Remember that time the pastor reenacted a scene from Die Hard?

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on December 17, 2024.

“Christmas at the movies!” the pleasant, feminine voice sings as the smiley-faced popcorn, coffee, candy bar and soda cartoon characters come waltzing into the auditorium before getting interrupted with an explosion, heavy metal music, and a man yelling, “Don’t need that ring-a-ling, ding-a-dong, ding-a-ding talking. So if we see the glow of the cellular telephone, we’ll take ’em and we’ll break ’em and we won’t say we were mistaken! You’ve been warned! Merry Christmas!”

Suddenly, a dark figure is seen crawling through the vents. He reaches behind him, pulls out a lighter, and flickers the light to reveal himself wearing a bloody muscle shirt with scrapes and bruises on his face and shoulder. Then you realize who it is — Brian Tome, senior pastor of Crossroads Church in Cincinnati.

Pastor Brian Tome reenacting a scene from “Die Hard” to begin a sermon. (Screencap)

Tome is no stranger to dressing up like a manly man. He started an organization called Man Camp, where men get together to chop down trees, shoot slingshots, arm wrestle, throw bales of hay, start fires, ride motorcycles into lakes, and get yelled at from the pulpit. “It’s like jumping in a sketchy van and ripping away to freedom,” the website says. Tome also is host of a podcast called “The Aggressive Life.”

So of course, he’d be obsessed with the movie Die Hard.

“Let’s be really clear about something,” Tome begins. “Diehard is a Christmas movie, OK? It’s a Christmas movie. There’s a Christmas tree in it, for starters. You got a guy fighting for his family. God fights for his family. It’s the family of God. You got a guy who’s willing to lay his life down for his family. That’s John McClane or Jesus. And you also have a gritty guy who’s had some real bumps and bruises in his life.”

Notice all the characters are gritty guys fighting.

Then he yells, “Yippie Ki Yay!” And breaks through the wall to the live stage, sits on the edge of the vent, pulls a cigarette out from behind his ear, takes a few puffs, and yells, “Man! God bless America! Smoking in church! Oh, how good it is!”

Then to kick off the Christmas season, Tome announces, “We are looking at the spiritual ramifications of Die Hard.”

Bruce Willis in “Die Hard.”

Good News! It’s ‘the greatest story’

After playing the trailer filled with explosions, gunshots, car chases, men screaming and John McClane calling people “jerkweed,” Tome appears on stage sitting on a bar stool with his elbow propped up on his table pulpit while barefoot, donning a black leather jacket, and with makeup bruises still all over his face, ready to preach the word of God.

“Believe it or not, when I watch it, I see the message of God,” Tome says of the Bruce Willis classic. “For me, every time a movie moves me, it’s because the story of God is in the movie. And even if the writers, the producer, the director don’t know that they’re telling a story about God, the most moving things are about the character qualities of God and the greatest story ever told, which is true.”

Brian Tome preaching at Crossroads Church (screencap)

Then he points out, “So as I watched this, I was moved by all the connections I was making, whether or not the writers made it or not, I was able to see them.”

Later, Tome calls this story the “good news.”

The Christmas season is one where churches hope to attract those who don’t normally attend church to their services and to convince them to become committed Christians.

While most white evangelical pastors won’t dress up like John McClane and smoke in church, they do offer the same essential message — that they’re an ideal community that celebrates good news by sharing the greatest story.

But if that’s the claim, then the rest of us reserve the right to evaluate whether the news and story are any good.

An unideal family situation

The first comparison Tome makes between the story of Die Hard and the story of Christmas is regarding the apparently unideal family situations of the central characters.

“This is an unideal family situation,” Tome suggests. “It’s not ideal that Mary gets pregnant before she gets married. It’s not ideal that Joseph is going to marry a woman that’s carrying a child that he didn’t father. That’s not ideal.”

Continue reading at Baptist News Global.