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Swashbuckling Faith: Exploring for Treasure with Pirates of the Caribbean
by Tim Wesemann

A book that claims to use lessons hidden within the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl to teach morale truths? How could I not check this out?

In Swashbuckling Faith, author Tim Wesemann endeavors to utilze the plot of one of our favorite pirate movies to demonstrate Christian teachings. And by and large, he does exactly that. Each chapter begins with an account of a movie scene, which is then followed by an applicable lesson. As the title claims, the lessons are largely geared towards faith – pursuit of grace and steering clear of the devil – rather than the more mainstream sort of “be nice to each other” life skills.

Chapters read very much like a preacher’s sermon, although certainly an interesting sermon (far more than many I’ve sat through, I’ll grant.) However, they don’t so much disect Pirates of the Caribbean for their faith conclusions as utilize the scenes as springboards into larger, tangential discussions. Most chapters begin with a familiar snippet from the movie, and then move on to other, non-piratey anecdotes and analogies. This makes Swashbuckling Faith a poor choice for anyone looking to be immersed in piracy for a little bedtime reading. But anyone in the practice of sharing faith lessons with children – be they preacher, sunday school teacher, scoutmaster, etc – could well find a treasure trove of material.