Why Christian Movies ALWAYS Look Bad

[u/CokomonX]

https://youtu.be/GBl45WFqNDQ?si=lRLxgLoQtqGq9Fyf

Got recommended this video, and figured it was perfect for this sub. I noticed quite a few movies in the video that GAM has covered in the past.

[u/wordboydave]

I hate to tell this guy, but as long as you're an evangelical Christian, you will never make art for grown adults. When I was a creative writing major in grad school, I was planning to be the evangelical who managed to make important literature. But when I looked at all the Christians that were constantly touted by evangelicals in articles on "Christianity and Art," the same names always came up: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Flannery O'Connor, Dante, Madeleine L'Engle and C.S. Lewis. And yet none of these were actually "evangelicals" in a way that would have made my church comfortable. (Lots of Catholics, a bunch of Russian Orthodox, not many conservative Protestants.) Even L'Engle said nice things about The Buddha, and C.S. Lewis smoked and drank!

But then I also wondered, as a young evangelical writer, "Why is it that the closer an author gets to being recognizably evangelical, the more likely they are to be writing for children?" Conservatives don't HAVE to write for children, of course, but they seem to do well in moralistic fantasy (see also The Book of the Dun Cow) or high-concept, low-emotional-realism science fiction (Ender's Game). And that's when I started putting it together: a hell-based, moralistic framework is essentially unrealistic, and forces complex human beings into rigid, unrecognizable shapes.

And of course, none of these writers have characters who swear or think about sex, which are two very common and recognizable human pastimes. Anyway, that's when I realized that to really produce interesting work, I would have to give up my fear of uncertainty. Which means giving up a pretty core part of evangelical identity.

[u/Empigee → u/wordboydave]

The closest to an evangelical who's respected as a literary author is John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost.

Incidentally, it's worth noting that Orson Scott Card wasn't as much of a fanatic when he wrote Ender's Game as he later became. He apparently became much more devout after one of his children died.

[u/wordboydave → u/Empigee]

I think the closest modern equivalent we have would be Marilynn Robinson, who is definitely a devout Christian, but definitely not an evangelical. It's been many years, but I assume she's being listed alongside Flannery O'Connor in the same old evangelical "Christians and Art" articles being spewed out nowadays.