Linda Wagner, who teaches at Seattle Pacific University and directed the Christian Writer’s Conference there in the early 90s, met me when I was a student and we started a sort of critique group for sci-fi writers. She invited me and several others in the community to explore  a vision of how we might encourage and support Christians involved in the arts. That has become Promontory Artists Association, a non-profit organization with a mission to encourage, educate, and provide resources for Christians that are writers, musicians, graphic artists… you name it.

We recognized a prevalent problem: that artists have unique visions and voices, but the church often tells them that their art is only valuable if it serves some practical purpose for the church or if it blatantly advertises Jesus. This is a tragedy. In the film "Chariots of Fire", Eric Liddell’s father tells him "You can praise God by peeling a potato if you peel it to perfection." Our vision is to help artists see that they are honoring God as long as they strive for excellence in whatever kind of art they do. We want to facilitate a new renaissance in artmaking.

Right now we’re offering counsel and direction to artists through e-mail; they can write to us with questions and for networking assistance. I’m the editor of The Crossing, Promontory’s free-subscription print and online magazine, which challenges artists to think about how faith and art work together. We are beginning to host all kinds of activities in Seattle—film discussion nights, special speaker events, artist getaways, and eventually we hope to offer classes and workshops as well. Our goal is to have a facility of our own, a retreat and convention center for education, artmaking, and, frankly, escape. You can read more about what we’re up to at http://promontoryartists.org .

I try to avoid typical evangelical reactionism to a film’s more volatile ingredients. I try to respond to the whole piece, especially to the story. What is important in a story… or a movie… is not just what is on the surface.

That’s why Jesus challenges the masses to have "eyes to see" and "ears to hear". It’s not nudity or bad language or violence that makes a movie bad. It’s something more subtle, something between the lines. It’s our job as Christian thinkers to test these things, lift up what is excellent, and give glory to the Creator. Fear of movies keeps us from discovering all kinds of beauty and wisdom. Films like "Babette’s Feast", Krszystof Kieslowski’s "Three Colors" trilogy, Terrence Malick’s "The Thin Red Line" and "Days of Heaven", Robert Duvall’s "The Apostle", the Coen Brothers’ "Fargo", Terry Gilliam’s "The Fisher King" and "Brazil", Wim Wenders’ "Wings of Desire"… these are just a few important works of moral significance and sometimes even religious fervor. They are strong and elaborate parables.

I studied acting, expository writing, art, creative writing, and literature in college, and have participated in a lot of music outside of that. These experiences prepared me to be, I hope, a halfway decent critic of acting, screenplay, music, and cinematography… to recognize genuine art from the sentimentalism and emotional manipulation that dominates most American movies.

If a film can make me forget that I’m watching a movie, then it’s probably working. If it draws me into the story convincingly, and if it doesn’t get sidetracked trying to sell me something or convince me of something, I’m grateful. I appreciate attention to detail in character and context. Originality is important. So is an honest treatment of the subject matter; a lot of movies offer easy answers to tough questions, and they don’t challenge us or help us understand our world any better.

There are only a handful of excellent movies each year, and they are usually unpopular and forgotten come Oscar time. On the other hand, I appreciate "junk food" movies too, as long as they’re original and interesting. This year, for example, "Galaxy Quest" was like a stick of gum… it wasn’t particularly edifying, but it was harmless, well-acted, sharply funny, and a pleasure to watch.

Art is supposed to reflect culture, so we can see ourselves and our world with greater understanding. How can it do that if it doesn’t portray the world we live in accurately? How can a film about war be without violence and the kind of language that men and women use there? How easily can a film about romantic intimacy and love avoid the bedroom? How can a film about the ghetto, or the streets, or Wall Street, or government avoid the kinds of corruption we find there in actuality?

Likewise, movies must not ignore goodness and grace in the world. Our world is often a Rated R world, and if art is going to deal with it, it had better do so convincingly. As long as these volatile elements are used in the right context and to serve the work rather than to indulge the baser appetites of audiences, then they belong.

An awful lot of the Bible is Rated R, in my opinion. Ehud carves out the intestines of a wicked king. Song of Solomon is filled with erotic love poetry and sex. And the sufferings of Christ, for crying out loud! Art fails if it turns away from the truth of the matter.

That doesn’t mean everybody should watch this stuff. It is equally important that we treat with great care where and when these films are presented. Consider whether an audience is mature enough to take something in. Just like an infant’s stomach isn’t ready for a steak, children shouldn’t be fed movies that have shocking or difficult things in them. For that matter, a lot of adults should ask themselves whether they’re prepared for certain kinds of cinematic meals.

At my church, which is wonderfully open to discussions of the arts, we've watched and analyzed John Sayles' "Limbo", and we've explored the work of Peter Weir with "Picnic at Hanging Rock" and excerpts from his other films. 

There is so much more I look forward to watching in this context.   "Babette’s Feast" is a great place to start. It’s as simple and beautiful a parable as you’re likely to find on film. And there’s very little if anything that might give offense. So is "Chariots of Fire". "Jean de Florette" and "Manon of the Spring" are also brilliant, profound, and worth talking about. "Edward Scissorhands" tells an interesting sort of Christ story, and "What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?" is an excellent movie about humility and servanthood.

These movies are "milk", so to speak, for a group that’s just beginning to talk about movies. Save the meat, the harder stuff, for later. But it would be exciting to see a church group learn to discuss heavy philosophical movies like "Jesus of Montreal", "Wings of Desire", or something more recent like "The Truman Show", "Fearless" or "The Thin Red Line".

And I don’t mean they should talk about whether they liked it or not. Discuss instead what the story is saying to us. Talk about the characters, their motivations, how they changed, or didn’t change. Talk about actions and consequences. Good stories are never about one simple moral… they’re full of insights to discover.

"Wings of Desire" is for grownups, but it’s probably the most meaningful movie to me personally. It’s about angels longing to experience what it is to be a human being. They travel through Berlin before the wall was torn down, and they’re overwhelmed with curiosity about the sufferings and joys of people there. It’s more like going to a poetry reading than watching a movie.

I also love the imagination on display in the movies of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The Star Wars trilogy is a moral, even religious, journey, but it’s also full of child-like playfulness. For other reasons, I go back again and again to Krszystof Kieslowski’s "Colors Trilogy" and to the work of Terry Gilliam, Peter Weir, and The Coen Brothers. If I had kids, I’d give them a steady diet of "The Iron Giant", "Babe", the "Toy Story" movies, and when they were ready, "Watership Down".

A teacher can use artistic tools to teach, and that’s not a bad thing. But that’s not artmaking. An artist’s focus should not be on the audience, but on encountering and manifesting the subject of his or her attention as fully as possible.

Art is primarily one person’s exploration of something. It invites others to explore and to find the same insights, sometimes to discover greater or altogether different insights. Art doesn’t aim to teach, but experiencing it can be educational.

Entertainment is not a primary focus…it’s a by-product. Something is entertaining because it is, in some way, good at something. Art can be entertainment. But so can sports. Circus performers. Magicians. Even television commercials. My elementary school teachers were entertaining. My wife Anne and I sometimes just sit back and watch our three cats… now THAT’S entertaining!

I started writing reviews to be able to argue with people who told me I shouldn’t see movies, and that movies would corrupt me. I knew that I was learning about life from movies, and the more carefully I watch them the more I find meaning and affirmations of God’s truth in them, even in those not made by Christians. Just as God drew in heathens to build a better tabernacle, he uses some of the most "worldly" people to reveal his truth through the movies.

I haven’t taken film classes, but movies are primarily texts, and the more you know how to read well, the more you can "read" in a movie. Director Peter Greenaway says that movies are not a pure art form yet… they’re just an extension of literature, of storytelling. I think he’s right; if you see a movie, you most likely hear a story.

There are a few real critics I admire… Peter T. Chattaway, who writes for some Canadian newspapers, Christianity Today, and Books and Culture, is an excellent film critic, as are J. Robert Parks and the critics at The Phantom Tollbooth online.  I don't agree with Roger Ebert all of the time, and he's not coming at things from a Christian perspective, but he writes very intelligently.

Most Christian film critics are not actually approaching films critically… they’re moral watchdogs sniffing for curse words, violence, nudity, or anything vaguely immoral. The reviews I like and that I try to write myself will ask people to think about truth and consequences, about motivation, about truth, about how the Holy Spirit is working between the lines of a story. He moves in mysterious ways.

Most responses I receive are characterized by "relief". "Thanks for finally giving us something besides angry moral indignance." But most people who write to me and talk about movies intelligently are lonely people. Their church community doesn’t understand them.

I do occasionally receive letters full of hate and fear couched very carefully in Christian terminology. I get people offering to pray for me, thinking that I’m an idolator. One person told me that because I didn’t think "Titanic" was the best film of that year, I was "incapable of recognizing or experiencing Christian love". Was that "Christian love" being demonstrated between those two hormone-happy heroes in "Titanic"? Maybe I missed something. Another criticized me for commending the finer points of "Shakespeare in Love", which he called a "celebration of adultery". There was adultery there, yes, but I thought there was celebration of theater and poetry in that film as well. I try not to get angry with those responses, because I remember how the churches I grew up in taught me to be afraid of music and the movies.

My wife Anne writes poetry, and together our biggest struggle is to find enough solitude, enough peace, enough concentration to keep the work moving forward. It’s a lot easier to write reviews than to write my novel. When I get good writing done, it’s because I’ve sacrificed all kinds of invitations, relationships, and opportunities just so I can sit for days and days writing things down that, more often than not, I’ll eventually throw away. Every artist deals with that, I think. Editing is hard work and humbling, for to achieve an excellent result, you have to be willing to throw out a lot of good pieces you made up along the way.

The Bible says not to lead your brother to stumble. This is the hardest thing for me as a critic. So I try to inform readers if there are volatile things in the movie, hoping those who are sensitive will steer clear of it. But I can’t scare everybody off from a movie just because somebody smokes a cigarette in it. I’d rather teach people discernment than have them miss all those rich and exciting films. Hopefully my example of watching movies carefully will prevent people from stumbling.

I’m also challenged as a critic to come up with clear assessments of movies, written well, RIGHT AWAY. An excellent movie take a long time to digest. So I often label my movie reviews as "first", "second", or "third" draft. I may change my reviews over time. It’s only honest and fair to the artists that made the movies.

To pay the bills, I work as an editor and designer of publications for the City of Seattle. 

I’ve only been paid for a review once, but I’m not complaining; I just do it because I love it. Working as an editor and designer for the City of Seattle has given me a free education in skills that reinforce and strengthen my work in other efforts. It’s a good trade-off.