Rather, Fight Club (1999) grabs you by the collar of your shirt, inflicts a solid head butt on the bridge of your nose, tosses you through a sheet of glass, drops a WWF-style flying elbow to the back of your head and, just to be sure you get the point, stands above your limp and bloodied body and delivers a seven-point sermon on the meaning behind the interpretive dance it has just done on your face. Just in case you’re still conscious.

It’s the kind of movie I hate. It’s the kind of movie that has me leaving the theater tired, wondering why I spent $8 to get preached at (perhaps preached upon is a better way to say it) when I can have that for free on Sunday mornings. It’s like a Spike Lee picture without the charm.

So why do I love this film?

Perhaps it’s the sense of humor; the harmless pranks, the mischief that appeals to the little boy in me – erasing all the movies in Blockbuster with a giant magnet, feeding pigeons on the roof of a BMW dealership so they do their business on the cars, reversing tire spikes, and particularly replacing airline safety pamphlets with more realistic cartoons of people anticipating a crash. This is like cat burglary; nobody gets hurt, just some rich people are relieved of their toys. Good, clean fun.

Perhaps it’s the style – insomnia is a great cinematic device, opening up lots of possibilities. David Fincher executes the device skillfully. Like the insomniac, we’re never more than half awake to what’s going on, but never completely asleep either.

Perhaps it’s the twisty ending, since copied – badly – in films like The Secret Window.

No, all of that is great. But really I think the appeal in this film is that this particular sermon rings true.

I do need to examine my life and reject the “basic assumptions of civilization,” as Tyler Durden tells us, “especially the importance of material possessions.”

I do need to live with a purpose, a purpose greater than just trying to define myself by what I do or what I own. As Tyler preaches, “You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your f--ing khakis.”

There must be more to life than cars, clothes, and duvet covers. For Tyler, the Paper Street Soap Company—a group of men living together in an old rundown house and launching “Project Mayhem”--represents that higher purpose.

The mischief of “Project Mayhem” is not pointless; their destruction of property is designed to set people free. “The things you own wind up owning you,” as Tyler Durden says. Destroying or otherwise befouling that property is just a way to show people how little those things are really needed. In the words of Tyler, “it’s only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything. “

For those of us who consider ourselves followers of Christ, this disdain for possessions rings true because it echoes the call of the gospel, to “sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." Recall that the young man to whom Jesus spoke those words “went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.” Clearly the things he owned had come to own him; he could not give them up even for treasures in heaven and the direct call to follow Jesus.

Fincher sets Tyler Durden up as a Christ figure throughout the film. Tyler’s mission, for example, is to erase the debt record. Not coincidentally the film is set in Delaware because virtually all credit card companies have their headquarters in Delaware. In other words, in the religion of consumerism Delaware is where all of our sins are recorded. The purpose of “Project Mayhem” is to destroy those headquarters, thereby setting us free from the burdens of our sins. “If you erase the debt record, we all go back to zero.” So sayeth Tyler.

Upon Tyler’s death (sorry for the spoiler) the earth quakes, the temples of consumerism crumble, and we are all saved. Tyler’s Jubilee.

If Jesus walked the earth today, how would he react to our consumer culture? To advertising? To sweat shops? To shopping malls? To wars over oil? To all these distractions that keep us from participating in the mission of the Paper Street Soap Company?

Perhaps we really are, as Tyler suggests, “an entire generation pumping gas and waiting tables; or slaves with white collars. Advertisements have us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy s--t we don't need.”

So how would Jesus have us live in 21st Century Delaware? Next week, Fight Club Part 2 – What Would Tyler Durden Do?