It is so exciting that in 2015 Christian audiences have movies to see like Do You Believe, War Room and Captive. There have even been some wonderful family movies like Paddington, Cinderella and Inside Out. In profound ways, you can see the impact Movieguide® has had in showing Hollywood that there is a big audience for content with strong faith and values.
Sadly, this is not the entire story. There are still those who despise Christianity and have a strong desire to mock Christians and morality. The latest example of this is a program on the TV Land network titled Impastor. The premise is that an immoral con man takes on the identity of a gay pastor of a Lutheran church in a small town. He knows nothing about the Bible and participates in drugs and sexual promiscuity.
It would be unwise to give this program greater publicity by getting into a battle over it on national news programs. This could be just what the program’s makers would love. That said, the broader issue of the disrespect for Christians needs to be addressed.
The entertainment industry is changing before our eyes. While a minuscule audience may see Impastor on its insignificant network, it will wind up in major digital libraries like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime. The material on these digital platforms reaches a huge, and growing, audience.
What these services need to know is that Christians make up a high percentage of their subscriber base. If they felt that they might lose many more subscribers than they gain by providing programs like Black Jesus or Impastor, they may be encouraged not to provide such programming.
Thus, rather than help promote Impastor, we propose a more measured approach to the video streaming services requesting that they show respect for their many Christian subscribers. The best strategy for dealing with the mocking of Christianity in the entertainment business is a huge letter-writing campaign to subscription services. If they get enough letters, they may decide not to carry Impastor, or the next vulgar insult some Christ-hater wishes to make. Join our huge letter campaign and make a difference by clicking here!
Meanwhile, the other important thing you can do is to go out and support movies like War Room and Captive. Your support of these movies encourages Hollywood to make more of them.
We have so much to be thankful for these days. So let’s support the good and politely request that the major streaming services be respectful to their many Christian subscribers.
And, don’t forget to support Movieguide® so that we can encourage family-friendly, moral and faith-friendly movies, TV programs and videos. Get the word out to people whenever such movies, programs and videos become available.
This article originally appeared on movieguide.org. Want to know what God’s doing in Hollywood?
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