Christian Movies You Thought were Secular

I like what Hill did with making all the connections between It's a Wonderful Life and the Bible. I think I'll do some of my own film interpretation!

Did you know that Toy Story was a Christian movie? It is. I know the popular interpretation is to liken Andy's toys to a child's parents, but there are some aspects of their relationship that are more akin to God's relationship with man. There's this one line Woody gives at the beginning of the first movie: "It doesn't matter how much we're played with. What matters is that we're here for Andy when he needs us. That's what we're made for, right?" See, they're not Andy's parents. They're more like his servants. Clearly, the writers were trying to say through Woody that we should let God use us how and when He needs to, and not worry about how great we are individually. They're basically rewording what Paul says about God's sovereign choice in Romans 9: "'Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?"' Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?" (vs. 20,21)

Therefore, Andy plays with whom he wants to play with, and he uses whom he wants to use.

 If you're not convinced, then you haven't scene the short film The Toy Story that Time Forgot. The allegory there is even more blatant. This time the whole message is about submitting yourself to your kid and letting them choose what you get to be. I don't have a kid, and if I did, he wouldn't be my master, so the clearest application I can see is submitting myself to God. They even use the word "surrender" the same word Christians use to refer to giving up their wills for God's. When Reptillus "surrenders" to his kid, it's like an atheist choosing to stop ruling his own destiny and inviting God to make him who He wants him to be. Reptillus was converted!

Shall what is played with say to her who plays with it "Why did you cast me as this?" Does not the child have the right to use the same toy sometimes as a dinosaur and sometimes as a baby reindeer?

You know what other Disney movie is Christian? Wreck-It-Ralph. It's pretty similar to Toy Story, except that the god-role is played more by the programmers than by the kids. It's a story about a man who is discontent with his God-given role in life, who envies another man's life, and who is surrounded by people who don't realize God put him there for a good reason. The other "bad guys" tell Ralph "You can't mess with the program." and "We can't change who we are." Just like you! If you "mess with" God's program, you'll only mess things up. You just need to do like Ralph did in the end, and do your best at whatever job God gives you to do. Let Felix do Felix's job and you do yours.

For we are the programmers' workmanship, created by them to do bad works, which they prepared in advance for us to do.

Disney made yet another Christian movie: Hercules. Blasphemous as it may be, it's also a beautiful demonstration of 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing." That is exactly what Herc learns. He spends the whole film trying to win back his immortality by becoming a hero, but non of his daring-do works because there is no love behind it. When dives into the pool of the dead to save Meg, he brings nothing to the table but love, and that makes him a genuine hero!

If I possess tremendous strength, and slay hydras, lions, boars, and serpents, but have not love, I am nothing.

No, I don't think I'm reading too much into these. But I also don't think all of those filmmakers inserted Christian allegory on purpose. It's possible that they did. I know there are some Christians among them. But I think they put those elements in mostly because they couldn't avoid it while staying true to the story.

I believe God designed the world to reflect truths about Him in thousands of small ways. He invented marriage so that He could liken the union of Christ and the church to the union of a husband and wife. He invented sheep to embody both the value he places on and everything wrong with humans. He invented mothers, fathers, shepherds, kings, slave-masters, vines, potters, judges, and many other things to all reflect His nature or His role in some way. But He made far too many potential comparisons to put in the Bible, so we're stumbling upon new ones all the time.

The guys at Pixar might have given Woody that allegorical line on purpose. Or maybe they just wrote it because it makes sense for a toy. Maybe they just put themselves in the shoes of a toy and thought "if toys were alive, the good ones would understand that their purpose in life is to serve the children who own them." They can't help it if the toy-child relationship happens to mirror other relationships. They're just trying to tell the truth about their characters. It's the same way with Wreck-It-Ralph; that's how video-games really work. There really is a creator-creation relationship at work there, and we are creations ourselves, so we have something in common with video game characters. Since God is truth, anyone telling the truth will inevitably say some of the same things He would say.

You have probably seen lots of movies in which one character risks/sacrifices their life for another. Most of the people who wrote and direct those movies probably weren't thinking about John 15:13 or Jesus when they wrote and shot those scenes. But they demonstrate it anyway, because everyone knows almost intuitively that to give ones life for another is an act of great love.

"Greater love hath no robot than this, that he lay down his ram for his

 friends."

This even applies to the Heroes Journey that people keep telling over and over again. It's the story of Abraham, Moses, David, Paul, Jesus, and everyone else who has ever accomplished anything. No intends tries to retell it; the pattern is just ingrained in everyone's mind. It feels right because it's a reflection of life.

So I expect that if I asked most of these writers, they'd be like Tolkien, who maintains that whatever allegory exist in Lord of the Rings was written by accident. I have seen an interview with one Christian director, Andrew Stanton, who admits that there is some biblical allegory in  WALL-E, and EVE was even named for it. But he says the allegory worked backwards, meaning they wrote the story first, then realized "Wow, look what this sort of feels like." and went with that theme. So there you have it, a story that naturally resembles things from the Bible, just because its being honest.

What do you think? Do you know of any other secular Christian movies? Am I trying to hard? Please don't hesitate to accuse me of trying to force movies to affirm what I already believe, if you are so inclined.