Why Do I Dislike Christian Movies?

Let me be clear, I do not hate all Christian films.  Every once in awhile, a passable one comes out, and in the old days, some of the best films were Christian, like Ben-Hur, Bells of St. Mary's, A Man For All Seasons, Babette's Feast, or Chariots of Fire.  Even some more recent Hollywood films, like Hacksaw Ridge or The Passion of the Christ, have some good faith elements.

But, nowadays most of the movies put out by Christian filmmakers tend to be mediocre or just flat out bad.  Now, I'm not trying to say that Christians can't make good films or they can't reconcile art with their faith.  I'm saying they WON'T do those things, and that's the issue.

There's too many different problems to generalize it into one definitive statement, so I'm going to go through just a few of my key problems step-by-step:

Oversimplification

Notable Offenders:

Yeah, the Kendricks are very guilty over-simplifying big topics.  Flywheel says once you stop being a horrible person, everything will work out exactly as you like.  Facing the Giants says if you trust God, you will get everything you've ever wanted.  Fireproof  insinuates that if you're a Christian, your marriage will work out, and if you're not, your marriage will be horrible.  War Room sidelines real marriage problems just by saying, you're just not believing hard enough.

Basically, movies like these like to take serious topics, over-generalize them, and say that if you believe in God, all your problems will just magically disappear!  And if you're still having problems, you just aren't Christian enough!

Emotional Manipulation

Notable Offenders:

I know all movies have to manipulate your emotions on some level.  Even a lot of Academy acclaimed films like Schindler's List, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption, Saving Private Ryan, or American Beauty might be considered emotionally manipulative.  But Christian movies take it a step further.  They don't want you to feel for the sake of getting invested in the story.  They want you to feel because it will "help your faith."  On one hand, that seems noble, but it seems people who like these movies will assume you're not a good Christian if you don't get invested.  Plus, there's not usually much to get invested with because they try to make you cry and don't spend enough time developing the story and characters they want you to identify with.  Courageous admittedly did it better than some of its peers.  I kind of have a bit of a soft spot for this one, and I did feel bad when the main character's daughter died, but it becomes overkill very fast.  We go on for like thirty minutes of the characters moping around afterward, and the blatant attempt to make us cry starts to wear thin.  Do You Believe? rips off the masterpiece, Magnolia, and the sub par, but still superior, Crash, by combining different stories of people in sad situations and having them intersect.  But, unlike the other two movies, this one failed to really develop anybody, outside of them just being sad, so getting invested and keeping track of everyone isn't really worth it.  Miracles from Heaven also piles on the sad daughter story and even throws in a Heavenly experience that the girl allegedly had in real life.  But unlike other films which have this element, they all but flat out say you have to believe this miraculous story 100% or you aren't a real Christian...even though the film definitely made things up, which can be confirmed by research.  That leads to the last, and worst, category I'd like to discuss here.

Lying to Fuel Persecution Complexes

Notable Offenders:

I could rant about what's wrong with these movies forever, especially since there's a third one coming out sometime.  But I'll try to keep it brief.  These movies are designed to cash in on both the Christians who feel we need to support all Christian media whether it's good or not (don't believe me, watch every promotional video made for the movies) and the Christians who think everyone who disagrees with them is out to get them, and that therefore justifies treating those people as enemies.  The first one has the laughable scenario of a philosophy professor beginning his first class by telling the students to renounce their faith (seriously, this sounds like a parody of Christian movies).  For some reason, only one kid objects to this unreasonable request, and then they must engage in a debate, in which the "Christian" uses fragmented and emotional arguments to make his case, which eventually culminates in the kid exploiting the death of the professor's mother to finish his argument.  And the class, which not three classes ago, said God was dead, now believe Josh, the student, even though he hasn't given any real reason to change their minds.  And the other non-Christian portrayals are no better:  You got a liberal blogger who just runs around trying to stump famous Christians, but she converts when she gets cancer.  (That's another thing.  These movies only convert someone when it's literally their only option.  That's not a good promotion for your faith.)  Her boyfriend is a narcissist who doesn't care that she has cancer or that his mom has dementia.  We also get a Muslim dad who disowns his daughter and almost chokes her out just because she's become a Christian.  The worst of the movie is the ending.  Just when it looks like Professor Radisson might convert and redeem himself, he gets hit by a car and only just manages to accept Jesus before he dies.  Why?!  He was on his way to that point anyway.  Why did he have to die?  Did they just assume their audience was hateful as they are and needed the catharsis of watching Big Bad Atheist die?!  And then they completely gloss over his death so we can get back to the Newsboys concert...

The second movie has a school teacher who answers a student's question about something in the Bible.  As a result, she is taken to court by an extremely cartoonish ACLU lawyer.  (They do know the ACLU has protected Christians' rights on many occasions, right?)  There are too many falsehoods in this movie's story for the sake of perpetuating its victimhood narrative to flesh out here, (if you want to know about that, you can check out Say Goodnight Kevin's more in-depth review of the movie) but it misunderstands, or lies about, a great many of the legal aspects involved here, so that this can look like the great Christian witch hunt they want us to believe it is.  And the outcome of the trial is just what we would expect.  Nothing was really proven, but the teacher's lawyer won by manipulating the jury into pitying her.  Emotional manipulation, what did we expect?  And to top everything off, we actually have a post-credits clip where the pastor gets handcuffed and arrested for refusing to turn in his sermons!  

The irony is that they even say in the movie that our war is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of this world, and the rest of the movie blatantly contradicts that.  

Also, both movies name court cases in the closing credits, which supposedly inspired the stories.  But, if you do the research, not a single one of those cases are anything like the movies.

And this is where the problem with Christian movies comes to a head.  It's not just the poor quality that gets under my skin.  Every studio comes out with a bad movie sometimes.  The problem is that these movies are often blatantly lying to people.  They're designed to pander to their Christian base, and they'll turn off anyone else that they claim they're trying to evangelize.  It's just self-righteous wish-fulfillment that Christians should stop allowing themselves to be duped by.

Maybe it's just me, but I think our Savior deserves much better representation than he's been getting.  Christians talk about all the moral issues of a movie like The Wolf of Wall Street or a show like Game of Thrones.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I think God looks better on those media which know what they are and don't pretend any different, than He does on these movies which claim His name, but more often than not will lead people astray.