Tuesday, February 07, 2006
On "Christian" Movies
I am not in the movie business per se, but I do live in "Hollywood" and I have several media companies for clients and lots of friends in "the business."
Fact 1: Movies are collaborative in nature, they take scores, if not hundreds, and in some cases even thousands of people to make. Heck just the "leadership" team on most movies, producers, director(s), writer(s), marketers, financiers, can run into as many as 50 voices. Have you ever tried to get say 20 people together to agree exactly on everything? Of course not!
A movie is a collaborative effort, and therefore, it will, except for student and "arthouse" films made for budgets that can be managed on a credit card, be a compromise in many, many senses.
Fact 2: "The business," taken as a whole, does not view Christianity as a belief system it is out to somehow promote -- it is a recently uncovered demographic to which it seeks to market. But you should bear in mind that to date, that demographic has not proven to be sufficiently large to support a major movie on its own.
There is a huge point here folks.
Fact 3: Movies are not the gospel, I am not even sure they are a very good way to communicate the gospel. They are a medium, that's all!
So, what am I driving at? When it comes to "Christian" movies there is always going to be something somewhere that someone, even a lot of someones, is going to think is "wrong." I mean it happens with straightforward comic book adaptations (my regular readers know I could go about that for hours), certainly it is going to happen with something as deep and complex and multi-faceted as Christianity.
So, if you are worried that Aslan was too wimpy in LWW, or that a gay man was cast in End of The Spear - KNOCK IT OFF! As far as I am concerned what that makes you is lazy. It means you want someone else to do the job you are supposed to be doing - which is share the truth of the gospel with the world.
Such concerns also mean, as far as I am concerned, that you lack faith in God. Alternative media concerning Jesus has existed since the end of the first century, think about some of the extra-cannonical "gospels" and letters. This is not a new phenomena. And yet the gospel survives - because God is real and powerful and omnipotent.
Rely on Him, and stop worrying about a movie for crying out loud.
Related Tags: movies, Christianity, gospel, faith, media
Fact 1: Movies are collaborative in nature, they take scores, if not hundreds, and in some cases even thousands of people to make. Heck just the "leadership" team on most movies, producers, director(s), writer(s), marketers, financiers, can run into as many as 50 voices. Have you ever tried to get say 20 people together to agree exactly on everything? Of course not!
A movie is a collaborative effort, and therefore, it will, except for student and "arthouse" films made for budgets that can be managed on a credit card, be a compromise in many, many senses.
Fact 2: "The business," taken as a whole, does not view Christianity as a belief system it is out to somehow promote -- it is a recently uncovered demographic to which it seeks to market. But you should bear in mind that to date, that demographic has not proven to be sufficiently large to support a major movie on its own.
There is a huge point here folks.
Fact 3: Movies are not the gospel, I am not even sure they are a very good way to communicate the gospel. They are a medium, that's all!
So, what am I driving at? When it comes to "Christian" movies there is always going to be something somewhere that someone, even a lot of someones, is going to think is "wrong." I mean it happens with straightforward comic book adaptations (my regular readers know I could go about that for hours), certainly it is going to happen with something as deep and complex and multi-faceted as Christianity.
So, if you are worried that Aslan was too wimpy in LWW, or that a gay man was cast in End of The Spear - KNOCK IT OFF! As far as I am concerned what that makes you is lazy. It means you want someone else to do the job you are supposed to be doing - which is share the truth of the gospel with the world.
Such concerns also mean, as far as I am concerned, that you lack faith in God. Alternative media concerning Jesus has existed since the end of the first century, think about some of the extra-cannonical "gospels" and letters. This is not a new phenomena. And yet the gospel survives - because God is real and powerful and omnipotent.
Rely on Him, and stop worrying about a movie for crying out loud.
Related Tags: movies, Christianity, gospel, faith, media
