What the Noah Movie Reveals about Art and the Church

I haven’t seen the new Noah movie yet, so this isn’t a review or a critique of the movie, but some of the comments I’ve heard about it and the discussions I’ve seen online got me thinking about art and the Church. (For the record, it’s not that I’m intentionally avoiding the movie in some act of protest, my wife and I just don’t go to a lot of movies in the theater in general.)

It sounds like the movie doesn’t do a great job of representing the biblical narrative, and I understand why that concerns some people. But the thought that comes to mind is this:

Why are we relying on non-Christians in Hollywood to creatively and faithfully tell the stories of God?

Shouldn’t these be our stories to tell? Scripture contains some of the most epic, beautiful, tragic, hopeful stories in all of literature, yet in general, we do a poor job of communicating these stories through our art.

Lately, Christian musicians have exceled in writing songs and telling stories that are excellent, creative, original, and true to life – and the Gospel. Some of my most meaningful times of worship have come at “secular” concerts where the artists weren’t getting paid thousands of dollars to crank out cookie-cutter “Christian” music but were believers creating meaningful, beautiful art. It wasn’t worshipful for everyone because many in the room didn’t even know what was happening, but if they were to stop and pay attention to the lyrics and the songs, they would be confronted with some of the most beautiful depictions of brokenness, hope, redemption, and love.

It should be us as Christians telling the stories of Abraham, Noah, and David and finding ways to creatively communicate the themes of creation, brokenness, rescue, redemption, and new life.

But that leads to my second thought:

What are we doing as the Church and as individual congregations to support the artists in our own communities?

As Christians, we spend a ton of money investing in a lot of different things – some are significant, some aren’t. But do we invest in art that will tell parts of the Gospel story in some way? Do we support the artists in our own communities? Are we creating ways for the artists in our churches to tell their stories and use their gifts to serve the Kingdom?

It sounds simplistic to say that if you didn’t like this multi-million dollar Hollywood movie that you should support the artists in your community, but this is where it begins. Why should non-Christians be expected to be the ones that carry the torch in making excellent movies, music, paintings, and novels, especially surrounding the stories of OUR faith? Do Muslims expect Christians or Buddhists to create great art that depicts the life of Muhammad?

We don’t deserve for these movies to be done well if we’re not even going to support our fellow brothers and sisters who are artists. And certainly, nothing is owed to us by Hollywood to faithfully portray these stories, so why not be a part of championing our own stories and artists instead of merely critiquing the art that’s already out there?

So support your artists! Find ways for them to serve! Feed them! Encourage them! Ask for their ideas! Pay for great art! And don’t expect the secular world to create meaningful stories and movies for us, especially around the stories of our own faith.

-CK