UPIKE shows Fight Church for Peace and Nonviolence Week
0Written by Jarek Burke
In honor of Peace and Nonviolence Week on Monday, Sept. 19, there was a showing of the movie Fight Church, a documentary film about MMA fighting pastors.
The film follows multiple pastors and also includes a few people that have mixed emotions about it. Most of the pastors were raised around wrestling or fighting. Two of them are new amateur fighters, meaning the have only been a few fights. One pastor is a retired fighter.
Throughout the film, the pastors were asked about how they got into fighting, and how their church feels about the fighting. Surprisingly, the churches with the fighting pastors were completely for it, and some even offer MMA training classes, which are held inside the church.
Not only did the film follow fighting pastors, it follows retired MMA fighters. One of them was a fighter who after retirement wanted to become a pastor. Over the course of the film, he keeps mentioning that he feels that he cannot be a pastor and train people to be violent.
The film also included a priest. He was completely against MMA fighting in general and was outraged that a pastor would want to be a part of such a violent act.
“My favorite part of the film was when one of the retired MMA fighters said, ‘Violence is rape, murder or committing a crime. MMA fighting is two men agreeing to fight in the name of the sport,’” said Holly Burke, senior.
Overall, the film was intended to make students think. After watching the film, many viewers had mixed emotions.
“Who wants me to take MMA classes now?” said Rob Musick, campus Chaplain, jokingly after the film.