With the exception of the $12 million-grossing "The Omega Code," Christian movies have been thwarted in their quest to follow Christian novels ("Left Behind") and Christian rock music (Jars of Clay; P.O.D.) into the mainstream. The Kirk Cameron "Left Behind" movie flopped, along with the $24 million "Omega Code" sequel. So evangelists are trying new blueprints.

The latest van Heerden release, "Deceived," is described in the press kit as inspired by "Contact" and "Seven," but is really closer to the old "Star Trek" episode "The Naked Time." More playful than the dire "Apocalypse" movies, it's set in a deserted observatory (erroneously referred to in the movie as a "space station") where everyone's worst sin emerges. Then a weary-looking Judd Nelson realizes what's going on: SETI@Home, the distributed-computing project for analyzing signals from space, is functioning as no less than Satan's own peer-to-peer AudioGalaxy network.

When a signal arrives with a suspicious duration of 6.66 seconds, the usual archetypal characters from rapture movies have their own plans for it. Louis Gossett Jr., as a power-mad general, wants to control it. A crackpot New Age radio host -- the kind of comic-relief character only found in Christian entertainment -- begins raving about how the signal will "evolve" humans to a "higher consciousness" (evolution frequently appears in these movies in conjunction with madness.) The eyebrow-cocking "dot-com billionaire" wants to sell it, exclaiming: "It'll be the biggest webcast in history!" And the lusty TV reporter, naturally, wants to corrupt Judd.

But when the foxiest lady around, a chaste space scientist and Christian role model (well-toned Michelle Nolden) persuades Nelson that the signal is evil, and thus shouldn't be studied, good wins out. All the un-Christian players who thought they were sophisticated receive comeuppances. The once-proud anchorwoman asks to borrow the Bible. Carl Sagan rolls in his grave.

Some say concessions to the mainstream demand for end-times thrills are diluting the message. "They've left Christ out of it," says California filmmaker Rich Christiano. He hopes the Christiano Film Group's upcoming movie "Time Changer," which TBN puts in theaters this October, will be different.

Featuring comedian Paul Rodriguez and Gavin McLeod of "The Love Boat," it's about a 19th century Bible professor who travels to 2002 -- and finds out everything is turning out the way Scripture predicted. "I think this film affects every person on the face of this earth," Christiano says. "It speaks to a lot of issues that people don't want to think about."

Huffing and puffing over the phone like an old-time revivalist, he finally says: "It's like this. I don't know you from Adam. I don't know if you're interested in spiritual things." But he hopes even an agnostic Salon writer like myself will appreciate the intelligent construction of the ideas presented in "Time Changer."

To get an idea of what to expect from a Rich Christiano movie, I watched his 1995 short film "The End of the Harvest." A didactic video from the increasingly media-savvy world of videos for church youth groups, it's about defending your beliefs against the jeers of society. The plot involves Christians who are mocked at a meeting of a campus philosophy club, whose members don't actually discuss Spinoza or free will, but seemingly exist just to bully Christians.

Finally one of the Christians has had enough, and wins a typical Christian movie argument, which is as follows: The atheists call him a "Jesus freak" and say stupid things along the lines of "How can God be real if he's invisible?" The hero (rising Christian star David White, who costars with Chuck Norris in an upcoming religious film) then launches into an extended, off-the-cuff concordance of Bible prophecy. He connects the dots between the seven days of creation and the 7,000-year age of planet Earth and surmises that the rampant perversion in our society (i.e., homosexuality) would seem to indicate our time is up. His audience is speechless!

Others say Christian film can't be this scolding if it's to succeed. "We're making these movies not just for the choir," says van Heerden, whose test audience is his skeptical Canadian soccer buddies. "They're just regular guys who party," he says. "One hundred percent, they come back and say, 'Way better than I expected.'"

But how to achieve the crossover dream, if not by tapping into the American fascination with the end times? Some producers are tilling other fields of secular pop culture, embracing Hollywood cool even as they declare, in the style of "Hollywood vs. America" critic Michael Medved, that the public is fed up with Hollywood values.

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