Christian filmmakers can’t keep preaching the same sermon. They need to make films with complex stories, great cinematography, and flawed protagonists.
Simply put, America needs better Christian movies.
This was the point of an essay published earlier this year by critic Cap Stewart on the website ChristandPopCulture. Writing about the Christian film The Shift, Stewart observed: “[There] is a key factor affecting — and even sabotaging — many a Christian filmmaker’s work: They take a visual medium like film, which is designed to show rather than tell, and craft a story that tells rather than shows. It’s as if these filmmakers imagine themselves in an alternate reality, where stories really are nothing more than glorified sermon illustrations. In this parallel universe, narratives are morally worthless — unless and until they can explicitly spell out what we have learned.”
Stewart goes on to emphasize that “visual stories (such as the films and television shows of our day) speak a different language than sermons do, communicating primarily with pictures rather than words. The storyteller might explain the nature of the story afterward (as Jesus did sometimes with his parables), or he may not publicly explain it at all (as Jesus often didn’t after his parables). In either case, the explanation is a separate event from the story itself.” In Christian films, “the viewers sit back and passively listen rather than actively wrestling with the concepts in a more personal way.”
The Chosen, the hit television show about the original apostles, is a fine mini-series of films. Yet we know the story already and how it ends. Other Christian films, such as Disciples in the Moonlight, The Forge, and God’s Not Dead, all have the same storyline — believers take on the evil, secular government or the devil himself. They’re often cartoonish and poorly written. There is not much subtlety. It’s similar to the way conservative filmmakers keep making the same movie over and over again, featuring a damsel in distress on the prairie who uses guns to defend her family from bad dudes.
Compare these movies to classics such as, say, Diary of a Country Priest, the 1951 masterpiece about a priest who gets dumped into a small rural town where the people are selfish, resentful, angry, and annoying. The priest himself is a frail and struggling, flawed protagonist. The film has beautiful dialogue but primarily tells its story with fantastic cinematography. It remains captivating 70 years after its release.
Since its publication in 2022, I have been approached a couple of times by Hollywood people about the film rights to my book, The Devil’s Triangle. It’s about the spiritual warfare that followed the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the impending overturning of Roe v. Wade. Yes, there are religious figures, good versus evil, and long theological discussions. Yet the characters, especially the main protagonist, are flawed people. During the ordeal, those involved didn’t always have faith in God. They also have pasts that include sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
The first person who expressed interest in a film version is a well-known and successful actor who has shared the screen with Johnny Depp.
“If you were on the Left,” he said, “this would already be in production. But you’re in a no-man’s land between the realism of Martin Scorsese, a Catholic, which you want to embrace, and trying to sell it to the Bible Belt.”
More recently, the former head of a studio asked to see a script, which me and my co-writers were working on. He was honest about it: “This is a fantastic story, but the conservatives and Christians will blanch at the language and some scenes, and it’s a conservative film that defends the Right, so the liberals, which is most of Hollywood, will not want to touch it.”
It’s a great story that may make both sides think, and it offers complex characters. We can’t have that.
This kind of cinematic timidity was not supposed to be the new world ushered in 20 years ago by The Passion of the Christ, a film that was written, produced, and directed by Mel Gibson, who is no stranger to complex and engaging films.
Ten years after The Passion, the Hollywood Reporter announced that “Hollywood has rediscovered religion.” The outlet noted in 2016 that “a new wave of inspirational movies is hitting theaters this Lent. Some offer new takes on the gospels, while others serve up contemporary tales in which God intervenes in human events. And many are attracting stars and filmmakers who in the past wouldn't have given such projects so much as a prayer.”
At the time this article came out, I was the entertainment reporter for a conservative media group outside of Washington, D.C. I interviewed the most popular conservative stars: Kirk Cameron, Stacey Dash, Kevin Sorbo, Brian Dennehy, and Roma Downey. Many revealed how their more Christian and conservative films were the most popular, with Brian Dennehy claiming that his film The Ultimate Gift got him stopped and praised in airports more than any other film. They also argued that there had been a major change in Christian film in the last several years.
“The scripts are better, the crews are better, the technology is better, everything is better in these films,” Sorbo told me.
That’s no longer the case. In 2024 America, we have attempted assassinations of political figures, colorful and even unbelievable politicians, a culture war, religious strife, and theologians offering deep analysis. The Devil’s Triangle is a story that wrestles with all of it while including some humor — and a great 1980s soundtrack. It’s the kind of film that Gibson would make. The fact that it can’t get green-lit is an indictment not only of the communist Left in Hollywood but of the Christian Right.
We don’t need more cinematic sermons or women on the prairie shooting up the bad guys. We need challenging movies about real people.
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Mark Judge is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi . He is also the author of God and Man at Georgetown Prep, Damn Senators, and A Tremor of Bliss.
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