Just finished watching my “Hellbound?” DVD for the first time. Overall it was great & gave each side a fair hearing. Even though I’ve studied this topic a lot over recent years, I found it quite thought provoking! Also, like the first time I watched “An Inconvenient Truth”, it’s left me really wishing everyone around me would watch it 
I showed “Hellbound?” to my Home Group two weeks ago and it went down fairly well but raised some objections which make me hesitate from showing it to the wider church:
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“The film is biased in favour of the universalist view”
Although the speakers in favour of the traditional hell view are given a fair hearing, the way the film is edited seems to tar them with the same brush as Westborough baptist maniacs who are featured in short clips throughout. Perhaps if the two (three with annihilation) views were set alongside each other in an editorialy neutral way, the universalist view would shine through anyway. I think it would. Or, for balance, some ridiculous extreme universalists could have been featured -
“The film is too long, especially as it mostly consists of ‘talking heads’”.
Valid criticism I think. There is some repetition in the ground covered by different interviewees and I’d say another half hour of material could be edited out. For my group, the length of the film meant our discussion time at the end was curtailed, leaving some group members a little frustrated or confused.
The most positive responses so far have been from relatively unchurched people, who already know that the idea of everlasting hell is ridiculous 
!
I’d be interested to hear how others are using the movie and how it is being received.
I think the 52 minute TV version will be better for church small groups because it’s shorter & cuts out the strong critique of the Reformed position.
To be fair, a lot of the extraneous material is intentionally colorful to help prevent the film from being so much about talking heads. (And now, having listened to Gregory Boyd for a few minutes, let’s go hear from these professional death metal performers!)
Still, yeah, a more balanced approach would have involved hunting up, say, some of the flakier Unitarian Universalists, since that’s who has set cultural expectations among other churches for a while now.
Also, I noticed during the most recent run-through (for my parents) that the nice music tends to kick in when the Christian universalists were on the screen.
Will the TV version be shown on the History Channel or something like that? (H2 seems to be doing a lot of generally positive religious things recently, plus aliens etc. 
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Okay, also, who else checked out what was written on the toe tag? That was hilarious!
i guess by “nice music” that you mean “not death metal”.
that’s sad…death metal for me is certainly one of the nicest forms of music, unlike that awful, awful coldplay style worship music (which rips off Delirou5 who ripped off U2), etc 
criticisms sound fair. i do want to see it, though. it’ll hopefully be a valuable part of the conversation (to use Bell’s terminology)
Just watched it last night
Here’s my review which I posted on Amazon:
Death metal music being played under the Christian universalist interviews would have sounded awesome, but might have sent a peculiar message if people realized what it was. 
(By the same token, if it had been played under Mark Driscoll et al, it might have sounded too awesome until people knew what it was, and then would have been insulting to them I guess.)
Anyway, the documentary goes to professional Satanist death metal groups, not something like you might hear at an Acquire the Fire concert (which while not my taste does sound like thunderstorms and volcanoes worshiping God. 
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lol, could be
professional satanist death metal groups…i do often wonder if there are that many. alot use the lable, but most aren’t all that serious, though they probably are quite serious in their disregard for christianity, as typically represented.
That TV version seems more suitable for church groups, but I guess it won’t be available on DVD.
One of my favourite bits is where Kevin presses Mark Driscoll on double predestination and you can see on MD’s face that it doesn’t really make sense to him either. But he won’t admit it!
I also think Sharon Baker comes across very well. Her book Razing Hell is underrated and she has a great understanding of restorative justice.
Its all good but I don’t see it winning over many conservative evangelicals. They’ll just write it off as propaganda.
That pretty much describes these fellows. It’s a show to them, they don’t really follow Satan, but by damn they disregard Christianity, too. (One of the more cheerfully entertaining ones jokes that he actually manages to do some evangelism in a way; the church drives some to him, he drives some to the church, it’s about even so he doesn’t resent the market loss.)
lol Jason…maybe i’ll be able to see it at some point myself, but until then, you don’t happen to remember some names or band names? just curious who he would’ve spoken to. some have made a decent living claiming to be “serious” satanists lol.