New York, USA - Warren Smith, the publisher of an evangelical Christian newspaper in Charlotte, N.C., compares the movie "Jesus" to the jawbone of an ass.
That is, it does not matter if the movie, a 1979 box office flop, has a gooey soundtrack and a British voiceover, or if the actor who plays Jesus breathes noticeably as he lies in the tomb. If a weapon as unlikely as a jawbone can slay an army, as the biblical story goes, then "Jesus," direct-mailed on DVD to every household in Mecklenburg County, N.C., can offer salvation.
The Rev. Gerald Bontrager, pastor of Front Street Baptist Church in Statesville, N.C., discussing the "Jesus" video with church members and the Rev. Dale Ellis, right, of New Hope Baptist Church.
"God uses what God uses," Mr. Smith said. "He doesn't check with Warren, or the Motion Picture Academy."
However dated its production values, "Jesus" has come to be viewed by many evangelical Christians as a singularly modern tool for spreading the Gospel. It speaks, though without special effects or quick editing, to a populace fluent in Hollywood. It comes in multiple languages on one disc. It concludes with a "salvation prayer" the viewer can recite with the narrator. Its local distributors consider it so effective that millions of dollars have already been spent toward the goal of delivering a copy to every household in the United States, as if it were free trial software from America Online.
The ministry overseeing this operation, the Jesus Video Project America, calls the mass mailings "saturation evangelism." Since 1992, 20 million copies have been sent out on DVD and videotape, blanketing Alabama, Hawaii and South Carolina and large swaths of Ohio and Texas, with smatterings in the rest of the states. County-by-county distribution in North Carolina is well under way. If the current rate continues, it might take until 2040 or beyond to reach every home.
Local organizers say the distributions increase church attendance, save souls and, at the least, make Jesus a topic of conversation.
"You can basically go anywhere - in the grocery store, getting your hair cut or whatever, at the doctor - you can say, 'Did you get your Jesus film? What did you think of it?' " said Dale Ellis, the pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Iredell County, N.C., about 35 miles north of Charlotte, where every household received a DVD last month.
The movie was the brainchild of John Heyman, a British director, and Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ International, who persuaded a Dallas oil magnate to pay for it to be shot in Israel. The script adheres to the Gospel of Luke and follows the life of Jesus from birth to crucifixion and resurrection. Time magazine praised its "meticulous attention to authenticity," while The New York Times called it "painfully monotonous."
For years, the film was used primarily by missionaries, who projected it onto bedsheets in India and in open-air plazas in Brazil, and showed it to African tribes. Campus Crusade estimates that it has been seen close to six billion times.
But it was not until the 1990's, after ministries in Australia and Canada began to give out videotapes, that the idea of distributing the movie in the United States took hold and the Jesus Video Project, an arm of Campus Crusade, was formed. At first, churches and individuals bought copies and went door to door, giving them away. A turning point came when a doctor in Birmingham, Ala., Robert Cosby, bought 1.7 million copies and mailed them in 1998 to every household in Alabama, although he "wasn't very impressed" when he saw the film.
"I mean, it was a nice film," Mr. Cosby recalled the other day, speaking by telephone from his home. "I would say it was moderately good."
The mailing included Mr. Cosby's home address and telephone number. One day, he said, he found a copy of the video in his front yard with a note that said, "Jesus has returned."
That has not been the only rejection. Over the years, the effort, which began using direct mail after Alabama, has been criticized by people who objected to Jesus' being played by a white actor, or who said the money could be better spent on the poor, or who felt that the mailings were unwelcome proselytizing. Perhaps the most vigorous objections came in 2000, when a mailing was done in Palm Beach County, Fla. Thousands of videos in heavily Jewish West Palm Beach were returned, some taped to bricks in hopes that the sender would have to pay the postage, according to news reports.
Organizers insist the video is simply a gift that the recipients can choose to view or not. In fact, the project is often described as an unobtrusive, nonconfrontational way to fulfill Jesus' command to his disciples to spread his teachings.
In Iredell County, it was difficult to find anyone who objected to the mailing. Matt Adams, 31, who teaches music in Statesville, the county seat, said that although he was a Christian, he did not plan to watch the video he had received. Living in the Bible Belt, Mr. Adams said, "I have a strong Christian viewpoint pressed on me at least three times a day. So having something mailed to me, that's probably less intrusive."
Saul Gordon, 77, the oldest brother in a Jewish family that runs a metal yard in Statesville and attends the county's only synagogue, had a similarly mild reaction. "I gave it to my maid," he said.
It was also difficult to find anyone who had actually watched the DVD, although many people said they planned to do so. Cindy Morello, a waitress in Charlotte, said she had had the video for years before she watched it. She had moved to North Carolina from Florida, leaving her two children behind, for a relationship that then fell apart. A friend invited her to a Baptist church, and Ms. Morello, who was reared a Roman Catholic, became curious enough to pull out her copy of "Jesus."
"I watched the video, and I ended up accepting Christ into my life," she said, adding that although she had known the story of the Gospel, seeing it depicted visually brought it home in a new way.
Although the Jesus Video Project says it cannot track spiritual effects of the video, a 2000 survey showed that seven months after a mailing in Newnan, Ga., the film had been viewed in 62 out of 100 homes. In Peoria, Ill., it had been viewed in 32 out of 100 homes.
A footnote tries to explain the discrepancy: "The number of people interested in Jesus in 'Bible Belt' locations such as Newnan, Ga., is expected to be higher than in other areas of the U.S."
So why, then, are the project's largest mailings in the Bible Belt, where church attendance and membership are already higher than in the rest of the country? Partly, project officials say, because the locations are self-selected. Churches unite and raise money to pay for distribution in their area, at a cost of $2 to $3 a disc.
In North Carolina, several local organizers insisted that despite the statistics, the famed religiousness of the region masked a great need for the wisdom of the Scriptures. "By being in the Bible Belt, a lot of people are inoculated to the Bible," said Mr. Smith, the newspaper publisher. "They've gotten just enough of the Bible or religion that they are turned off to true religion or true Christianity. Sometimes it's easier to share the gospel in a real pagan place than it is in a place with a Christian heritage like the South."
But Barry Lang, 50, an airline pilot who helped raise money for the distribution in Iredell County, cited an influx of newcomers, a phenomenon across the South.
"Maybe they watch it," Mr. Lang said. "Maybe they get a little encouragement from it. Once you get out of your familiar surroundings, maybe you're open to something new."