You know a fundamental problem we have that doesn't get addressed much? We can't take chances.
When someone makes a "secular" art, they're free to say pretty much whatever they want. I mean, there is some point at which they can offend people, but as long as their art doesn't seem to speak to politics, most people will just accept it for what it is, and any open minded person can usually find some point of agreement.
Not so with the Christian filmmaker. They're dealing with the words of God. Gospel truth. They'd better get everything perfectly right! If anything their art says or implies has even the appearance of contradicting the way I understand scripture, they can be sure I'll be coming after them with pitch forks, or at least a strongly worded blog post on how blasphemous and apostate their movie is. If the Christian film doesn't get everything exactly right, it dishonors God and confuses the audience who presumably can't go to church or read the Bible and form their own opinions.
Of course, the same people who have that attitude about Christian movies will treat "secular" movies the same way. But those directors don't care, because their audience is broader than the Christian community. This attitude only hurts the Christian filmmaker, who knows that the non-Christians won't come because they're already decided all Christian movies stink, therefore he needs to please the traditional Christian demographic.
Case in point: Noah. This movie wasn't directed by a Christian, but it's an adaptation of a biblical story, and the audience reaction illustrates my point pretty well. The Christian community hated Noah. I have seen/heard Noah be condemned for being environmentalist, being Luciferist, being biblically inaccurate, wrongly portraying Noah, never saying God's y name (if you consider "God" a name), and numerous other offenses. I didn't watch it for a year, so I got to spend plenty of time listening to the criticism without having a reference for it. I finally did watch it out of curiosity earlier this summer and . . . I don't really see a reason for all the outrage. Some of the accusations I've seen are outright inaccurate. They didn't stray that far from the basic spirit of the story. They did put a few things in that almost certainly didn't happen, and they added a few things that technically don't contradict the Bible but are highly improbable. The Bible technically doesn't rule out the possibility that Tubal-Cain tried to stow away on the ark. And while I don't like the idea of Methuselah dying in the flood, the Bible does indicate that he died in the same year as the flood, so what the film did makes sense factually and dramatically. And the accusations of Noah being mis-characterized don't make sense to me, because the Bible barely characterizes him at all. I actually appreciate questions the movie raises about whether or not man is worth saving despite his wickedness. I don't know if Aronofsky realized it, but he included a theme about the grace that all of us sinners need from God.
But lots of Believers will never recognize that theme because they can't get over the fact that Noah received help from rock giants. (Seriously, the Bible doesn't say there weren't rock giants. There probably weren't, but it's possible. I could write a whole blog post explaining why all the complains about this movie are unfounded)
And that's what could happen if a Christian filmmaker stepped too far out of convention. But the pressure is not all external either. I can imagine that if I was making a Christian film, I would likely place restrictions on myself regarding things I would never worry about if I was making a "normal" film. And it wouldn't all be about stuff from the Bible. Some of it would just be sensitivity to Christian tradition.
If "Christian" media is supposed to all be family-friendly, have sound theology, have an obligatory gospel presentation, and only say things "all" Christians agree on, I guess I can accept that. But I think the restrictions on the genre make it less creative, and perhaps less effective, than it could be. And if there are actually people who base all their theology on movies, then we have a whole different set of problems we should be focusing on.
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| You know what's really sad? Aronofsky's ark is far more accurately sized that the ones we've been decorating our nurseries with all these years, but no one complains about that. |
I disagree that Christian artists can't make mistakes when dealing with the Gospel Truth. If both secular and Christian art acknowledge God, then both incorrect secular art and incorrect Christian art acknowledge God- if only to convey that we are in a lost and miserable world. This is not a dishonor to God. Your post also seems to claim that it is okay for a secular work to have discrepancies, but not a Christian work. How is this any different? It seems a bit hypocritical to your own fellow believers. No one has an absolute understanding of God, and I think the biggest problem with the church right now is that we are so focused on disagreeing with each other- with yelling at each other and "coming at each other with pitch forks" that we miss what we truly should be conveying. What are those people, the ones who "can't go to church or read the Bible and form their own opinions" supposed to think? I know what I would think; why on earth would I want anything to do with a faith that makes its followers hates each other so much? I agree with you on one point; the church has bigger problems that we should be focusing on instead of arguing over disagreements. However, I do not think that the size of the ark in our kiddie pictures are one of them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you completely. I was saying that church is often too quick to condemn anyone who expresses different views from hers and as a result, some of our artist try a little too hard to avoid offending anyone. Or as Shakespeare might put it, we only say what we ought because what we feel might be frowned upon. I think this attitude has the negative affect of shutting people and discussions down. I do believe we should be willing to take chances.
DeleteI understand what you are saying now. Thanks for the clarification. I agree with you. I think something interesting to point out is that there are many, many controversial topics in the Bible that people just glaze over and put to the back of their mind (The Binding of Isaac, for example) when we really should be asking these questions and searching or answers. I think that glazing over these passages is more harmful than putting out films people might call "controversial" or "blasphemous." You see online all the time people pulling up passages of the Bible that sound horrible, as if to say, "Look at how ridiculous this is; you call yourself a peaceful religion?" Instead, why don't we encourage both Christians and the non-Christian community to question and search for answers?
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