Poll of the Day > GodTok with Lok: Why is it that religious entertainment is of such poor quality

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think the highest production value items there are, aside from Passion of the Christ which had an actual budget, probably the Caleb and Sophia shorts for Jehovah's Witnesses.

Contrast to, say, the 1963's Hercules cartoon, which is awesome BTW, which not only respectfully displays Greek mythology but makes it fun and cool, too.

---

What about U2

One of the biggest rock acts in the world, and they are a Christian rock band.

---

I have to censor your username, lol

I was more thinking about TV and movies rather than music

---

I guess the obvious answer is that liberal Satanists own the film industry.

---

Lokarin posted...

I have to censor your username, lol

Really?

Lokarin posted...

I was more thinking about TV and movies rather than music

Well that's because they get the Billy Baldwin's and we get the Alec's


---

Because most of the time they care more about preaching their nonsense than telling a good story. See God's Not Dead.
---

What about Father Ted?

---

Phantom_Nook posted...

Because most of the time they care more about preaching their nonsense than telling a good story. See God's Not Dead.

Well, what about Jason and the Argonauts?

I think "the best" might be Prince of Egypt, in terms of directing and animation

---

KodyKeir posted...

Really?

The middle four letters are autoflagged as a homophobic slur. GameFAQs' profanity detection is a little wonky sometimes.

---

adjl posted...

GameFAQs' profanity detection

Gotta love mindless scripts that don't understand context; the annual Dykes on Bikes ride at Pride would be unsurprised to learn they get auto flagged because the machine does not understand context. That's their name, the context is correct, it's not a slur.

Lokarin posted...

I was more thinking about TV and movies rather than music

Back on topic; well how about the short lived tv series Dominion, or its movie roots Legion? Too dark and violent hated by Christians.

Lucifer might be considered, which would open the door for Good Omens. Both were protested by Christian groups, seeking their cancellation.

And say what you will about The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, that and the third one have some pretty strong religious ties.

Or how about video games like Doom; the main characters impetus is the death of his rabbit, an obvious allegory to Jesus Christ, prompting him to become DoomGuy and slay the forces of hell for all eternity. Literally the most Christian game of all time.

I am going to take it a step further and name drop Gary Gygax and Dungeons and Dragons; one of the most popular pieces of entertainment developed as a form of good clean Christian entertainment, hated and misunderstood by large sects of Christians.

There is good Christian media, just a certain segment gatekeep what is acceptable as Christian media.

---

Lokarin posted...

Well, what about Jason and the Argonauts?

I think "the best" might be Prince of Egypt, in terms of directing and animation

well, obviously there are good religious movies.
can't say anything about Jason and the Argonauts, since I haven't seen it. but The Prince of Egypt is fantastic.
there's also The Last Temptation of Christ and Life of Brian.

---

Ben Hur!

The Charelton Heston version is superb and I really enjoyed the more recent remake; there is at least four versions of this movie.

---

The Ten Commandments isn't too bad.

yeah ben hur and the ten commandments are great movies

A couple of obvious ones:

Touched by an Angel; if you have been alive in the last thirty years, you have seen it.

Seventh Heaven; you have at least heard of it.

Some less obvious ones may be just ones where the go to church like Young Sheldon or the Simpsons, but then there are show like 911: Lonestar or Rick and Morty, that are not obviously Christian, but have their moments that put everything that came before into a new context.

---

Generally, plenty of quality media with religious themes or subject matter exists. The "religious entertainment sucks" thing is less a matter of saying that entertainment about religion is bad, and more saying that entertainment that exists purely to convey religious preaching tends to be bad, and that makes sense. Simply retelling bible stories and the like often isn't overly entertaining, so there isn't enough demand for it to attract competent producers and decent budgets. Toss in that the sort of people who actually want to put in the effort to make such media tend to be the sort of people that feel that hearing about God's love (or whatever) is enjoyable enough to stand on its own and therefore don't put much effort into making it interesting beyond that, and you've got a recipe for low-quality religious media.

Veggie Tales, of course, is a notable exception to this. They're pretty great, largely because they are built on a framework of being entertaining as a cartoon and not just a flimsy vehicle for some bible verses.

---