Sunday, May 16, 2004

From a NYTimes article headlined "Christian Cool and the New Generation Gap"

The actor Stephen Baldwin, a born-again Christian, has just
directed a DVD called "Livin' It," pairing extreme sports
with faith testimony, from which he hopes to spin skate
Bibles, clothing, CD's and Bible-study guides, all tied to
a nonprofit youth ministry.

"This could be the first get-down rock 'n' roll, cool
Christian brand," he said. "I've been to conferences with
youth pastors, and they all said, 'Dude, we've been waiting
for something that's cool and edgy and Christian.' ''


I hardly know where to begin.

Checked out this particular Baldwin's filmography at this fan site and considering that he's been in LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN, HALF-BAKED, THREESOME and THE USUAL SUSPECTS I'm not sure whether Mr. Baldwin is especially alt. in his Christianity or just in need of a job.

Here's the site for the Livin' It dvd which annoyingly has lots of words in blue that aren't hypertext links, they're just in a blue font. But the force behind the dvd (other than He Himself, presumably) is Luis Palau and the Luis Palau evangelical organization who has a homepage here. It looks like an ordinary, evangelical organization except for all the pictures of skateboarders across the top of the page. Luis just got back from China where they were psyched to hear about Christ, same thing is true for India, click here for a sermon, etc. A link takes you to "Ministries" and, from there, "Skate Ministry" which notes:

To reach the “core sports” (skateboarding, BMX, etc.) subculture that so influences today’s young people, LPEA builds a 9,000-square-foot skate park for each of our evangelistic festivals.

At LPEA skate parks, professional skateboarders demonstrate their skills and a skate evangelist gives a hard-hitting Gospel presentations each day.