This day in age, I think it is safe to say that Christian film has lost its rep. Well, I guess many would argue that Christian film never really had a reputation, but even if Christian film was never cool, at least films with an aspect of faith perspective had some type of resonance. I mean, remember The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, Chariots of Fire?
Today, mentioning the words “Christian” or “faith and film” in certain circles results in eye rolling, smirks, huffs and sighs, both from Christians and non-Christians alike. Consequently, as a filmmaker and a woman of faith, I used to wrestle with questions about what was expected of me and my art. Many of those questions centered around the ethics of my filmmaking. How could I be true to my faith and be true to the story? How would I navigate the fine line between what sells and what will have an impact on humanity? Did all of my films have to offer redemption at the end? I’m just now starting to understand how to get around the limiting ways in which those questions hampered my imagination and reality. However, as a film educator for the past nine years, I have recognized some of the same questions swirling around the heads of my students as they wonder “If I don’t want to make Christian films, then what do I write about?” and “How far is too far when telling a story?”
All too often in Christian circles, we have come to believe that being redemptive has to mean that we are explicitly offering twelve steps into the kingdom. But I think we need a broader perspective of what it means to offer a faith perspective and to redeem culture. Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions. Perhaps the questions should not begin with “How far should I go?” or “What is safe?” but instead “From what do we create?” and “Who are we creating for?” Our problem may not be with Christian film in and of itself, but with our hesitation to have a two-way conversation with the world around us that is filled with paradox, pain, and difference.
From What Do We Create?
If we want to make art that is God-honoring, it helps to know what work before us has honored God and how. There are other ways to honor God through our art than simply by inserting scripture verses or by being “safe.” As Christian artists, we do ourselves a disservice when we ignore the tradition that roots our faith. Bach, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, da Vinci, Fujimura — these are all visual artists whose work we can study in terms of their style and form, but also in terms of how they viewed their faith, their art and its place in society.
Rembrandt, for example, had biblical truths in many of his paintings, but much of his work portrayed everyday people, which was unusual for its time because most of his contemporaries were focusing on religion, portraits and classical mythology. Luca Signorelli painted scenes from “The Last Judgement” inside the Cathedral in Orvieto, Italy, a town that only years prior was a hotbed for Cathar heresy. Part of culture was pushing a dualistic theology in which the human body was created by Satan. Signorelli’s response was to paint nude bodies that dwelled in the new heaven and the new earth with Christ upheld as king.
A good artist also knows what has come before them within their artistic discipline, and seeks to mimic or improve upon that tradition. Understanding a cultural and/or artistic tradition can give us insight into the ways in which we can communicate an emotion that will ring true with our audience. When we understand our position within a given artistic tradition, we gain a better understanding of our own unique voice that was given to us by God.
Our own experiences also help offer context for the work that we create. We are doing God a disservice when we fail to acknowledge the fullness of our own life experiences and the ways in which God has moved us from dark places into light. I once was hired to write a screenplay for a man who had written an autobiography about his life. In the book, he was able to allude to certain events in his life as a former drug dealer and still get his point across about God’s redemption, because he was writing a printed book which allows people to use their own imagination. He could omit letters in certain conversations when the language got too dicey and the audience would still understand his point. He could talk around events to give an indication that they happened, without going into detail about what actually happened.
When writing a screenplay, however, it is almost pointless to write part of an expletive with the intention that it will be deleted or censored, or to allude to certain scenarios without showing them because screenplays are written to be seen on the screen, not read in a book. When I wrote his screenplay, I wrote the actual profanity that he partially wrote in the book. I included the hard scenes where he had done the unthinkable because I knew that there would be people in the world who could relate to his lifestyle. One night, he asked me if I thought including those aspects would be too much for the audience. My response to him was simple, “You can’t afford not to.” In order for people to truly see God’s light in his powerful testimony, the audience needed to see the darkness from which he came.
The challenge for the Christian artist is not to be gratuitous, but to simply tell the story with the utmost amount of truth possible. When we hold back part of our truth in order to make a story “clean,” we water down our message and what God has miraculously done in our lives. We must ask the Holy Spirit for guidance on how to navigate that reality in a way that will be truthful, yet dignified. We must also keep in mind that what we are doing is for a greater good, for redemption. We must remember that before there is resurrection, there is suffering on the cross. I could write the words in his screenplay because I knew there was a greater good, which in his case was a life turned around by the power of God. Yet, sometimes we must be willing to live in the tension that sometimes the credits will roll at the foot of the cross.
I am not suggesting that we put profanity or violence or vulgarity in every film or that’s the only way to portray truth. What I am suggesting is that we don’t shy away from the truth of an experience simply because we are afraid to engage with the ugliness of life. If we remember the gospels, Jesus gave dignity to the lepers, the tax collectors, the adulterers. Jesus didn’t idealize the people in his life, he saw the hope in their despair.
Who Are We Creating For?
In his book, Culture Making, Andy Crouch defines culture. He says, “Culture is what human beings make of the world, but not everything that human beings make shapes culture.” I would add that not everything that Christians make shapes culture. We can’t be culture-shapers if we’re not willing to engage culture. Consider this question from Crouch: “I wonder what we Christians are known for in the world outside our churches. Are we known as critics, consumers, copiers, condemners of culture? Why aren’t we known as cultivators–people who tend and nourish what is best in human culture, who do the hard and painstaking work to preserve the best of what people before us have done? Why aren’t we known as creators?” If we are creating art for the masses, we must become cultivators and creators of culture, because only then will we gain the ear of our peers, and we do this by telling the truth.
If God is the ultimate creator, what stops us from being limitless in our storytelling? In Philippians 4:8, Paul tells us to focus on “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable…” If we were to apply this verse to filmmaking, is Paul telling us what to write, or is he telling us what should remain first in our thoughts? I believe it is the latter. King David was a man who cheated on his wife, then covered it up by murder. When we read his story, we read it against a standard of purity and honesty. However, the story itself still remains, and we can see it as a cautionary tale, one that ultimately ended in God’s approval of David as king. But to deny David’s evil would be to deny the fullness of David’s victory.
So in terms of what is acceptable, and how far is too far in Christian art–let’s just focus on creating truth with our eyes on redemption. The better we can become at that, the more likely we are to meet our culture where they are and be taken seriously as artists who are part of a tradition of faith and a tradition of great storytelling.