One other thing I noticed in Deceived is that they played with a popular stereotype of Christians. The script author transformed the traditional Hollywood stereotype of the hypocritical Southern Fundamentalist preacher into a hypocritical Southern New Age preacher. i know it's a stereotype that works in the media, I'm very uncertain that it's a good one to perpetuate.

Then again, it could also be taken as a statement of the fact that people of all religions can be just as hypocritical as Christians are accused of being. It could also be trying to make the idea of the Southern preacher regional rather than theological.

Of course, the problem with this is that the stereotypical Southern preacher is also generally "Pentecostal". If you actually listen to ministers, you see there's a great difference in the way that Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal fundamentalists speak. The Pentecostals sound like the stereotypical Southern Preachers. It's a mystery why when Pentecostal preachers get excited they sound like they're from the Deep South even if they were born and raised in Nova Scotia and never been to the South. I find myself curious as to whether Pentecostals in Africa or Asia encounter this issue. :)

Of course, the generally negative portrayal underlies a truth that most minister (pentecostals or not) are doing the best they can serve the Lord despite their faults. That's one reason I really liked Robert Duvall's movie, "The Apostle". Despite it's faults, it portrayed someone who did his best to serve the Lord and his fellow man. Anyway, I'll end this post before this rant gets any longer.