Why Do Heathens Make the Best Christian Films?

Throught provoking piece! While we're at it, why can't Christians make a decent rock and roll record?!?!

Why Do Heathens Make the Best Christian Films?, by Thom Parham

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Places in the Heart is a film about Edna Spalding (Sally Field), a young woman who tries to save her farm from foreclosure after her husband dies. During the course of the film, Edna assembles a surrogate family around her, consisting of Moze, a black sharecropper (Danny Glover); Mr. Will, a blind boarder (John Malkovich); and her precocious children, Frank and Possum (Yankon Hatten and Gennie James). Near the end of the movie, the Klu Klux Klan runs Moze out of town. In the final scene, the townspeople gather at church, where a stirring rendition of "Blessed Assurance" is followed by a reading of 1 Corinthians 13:1-8:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and all knowledge but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and have not love, it profit me nothing. Love is patient, kind. Love is not jealous or boastful. Love never ends.

The choir then sings "I Come to the Garden Alone" as the communion elements are passed. Philandering husband (Ed Harris) is the first to partake, followed by his forgiving wife (Lindsay Crouse) and their daughter. The camera pans across various congregants, including an evil banker (Lane Smith) who tried to foreclose on Edna's farm, and band members from a previous night's shindig. Then, oddly, the camera continues to pan, revealing a couple who died trying to escape from a tornado, some of the Klansmen, and Moze. Panning past Mr. Will, Possum, Frank, and Edna, the camera finally rests on Edna's late husband, Royce (Ray Baker), and Wylie (DeVoreaux White), the black youth who accidentally shot him and was in turn lynched.

At this point, we realize there's much more going on in Places in the Heart than what's on the surface. The film is a metaphor for the kingdom of God, and the final scene tells us that God's grace is available to all who accept it—white or black, young or old, good or evil, living or dead.

Secular filmmakers tend to observe life more objectively than Christians. They see the world the way it really is, warts and all.
Writer/director Robert Benton is not an evangelical Christian. Yet, his film incorporates "Christian themes" with more subtlety, artistry, and depth than the majority of films being made by professed Christians. It is not the only one. In fact, most films that successfully incorporate religious themes are made by nonreligious people.

Here are some of the better films with Christian messages or themes from the past few decades:

Chariots of Fire (1981)
Tender Mercies (1983)
Places in the Heart (1984)
Hoosiers (1986)
The Mission (1986)
Grand Canyon (1992)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Dead Man Walking (1996)
The Apostle (1998)
The Prince of Egypt (1998)
The Iron Giant (1999)
Magnolia (2000)
Signs (2002)
Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie (2002)
About Schmidt (2002)
Changing Lanes (2002)
In America (2002)
Bruce Almighty (2003)
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003)
The Passion of the Christ (2004)

All of these films were critically acclaimed and/or box office hits. But with the exception of Jonah, Bruce Almighty, and The Passion, none were made by Christian filmmakers. Christians, however, did make these films:

Gospa (1995)
Entertaining Angels (1996)
The Omega Code (1999)
The Joyriders (1999)
Left Behind.. The Movie (2000)
Carman: The Champion (2001)
Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 (2001)
Mercy Streets (2001)
To End All Wars (2001)
Hometown Legend (2002)
Joshua (2002)
Left Behind II:' Tribulation Force (2002)
Luther (2003)
Finding Home (2003)
Therese (2004)


Overall, these films are unwatchable. There are only a handful of good scenes among them. None had success with critics or at the box office. (What does it say about Christian filmmakers that one of their best-received movies features computer-generated vegetables who sing and dance?)

If Christians want to make successful films that incorporate their worldview, why not learn from those who are already doing it-non-Christians. So let's ask: why are the best Christian films being made by secular filmmakers?

... and ...

All of the films on my first list were produced for the main-stream market. They opened in either wide theatrical release (over two thousand theaters) or, in the case of the smaller films, an "art house" release of around one thousand theaters. The films on my second list were produced for the "Christian market." A few were released into about three to four hundred theaters. Most went straight to video or got a "vanity" release in two or three theaters.

The idea that Christians will go see films targeted at them has not been borne out by the marketplace. Christians, it turns out, see the same films as everyone else.

... more ...

"If you want to send a message, try' Western Union," said Frank Capra, a Christian who made hugely popular mainstream films. Film excels at metaphor—forging a connection between dissimilar objects or themes. It doesn't fare as well with text messaging. Show, don't tell, is the rule of cinema. Christians, however, can't seem to resist the prospect of using film as a high-tech flannel board. The result is more akin to propaganda than art, and propaganda has a nasty habit of hardening hearts.

Though Places in the Heart is a metaphor for the kingdom of heaven, nowhere is this notion communicated overtly. It is suggested through the film's system of metaphors and reinforced by its enigmatic ending. This is yet another reason non-Christians make the best Christian films: they understand that cinema is an art form of symbol and metaphor.

Jesus began many of his parables with the phrase, "The kingdom of God is like ..." (He used this construct twelve times in the Gospel of Matthew alone.) In the book All the Parables of the Bible, Herbert Lockyer explains, "Because of His infinity, God had to condescend to those things with which man was familiar in order to convey the sublime revelation of His will." Jesus's parables allowed his audience to understand heavenly principles in earthly terms. He would even respond to questions with parables—instead of stating the answer outright, he would allow his audience to make the connections themselves. Jesus also knew that the things of heaven are too large to be fully grasped by the human mind. They are mysteries, in the classic sense of the word, and can only be hinted at through symbols and metaphors.

Christian filmmakers seem to dislike mystery. Rather than using Jesus's construct, "The kingdom of God is like ... ," their films often proclaim, "The kingdom of God is." Nothing is left to the imagination. Audiences are not allowed to make their own connections; they are told what to think. In his book True Believers Don't Ask Why, John Fischer characterizes this attitude as: "Jesus is the answer; therefore nothing can be left unanswered." This approach, no matter how sincere, rings false to audiences and leaves them feeling manipulated. That's why movies like Left Behind, which try to convince audiences of the truth, instead leave them tittering. Anthony Breznican of the Associated Press described it as "a weak proselytizing device masquerading as a movie." The National Review's Rod Dreher called it the "Gospel According to Ned Flanders." As long as people of faith are more concerned with messages than metaphors, they are doomed to make bad films.

... and ...

From Places in the Heart to The Apostle to Dead Man Walking, secular filmmakers have continually shamed us by treating Christian themes and subject matter with grace and depth, while our filmmakers have been too busy making apocalyptic schlock to notice. If we, as a community, can embrace and learn from what non-Christians are doing with the art form, then perhaps our next generation of filmmakers will be different. They will have to learn to make films for the mainstream, to embrace metaphor and eschew propaganda, and to be more objective observers—to wrestle with tough questions and to portray sin as it really is. If they do not, we will continue to be scandalized by the fact that heathens make the best Christian films.