Why is it that big budget movies based on Biblical stories are directed by atheists, like Noah and Exodus: God and Kings? Or movies with Christian themes targeting large audiences, like Unbroken, are directed by those who don’t embrace the Christian message? The answer goes back quite a ways, but the simple answer is that there are no Christian directors with the experience and credibility to get such jobs in Hollywood. No wonder Christians get frustrated by such portrayals of their faith.
Back in the early 20th Century when historic orthodox Christianity was on the defensive, conservative Christianity and its followers decided to withdraw from American culture. Some just decided to practice their faith in private while others decided to create a Christian counter culture which had no influence on the wider culture. For those of us who are passionate about Christian cultural engagement, it is easy to sit in judgment of believers in that time, but the situation is not so simple.
A large portion of the then dominate Church, as seen in what we call the mainline denominations, began to embrace the assumptions and conclusions of what is called higher criticism. For them the Bible was just another historical, man-made document, which meant that what we see as miraculous, like the virgin birth and the incarnation, or the resurrection, were no longer considered historically viable. Any miracles in the Bible were simply made up by either the deluded or the delusional.
It wasn’t until I read not too long ago a biography of J Gresham Machen that I realized how difficult a time that was for thinking orthodox Christians, which means Christians who care if their faith is demonstrably true. Simple answers like just believe, or believe because you were born into a Christian family are simply not good enough. Machen himself, the founder of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, which broke from Princeton Seminary over these issues, went through a significant crisis of faith. With the explosion of apologetic resources today, I’m confident Machen would never have gone through such a crisis today. Once he overcame that crisis, he felt he had no choice but to break from Princeton, which became part of a lager movement of orthodox Christians disengaging from the increasingly hostile American culture.
Fortunately in the middle of the 20th Century, some Christians began to realize that cultural engagement and bringing God’s truth to bear upon all of reality was not an option for the follower of Christ. Such thinkers as C.S Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and Carl F. H. Henry, the first editor of Christianity Today, among others, began to break out of the Christian cultural ghetto. The Christian right that came alive in the late 1970s was another manifestation of this desire to make their cultural voice heard, even if it too often confused politics with genuine cultural engagement.
Today conservative Christians are as culturally engaged as at anytime in the last one hundred years, but the Church has a very long way to go. If we ever want to truly compete for the hearts and minds of the American people, a large portion of this battle must be done in the broader culture. Christians need to do better at telling stories and raising up story tellers who can compete at the highest level in Hollywood, which is every bit the mission field as that of far away continents or inner cities in America. Christian entertainment often comes off as cheesy or preachy, and that simply has to change. Competing in Hollywood based on excellence is where Christians need to be, so that sometime in the future, Christian directors and writers and producers can tell Biblical stories, faithfully.
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