Facing the Giants<\/a><\/em>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=amerjesu-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000KLQUS0\")
?<\/p>\nI\u2019ll never forget it.<\/p>\n
Not because of the movie itself \u2013 it was atrocious \u2013 but because of the response I received when I dared to criticize it. The moment came about during a staff meeting at church. As we were waiting for more people to arrive, someone asked if we had seen the movie. I had and being something of a self-professed cinephile, I assumed they were also going to express their disappointment in the film because it was so obviously awful. From the terrible acting to the clich\u00e9 writing to just about everything imaginable in the film, I thought this was a moment to collectively lament the sorry state of Christian filmmaking.<\/p>\n
Spoiler alert.<\/p>\n
I was wrong<\/em>.<\/p>\nNot only did my fellow staff members absolutely love the film, but based on the looks on their faces my disdain for Facing the Giants<\/em> was apparently akin to disdain for Jesus himself.<\/p>\nOf course, if you\u2019ve spent much time in the church you know that moment wasn\u2019t an aberration.<\/p>\n
Whenever I\u2019ve dared to be critical of\u00a0Christian movies around other Christians (or at least around very conservative evangelicals), it\u2019s like I just set the Bible on fire. The idea that a fellow Christian wouldn\u2019t absolutely love a movie they were told to love on Christian radio is absolutely unimaginable.<\/p>\n
Not unconditionally loving and supporting these sacred cows has become something of a 21st century sin.<\/p>\n
Why is that?<\/em><\/p>\nWhy can\u2019t Christians acknowledge the poor quality of something simply because other Christians create it?<\/em><\/p>\nI think an obvious part of the issue is a misplaced\u00a0sense of betrayal. On the one hand, Christians don\u2019t typically get much press in the movie world (this past year\u2019s glut of Christian targeted films notwithstanding). So, the thought seems to be that when one of us breaks through, the rest of us should support them because \u201cthey have the opportunity to preach Jesus to the lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which leads to the other problematic assumption in all of this \u2013 that Jesus is actually being preached to the lost<\/em>.<\/p>\nI\u2019m not sure that he is. And not just because the audience that sees these films is almost exclusively Christian. Unfortunately,\u00a0since Jesus is mentioned, few stop to question whether the actual gospel is actually being preached (as opposed to the gospel of American Christianity) and therefore by criticizing the quality of a film, someone like me is accused of actually criticizing the gospel itself.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not<\/em>.<\/p>\nNor are any other Christians who loathe poorly conceived, poorly written, and poorly made Christian movies.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re criticizing bad art because bad art is a tragedy<\/em>.<\/p>\nBoth for the world and for a church with a rich history of breathtaking masterpieces.<\/p>\n
Just because we\u2019re Christians doesn\u2019t mean everything we produce has to have a salvation pitch thrown in.<\/p>\n
In fact, it would probably be better if the art we make doesn\u2019t<\/em> have an overt salvation pitch in it. Why? Because\u00a0to the extent that movie moments we see in Facing the Giants<\/em> and Left Behind<\/em> reflect real life, those two minute magical conversations reveal how little we think of the Christian faith in general and discipleship in particular.<\/p>\nIn those magically unrealistic moments, the good news of the gospel is reduced to nothing more than a tacky sales pitch that just makes everyone uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s ok for Christians to make art without feeling the need to awkwardly force\u00a0the Sinner\u2019s Prayer in at the end. In fact, there are many Christians who are doing just that. Unfortunately, their work often gets overlooked because we only ordain a movie \u201cChristian\u201d if it tells people they\u2019re going to hell.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also ok for Christians to not<\/em> feel obligated to like or even support something just because the name \u201cChristian\u201d is attached or because somebody at church told you that their cousin is the director and it\u2019s actually a secret Christian movie to trick people into becoming Christians.<\/p>\nIt is not our Christian duty to blindly support bad art just because somebody slapped the name \u201cJesus\u201d on it<\/em>.<\/p>\nIn fact, the rich artistic history of the Church demands we be better critics than that.<\/p>\n
Not every movie has to be an Oscar winner. Not every book need be a literary classic. And not every work of art needs to be a masterpiece.<\/p>\n
But there needs to be at least a hint of creativity.<\/p>\n
And, unfortunately, the church today is sorely lacking in that department.<\/p>\n
Our artistic output is far, far too often little more than tacky ripoffs of mainstream pop culture\u00a0wrapped around the obligatory salvation sales pitch.<\/p>\n
We can do better than that.<\/p>\n
We must do better than that.<\/p>\n
We can<\/em> create original, beautiful works of art.<\/p>\nBut it will only happen when we take our heads out of the sand, swallow our humility,\u00a0listen to our critics, and stop treating every criticism like a terrorist attack on the gospel.<\/p>\n
And just as importantly, good art in the church will only ever come about when we allow our artists the freedom they need to create without the pressure to contort everything they do into a sales pitch.<\/p>\n
For, if we really believe that the Holy Spirit is alive and at work in the world, drawing all of creation back to its Creator, then we have to believe that the simple act of creating, of artists using the gifts God has given them, is itself an act of worship that can shine like a city on a hill \u2013 even without a sales pitch.<\/p>\n
Which means if we can\u00a0find the courage and humility to trust in the Spirit to be the creative spark in the church, then every time we\u00a0try to\u00a0force the Spirit to conform to our worn-out conversion formulas and not so subtle efforts to trash everyone\u00a0that disagrees with us, we must admit the truth.<\/p>\n
That secular critics are not persecuting us. They\u2019re just being honest.<\/p>\n
That we\u2019re really more concerned with getting people to agree with us than we are\u00a0with creating good art.<\/p>\n
And that, yes, there very much is such a thing as a bad Christian movie.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(H\/T reskaros, Flickr Creative Commons) It\u2019s been about a week since I wrote about the rapture and the release of the epically awful Left Behind movie. In that time\u00a0I\u2019ve had the chance to reflect on the responses I\u2019ve received. Well, not just the responses to my post, but to all the posts that had the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3437,"featured_media":12998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"cinema\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/941\/2014\/10\/cinema.jpg\")
(H\/T reskaros, Flickr Creative Commons<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n