For the Bible Tells Me So.

"For the Bible Tells Me So resembles Sandy Dubrowski's more raw and anguished Trembling Before G-d," writes J Hoberman in the Voice. "But where the Dubrowski film evoked a visceral, even tragic, irrationality - the observant gay Jews who are its subjects yearn for an acceptance they will never have For the Bible Tells Me So is essentially positive and pedagogical."

Updated through 10/8.

"Liberal mainline Christians will embrace this elegantly structured, TV-ready concoction, with its message that the biblical proscription on homosexuality has been misinterpreted, and its focus on healing and mutual understanding," writes Andrew O'Hehir in Salon. "I doubt many fundamentalists will want to see it in the first place. Of course they should."

In the New York Press, Armond White pairs the doc with Zabou Breitman's The Man of My Life: "A dialectic emerges between these films, pushing a viewer past received notions about sex, politics and religion that dominate popular culture."

Earlier: Ed Gonzalez in Slant.

Update, 10/5: "For the Bible Tells Me So is, strictly speaking, an educational film, with the artlessness that that phrase implies," writes Matt Zoller Seitz in the New York Times. "But there is no denying that the film, however inelegant, fills a need. The inevitable DVD should be packaged in a plain cardboard sleeve, so that viewers can carry it in their pockets and, if confronted by a homophobe, hand it over and say, 'Watch this, then get back to me.'"

Update, 10/6: "Daniel Karslake is a man of faith," writes Steve Erickson in Gay City News. "I'm not referring to his religious beliefs, although he is a practicing Christian, but to his conviction that American Christianity can be turned away from the hateful path of Pat Robertson and James Dobson.... For the Bible Tells Me So, which depicts five Christian families dealing with their gay or lesbian children, is one of the few LGBT-themed documentaries that could potentially reach outside our community."

Update, 10/8: IndieWIRE interviews Karslake.

Posted by dwhudson at October 4, 2007 4:45 AM