Christians at the movies

"Novels and movies were once generally suspect in evangelical eyes," according to a Marvin Olasky article in this week's World, "but now the emphasis is on discernment." To celebrate such cultural involvement, Olasky asked 30 influential evangelicals to list their favorite contemporary films and books.

The results might be surprising. As much as conservative Christian publications like World tend to complain about the prevalence of the R rating in Hollywood, it seems many of the people they admire actually enjoy that sort of fare.

The respondents -- including preachers, screenwriters, and journalists -- named a total of 97 different film titles. Of these movies, according to my tally, the largest number have R ratings. In fact, the less family-friendly a film's classification, the more likely the title is to be on the list at least once. Here is the breakdown:

G -- 4

PG -- 24

PG-13 -- 29

R -- 34

No US rating -- 6

I bet World is going to get some nasty letters from families who go out and rent Magnolia or Eternal Sunshine after reading that article.

| Posted by Wilson at 17:19 Central | TrackBack
| Report submitted to the Humanities Desk