizes the sacred duty of public servants to selflessly serve. Oaths are based upon Biblical teachings of covenant that carry eternal damnation as punishment for violating them.

No Christian should ever consider endorsing a covenant breaker for public office. The irony of this is that I learned the importance of public oaths while studying public policy at the university Pat Robertson founded.

So who should we Christians vote for in next year’s presidential election? Someone else.

Something new is happening in Hollywood these days. For most of its nearly 100 years of existence, the movie capital of the world was dominated by a few large studios. The handful of executives who ran them had almost god-like control over the content of what the world watched in movies.

In the past four decades, those executives have presided over a steady decline in the moral content and message of the movies. There have been a few notable exceptions such as Chariots of Fire in 1982, but they were just that; exceptions.

But the past decade has seen the rise of independent films bursting into the mainstream. There have always been independent films, but they were rarely shown in theatres. Since there was little money to be made, very little money could be spent on making independent films.

But home video and now the internet have dramatically changed access to films and other forms of art produced outside the mainstream Hollywood studios. And theaters have discovered there is money to be made by showing independent films.

Some of them have been very low budget productions that produced huge profits such as The Blair Witch Project and Napoleon Dynamite. But the biggest independent film of them all was Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

Gibson is a Hollywood insider but he couldn’t get any of the major studios to invest in his dramatization of the last hours of Christ’s life. The Hollywood moguls either didn’t think it would make money or they didn’t like the message, maybe both.

Mel Gibson financed the movie from his own personal fortune and not only proved them wrong, but opened the door for many new independent film makers and directors to begin churning out stories with redemptive themes rather than destructive themes.

Even the major studios are now seeing that positive messages can make great movies. One of my personal favorites is Freedom Writers produced by Paramount Pictures. It’s based on the true story of a teacher in inner city Los Angeles. It’s not a Christian film in the sense that it preaches the gospel. In fact, the only mention of God is through curse words. But the theme of the movie is redemption. Young gang members who have no hope see that they really can break out of their destructive lifestyles.

This year, an investment company, The Stanford Financial Group, financed an independent film entitled The Ultimate Gift. It’s the story of a young “trust fund baby” whose wise grandfather teaches him the really true gifts in this life. Though the film did poorly at the box office, I loved it and it’s especially good for young people.

The newest independent film offering is Bella. Mpower Films uses a no name cast to tell a powerful pro-life story. The message is redemptive and highlights the value of life.

For most of the mid-twentieth century, believers did not consider a film “Christian” unless it contained a clear presentation of the gospel. The problem with that standard is that people don’t go to the movies to hear a sermon, they go to the movies to watch a story being told.

We Christians need to learn to look for redemption in the stories and use them as discussion starters with our friends to then tell them the ultimate story of redemption.