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Recently, I had the opportunity to interview one of my favorite film critics, Matt Singer, about his new book Funny Business. I’ve enjoyed Matt’s writing and podcasting for years, going back to his work with The Dissolve, and the topic of his book – the comedies of the aughts, headlined by the “Frat Pack” – was right up my alley. But I almost never did the interview, because I was concerned with whether or not it was “on brand.”
I’ve had a lot of fun doing interviews this year – I encourage you to check out my talks with Jeffrey Overstreet, the Creative Icons team and Gina Dalfonzo. These are people tackling the intersection of faith and the arts, particularly film, an area of fascination that I share. I enjoy the work they’re doing, I have great respect for them, and I’m extremely grateful that they’ve taken time out of their schedules to speak with me, often at length. We might see a slowdown in interviews over the fall due to the business of the season, but I’m working on a way to schedule these further in advance and release them more regularly.
But going back to my talk with Matt. I wondered whether an interview centered on a bunch of crass, R-rated films would clash with my discussions about faith and film. It’s a dilemma I’ve grappled with throughout the 20 years I’ve been writing.
When I began reviewing films in a professional capacity two decades ago, there wasn’t really a need to filter my writing through the lens of faith. I was representing the paper, and so it was just business. There were new releases, and I wrote about what audiences might want to see. Faith didn’t really come into the equation unless the movie explicitly grappled with it.
But there were times when clashes arose. In addition to writing reviews – which, to be clear, was secondary to my work as a features and news reporter – I also dabbled in columns. And in some of those – particularly as evangelicalism and its alignment with George W. Bush during the Iraq war became more of a focal point – I discussed my faith. Moreover, it was a local paper; some readers knew me from my church. And there was occasionally a conflict. When I gave Kevin Smith’s comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno a positive review, someone reported it to my pastor, and I wrote a lukewarm apology1. But by and large, I kept my faith out of my film writing, which helped me to hone my critical skills.
I stopped writing for the paper in 2015 – I’d left it full time long before but stayed on for several years as a freelance critic. And as I began to figure out where I wanted my writing to live and where my expertise lied, I realized I had something to say about that collision between faith and art. I published a piece at Christ and Pop Culture and another at Reel World Theology. Eventually, I maintained blogs at the website Patheos, which was a hub for writing about faith – the balance shifted, and I began writing about culture and arts from an explicitly religious point of view. Over the years, I bounced back and forth between my writing having a heavy faith perspective and reviewing for sites such as Cinemanerdz and Collider, where it didn’t come up at all.
I’ve been writing this newsletter for nearly six years. Because I’m my own editor – one who’s notoriously bad at catching typos – I’m responsible for my editorial calendar. Sometimes, my writing goes through periods where the emphasis on faith is stronger. With other pieces, you might not know I have a religious side at all. While I know that might cause some confusion – I realize some people subscribed because of faith-focused pieces while others might have read a random “Summer of ‘86” entry and been surprised when Jesus was mentioned in later posts – it’s by design.
I don’t want to be known as a “Christian film critic.” As anyone who grew up in the days of steroidal Christian subculture knows, that adjective gets you pigeonholed. While I’m not opposed to movies made by Christians about the faith, most of them are not good. The instant someone knows I’m a film lover and also a person of faith, I get the inevitable questions about whether I’ve seen God’s Not Dead, The Chosen or the various films from Angel studios. It’s how I ended up being sent a screener of the abysmal Little Boy years back, which argues that God loves America and its believers so much that he allowed us to drop the atomic bomb. I’m less drawn to films that give me answers about faith and more interested in films that provoke questions , and those tend not to come from the Christian factory. And sometimes, I just want to enjoy a movie without having to force my thoughts into a faith box. To temper expectations and allow myself the freedom to explore – and avoid any offense when the content of the films I recommend doesn’t always line up with those of church crowds – I don’t explicitly label this as a faith-focused newsletter.
And yet, I am a Christian film critic in the sense that I’m a Christian who writes about film. What keeps this from being a newsletter gushing over Marvel movies and event flicks – although, occasionally it’s that – is because I believe this is an art form that spurs us to empathy and can help us better understand the world in which we live. The people I’ve interviewed believe that, too. I don’t turn my brain off at the movies, and while I love to be entertained, I think cinema is an art form that’s capable of so much more than escapism and diversion.
As someone whose faith is the driving force of their life – someone who’s involved at church, starts his day with prayer and meditation, and strives to see our world through what I believe about God – I’m drawn to movies that tackle those themes. I had a lot of fun doing the Summer of ‘86 focus, which had no faith connection whatsoever, but I also am extremely proud of the series I did during Lent this year, and I am grateful for the way those films helped me consider my faith. I’m very proud of the conversations I had with the authors and producers I’ve talked to for the Chrisicisms Conversations, and I hope I can do just a portion of the work they’re doing in exploring the connections between faith and art. But I also enjoyed my interview with Matt, and I also love writing about movies that just make me laugh and make the world a little more enjoyable.
I have a love-hate relationship with this newsletter’s name. Chrisicisms is a dumb pun on my name that stretches back to a conversation I had with a buddy in high school when I was writing some op-ed pieces in English. I kept it, and it’s been the title I’ve used on several blogs before putting it on this newsletter. On one hand, it makes me cringe, and I’ve wondered whether I should swap this out for something more serious and aspirational. Something about finding light in the dark. Maybe something Detroit-centric and tied to film. But all of that tilts too much in one direction – too faith-focused or too movie-driven. In the end, while I don’t love that my outlet is a silly pun on my name, it encompasses what I want this newsletter to be: My thoughts on film, on culture, and on the world. Sometimes, those will lean harder on a faith perspective. Other times, that might not be evident at all (although it’s always there behind the words). This newsletter is how I see the world and whether you like every aspect or shy from others, it’s all me. And that’s the biggest promise I can make my readers.
The more I think about it, the more I feel the opportunity I can have by not tilting too heavily in any one direction. If I have a mission, it’s to invite my readers not to be afraid. For my Christian readers – especially those who might have been entrenched in evangelical Christian subculture for years – I hope you’ll appreciate where my views line up with yours but also be willing to venture into some new waters. Don’t be afraid of questions, R-rated content or views that might not align with your own. Let films challenge you and pull you out of your comfort zone, because that’s often where God speaks to us most clearly2. And for those who want nothing to do with faith – and I’m sympathetic, especially in modern America – I hope you won’t click away when you see that I’m getting a bit Jesus-y. Maybe you won’t walk away in agreement – which is never my goal – but I hope you’ll find something worth digging into. Even if you don’t share my faith, I hope there’s something about the human experience where we can find common ground, and I think the conversation is richer when we engage and talk with each other and share our perspectives. And sometimes, we’ll just enjoy the movies without thinking too deeply.
As always, I’m extremely grateful for everyone who clicks, subscribes, comments and shares. As we enter this newsletter’s sixth year, I hope the conversation continues and grows.
These days, I’m disappointed in myself for the walk back – there is room for Christians to engage with films about sex (as we’ll see in a few days when I discuss Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma), and from what I recall, while Smith’s film was crass, it was also a sweet discussion about what real love looks like as opposed to our hypersexualized entertainment. But I was in my mid-twenties and not confident enough to speak to it.
I should be clear that this isn’t a call to abandon discernment, but I also know that what’s acceptable or offensive varies from person to person.
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