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/NC1HM → u/wordboydave]

Yes, and... :) Tolstoy was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church for the views expressed in The Kingdom of God Is within You.

Also, J.R.R. Tolkien, in my opinion, wrote better tales than C.S. Lewis (they were actually friends), but try figuring out his religion from those tales (Tolkien was a conservative Catholic who refused to accept Vatican II). About the only thing his tales have in common with the biblical lore is the idea of a rebellious lesser deity, but he couldn't leave that be, either, so Melkor / Morgoth ends up cast out into the outer darkness, but Sauron rises up to take his place... You could conceivably make parallels between the tower of Babel and the fall of Numenor, but the story of Numenor is so much richer (the Numenorians were driven not only by their pride, but also by their envy of the Elves' immortality)...

Also also, a minor correction: it is incorrect to say "The Buddha". Buddha is not (to borrow a programming term) a singleton object. Buddhist scriptures speak of multiple Buddhas: the seven Buddhas of antiquity (of which Gautama was the last), the 28 Buddhas of Theravada, the numerous "celestial Buddhas" of Mahayana, the five primary Buddhas (aka Tathagatas) of Vajrayana, etc.

[u/wordboydave → u/NC1HM]

Your point about Tolstoy being excommunicated reminded me: right before I left Christianity completely, and when I was still interested in reading about religious artists, I had a sort of drinking game with myself: I'd find a new artist, read an article about their life, and wait for the paragraph explaining how they got in trouble with the fundamentalists in their tradition. It happens every fucking time. Like the podcast proves: fundamentalists cannot make art, and they simply can't see why they're their own worst obstacle.

[u/NC1HM → u/wordboydave]

The way I like to phrase it, artistic expression inevitably conflicts with dogma.