Why Christian Movies are BAD | The Problem with Christian Media
Why Christian Movies are BAD | The Problem with Christian Media
As Christians who believe in a limitless creative God, should we demand better films or settle for what is given to us because its Christian? This video will discuss the problem with christian movies, their impact on christianity, and why christian movies are bad on a multitude of levels.
CHRISTIAN MOVIE BOX OFFICE VIDEO:
REVIEW ANALYZING THE LEGALITIES OF GND2:
ARTICLE DEBUNKING GND CREDIT CASES: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/04/08/lets-debunk-the-christian-persecution-court-cases-that-inspired-the-gods-not-dead-films/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/josh_keefe/
As a Christian, I truly believe that Christianity’s biggest enemy is not the world, the flesh, or even the Devil. I believe that Christianity’s (as a whole) biggest enemy is each other. Movies like these portray a wrong Christian mentality, that when viewed by believers and nonbelievers alike, creates conflict, hate, and worst of all hypocrisy
"Inherit The Wind" deliberately mischaracterized the events and characters from the (deliberately structured) events it was based around, and was in fact an early and subtle attack upon Christianity. I appreciate this video and its message, but you should do some research before presenting something like "Inherit The Wind" to make a point.
As someone who isn’t Christian , the biggest problem I have is that I don’t feel accepted in the community. The hatred I’ve seen from people who claim to be Christian is too vast for me to be comfortable.
I honestly believe that Christian movies should follow the books in the Bible, not sermons. I would be incredibly more entertained and accepting to learn if they were written and filmed that way
I still like the first god is dead for the first kinda analytical debate areas of the film
All that money and they can’t even make good movies.
Cry about it Redditor
Give me a break pick on something else, as if the CGI and all the chaotic violence and garbage in Hollywood is quality!!
For anyone who is struggling with faith or anything heres some importance advice from a Christian who is wise. Believing in god ( there is evidence of the bible being true btw ) or being a good person doesnt mean your gonna go to heaven. Everyone belongs to satan and hell except children because everyone sins and who ever sins is qualified to go there. And there isnt a choice of worshipping god or not your in a shadow away from gods light and the shadow belongs to satan ( i aint trying to scare yall its from the bible and i wish things werent like this ). You have to believe jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead and have him in your heart so your sins can be forgiven and you wont go to hell ( also apologize for your sins aswell ). No matter how much you do to worship god, having jesus in your heart can save you from hell. Its best to worship god by reading the bible and praying everyday. Being a worshiper ownt he easy. He puts challenges in your life to help you be better. God loves ya.
God is all loving. He loves all of his children. Christians and believers will say that all the time. So how does it make any sense that you’re going to Hell just because you’re atheist? That’s why I’m not a Christian, but I’m a believer in God. I believe that, as long as your good outways your bad, you’ll make it to Heaven (but this doesn’t mean doing small bad things is suddenly okay lol, obviously).
These movies are not made by people who believe in the teachings of Jesus, in the Gospel, not people who care for their flock, who want nothing more than for others to feel the love of God. At least, I don’t think so.
Man I’m a magic practitioner we get more discrimination than Christian’s do I mean Christian’s make whole videos feeding people false narratives about occultism.
And the whole idea that science is the only valid belief system is also an issue for us because that sort of belief can lead to discrimination.
So yea is occultists we get shit thankfully it’s getting better.
Propaganda movies are not good. This includes christian ones and woke ones. Adding propaganda to movies means nobody wants to watch.
‘Man of God’ is a great Christian movie about the life of a recent Orthodox saint, St nectarios of aegina
Thank God someone said this i swear it’s driving more people away from christianity then bringing them closer
A lot of these bad Christian movies are basically just echo-chamber propaganda. They tell their audience exactly what they want to hear, which of course is just "Belief in God is good and disbelief in God is bad!"
Passion of the christ and the chosen period.
As the screenwriter of a number of PureFlix films, I could hardly agree more with your perspective. I grew up watching indie films of the 80s and 90s, those filmmakers managed to make art with small budgets because they had a passion for the medium. It’s not the budgets. It is a disregard for the art of filmmaking. And faith films will not get better until the audience demands something better, but they tend to evaluate films solely on the message itself. As for the counterproductive hatred of atheists and other non-believers, I tried to buck that trend. In Hidden Secrets, the first film produced by PureFlix (but its second release), my co-writer and I sought to create a fuller, more sympathetic portrayal, and, if the following review is any indication, we succeeded:
"But don’t dismiss Hidden Secrets as The Big Chill rewritten from a Christian perspective. It has the nerve to make one of its most appealing characters, a stem-cell researcher played by John Schneider, an atheist and the least appealing a scripture-spouting hypocrite. While its proscriptive tendencies might not sit well with some moviegoers, it does strive to distinguish between sinner and sin. Even the death merchant and the homosexual – played by Arkansan Corin Nemec – are worthy of love and respect; it’s their actions that God despises."
Nowadays, however, the audience reward films that fight the Culture War for them. It is easier to generate anger than compassion. I have no interest in that.
As for the muddled purpose of Christian films, I think you will appreciate my recent blog:
http://seanpaulmurphyville.blogspot.com/2017/09/building-faith-based-film-ghetto.html
well stated thesis, sir. i enjoyed the premise and have felt much the same for a good long while. the idea that we don’t need more Christian filmmakers but rather more excellent filmmakers (add most other professions here) that live by a humble, curious (as opposed to certain), and holistic Christ-centered worldview is something i have considered often.
I’m working on making a Christian film industry and I can say I have made quite a few stories that are really well made with deep Christ-like meanings (Even one of my stories being directly about the Bible).
I’m currently learning 2D animation—but when I’m done you better be prepared! I’m on my way Christians!
i mean real hate? go get a life
childish evil hate
Let List Them:
1. Preaching
2. Bad Acting
3. Poorly Portrait of Non-Christiant
4. Condescending Actitude.
I’m a very devout Christian, serve as a pastor and short term missionary, I work at a Christian university, and I’ve been deeply rooted in the church my entire life. But I have ALWAYS thought the majority of Christian movies were just horrible. When I was in youth group growing up we would have movie nights where they would play a Christian movie, and there was nothing at all captivating about them. Just so bad
No real atheist would never be converted to Christianity
There is a video called "Why Christian Movies Suck" by the channel "The Church Split" which is a Christian channel by the way. There is an interesting comment of theirs. They will talk about how modern movies try to preach political ideologies, and how it just annoys people. Then, they will compare it with what many Christian movie, which is basically the same but with Christian ideologies.
Excellent! Agreed.
Does anyone remember a similar video, maybe 3 years back, like this where someone expressed how Christian movies could be done differently?
i would highly recommend you watch “i heard the bells” which is a biopic about henry wordsworth longfellow and his heart wrenching story of faith. not only are the actors phenomenal, but the cinematography is beautiful. 15/10 film
This is outdated now. Christian movies and shows like the Chosen are SO good now all because of Angel Studios
Christian movies are good. Maybe not all… but there are good Christian movies.
At least 1 of your major points did NOT age well. The last few years have showed that it is totally fair to represent unbelievers as a screaming mob, at least the most vocal outliers who turn up at such events.
UNDERSTAND ART
Most Christian content is so freaking cheesy and the music is too.
There are fantastic movies with overtly Cheistian themes. The ones that are good are more interested in exploring the more complicated human themes around faith such as crises of faith, doubt, suffering, or are otherwise fantasic pieces of cinema which are incidentally telling a religious story like Ben-Hur.
Silence is probably the best overtly Christian film of recent times. This is because the film doesn’t exist to score cheap political points, or to be a low budget amateur counterweight to what some see as the anti-Christian Hollywood, instead it focuses on the genuine human struggle of faith in the face of adversity.
You have your Silence, Ben-Hur, Calvary, The Ten Commandments (which i suppose is more a Jewish film), and then you have your God is Not Dead slop which are really about contemporary politics and not so much religion.
Just come out and say it: Christian movies and music are PRODUCT. Products must SELL. The Christian church is a market, with money to spend. Practically all of Christianity today is reduced to producing products: books, music, television, toys, clothing, seminars. They know people won’t put money in a plate, but they MIGHT buy a ticket, or a CD, or a subscription. Those who left the "industry" did so because their sales declined.
There’s a lot in this. I find truth to be the best metric for the quality of art. Is the message true? Is it delivered in a truthful way? Is the creator creating honestly? Are the internal mechanics consistent? I find whether art is created from a place of belief in God or not, things naturally don’t sit right with me if these the answers to these things aren’t yes.
I think the thing I would say about Jesus is that I’m not sure I agree that it’s about experience. I think it’s about chewing things over. I believe humans gain understanding by working things and processing them. That can mean different things to different people, but Jesus clearly had so much depth and richness in his parables, if they were “simplified”, then they would say different things.
I think a good movie does that. And when something points you to the truth, it points you to God. A film I find myself constantly thinking about is Aftersun, directed by Charlotte Wells. It isn’t a “Christian” movie as we understand it, but as you dive into it you see statements of truth about the family, about masculinity and femininity, about fatherhood. All of this points me to Jesus and that’s so valuable.
I believe that when we were told to subdue the earth, understanding it was a part of that. Figuring out where things fit into the bigger picture. Unfortunately conservative Christianity all too often involves closing our eyes to everything other than the Bible in a way that really leads to a loss of richness and understanding about faith.
Great video, I commend you on criticising your own side and I think you’re right and it’s a shame because if they actually cared about the quality the message would reach more people.
As a non believer, those depictions of atheists in that video was hilarious, the cartoon villainy just exposed how much they don’t understand.
In my experience you wouldn’t see me walking around shouting I Hate! You would just see me going about my day because I don’t care.
It’s like having fans of something harrassing you over your lack of knowledge or enjoyment of their thing.
You’re not a member of this? You don’t know this ? Etc
No and I don’t care. Leave me alone.
Replace the I Hate God with leave me alone and that would be a more accurate representation.
That being said the "Christian" media that I’ve enjoyed and thought was quality over the years would be The Prince of Egypt and Hacksaw Ridge.
I’ve heard that the Chosen is well made and I’ll check it out eventually.
ANY film made primarily to send a message rather to entertain is going to be bad. That doesn’t mean good films can’t have messaging, just that said messaging can’t be prioritized over telling a good story.
What’s the movie at 0:14? I need to know.
Wheh I was 13-14 I thought God’s not dead was a good movie but as I got older and as I started writing i began to see the massive holes in the movie from a writer’s perspective, even in the Christian perspective as my faith developed I adopted the view that the atheist was a caricature and was written in a mean spirited manner.
I just saw a Christian movie called The Hill. It’s actually quite good. It follows a lot of tropes, but it does something I haven’t seen any other Christian movies do. It portrayed the Christian in the wrong. The father of the main protagonist is a preacher. It’s set in the 60s, so it’s a different time, but he as he follows the Bible to a tee and doesn’t want his kids to have false idols, he doesn’t want his son to be a baseball player cos he thinks he’ll make a good preacher and he even abused his family to the point he tries to belt his son for disobeying the Bible and his wife can barely speak to him as she’s afraid she’ll be shut down too. Over the course of the film, he has to learn that his son does love God, but he wants to play Baseball, nothing be a preacher, and that he can’t live his life so close to The Bible.
Because of the plethora of Christian movies/ tv series’ not being Biblical too the core I willingly avoid so-called Christian entertainment. I don’t need to be entertained although I love great content. Christian entertainment is watered down & sugar coated.The Bible is good enough for me.
It just really sucks how much there is to write about Christianity and the Christian life, but folks just… don’t write about it… I WANNA SEE A MOVIE WHERE SOMEONE GOES THROUGH ACTUAL ISSUES LIKE ADDICTION AND GET THROUGH IT WITH CHRIST, NOT PLOT!!!
2:18, fireproof: its actually a good movie