I plan on seeing "End of the Spear" Monday night, but decided to check out some of the reviews for it over at RottenTomatoes.com, a review aggregator. Needless to say, that hostility toward Christian and religious content isn't limited to Hollywood studios, but also appears to run rampant among movie critics. "End of the Spear" has an average rank of 5.5/10 and the box office hit "The Passion of the Christ" had a measly 6/10 average rank.

Like I said before, I haven't seen the film yet, but a good friend of mine saw a preview showing of it a couple months back and was awed by it. On the radio yesterday, Michael Medved gave it (if I recall correctly) 3 1/2 out of 4 stars.

If you want to see how hostility to religion can taint a review, look no farther than Desson Thomson of The Washington Post, whose review includes this bit:

Although the film invests time among the tribesmen, it never really explores the idea that one man's missionary work is another's ideological aggression.

Ah yes, the church of multiculturalism has reared its ugly head. You know the mindset: Every culture is superior to Western Civilization and every native spirituality is superior to Christianity.

In fact, one of the reader reviews just below Thomson's piece goes even further in peddling this claptrap.

I have to agree with the reviewer that points out that missionaries should mind their own business and leave other cultures alone.The third world has suffered enough at the hands of Western religions. I personably would warn any tribe to kill misionaries on first sight and save their cultures from these arrogant fools.

Earlier in the week, Medved had Steve Saint, the son of one of the murdered missionaries on his radio show. Saint noted one fact that puts to the lie the foolish idea that Waodani "culture" was superior to anything the West created: The murder rate within the Waodani tribe before the missionaries appeared was 60 percent. 60 percent! Six out of every 10 people were murdered. Talk about depravity, the tribe was destroying itself!

And you've got Thomson at the Post and one of his readers insisting that there's some dark side to missionary work and that if you don't expose or address it you're being dishonest.

I know several missionaries to native tribes like the Waodani. Thomson and his ilk would do themselves a favor if they did a little research and reporting on what missionary work really is like.