Fun Friday: Why is Christian Entertainment So Bad?

Those four words back in 1992, began the unfortunate era of horrendously corny Christian entertainment. Nowadays, almost every time I hear about a new Christian movie or TV show coming out, it’s an immediate eye roll. Either the film is an unrealistic storyline where Christians are seen as picture perfect people whose problems are magically solved through the power of prayer, the film production is terribly low quality, or they are horrible rip-offs of popular IPs. For example, take The Reconciler which got a 1.9/10 on IMDB! It’s a Christian ripoff of Saw where instead of trapping people in impossible situations where they have to do unimaginable acts to escape, people are trapped in a merely inconvenient situation where the only way out is through verbal reconciliation with one another. Want to know what I thought?

The list goes on and on, so much so, that Christian films have been notoriously known among both producers and consumers for having low quality production, writing, and acting. Now, believe it or not, I actually have a lot of respect for blaze runners in Christian films such as David A.R. White (the founder of Pure Flix and the young man in the first picture), the Kendrick Brothers, and Kirk Cameron among others. They occasionally produce some solid films and I know that they’re doing their best to provide clean Christian entertainment. However, over the years, the quality just hasn’t been present. Prayerfully, with the rise of new companies such as Angel Studios, the landscape could potentially change but it’s still an uphill battle.
To the Christian film industry’s credit, at least they exist. Meanwhile, the Christian video game market is about as memorable as Ebiasaph in the Bible. Remember that guy? Exactly. To be fair, Gate Zero looks promising but other than that, there are virtually no Christian video games and the ones that do exist are essentially Bible trivia or biblical reenactments.
Books, on the other hand, are still prevalent but the market is still an uphill battle for Christian book writers. This comes from firsthand experience as I’m working on publishing a Christian sci-fi/fantasy book (prayerfully multiple books for that matter). Speaking with a very successful publishing agent who’s also a Christian, she stated that because I am a straight Christian male, it’s highly unlikely that a big publishing house will take my book. A STRAIGHT CHRISTIAN MALE?! That’s my whole existence!

Furthermore, she stated that there are absolutely NO major Christian publishing houses that are taking sci-fi or fantasy novels right now. This literally means that if J.R.R. TOLKIEN or C.S. LEWIS submitted their novels today, they would get the swiftest decline from both the mainstream and the Christian publishing houses which is an insane concept to think about! (By the way, that is no indictment on her as an agent, she was simply relaying the status of the current publishing market). Now obviously, I am not saying that my writing or other contemporary writers are writing on the level of Tolkien or Lewis, nor am I saying that there are no Christian fantasy writers (Mark Batterson, Priscilla Shirer, etc). What I am saying is that unfortunately, Christian writing has been limited to being strictly theological/historical, lifestyle hacks, or contemporary romance fictions.

This begs the question, ‘why is Christian entertainment so bad?’ Though there are a variety of reasons, here are a few answers to the question.

1. Christian entertainment is designed to inform not entertain

This is probably the biggest crutch of the Christian entertainment industry as a whole. Christian movies, TV shows, books, and video games are primarily focused on informing people of the Gospel message more than entertaining people. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘Fool, what’s wrong with informing people about the Gospel message? We’re here to share the Gospel, not to entertain!’
 
I am in full support of using all media outlets to share and spread the Gospel. However, notice what I’m arguing. I am not talking about Christian services, Bible studies, or commentaries… I’m talking about Christian entertainment. The whole purpose of entertainment is defined as a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight.
Whether you like it or not, the majority of Christians work a stressful 9-5 and when they come home at the end of the day, they seek to unwind by either watching a TV show, movie, sports game, reading a book, or playing a video game. For those Christians who think it’s evil or unbiblical to enjoy life, read this verse: “So I commended enjoyment because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat, drink, and enjoy himself, for this will accompany him in his labor during the days of his life that God gives him under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 8:15 CSB) Obviously, I am not saying we do this excessively because that’s sinful. What I am saying is that entertainment, in and of itself, is not bad and it belongs in a separate category from information.
This leads back to one of the biggest crutches of Christian entertainment that they are trying to produce infomercials or sermons through the media. Even the Kendrick Brothers have admitted that their movies are more like video sermons than actual films. Here’s the problem: people don’t watch films, play video games or read fiction books to be preached to, they want to have an experience. If I want to watch a sermon, I’ll watch a local pastor, R.C. Sproul, John Piper, or Voddie Baucham. Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings are both Christian titles with major Christian themes but they are entertaining because of great storytelling, writing, and compelling characters.

2. Low Quality Production

This is probably the most obvious one but Christian entertainment has an infamous reputation of looking incredibly low quality. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘Weak Fool, the quality is low because the budget is low.’ For those who may not know much about the industry, this is a very reasonable assumption. However look at this small clip below:

This is a scene from Godzilla: Minus One. If you haven’t seen it, you should honestly watch it because it’s a beautiful movie and one of my favorite movies ever. This movie was so good that it ranked in the top 250 highest rated movies of all time on IMDB. It got a 98% critic AND audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects in 2024 over nominees such as Guardians of the Galaxy 3 ($250 million budget), Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One ($291 million budget), The Creator ($80 million budget), and Napoleon ($200 million). Godzilla: Minus One accomplished all of these feats and beat all of these competitors with a budget of… are you ready? $15 million!! You read that right. $15 million budget! Angel Studio’s Sound of Freedom, which was another great movie by the way, made over $250 million dollars with the same budget!
The issue is not budget, the issue is mastery of the craft. Fixing bad writing, dialogue, and plot holes are free. Most of the production issues are not with budget, but rather with the quality of lighting, sound, cinematography, etc. Good lighting and cinematography, for example, mainly come down to technique rather than budget. The same can be applied to video games. Unreal Engine and Unity, the top two most popular and best game production engines used by major gaming companies around the globe, are completely free to use. Better production quality is simple but not easy. It takes a lot of hard work. I am not saying that budget is a complete non-factor but as we see from the two examples above with Godzilla and Sound of Freedom, hard work and mastery of the craft will almost always trump any budget.

3. Fear of Creativity 

By fear of creativity, I mean the fear to step out into the unknown and to actually use the creative and imaginative minds that were given to us when we were created by God in His image. It’s truly heartbreaking because up until the last 75 years, Christians used to be some of the most creative artists, musicians, scientists, authors, and architects that stretched the limits of imagination in God’s creation! The painting you see above is a painting of a Bible by one of the greatest artists of all time: Vincent van Gogh. From Gogh, Michelangelo, and Kinkade to Bunyan, Tolkien, Dickens, and Lewis to Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Handel to Newton, Pascal, Carver, and Boyle; these Christians embarked on a never ending journey of finding the depth of the limitless beauty, imagination, and complexity of their Creator, Jesus Christ! Don’t tell me that Christianity and the Bible are ‘too restricting’ when the greatest minds in almost every field have come from people whose very imagination was only limited by the very God they served.
Why, oh why, in an age with the most tools, resources, and opportunity, literally at our fingertips, have Christians become the most dull, dry, and dreary? Fear. Unfortunately, the Christian atmosphere has become like the famous Japanese proverb: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” Let’s be real, the landscape of Christianity has been so hostile to the point that we’re so afraid of trying something new, because the moment we do, we will most likely be met with much backlash. Just look at the Christian films in 2023 such as Sound of Freedom, Nefarious, and The Chosen(aside from any theological debates on the Second Commandment) which were all met with extreme backlash from the Christian community.
I’m not saying people are perfect nor am I saying that we shouldn’t call out heretics in the entertainment industry. What I am saying is that, at least they’re trying to do something! Christianity today, especially in the West, has become a Christianity of strictly talk and criticism but no action. Last time I checked, the Bible gives us a lot of actionable commands. However, many Christian creators are so afraid of being imaginative, because they’re afraid of being criticized or having their brand damaged, that they would much rather stick to familiar redundancy than to branch into godly creativity.
As a result, as stated earlier with the major Christian publishing houses, virtually no one is looking to publish a Christian fantasy or sci-fi novel. This means that the theoretical end of Christian speculative fiction was 75 years ago in the 1950s through the works of Tolkien and Lewis. It also means that the endless, redundant cycle of bad Christian entertainment will continue. Films will continue to be strictly video sermons, reenactments, and low quality productions. Books will be restricted to theology, history, and romantic fiction at best. Finally, Christian video games will either die out completely or be reduced to nothing more than Bible trivia.

Conclusion: What’s the Solution?
I’ll discuss more thoroughly how to make good Christian entertainment in another article. Nevertheless, the solution is NOT to disregard entertainment but to reclaim biblical creativity and beauty. Christians are created in the image of God and in His likeness. The same God that masterfully created the stars, intricately designed the atoms, elegantly clothed the flowers, meticulously crafted the gorgeous landscapes of mountains, forests, and oceans, created us in His image with the mind of Christ for both righteousness and imagination.
Exodus 35:35 (CSB): “He(God) has filled them with skill to do all the work of a gem cutter; a designer; an embroiderer in blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine linen; and a weaver. They can do every kind of craft and design artistic designs.” God gave them the skill to create the tabernacle. Now I know some people may believe that God stopped giving people these gifts but He hasn’t! The same God gave Van Gogh the skills to paint, Bach the ear to compose, Newton the mind to calculate, and Lewis the heart to write. The creativity to make movies and film, to write books and poetry, to design games and new worlds, to compose musical scores, and so much more is a gift from God: the One Who is not only the most creative Being but the One Who made creativity in the first place.