I’m a Christian and I Hate Most Christian Movies. Let’s discuss.

Many people know how much I love The Bible and movies. What may surprise many people, such as my church members, is that I hate most Christian movies. Technically, we should call them faith based movies, since a movie can't have Jesus in it's heart, but let's call them Christian movies anyways- potato, pa-TAH-to, right?

Now, there are plenty of good- even excellent ones. Some are based on true stories, which helps, since they have a basis in reality.

Silence, a work of historical fiction, is a deep and challenging film about missionaries in Japan who are persecuted by the Japanese government. Hacksaw Ridge is a true story where a Christian goes to war but refuses to carry a gun. Say Amen Somebody is an uplifting documentary about Gospel music, as is Amazing Grace with Aretha Franklin. 

Luther, Billy, Sheffey, and Francis of Assisi are all biopics of real men and how their Christian faith changed the world. The Apostle and Lilies of the Field are wonderful movies as well. In fact, The Apostle is my favorite Non-Biblical Christian movie.

I could name more, but that's not why I am writing this essay. My animosity for most faith based movies comes from movies like God's Not Dead, Unplanned, and Left Behind.

When CS Lewis wrote the first Narnia book, he wasn't trying to write a Christian story. He didn't think- I'm going to make a story where Aslan represents Jesus and Edmund represents Judas.

No, in fact his first idea of Narnia was the image of Mr. Tumnus, the fawn, walking in the snow near the lamp post. The Christian elements came naturally afterwards since his faith was such a big component of his life.

CS had a wonderful quote about his Narnia books: "The world doesn't need more Christian literature. It needs more Christians writing good literature."

This applies to movies as well. We don't need more Christian movies. We need Christians who can make good movies. Silence is directed by Martin Scorsese, who also made movies like Goodfellas and The Departed. He's a prolific filmmaker, but he's also a Catholic.

However, most Christian movies have tons of issues. To start with a small example, most Christian movies have low budgets, and they show: wobbly camera work, fuzzy images, mediocre acting. Look at Flywheel (which I like), or Left Behind with Kirk Cameron (which I don't).

Most Christian movies have small budgets compared to secular movies. For example, God's Not Dead 2 cost $5 million, while Hidden Figures, which came out the same year, cost 5 times as much.

Now, to be clear, there's nothing wrong with having a low budget. Rocky cost $1.1 million in today's money, and that won Best Picture.

But compare how Rocky is quality wise to something like Unplanned, which cost $6 million. Christian films usually have a small budget, but the filmmakers need to know how to make the best of them. They need to focus on the "film" part, not JUST the "Christian" part.

The biggest problem with Christian movies is how they portray their messages. Most Christian movies are sermons. Sermons are fine for Sunday morning, but sermons are not that great for movie night.

Again, l like these movies, but I don’t like how far-fetched the endings are. That said, the Kendrick Brothers have improved on this in their last couple of movies. 

Many of these movies also hit you over the head with the message- Unplanned hammers in that abortion is wrong, every minute that it can. God's Not Dead hammers in that God exists, every minute that it can.

Jesus Himself didn't even do that. His parables never mention God at all, but they are the most effective way Jesus gave His messages of God's love and how we express it to others.

Let me expand on these 2 prime examples of what I mean about message over story. In God's Not Dead, a Christian named Josh goes to college, and his atheist professor makes everyone sign away their faith.

They have to write "God is dead" and sign. Josh refuses, and has to alternatively argue for God's existence for 20 minutes for 3 classes. He fails the class if he loses.

He only wins because his teacher hates God. The atheist hates God. Do you see how ridiculous that is? Also, all of the atheists in the movie are evil jerks. That's not the case for many real atheists.

Yes, there are jerks like Bill Maher, but you can be nice to an atheist and they can be nice to you. Atheists don't tend to be God-haters who are horrible to others.

Besides, Jesus said to love your enemies- even if atheists were our enemies, would God want us to portray them the way God's Not Dead does? Did I mention that the atheist professor is hit by a car and THEN comes to faith? This is why I say this about God's Not Dead: "God may not be dead, but if He were, this movie would make Him roll in His grave."

My other example is Unplanned, where a woman works at an abortion clinic but quits after supposedly seeing a fetus fight for their life, and claims that she was naive to the horrors of abortion beforehand. 

Never mind that she had 2 abortions before that, almost died from one, later works at the same clinic, sees another girl almost die from an abortion gone wrong, and was reprimanded by her boss the day before she saw this fetus.

Unplanned has a message that I agree with- that abortion is murder and a sin. But the movie is trash because of how the story was told. It's supposed to be based on a true story, but that's no excuse for the story to be so jumbled. 

There's an essay similar to mine by Christopher Williams on Medium.com. He's a Christian who has similar feelings as I am expressing here. He has a point that I'd like to borrow.

Many of you will hear this and argue: "But the movies have a Christian message. Isn't that what counts?" Well, let me ask you this: If a Christian repairman comes to fix your roof, and he leaves the job with holes still in it, would you hire him again and recommend him to others just because he was a Christian?

If a Christian cook gave you food poisoning, would you recommend the restaurant just because the cook was a person of faith? So why should we excuse the work of these filmmakers just because they're Christians giving a Christian message?

Bit by bit, I have gotten rid of many of my Christian movies. I write reviews on IMDB, and many of my recent ones are 1/10 star reviews of movies I have critiqued here. I still own plenty- such as the ones I called good and underlined, but God's Not Dead and Left Behind are NOT in there.

To be honest, I find God more in many secular movies. One example is A Few Good Men, which is about standing up for what is right and mentions Jesus. The Shawshank Redemption has Bible quotes and is a cleansing story of hope.

The Green Mile has a character that mirrors Jesus, and Schindler's List shows a man who has compassion on Jews in concentration camps (and mind you, he was an atheist.)

All of those movies are Rated R, but I see more application of Christian faith in these movies than in PG movies like God's Not Dead.

I'll still watch some Christian movies. I'll watch Silence and Hacksaw Ridge, and I'll watch Bible movies like The Prince of Egypt, The Passion of the Christ, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and The Greatest Story Ever Told.  And of course I'll watch VeggieTales any day of the week.

But I will not watch God's Not Dead or Unplanned, or movies like this. Those aren't Christian- they don't have characters that act the way Jesus taught to. They are just faith based movies.

If you want to know more about this topic, you can Google or YouTube search "Why Christian Movies Are Bad" or "Why Christian Movies Are Not Good", or anything like that. I especially suggest Josh Keefe's video on this.

I could dig into more about faith based movies, but to conclude, let me tell you a true story: Martin Luther once met a shoemaker who had just become a Christian. He asked Luther how he could show his faith while making shoes.

This was his advice in paraphrase: "A good Christian shoemaker doesn't show his faith by putting crosses on his shoes. He shows his faith by making good shoes."

My plea in this essay is to not watch faith-based movies just because they have crosses on them. Watch them because they are good. After all, shouldn't the Good News bring good stories?