 *Download the article in PDF Format |
 *Watch the YouTube video |
|---|
On a Wing and a Prayer was released on April 7, 2023. This video will offer a critical analysis and review of some of the subplot Christian sentiments, practices, and clichés promoted in the film.
Synopsis:
After a small-town pilot mysteriously dies during flight, passenger Doug White is forced to fly and land the plane to safety and save his entire family on board.
The movie begins with Doug White (Dennis Quaid), his wife Terri (Heather Graham), and his two daughters Maggie (Jessi Case) and Bailey (Abigail Rhyne) attending an outdoor BBQ cookoff contest while visiting Doug’s brother Jeff (Brett Rice). A day after winning the brisket and ribs cookoff contest, Doug receives a phone call informing him that his brother Jeff died suddenly of a heart attack.
The death of Doug’s brother, and the premature deaths of his father and uncle, all from heart attacks, caused Doug to question his faith and the fairness of God.
There seems to be a cliché among Christians and a recurring theme in Christian movies, that when a loved family member prematurely dies, it is acceptable to lose faith in God. Immature emotional Christians, whose faith is seemingly dependent upon their earthly happiness, should study the Book of Job more when dealing with tragic loss and grief.
THE WESTERN (AMERICAN) DIET
While death is unavoidable in this current age, many Christians expedite the process by following an unhealthy Western (American) diet. 8 The Dietary Commandments of Genesis 1:29, Leviticus 11, and Deuteronomy 14 instruct us as to what kinds of creatures we are permitted to eat, but do not say in what quantities we should eat them. A more comprehensive reading of the Scriptures reveals that we should consume far less meat and far more fruits and vegetables in our diets.
PROVERBS 23:2,20 (NKJV):
Put a knife to your throat if you are a man given to appetite. …
Do not mix with winebibbers, or with gluttonous eaters of meat.
The common Western (American) diet consists of prepackaged foods, refined grains, fried foods, high-fat dairy products, processed meats, conventionally raised animal products, red meat, eggs, potatoes, corn, high-sugar drinks, and sweets often in large “super-size” quantities. The typical Western diet is low in fruits and vegetables and high in fat and sodium. Additionally, this diet is high in calories and excess sugar.
ABSTAINING FROM MEAT AND EXCESSIVE MEAT EATING IN THE SCRIPTURES
God gave the complaining Hebrews meat to eat for a month, until the meat came out of their nostrils and became loathsome to them (Numbers 11:18-20).
Daniel and his companions refused to eat the king’s defiled meat and delicacies and they opted to eat vegetables only (Daniel 1:8-16). For many people, whose god is their belly, their end is premature destruction: death (Philippians 3:19).
THE NORTH AMERICAN PLAINS INDIAN DIET
The North American Plains Indians did not have knowledge of God’s dietary commands found in the Scriptures, yet they unknowingly obeyed them and reaped tremendous health benefits for doing so. Before the arrival of the Europeans in America, the Plains Indians consumed a diet consisting of bison (a clean mammal) and vegetation. The Plains Indians typically lived to be 85 to 90 years old and never acquired cancer, heart disease, or even suffered a heart attack. It is believed that the Plains Indians, as a people, would have lived well beyond 100 years with adequate dental care.[1]
A typical Christian not only consumes an unhealthy Western diet, but also a diet that consists of all manner of unclean creatures. Christians who consume unhealthy diets consisting of unclean creatures are warned against being consumed with diseases, which can lead to suffering premature deaths.
ISAIAH 66:17 [WITH INTERPRETETION]:
“Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves [PRAY OVER UNCLEAN CREATURES BEFORE EATING THEM], to go to the gardens [OUTDOOR BBQs] after an idol [OF MARY STANDING] in the midst [OF THEM], eating swine’s flesh and the abomination [SHELLFISH AND SEA CREATURES WITHOUT FINS AND OVERLAPPING, SHEDDING SCALES] and the mouse, shall be consumed [WITH DISEASE] together,” says the Lord.
THE MEDITERRANEAN DIET VS. THE WESTERN DIET
A far healthier alternative to the Western Diet is a modified clean-kosher version of the Mediterranean Diet. Numerous studies have shown that the Mediterranean Diet is healthier and leads to less obesity and greater longevity than the Western Diet.
When tasked with figuring out how to fly a plane, whether under ideal circumstances or in an emergency, people are sensible enough to know that they must follow the procedures of how to fly the said plane correctly by complying with the plane’s pilot manual. A human being is a biological machine created by Almighty God, yet many Christians disregard the Dietary Commandments, an instruction manual listing the healthy and unhealthy creatures for human consumption, found in the books of Genesis 1, Leviticus 11, and Deuteronomy 14. Mainstream Christians decide for themselves what creatures they will consume and disregard God’s instructions for maintaining optimal health. The irony is that if the same Christian logic was applied to flying and landing a plane as it is to the Christian decide-for-yourself diet, Doug White should have flown and landed the plane however he thought and decided he should without referring to the pilot’s manual.
EASTER IS ISHTAR, A PAGAN GODDESS
Christian moviemakers continue to promote and celebrate Easter, continuing on with this pagan goddess reverence used in undermining the meaning of Passover. This is defiantly done, in spite of the fact that it is now well-known that Easter is an English translation for Ishtar, the pagan Mesopotamian goddess of beauty, desire, fertility, love, sex, combat, political power, and war.
2 PHILIPPIANS 2:9-10 (NKJV):
Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Yeshua (Jesus) every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Yeshua Messiah (Jesus Christ) is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
When Christians honor ‘Resurrection Sunday’ with the name ‘Easter,’ they dishonor the name that is above all names, Yeshua Messiah (Jesus Christ).
1 CORINTHIANS 5:7 (NKJV):
For indeed Messiah (Christ), our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
Christians who celebrate Resurrection Sunday, Easter, and take part in Easter’s pagan practices receive an incomplete understanding of Messiah (Christ), our Passover. It is not solely because He rose from the dead that we celebrate Passover in remembrance of Him (Luke 22:19), but that by being our Passover, we celebrate Yeshua’s (Jesus’) body that was broken and His blood that He shed for us and covers believers with, so that God’s wrath passes over us. Messiah (Christ) is our Passover, not our Easter.
ACTS 17:30-31 (NKJV):
Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained.
SUMMATION
On a Wing and a Prayer is a Christian-themed story of a man losing faith or having his faith tested after his brother dies prematurely, then has his faith restored after praying and safely landing a plane after his hired pilot dies during the flight.
The movie was released on Good Friday in promotion and support of the paganized Easter Christian holiday. The movie supports the notion that it is God who prematurely takes people through heart attacks in death and thus absolves people’s responsibility in maintaining their own personal health. The movie also accommodates, enables, and perpetuates the idea that it is perfectly normal to lose faith in God when struck with tragedy. God once accepted Satan’s wager that Job would lose faith in Him if he were cursed with calamities. God won the wager, as Job did not curse God, nor lose faith in Him. The death and loss of a loved one is a time to draw nearer to God and not a time to lose faith in Him. Faith in God should not be conditional upon a person’s earthly blessings.
[1] SayersBrook American Gourmet, “Bison Facts,” 11820 Sayersbrook Road, Potosi, MO 63664, 1-888-472-9377.
