Are Faith-Based Shows Getting Better ... Or Not?
(ANALYSIS) Over the past quarter century of so, I have spent a large chunk of my time trying to get Christian liberal arts colleges to ponder this question: Why do they have drama departments and not programs to make short films and pilots for television?
Or how about this: Why do these schools have classical-music departments, but not programs centering on 99% of the music that serves as the soundtrack for the lives of most of the students on their campuses? (I loved my college classical music experiences, by the way).
Maybe even this: If colleges offer programs linked to popular culture, why do they center on creating “contemporary Christian” products for evangelical believers instead of mainstream material for the wider world of believers and unbelievers?
To be blunt, why do Christian educators assume that the goal is to preach to their own choirs instead of trying to influence the culture as a whole?
Recently, I ran into a Marcus Pittman essay, at his “Poorly Written Thoughts on Media and Tech,” that takes on topics linked to some of these questions. The headline: “Why the faith based film industry has failed culturally.”
That’s a provocative statement, since national media outlets are paying a modest amount of attention to “The Chosen” and other faith-driven productions that, frankly, are:
— Better than the norm
— Suggest that this industry has financial promise in the digital, streaming, niche-market age. Remember that provocative Hollywood theory — “Christian is the new gay” — that believers had the potential to become an acceptable niche market?
Now, understand that Pittman has an agenda, since he is one of the creators of the alternative streaming service LOOR.TV (click here for some YouTubes from this project).
You can read the rest of Terry Mattingly’s column at his Substack page.
Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.