Within Christian culture, R-rated movies have long had a strong and effective negative stigma attached to them. Both Christian leaders and laymen alike have long warned of the dangers of engaging with the explicit violence, sexuality, and coarse language found in the R-rated movies coming out of Hollywood and playing at the local theater or (now) streaming on your preferred service. And their fears are not unfounded. There is very real and demonstrable evidence that shows that viewing explicit and pervasive violence and sex has a negative effect on individuals. In addition, as Christians, we have been scripturally commanded in scripture to guard our hearts and minds. In Philippians 4:8, the Apostle Paul says:
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
Looking at both the science and the biblical wisdom, it’s an entirely reasonable deduction to make that watching, much less making, R-rated movies is a bad idea for a Christian attempting to obey God and lead a godly life.
So, that being the case, why in the world would I be writing an article encouraging Christians to both watch and make more R-rated movies?
Let me explain…
Does Christian Always Mean Family Friendly?
Because of the generally accepted directive in Christian culture to avoid R-rated movies, both Christian viewers and filmmakers alike have kept their distance from the dreaded R-rating. In the past two decades we’ve seen an entire Christian film industry grow from a tiny movement with a handful of low-budget faith films to a multi-million dollar industry with multiple Christian films like War Room, I Can Only Imagine, and God’s Not Dead having topped the box-office charts earning tens of millions of dollars. One of the defining features of almost every successful Christian film thus far has been that they never veer into an R-rating, and only occasionally flirt with a tentatively accepted PG-13 rating. There are a few (and very far between) exceptions like Father Stu, Unplanned, or Generational Sins. But even these strongly faith-based films, made by Christians, were highly controversial and received their fair share of pushback from American Christian audiences and critics.
Sometime in the early 2000s, in an effort to identify music and movies acceptable for Christian audiences, Christians popularized the term “safe for the whole family.” This term, which is still in some form or another, used as a tagline by major Christian radio stations and streaming services, has more or less served as the litmus test for acceptable faith-based art. Meaning, Christian art became synonymous with family-friendly art. Many don’t see an issue with this occurrence, but there is an unseen consequence to this redefining we must reckon with should we want to affect the world we’ve been called to help. This family-friendly guideline was a perfectly acceptable one that made sense to me and many others who grew up within the walls of the church — until suddenly, it didn’t. There is absolutely a place for family-friendly entertainment; the problem arises when we assert that Christian art is only family-friendly. Because Christian art has been almost entirely conflated with family-friendly art, and its content entirely dedicated to what is acceptable for children, our reach and relevance has been severely and regrettably limited — and worse, it has created a culture of fragile Christians who insulate themselves from the darkness of the world, disabling their ability to confront and overcome it as God calls us to.
Many in this generation, even Christians, have found that when looking for encouragement and wisdom for the very real and un-family-friendly issues that exist in our lives, that the art coming from the church had nothing of relevance to say about the difficulties that exist in a broken world. So they are left to look to the secular art/movies of the day to find understanding, catharsis, inspiration, and help — as the Christian movies showed no interest in addressing, portraying, or exploring the realities of a non-family friendly world.
Reality Isn’t Always G-Rated
At some point in my early adulthood, I decided to read through the Old Testament book by book. In wandering through the writings of poetry, history, philosophy, and theology, I was inspired by the beautiful and deeply impactful story of redemption being told by God through its authors. But I was also surprised. I was confronted with just how (dare I say) explicit this God-authored story was. Filled with brutal violence, explicit sex, and even coarse language and cursing, it dawned on me that if scripture was turned into a prestige mini-series like those found on HBO, it would put the content in Game of Thrones to shame and almost certainly wouldn’t be acceptable for Christian audiences. The Bible, the story God has written and shared with the world, is an R-rated story — so why are His followers so fearful of engaging with a type of storytelling that is literally modeled in their own scriptures?
The world we live in is not family-friendly but is very often R-rated. It is a broken and dark place. This is a reality almost every person, from every tribe, religion, political persuasion, and experience can attest to. This being the case, there lies in each of our hearts a longing to make sense of and find hope in the chaos and destruction we’ve all experienced. One of the most powerful and potent ways God has created us to go about doing this is through the art of story. Narrative has a power to help us contextualize our experiences, understand reality, and discover truth. This is why God shared His word, in large part, through a story. This is why Jesus shared his truth through parables (stories). And this is why people today see movies (stories). Stories can help us both articulate reality and bring light into our darkness. But to bring God’s light into the darkness, we have to actually show the darkness. A flashlight flipping on in a brightly lit room hardly has the effect of one shining into a pitch black cave.
The Christian movies of today rarely deal with or display the darkness that almost every human has dealt with or is currently dealing with, which means our films are often unable to address or bring hope, truth, or redemption to the R-rated situations most of the people we’re trying to reach, and even we ourselves, are facing. To truly make movies that can actually connect with and change people’s hearts and minds we have to be brave enough to show the world as it truly is, so as to show how powerful God’s presence can be inside it. Throughout scripture there are detailed accounts of deep and disturbing darkness, but the beauty of scripture is seeing God’s hand bringing light in the midst of it, and redemption through it.
Am I’m Allowed To Watch This?
None of this is endorsing watching any and every R-rated movie, or making shocking and explicit content just for kicks. I highly encourage using discernment and intention in both viewing and creating art, regardless of rating. But similarly, I think there’s a good (and biblical) case to be made for Christian adults stepping beyond the family-friendly G-rated entertainment we’ve become comfortable with. In 1st Corinthians, the Apostle Paul writes this to the early church:
“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”
The world isn’t a family-friendly place — it’s full of real adult problems which require real adult Christians who are brave enough to acknowledge, understand, and confront (not hide from) the reality of the world. How do we do this? As viewers, we must be brave enough to watch (some) R-rated movies so we can more fully understand what the people we want to reach, and even ourselves, are facing and dealing with. And as filmmakers, we must be brave enough to tell honest, raw, and sometimes R-rated stories that show the reality of a dark world (in the likeness of the greatest story-teller) to more effectively show the power of God’s light in it.
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