Best Christian Movie Ever? You Might Be Surprised.

Last updated on: April 14, 2015 at 8:13 am by Paul Asay

Best Christian Movie Ever? You Might Be Surprised. 2015-04-14T08:13:34-06:00 Paul Asay

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Inspired by the NCAA’s March Madness, ChristianCinema.com recently conducted its own version of bracket goodness this spring. Calling it “Christian Movie Madness,” it pitted 64 movies against each other in a winner-take-all brouhaha, with victors determined by the number of votes they got.

More than 100,000 users voted, naming 2014’s God’s Not Dead as (in Christian Cinema’s words) the “Best. Movie. Ever.”

Yeah, looking over the 64 movies chosen for the tourney, my bracket would’ve been busted by the first round. The Chronicles of Narnia (lumped into one big category) beat out The Lord of the Rings. (You’d think Frodo and company would’ve won based on time alone.) End of the Spear was trumped by Alone Yet Not Alone. And the Kirk Cameron version of Left Behind spanked the Nicholas Cage version, which makes me curiously sad. And with all due respect to the good folks at Pure Flix, God’s Not Dead wouldn’t have been my choice.

But it is, without question, a very Christian movie–so much so that anyone who’s not a Christian in the flick runs the risk of a shameful, painful death. It beat The Blind Side in the championship round, which has about as much explicit Christian content as the average YMCA basketball tourney. We do see a family bow their heads in prayer in The Blind Side, but isn’t that it? Am I forgetting something? That would give it arguably less Christian content than The Avengers. (“There’s only one God, ma’am,” says Captain America, “and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.”)

But even if it wasn’t Christian, it did feel Christian, what with its tight family and gentle messages of kindness and redemption. (It was set in the Bible Belt too, which didn’t hurt.) The Blind Side gave us Christians a familiar world. And maybe there’s something we like about that.

Unfamiliar worlds were rare in the bracket. No sign of Signs, an alien invasion story that is, in the end, breathtakingly Christian. No horror movies either, despite the fact that many talk explicitly about God and the Devil. Fantasy had a bit of representation: Narnia and Rings both made it on the list (though neither is, arguably, explicitly Christian), but they are still familiar to us. Many of us evangelicals grew up with the Narnia stories in particular, which gives them a comforting familiarity. And even those who did not are aware of author C.S. Lewis’ religious influence in modern-day Christianity. Had J.R.R. Tolkien written Mere Christianity, I suspect Rings would’ve advanced.

And I’m always fascinated by what we evangelical Christians embrace as our own. For me, Christian Cinema’s “Movie Madness Bracket” says a lot more about Christians than movies–specifically a subset of Christians that dig Christian movies … even if they’re not always sure what a “Christian” movie is.

Not that Christian Cinema intended its Movie Madness tourney to be a manifesto on what qualifies as a Christian movie. Despite the permanence implied by God’s Not Dead being the “Best. Movie. Ever.”, they leave the door open to making this an annual thing. Maybe Signs and Ben Hur and The Conjuring and, who knows, even Calvary may make next year’s bracket.

‘Course, if God’s Not Dead is in the tourney again next year, I’m not holding my breath for an upset.

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