Five Movies Christians Hated
In this months’ City Arts magazine, Tim Appelo interviewed former Christianity Today film critic and current Seattleite Jeffrey Overstreet about movies that Christians, generally, hated or boycotted, and makes a short case for why they shouldn’t have reacted the way they did to those films.
Here’s the article online.
And here’s his list:
1. Monty Python’s Life of Brian
The Charge: It mocks Jesus.
The Defense: Not true. It makes us laugh as we watch gullible, fickle, arrogant humans chase a false messiah, exploit religious teaching for their own gain and misunderstand Jesus.
2. Harry Potter
The Charge: It’s witchcraft.
The Defense: No, it’s make-believe guiding kids to consider their own gifts. Rowling, a Christian, wove scripture into the stories.
3. Brokeback Mountain
The Charge: It promotes homosexuality.
The Defense: The film shows the evils of homophobic hatred, and also demonstrates that obsession can blind us and true love sometimes requires self-denial for the greater good.
4. Natural Born Killers
The Charge: It’s obscene, violent, blasphemous.
The Defense: It’s a brilliant lampoon. It exposes our national obsession with criminals, crime and scandal. Anybody who commits “copycat” violence missed the point.
5. Saved!
The Charge: It satirizes Christians.
The Defense: I attended a Christian high school. Christian teens (and their teachers) are prone to the same pride, peer-pressure games, hypocrisy and cruelty as any teens – and this wouldn’t surprise Jesus, whose disciples behaved the same way. Admittedly, the film’s conclusion – that Jesus wanted nothing more than kindness and tolerance – is severely insufficient.
The article was somewhat in response to Mark Driscoll’s recent statement in a sermon that Avatar was “the most demonic, Satanic film I’ve ever seen”. The statement got a lot of press around Seattle, and, in my opinion, caused a lot of people who aren’t following Jesus to reaffirm their commitment to stay far away from churches and pastors who represent Jesus.
This gets to the heart of how we should engage culture and look for opportunities to connect the dots between culture and Christ. Is it better for the mission of Jesus to publicly blast anything that appears to contradict his teachings (or our interpretation of his teachings)? Or would it be better for the mission of Jesus to look critically at what people and culture are producing, and seek to point out to people where Jesus is at work and how their longings, expressed in culture, could be found in Jesus?
On his blog on the subject, Overstreet says this:
“I haven’t bothered to claim Cameron is presenting a profound religious vision anywhere. I’m just saying he invented one that sounds like a lot of religious beliefs thrown in a blender, and that in that imaginative, make-believe, hybrid religion we can see the universal longing for the things that Christianity offers to the world.”
I’m sure you can guess my opinion on which way is better for the mission of Jesus. But what do you think?
Love Life of Brian (really enjoyed the satire). Love Harry Potter (it’s just fun, come on!). Brokeback didn’t really interest me. NBK I saw when I was pretty young and just thought it was horrible, left a bad taste in my mouth. I suppose I might need to give it a second chance (but I’m not really a Harelson fan). Saved I liked quite a bit (and wrote about here) but came to the same conclusion as you (the ending was lacking). I wish it had been written by Christians who could have just as easily satirized Christian sub-culture, but ended with a solid gospel message.
Oh, and PS, why I didn’t find Avatar that brilliant (although I did love the world he created), it was far from what Driscoll paints it as. But I never put much stock in what that guy has to say anyway…
Good thoughts Matt. Personally I’ve read the HP series twice through and watch the movies on a regular basis!
Oh, and the list isn’t mine, it’s Jeffrey Overstreets’. Just wanted to demonstrate how we can engage culture and film, connecting the dots to Jesus, instead of trashing it every chance we get.