THE STREETS WERE MY FATHER

Name: THE STREETS WERE MY FATHER
Item: THE STREETS WERE MY FATHER
Author: Tess Farrand

“Come to the Father Through Jesus the Son”

Family Content: +4 Biblical, usually Christian, worldview, with no questionable elements whatsoever.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

THE STREETS WERE MY FATHER is an extremely powerful, inspiring documentary on SalemNOW. A man named Carlos Colon opens by relating what happened to his father. He and two other men, Louis Dooley, Jr., and Leslie Williams, report how they all turned to a life of gang crime and violence. “The streets were my father,” Carlos says. Eventually, all three men land in local jails and prisons. Louis, for example, was sentenced to life in prison plus 100 years. Miraculously, however, they all encounter Christians, who witness to them about Jesus and start them on the road to redemption in Christ, including peace, joy, service, and fulfillment.

THE STREETS WERE MY FATHER is simply but beautifully structured. It consists of three men giving their Christian testimonies, punctuated by personal photographs, street scenes, men and guns, jails and prisons, men in church, and men reading Bibles, etc. The stories they tell are soul-stirring, riveting and pierced with tears of joy. They’re filled with biblical, moral values. The Gospel of Jesus Christ comes alive in THE STREETS WERE MY FATHER. It is a must-see documentary.

Content:

(CCC, BBB, V, A, DD, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Very strong, evangelistic Christian, biblical worldview about three men sent to prison who describe in extremely powerful, riveting terms how they lost their fathers or were abandoned by their father, turned to crime and violence, and wound up in jail or prison, but found God and Jesus in miraculous, soul-stirring, emotionally powerful ways, with many positive allusions and implied and explicit references to Scripture and the Word of God and to redemption, salvation, baptism, many interventions by God, forgiveness, sanctification, marriage, and family, with many images of church, people in church, men kneeling in church, men in choir outfits, crosses, and crucifixes, plus the movie stresses the importance of living a changed life as a Christian, so there’s no cheap grace here

Foul Language:

No foul language

Violence:

Some verbal references to fighting, stealing, armed robbery, stabbings, beatings, domestic abuse, violent revenge, murder, and thoughts of suicide, but rebuked, plus some images of men with guns and men with masks while men talk about armed robbery and engaging in gang violence

Sex:

No sex, but man mentions his mother having relations with several men after father died or left

Nudity:

No nudity

Alcohol Use:

Level of alcohol use and abuse (drunkenness, alcoholism rebuked/redeemed or not rebuked/redeemed)

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking but some verbal references to smoking marijuana and selling and using crack and cocaine, but rebuked and overcome through Jesus and His Gospel of Salvation; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Some references to past armed robberies and other gang activities, but all rebuked and overcome through Jesus and His Gospel.

More Detail:

THE STREETS WERE MY FATHER is an extremely powerful, inspiring documentary available on SalemNOW about three men who tell their emotional, spiritually uplifting stories of how they found Jesus Christ in jail and prison after getting involved and arrested for gang violence, including murder and armed robbery. THE STREETS WERE MY FATHER consists simply of three men giving their Christian testimonies of sin and salvation, but the stories they tell provide one of the most soul-stirring, riveting viewing experiences you may ever see.

The movie opens with a man named Carlos Colon starting to tell his story of what happened to his father. Carlos and two other men, Louis Dooley, Jr., and Leslie Williams, report how they all turned to a life of gang crime and violence. Left without a father, Carlos says, “The streets were my father.” Eventually, all three men land in local jails and prisons. Louis, for example, was sentenced to life in prison plus 100 years. Miraculously, however, they all encounter Christians, who witness to them about Jesus and start them on the road to redemption, including salvation and sanctification as well as peace, joy, service, and fulfillment, in Christ.

THE STREETS WERE MY FATHER is simply but beautifully structured. It consists simply of three men giving their Christian testimonies of sin and salvation, punctuated by images of personal photographs, street scenes, men and guns, jails and prisons, then men in church and men reading Bibles, etc. The stories they tell are all soul-stirring, totally riveting and pierced with tears of joy. The stories are also filled with biblical, moral values. All three men have amazing experiences where they’re just about to engage in prison violence for one reason or another but are miraculously stopped from carrying out such plans. One of the movie’s many highlights is a remorseful Carlos receiving forgiveness from the father of the man he murdered.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ comes alive in THE STREETS WERE MY FATHER. It is a must-see documentary.

As the movie points out before the end credits, a significant majority of prisoners, school dropouts and males with behavioral problems are fatherless men. Also, 92% of the Americans in jail or prison are men, and 700,000 prisoners are released each year. The documentary is dedicated to Chuck Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship, and Manny Mills, the founder of Koinonia House in Wheaton, Ill., a post-prison ministry helping local churches help Christians coming out of prison.