The Danes last blog post..20090417.teaParty

But that’s just my opinion, I don’t mean any personal offense by this… it’s just that sometimes Ted Baehr hits them, and sometimes he doesn’t.

The Dangers of Film
and
In Praise of Film
Together, these pieces offer an insight into many of the issues that have been discussed here.

Now your comments on purity. Agreed, it is true that different people handle different films differently. St. Paul notes similarly that what could be wrong for one person may not be wrong for another (eating food sacrificed to idols). However, there is a difference between being able to handle something and needing to handle it. I don’t count myself prone to violence. Given a high dose of violent films, I doubt I would be much effected. But, I don’t count that the best reason to run out and rent a violent film. For me, the violence in the film really needs to serve a viable end. And, incidentally, a viable end isn’t ‘this happens in real life.’ I don’t need to rent ‘Massacre at Bel Air Prep’ to know school shooters strike-out at prep schools. Of course, I’m not certain your advocating that either, so we may be on the same page.

I’d like to look first at what it means to meditate or think on whatever is pure.

What we can say about this is that it is a good thing to level our thoughts on what is pure. We are admonished to spend time dwelling on that which is pure because a) it is pure and b) it does our souls good to do so.

What we cannot say is that this means that we should dwell on whatever is pure to the exclusion of all else. Scripture itself speaks much to the condition of the unredeemed heart and to the world populated by unredeemed men—and then it advocates meditating on its words day and night. Further, though not as powerful an example as Scripture, we see that Movieguide staffers regularly think much about things that are far from pure as part of their service. If they are not to be admonished to quit their task and to think on whatever is pure, then we can feel safe in saying that we do not need to spend all of our time dwelling on what is pure and that it may even be occasionally beneficial to consider what is less than pure.

Second, we should consider whether consideration of impurity makes one impure. There are a lot of assumptions going on that just cannot be challenged here due to space and time constraints, but I do think we should take up against the notion that impurity in film, when viewed by a believer, has any necessary sort of corrupting influence.

Does watching a murderer at working cause one to think murderous thoughts or does it cause one to recoil in horror at that sickness of such a soul? Does watching a couple pursue an adulterous affair cause such a skewed ideal to take root in the viewer or might it demonstrate with force the evil of such an act? I think the answer is simply this: depends on the viewer.

Some people can see a movie about a bank heist and not be tempted to theft or greed or envy, while others will certainly be so swayed. Some people can see a movie about a rebellious child and not rejoice in rebellion, while others while find wicked inspiration in that rebellion. Some can see a topless woman and not be torn apart by lust and adulterous thoughts, while others might be haunted by desires born of their own depravity.

Everybody is different and I think the Bible is pretty clear on this. And further, I think that we who are adults are expected to act as adults, knowing ourselves and our own limitations. If I know that watching The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly will incite me to rejoice in iniquity perpetrated against characters in the film, then I should probably avoid the film and others of its mold.

Jesus says that if one’s eye should offend then it may be plucked out, presuming (as well as the potential for offense) the possibility that the eye might not offend.

This does not bear much relevance to whether Movieguide’s service of counting ills is worthwhile or not, but more concerns the fact that even if Movieguide’s approach is worthwhile, it is certainly far from the only adequate Christian manner by which to approach film.

@Fireandmirth – I was saddened to see you place Ratatouille in the category of Great Films (especially after you said how rare such films were) as the film was only elevated above the mediocre by a couple inspired scenes. And while better than average, the film was still formulaic, typical, and a good step below greatness.

Thanks for the thoughtful response and reminding us of the importance of charity. If there’s anything in my post that came off as uncharitable, that was not my intention.

Some thoughts. Alan is concerned that Movieguide is promoting popular movies but not excellent movies. Movieguide is concerned that Alan’s ideal of excellence is worldly. The difficulty is that Alan and Movieguide come from two different Christian perspectives.

Over the course of the last thirty years, Evangelicals have gradually been appropriating more and more of the culture at large. Whereas, it used to be the case that Evangelicals (like their Fundamentalist cousins) avoided things like dancing, card playing, movie attendance, etc, such Christians over half a century ago began to realize that such standards were not the same as the standards of holiness laid out in the Bible. In addition, a reawakening of scholarly Evangelicalism brought into the Church a shift in perspective, exemplified in part by such catch phrases as ‘all truth is God’s truth.’ This opened the door to the Evangelical appropriation of nearly all things (outside the truly horrendous or sexually perverted). I wouldn’t be surprised if most of us have been in a situation in which a friend has found Christian ‘allegory’ or value in what appears to be quite a destructive source. This wouldn’t have happened thirty years ago.

Now, I am not going to argue against our new found freedom. I believe we in the Church held on to a number of unhelpful standards for far too long. I also believe God uses many things outside of our immediate understanding for his glory. That said, lately I fear we have become heady in our freedom and forgotten that we are still called to holiness. As James puts it ‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world’ (1:27). Both Old and New Testaments are filled with such a dual call to personal holiness and social wholeness. Mainliners went off over a hundred years ago in pursuit of only the latter, and have faced many difficult lessons as a result. Evangelicals ought not make the same mistake.

Perhaps you are asking, how does this relate to Movieguide and Alan? As Movieguide clearly doesn’t advocate that people avoid movies, I don’t think it’s as easy as putting the two on either side of the current shift in Evangelical trends. Rather, to be as charitable as possible, it would seem that Alan and Movieguide (or rather my perception of Alan and Movieguide) interpret the difficult concept of holiness differently. Movieguide clearly sets a high premium on purity. That’s something to celebrate. Purity is a good thing…a fact that “the Psalms, Job, Proverbs or Ecclesiastes” would all affirm.

However, Alan and Movieguide also differ on the concept of excellence. Here the matter is trickier. Alan has on his side a select cadre of trained critics and their perspective on films. Movieguide has the box office returns and thus the vote of the masses. Both are faulty: as ChestertonianRambler notes, the porn industry also has a large box office. The critics, by contrast, frequently share very few of the values that we as Christians hold. But, in both cases, the implication is that Alan and Movieguide respectively vote with their preferred group. This is doubtful at best. Alan and Movieguide, having set conceptions of the Good, most likely vote first according to their own standards, and only later make any comparisons to the preferences of their ‘preferred’ group. At least, I would sincerely hope so. I really don’t believe that either the secular critic or the masses should set our viewing habits as Christians.

But, all that said, I’d like to point out that excellence in the ‘high art’ sense, acceptable to even the snarkiest of critics, and excellence in the ‘contributing to redemption’ sense, attractive to the masses, don’t have to be at odds. Truly great films (too rare in my opinion for a ten best list) can pass the scrutiny of both test groups. In the Movieguide list Alan notes above, I would argue that Ratatouille is one such film. Here is a point I imagine where Movieguide and Alan can agree.

In the end, do I think there is a place for mass-marketed movies that promote, even if not Christian values, then pre-Christian values? Yes. Would that there were more of such to inform the standards of our culture. However, do I also think there is a need for well-crafted films that show the highest artistic merit? Absolutely yes. Perhaps in a forced contest between the two options, as a Christian, I would side with the former set rather than the latter… because films, in the end, aren’t primary to my faith. But such a forced contest will never be, for fortunately we live in a world with enough films that fit into both categories, to keep me contented for the rest of my life.

1) Alan’s comment about the statistical evaluation secular critics give to movies is a bit tangential to this discussion. Neither Alan (I think) nor Movieguide think that Christians should have the *exact same* standards as to how we judge films. Alan, feel free to correct me if I am wrong in supposing (based on your review of previous films) that at times you disagree with the critical establishment simply because of your Christian worldview.

2) On the other hand, I think the IMMENSE financial returns of the pornography industry demonstrates that Movieguide’s assertion “The truth is you will make more money in the movie business on movies with good moral content” is equally problematic. Moreover, most people who have seriously studied the aesthetics of film recognize two general ways of making a film. You can make a film by adapting a story to traditional narrative structures (the “popular” route), or you can create films that make viewers question themselves and the world around them.

Both film types are necessary–but the list presented by Movieguide tends to lean exceedingly to the “popular” side. To pull on two movies under discussion, the darkly existential world of “No Country for Old Men” assaults the viewer with the sinfulness of man, a sinfulness that cannot be escaped by human means (but we Christians know can be escaped through the power of God.) “Amazing Grace,” while telling a story of God’s work to end slavery through the efforts of Wilberforce, presents the secular humanist (but very human and largely true) message that “one man can make a difference in history.”

Christ’s message, and the message of the gospels and of all true Christians, is a message of hope and redemption. But there are other messages of hope–and even other messages of redemption–that can serve both as signs pointing to Christ and as idols replacing our need for Him. The use of jarring narrative to undercut the potential idolatry of our comforting stories is perhaps one form of “excellence” that Movieguide tends not to recognize (unless, as in The Passion of the Christ, it also contains markers that directly identify it as Christian and religious art.)

In any case, Alan points out many important questions and contradictions with respect to Movieguide. I am especially disturbed by the idea that “the message Baehr gives to filmmakers is that making a profit is more important than making something of excellence.” The general sense (from my experience with Movieguide and with Tom Snyder’s comment here) is that Movieguide equates box office success with artistic worthiness/family-friendly/Christian. As Snyder writes, “movies with very strong Christian worldviews… averaged the best box office of all dominant worldviews, and did three times better than movies with very strong immoral, non-Christian or Anti-Christian and Anti-Biblical worldviews.”

First of all, I’m not sure this is true; second of all, it’s just absurd to think this way (i.e. using the box office to justify the merits of a film). This is like looking at what the top-selling menu items were at McDonalds last year and concluding that those items were, by and large, the most beneficial and uplifting for the consumer.
Plus, if it is true that box office dominance=strong Christian worldviews, how do you explain that films on your list such as AUGUST RUSH, THE GREAT DEBATERS, and NANCY DREW made less money collectively than did an “abhorrent” sex comedy like SUPERBAD? How do you explain NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN earning twice as much money as AUGUST RUSH? Or THERE WILL BE BLOOD earning three times as much as THE ASTRONAUT FARMER?

But it is making me ill just talking about the possibility of determining a film’s value through box office comparisons… It’s illogical and dangerous and helps no one, except maybe the Hollywood studios looking to churn out the next big “Christian movie cashcow.” (and yes, Movieguide, feel free to call this argument Marxist… it wouldn’t be the first time you did that).

At the end of the day, Movieguide is a trifle that serves its own subscriber-only purpose. The rest of us (that is, Christians who actually care about discerning the true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, and excellent in film) can take on the much less simplistic and yet ever-more rewarding task of truly encountering Truth at the movies.

You seem to have ascertained that Alan doesn’t believe in Christians making a difference in the world in which they sojourn. If Alan believed as you said, he wouldn’t be writing articles discussing Christianity and its relationship to pop-culture. And he certainly wouldn’t be writing to lightly criticize the methodology of Movieguide.

The thing is, if I may be so bold as to comment on his behalf, Alan does think this stuff matters; however, he questions whether Movieguide’s methodology is as good as it should be.

Whether or not the Christian’s goal on this earth is to bring justice and the veil of moral lives to the unwashed souls around is one thing, but what Alan questions is whether Movieguide is doing any favours to the kingdom of God through the standard by which it judges the merits of films. As well, the conception that these particularly listed Hollywood films contain or forward a Christian worldview is pretty debatable and is a perception that I think deserves to be challenged.

From your last paragraph, I’m having trouble discerning what you (and by extension, perhaps, the rest of the Movieguide staff) believe the Great Commission to be about. You mention that we are lights in the darkness, but then make it sound like that light is a light to shine the force of truth upon the moral unwellness of the world around us. This does not seem to be light as Christ uses the term. The light we are to be is the light of the gospel, no? A light to show the way to Christ and life in his blood, not to direct people unto lives of moral living. Not that moral living is bad. The world might be a nicer place if everyone were nice Mormons. It wouldn’t be any closer to heaven, but it’d be convenient and crime would go down and we’d feel like we were living in a ’50s sitcom. So did I just read you wrong there?

p.s. really, you guys should have a meeting and decide across the board to write Movieguide instead of MOVIEGUIDE®—it’s just makes you seems so, I dunno, full of yourselves.

@Alan – feel free to correct anything I may have misstated, overstated, or understated. Also feel free to ask me to never reply on your behalf ever again ^_^

While Mr. Noble is right that God permits apparent injustice on earth, he fails to note that morality and prosperity are far from opposites. America’s greatest strength is moral behavior, its greatest weakness is immorality. To the extent that Americans are honest, diligent and well behaved (by biblical standards) America prospers. The more we reject biblical morality the more broken families, drug addicts, criminals, welfare and prisons we have. The human suffering, death, tragedy and poverty associated with immorality is immense. While God permits injustice to happen in the world, He does not bless it. Justice does not always wait until judgement day. Individuals and nations may prosper financially for a time while engaging in immorality, but a heavy price is often paid in THIS life. Hitler did not die a happy man.

The truth is you will make more money in the movie business on movies with good moral content. You must be entertaining and you must respect the art form. People don’t buy movie tickets to see sermons, but given a good story with quality production values you will make more money if you leave out the trash. More importantly, you will help make the world a better place to live if you produce movies that exemplify and encourage good behavior. You make the world worse when you lead people to do immoral things.

In Mr. Noble’s world excellence is judged by critics scores. According to him the industry should make movies to please critics in hopes that the critics and the expert-based awards shows impress enough of the public to buy tickets. This approach leads deeper and deeper into darkness while harming, rather than helping industry profits. The Academy Awards have almost become an R-rated film festival.

In MOVIEGUIDE’s world the ultimate critic is God Himself. God tells us in the Bible what is good and what is evil. MOVIEGUIDE® attempts to hold movies up to these biblical standards and inform our readers and viewers how they measure up. Readers can judge for themselves if they wish to see a movie with an “LLL” rating for foul language. They can look at the content section and decide if they want to send their teenager to a movie with nudity and sex outside of marriage. MOVIEGUIDE® is not just a reviewer spouting opinions. Its a standards-based tool for considering whether or not to see a movie.

Mr. Noble’s world is like a dark pit we must wait to be lifted out of. To some extent it is, but God didn’t put us here just to suffer in the darkness until He’s merciful enough to lift us out. He has us here as lights in the darkness. We’re here to shine that light in every corner and point others to the way out of the pit. We’re on a rescue mission. And, for as long as we’re here we have the job of making the pit as much like heaven as we can. Jesus told us to pray, “Thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heaven.” He didn’t tell us to pray that and then wait to be rescued. We’re supposed to have an attitude. We’re supposed to get after it, shine our light (His light), call for righteousness, set an example and change the world for the good. He can pull us out whenever He pleases. Let’s hope that when He does He can say to us, “Nice work, you did what I wanted you to.”

I haven’t seen some of the recent front-runners like There Will be Blood, but I am thinking of A History of Violence from a year or two ago, which was so profound in its exploration of our fallen nature and depravity, and how broken our ability to get away from that and preserve anything whole and good. The “good guy” (such as he is) triumphs (sort of, at immense cost). I am more like Tom Stall/Joey Cusack than like the saintly William Wilberforce, and I am grateful for a God who meets us where we are and sends us honest filmmakers to represent that reality in all its starkness.

I just want to also note that the art that used to be seen as representing Christian values bears about as much resemblance to this list as chalk does to cheese. I am thinking of Paradise Lost, Handel’s Messiah. All’s not sweetness and light. For my money, the greatest, most “Christian” films are the ones that unpack the darkness at our hearts, the part of ourselves that whispers “evil, be thou my good,” and that shouts “Crucify him!”