(ANALYSIS) As long as they’ve been around, so-called “faith-based films” have been mired in controversy.

Whether it’s accusations of bad writing and acting, heavy-handed messages or the demonizing of non-Christians, such movies always seem to be a lightning rod of passionate disagreement.

One of the most interesting controversies has been its very definition: “faith-based films.” 

READ: Complete List Of 2024 Golden Globe Winners

What is a faith-based film?  

Is it a movie made by the faith-based film industry?  

Is it a movie marketed toward Christians?  

Is it any movie with a redemptive message? 

Behind what sounds like a simple series of questions is a battle that actually matters because it’s about what kinds of movies — and therefore what kinds of representations of faith — various religious communities own as their own, and therefore which faith experiences are validated in the cultural imagination.

But to understand this controversy, and why it matters, we need to go back to the beginning.

A brief history

For most of American film’s history, there was no separation between “faith-based” and “non-faith based.” Hollywood put out secular movies like “The Apartment” and “Star Wars” along with religious ones such as “The Robe” and “Ben Hur.” Everyone just called them “movies.”

As recounted in Tyler Smith’s documentary “Reel Redemption,” Hollywood and the wider American Christian community had a major falling out with the 1988 release of “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which portrayed a version of Jesus who was sinful. 

Christians no longer trusted Hollywood to make movies that represented them or their beliefs, so they set out to make their own.  

These ranged from “Veggie Tales” to “The Omega Code” and “Left Behind” and were mostly sold in Christian bookstores, which were ubiquitous in the 1990s. But they didn’t break out until Mel Gibson’s 2004 independent film “The Passion of The Christ” broke box office records and established that Christian audiences were a big market. 

Meanwhile, the Kendrick Brothers’ “Facing The Giants” and “Fireproof” proved that low-budget Christian inspirational dramas were reliable money-makers and launched a whole industry based around these, both independently and funded by Hollywood studios, from “War Room” to “God’s Not Dead” and “Miracles From Heaven” to the “Sound of Freedom.” 

Faith-based industry films 

When people think of faith-based films, they typically are thinking of ones made by the religious movie industry. These are films that are marketed to people who go to movies specifically if the movies affirm their faith in a Christian God. These films are typically made by Christians — either independently or in partnership with Hollywood studios like Lionsgate or Sony — but can also be made specifically by Hollywood studios to tap into the market. Given that these are the movies that were born out of wishing to be an alternative to Hollywood’s secular filmmaking, this definition makes sense. 

Because the majority of Christians within the “faith market” happen to be church-going moms, films in this genre tend to prioritize the tastes and values of that demographic. This means that the movies have Hallmark, feel-good, family-friendly inspirational dramas that focus on life-affirming lessons and affirmations of faith.

The reference to Hallmark isn’t a coincidence since the cable TV network and faith-based audiences are really made up of the same audience of Christian moms.

The problem with defining faith-based films based on this one audience’s tastes and preferences is that it’s far too narrow to represent the varieties of faith experiences or even how God himself works in the world.  

My “Overthinkers” podcast co-host Nathan Clarkson wrote about his frustrations with the faith-based film industry he’s worked in for years in an article for Religion Unplugged.

“None of the films I made had cursing, they didn’t have sex scenes, and of course, they didn’t have endings where everything wasn’t tied up nicely with a happy ending bow — they didn’t have these things not because I didn’t want to put them in my movies, or thought I could tell a better story without them, but instead because I knew if I did include mature content or unanswered questions in my films, they wouldn’t sell,” he wrote.

Christopher Williams, also a Chrsitian, argued that he didn’t feel represented by “faith-based films,” which he described as “packaged and sold” to “endorse the values of mainstream American evangelicalism” who want art that is “safe” and “affirms their values.”  

He said: “For movies that say ‘this is Christianity,’ I have to admit I feel left out. Where are the ‘Christian’ films about theistic evolution? Where are movies about progressive Christians? What about films tackling, with real depth, the uglier sides of life?” 

I’ve had multiple Christian filmmakers and culture critics of different backgrounds and political beliefs on my “Overthinkers” podcast — from Tyler Smith to Alissa Wilkinson to Kevin McCreary to Spencer Folmar to Mark Bleyker to Ben Koppin (whom I had on for an episode called “What Is A Christian Film?”) — and all of them agree that they don’t feel represented by films made by the faith-based films industry.  

A common complaint is that the movies don’t include space for darker or more nuanced material that includes more of the dark parts of human experience that the faith-based film industry doesn’t show because it wants to be family friendly.  

It’s hard to not see their point. After all, it’s difficult to argue criteria for “faith based films” that leave out movies like “The Tree of Life,” “Les Miserables,” “Hacksaw Ridge” and “Signs” — all movies which deeply and explicitly affirm Christian faith but which weren’t made in the Christian film industry nor marketed to that core audience.

Do faith-based movies really exist?

So what do critics of “faith-based films” propose as a different definition of faith-based films? Many simply say we should do away with the label entirely.

Christopher Williams falls into this camp. He said: “Derek Webb once said it best: the word ‘Christian,’ when applied to anything other than a person, is nothing more than a marketing term. There’s no such thing as ‘Christian’ music, movies or literature.” 

“Faith Based films don’t exist,” friends of mine have said, echoing this sentiment. “Everyone has a faith; everyone has a worldview. Being a Christian means that you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. A movie can’t do that. Therefore a movie can’t be Christian anymore than you can have a Christian shoe or a Christian pizza. It’s just a shoe. It’s just a pizza.”   

Borrowing from the Christian writer Francis Schaeffer, they argue that since God is sovereign over everything, and culture-making is part of the cultural mandate, art doesn’t have to even have a religious subject to be “Christian.” In effect, this group argues that we should go back to how things were prior to the 1990s, where we didn’t have “secular” and “faith-based” movies, we just had movies. 

The problem is that this is just not realistic in a pluralistic society. In a world where we easily understand the need to talk about “Black films,” “LGBTQ films,” “foreign films” and “feminist films,” the fact that we would reject one of the most important — yet not universal — features of a majority of the population’s identity (their faith) is hard to take seriously.  

In fact, I think it makes most sense to see the divorce between Christians and Hollywood and the development of a faith based film industry in the ‘90s as simply a natural consequence of a religious identity ceasing to be universal in America, and therefore needing to be given a distinctive label. 

When confronted on this, many who hold this position pull back to a position that any movie that prominently portrays faith should then be regarded as “faith-based.”

And yet, this also doesn’t really hold up upon scrutiny. We wouldn’t call a movie “feminist” if it featured feminists prominently but had a worldview that was anti-feminist. Or sometimes they say that as long as it is made by a Christian, it is a Christian film. But that’s also unpersuasive. After all, if a feminist made a film that was obviously sexist toward women, most feminists would reject it as a feminist film regardless of the real or claimed identity of the maker.  

Francis Schaeffer agreed on this point, acknowledging that the “most sad” kind of mismatch between an artist and their art is when they profess to be a Christian but make art that “embodies a Christian worldview.”

How should we define it?

Given that the first definition of “faith-based films” is too narrow, and the second is too broad, how should we define such movies? 

I propose we define faith-based films as any film which affirms religious faith as one of its primary features.

This definition achieves the original intent of creating faith-based films, to highlight and curate movies that represent and affirm the distinctive worldview and experiences of people of faith, while broadening it to include a wider variety of expressions of that, wherever they are found.  

This allows “faith-based film” to include movies like “War Room” and “I Can Only Imagine” but also movies like “Signs,” “Les Miserables” and “Calvary.” These films may not have been made to be marketed specifically to devout moms, but they affirm and celebrate distinctly Christian worldviews.

This definition then also creates an umbrella that allows us to have subcategories for further clarification. Since “faith-based film” now means both Christian and non-Christian faiths, “Christian film” is now a subcategory of “faith-based film genre.  

There will obviously continue to be debate as to which movies fall under the “faith-based label” — just as there is as to what makes someone truly “Christian.” This definition also does come with its own somewhat hilarious implications for which movies now fall under the “faith-based film” label.  

Movies with distinctly pagan views of God and the afterlife like “Knock at the Cabin” and “The Northman” are just as much based on faith as “Mom’s Night Out” and “The Overcomer.” Meanwhile, movies like “Silence” fall under a debatable category, depending on whether or not you think faith is ultimately affirmed or deconstructed.

So why does this matter? It matters because faith matters. Humans’ relationship with God, and the communities and worldviews that develop from that, is a deeply important part of personhood.  

As people of faith, it is our job to create and curate a library of works that represent our faith to witness to those who don’t believe and to minister to those who do. We cannot do that effectively if we either limit too much or too little. Too much and people can only see a sliver of God; too little and they cannot see Him at all.  

What does it matter if they are made by Hollywood or by the faith-based film industry? Like Paul said to the Philippians (1:18): “Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Likewise I rejoice when non-Christian people of faith get to make works of art that celebrate how they see God, so that I can understand and therefore love them better the way that God has commanded me to.” 

May those who make faith-based films, and those of us who highlight them, together help people see and love God and his creatures better.

Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at his website josephholmesstudios.com.