This blog is about the good news of the kingdom of God. So, here we evaluate things in the context of what God intended them to be–in other words, what they should be as the Kingdom advances and transforms the world into the place God intended it to be.
And that brings us to the subject of movies. We are only a few weeks away from the American Academy Awards, so it seems an appropriate time to address what makes for a good movie in the kingdom of God. Mind you, this does mean we are asking what Christians like, but what they should like in a movie.
If you are are like me, before you watch a movie, you check on Rotten Tomatoes to see how highly the movie is rated. I look at both the audience rating and the critics rating, and rarely are they the same. That is because the audience evaluates movies for their entertainment value, while critics evaluate them on their technical merit. In terms of the kingdom of God, both are right and both are wrong, or better, both are incomplete.
As I have suggested above, movies start with a teleological question: What is the purpose of movies in the kingdom of God? I think there are three primary criteria.
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