Reader Question: Have you seen...

Hey Pastor Dan! Have you seen God is Not Dead/Heaven is Real/Son of God yet? What did you think of it?   -Quite a lot of people

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I've been getting questions like these for YEARS now, and finally have a forum in which to answer it once and for all. I am even considering carrying around a link to this page (maybe a card with a QR code) so I can just send people to it and save everyone the time. If you are going to ask me if I have watched one of the overtly Christian movies out there, especially if that movie is advertised with terms like; "Really will affirm your faith!" or "I went with my whole Youth Group!" or, "I can't wait to show my non-believing family," then unless I got roped into going for professional reasons (and that is FAR easier to avoid as a Pastor than it was as a Youth Group leader,) then the answer is probably no.

Let's run the Questions that this answer usually leads to.

But you work in the church! AND you love movies! 

Those aren't technically questions, Mr "I love exclamation points waaaay too much Guy." But I'll roll with them. Yes, I am a Church Worker and a movie aficionado, and that means I enjoy faith projects and movies when they are done well. And experience has taught me that movies like those done above almost NEVER are.

You see, it takes a lot of money to make a movie that will merit a theatrical release. This is why Hollywood movies so often come off as committee driven and safe... because a group of bureaucrats who represent the money all put in their opinions on what exactly the movie should be like, which tends to lead to a watered down creative process unless you have someone who can steer the project decisively.

When these (Faith Driven) projects get made, this process is not changed, except that some of the money comes in the form of "Donations" or from Christian publishers. So you still get a community driven project, only now they are using religion buzzwords. "Not a prudent risk" gets replaced with "not theologically sound" and as most of the money is from conservative Evangelical sources, the theology being preserved tends to be the sort of thing that makes me crazy. So you end up with a product that is neither artistically compelling nor theologically challenging.

I suppose eventually one of them might beat that process and actually be good, but it's sort of like video game movie adaptations... eventually, the track record speaks for itself.

But what about all those testimonials?

For starters, even the worst movie in the world can find some radio DJ who said they liked it on the air, and that quote will find its way into the marketing. But then there comes this little wrinkle with this sort of project. While corporate manipulation in your standard Hollywood project only extends to the creative process and marketing, Religious Movies have an advantage that is only now starting to be matched by certain geek properties, the "But you gotta like it," factor.

Remember the "theologically sound" comment I went above? The same voices that strong-armed the creative process can likewise be used in sermons and religious literature. Suddenly, the movie becomes not a mission tool but a mission, and Christians are exhorted to make sure the project is a financial success "for the sake of the Gospel." Whether or not you saw it and loved it becomes a sort of litmus test.

The biggest comic fanboys in the world can only dream of that kind of leverage on their fellow enthusiasts.

But at least they are getting the message out there, right?

That's the worst part... well, not really. The gross manipulation above was actually the WORST part, but a pretty bad part is the fact that the intention of the movies is almost NEVER evangelism. It may be a stated goal (important for the marketing) but other than "being a Christian thing in a place non-Christians sometimes go" there is rarely anything actually Evangelical about these Evangelical projects. Instead, you get movies that spend their time preaching to the choir, with language and imagery geared near specifically to people who already believe in Jesus Christ in a very particular way.

How do I know that? Simple. Watch one sometime and imagine yourself as an atheist. (Or, to my atheists, if you wish to participate, just watch them.) Atheists are practically NEVER sympathetic characters. Inevitably they play villains, degenerates, or the clueless victims of whatever Divine plot is afoot, made to look evil or antic, depending on the movie.

Christian Films like this are no more designed to convince an Atheist to try faith than "Red Dawn" was to get communists to give capitalism the ol' college try.

So faith has no place in the movies, then?

Whoa, whoa! I never said THAT. There is plenty of room for faith in movies, plenty of lessons that can be gleaned for believer and non-believer alike. There are plenty of people of faith in the movie business who get projects made that are powerfully informed by their faith. But you'll rarely see those movies espoused by Saddleback or Mars Hill.

Sometimes the attempt is more overt than others (see the Chronicles of Narnia) but at least these were made as movies, with stories and plot in mind. I think even more can be found in movies where questions are asked even by non-believers. I have run several Bible Studies based on movies, and I always encourage people who look to me for spiritual leadership to glean truth wherever they find it.

So no, I probably haven't watched that movie you're talking about, and if I did, I probably wasn't happy about it. Hey, if you enjoyed it, that's great, and completely your right. But as a whole, that "school of movies" pushes a message I don't support through means I find morally reprehensible. So I'll pass.