Have you ever watched a Christian movie and it felt more like a sermon rather than a film? Or maybe at one point you were not a Christian, and you watched one of these movies.You may have felt rather awkward and bored because of the movie’s strong message toward Christians. If you have, you’re not alone. Even as a Christian, I often feel disinterested in these movies because of one big mistake. Christian movie producers often put the message over the actual story and quality of the movie.
Some of these movies tend to have an appeal to Christians specifically, and do not add parts for non-believers. A message for Christians isn’t wrong, but if non-believers are the audience who these movie producers want to help and inspire, the movie may push them away more than it reels them in.
Another audience appeal I observe is towards Christian mothers. The trope is that, in the movie, there will be a mother/father that has a normal life, but gets pushed into a position of stress or wavering faith, whether it be something that happened to their kid or having to pay off something. And then at the end of the movie, they put their faith in Christ to help them or accept something they couldn’t before. This trope is not bad in itself, and I even like it; however, when almost every christian movie i see uses this, it becomes repetitive.
Many Christian film makers force their own ideals and beliefs into scenes and characters to the point that it doesn’t feel natural. Many of these characters are meant to be relatable, but will abruptly bring up a big and complicated faith-based question in a completely unrelated conversation or moment. When you want to add a character opening up with their struggles or questions, it should be placed in smoothly along with build up, rather than crammed in to fit an agenda. Even if the question or message is good and biblicaly-sound, it shouldn’t feel forced.
Another argument i see protecting these movies is that the studio doesn’t have enough money to make a quality movie. I think that it is way harder to make a quality movie with a smaller budget, but it’s not impossible. I personally have seen movie studios, games, and other projects that were seriously under-budgeted, but because they loved their project and had a passion for it, they made the best with what they had and made an amazing thing.
Another thing that these movie studios often make the mistake of doing is making a character who is only the “Evil One-sided Anti-Christian Villain”. Many times in these movies, they make a character or group specifically to hate or put down Christians. Some people in the real world do go out of their way to hate Christians, but these studios make it look like the Christians did absolutely nothing. Many people who dislike and are against Christianity associate the group with a bad experience they had in childhood, which is horrible and sadly something many Christians made a mistake with how they treated their children. I think that these people had unfortunate experiences with their parents, who misused and quoted the Bible to oppress or control, which gave the children a bad perspective of Christians as a whole. These situations should not be taken lightly, but these movies take a group of hurt people and make them one-sided villains whose arguments make no sense.
These studios often also victimize Christians and make them seem like they need all the pity in the world. As a Christian, I notice some ways Christians are hated in modern society, but in all, we Christians today in America have never known true oppression. There are Christians in Africa and middle-eastern countries who have to hide their work and identity because they could be executed, which is sad and deserves our attention. However, these movies act like American Christians go through something similar, and actively victimize us as a whole.
Not all Christian movies have these negative qualities, I love some of these movies. I even like some movies that had one of the generic tropes that i mentioned earlier, but that doesn’t mean we should keep using them. I know they have potential, some of my favorite movies are Christian movies that know how to make a story, for instance, Hacksaw ridge, Unbroken (Including the second one), The Blind Side. All of these movies are Christian, but have amazing acting, story, and messages. I don’t hate Christian movies, i hate bad writing. All of Jesus’ parables were and can be used as actual interesting stories and keep the message. As a Christian who loves movies, games, music, etc. Christians who make these things need to up their game and make quality stories and films that have a good, true biblical message.
