It is only proof of our humanity if we feel anxious in times of uncertainty. Our new “normal” presents us with an unprecedented phenomenon—time. With time comes boredom, and it is likely that we will feel most of the effects of this worldwide pandemic in our boredom. 

The Dangers of Boredom 

“What am I going to do with all this time?” 

In The Screwtape Letters, the senior devil, Screwtape, convinces his apprentice, Wormwood, to pervert his subject’s natural desire for change. Wormwood uses the apparent presence of abnormality to force the subject into believing that novelty—change for the sake of change—will suppress his boredom. 

Given that boredom is justified by uncertainty, the subject is convinced that any new, exciting idea can satisfy his longings. Thus, boredom and novelty complement themselves dangerously, as they persuade us that anything is worthy of our attention—sin and apathy are usually byproducts of this threatening mixture. Caught under this spell, the subject comes to the end of his wits, falling into a state of perpetual lifelessness: 

You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. 

Without undermining the seriousness of our situation, “perpetual lifelessness” is undoubtedly threatening the spiritual, intellectual, and psychological growth of younger generations. Lewis’s mention of “staring at a dead fire in a cold room” bears a peculiar resemblance to the issue of technology and social isolation, an issue that so often leads back to apathy. In that, the endless scrolling of social media may prove the most dangerous fuel to the fire of lifelessness. 

One anecdote to the affliction of lifelessness is learning—learning not as an end in itself, but for the sake of truth—and we will discuss this in the latter half of this article. Before dealing with the why of learning, we must first examine the significance of our times. 

So, What Is “Normal?” 

We are mistaken when we justify boredom, and consequently “perpetual lifelessness,” with the absence of “normality” or “certainty.” The fact of the matter is that “normal life” is a façade, and human culture has forever existed on the brink of collapse. 

Humanity exists at the mercy of unforeseen, dangerous circumstances. The impact of plagues and terrorism are threats to be expected, yet they, also, occur without anticipation. Even the seemingly “normal,” tranquil periods of existence are tormented by the unpredictable. Although some seasons of life may be more normal than others, true normality is unattainable. In his famous sermon, Learning in Wartime, C.S. Lewis echoes this point when he states that: 

The war [or virus] creates no absolutely new situation; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice.

Lewis reminds us that our previous normal has been swept away into a sea of uncertainty, and our peril—this virus—prompts us to realize that we cannot ignore the finitude of our own existences. Our current times remind us that the human condition is but a shadow, and “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). 

The absence of a true “normality” should not negate the anxiety we feel about current circumstances—we are allowed to feel, just as Christ did at Gethsemane. The Cross reminds us that God uses evil for good, but also teaches us that He is not in the business of nullifying emotion. We may cry out “my God, my God,” while also submitting to His Lordship—and this is the beautiful paradox of Christianity. 

A Remedy to Boredom 

Now that we have established that the justification for boredom is void—due to the fact that “normal” does not truly exist—we can look at one possible solution. 

One beneficial thing we can do to combat “perpetual lifelessness” is to actively exercise our minds. It is easy to forget that the New Testament not only promotes the idea that Christ is our master, but also our teacher, and we are His lowly students. Christ calls us to sit at His feet, and this means growing to learn and love His teachings (Luke 10:38-42). Yet, the natural prerequisite to appreciating any teaching is to know the dangers of the alternative. This point is further illustrated in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians when he states: 

[I] did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech and wisdom… and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
-1 Corinthians 2:1, 4-5

History tells us that the church at Corinth found herself struggling to dismiss the platonic, stoic, and cynic schools of thought, and it is these philosophies Paul refers to when he says “lofty speech and wisdom.” Because Paul is aware of these ideologies, he can present himself as a student of Christ, given that he is able to gauge his perspective with an alternative. In this way, the Great Commandment is not merely a call to preach Christ, but a call to know what it means to not preach Christ. 

Why Learning Combats Boredom

I make the point of the student—the point that the student must grasp alternatives—to say this: the beauty of the gospel message shines even brighter when we apprehend its inverse. For what is the value of a lovely, spring day without the bitter winter? It may ring true that reading—and possibly, healthily empathizing with—the nihilists, postmodernists, and skeptics might bring us closer to Christ, and in greater comfort of truth. 

As theological and philosophical illiteracy has plagued younger generations, reading the “alternatives” is not necessarily a given. Yet, learning for the sake of truth challenges the temptation of boredom, and heightens our adoration for Christ. The path of novelty and lifelessness becomes less attractive as Christ is our guide through all the abnormalities of life.

Only one thing can temper a heated argument in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959). It happens toward the middle of the film. The protagonist’s family halt their shouting and, at the suggestion of the mother, go to the movies. One minute later in movie time, they emerge from the cinema hand-in-hand, all smiles—their argument a thing of the past. Like many of his French contemporaries did, Truffaut briefly shows us what the cinema means to him. 

The Power of Film

Movies have such an extraordinary power over us. What is it about a film—a series of images projected onto an otherwise blank screen—that causes us to laugh, cry, squirm, jump, gasp, or sigh? What makes this phenomenon even stranger is that film is, basically, a form of technology. It is photography, sound recording, lighting, computer effects all wound together and blasted out of a projector, and to us it looks and feels like life itself. This 100-year-old medium is a testament to man’s soul: We are not merely material, evolved for survival. If we were, would we take technology and turn it into soul-affirming art? In What We See in Films, critic and professor Leo Braudy confirms: 

The greatness of film is its offer of a potential to achieve creative power and expression within a situation that is commercial, collective, and technological—the forces that otherwise define our anonymity and frustration… [Film is] “spiritual technology.”

Only the Biblical worldview explains why we create “spiritual technology.” Human beings, though fallen from the glory of God, are nevertheless capable of beauty because they still bear the image of God. This tension between fallenness and beauty expresses itself in all cultural production. How else can we get something so beautifully horrid as Robert DeNiro’s tragic hero in Raging Bull (1980) pumping himself up before a boxing match? DeNiro’s Jake LaMotta jumps and glides through the air in slow motion, orchestral music gorgeously draping the moment—then, the scene cuts and we see him pummeling his opponent mercilessly. What other art can present such a visceral portrayal of this, man’s basic struggle between his original purpose and present reality?

A Biblical View of Film

If this art form is so powerful, it cannot be ignored. Christians ought to be critical thinkers about film. Yet, while we cannot be cloistered off to popular culture—of which film holds a significant portion of real estate—we cannot mindlessly engage too much, only to be sucked into fantasy worlds which, as a product of fallen man, dangerously sneak their own worldview into our minds. If the Word of God is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12), we should probe every part of our lives with it—especially what we think is “just entertainment.” 

The middle-ground between apathy and obsession is discernment, which ought to be our aim. We ought to care about film, but we ought to care more about honoring God. We can be entertained by a movie, but we ought to be able to return to reality as the Bible, not a director, affirms it. Watching movies with a Scripture-saturated mind ought to be enjoyable and edifying.

Two primary things ought to concern Christians who want to think critically about movies: worldview and humanity. Essentially, a Christian should care about how a film sees the world and the people in it.

Worldview

Why is “What’s your favorite movie?” one of the hardest questions we can be asked? Movies are all enjoyable (even the bad ones, to some extent), and it’s hard to pick a favorite. Film is so easy to enjoy—movies dance on the screen without any of our effort. Watching a movie is easy, and it involves almost all our senses. The act of watching a movie gratifies sensory experience with minimal effort. There is nothing like it. It’s almost too good to be true. 

Film is beautiful and dangerous. It is philosophy with a sugarcoat. Not many young people eagerly discuss Heidegger’s existentialism with friends, but Groundhog Day promises a lived-out and equally existential discussion. Monistic philosophy may be completely out of our grasp, but The Matrix (1999) is wild entertainment with a side of Eastern epistemology. Movies, either subtly or overtly, philosophize so well that they eventually indoctrinate. 

Every movie has a worldview, just like every human being. Even films that are genre-bending, obscure arthouse experiments—and their opposite, mindless “bro comedies”—have a worldview, a way of looking at the world. And since film is so easy to experience, we viewers are easily pulled into its vision of reality, body and soul. Dr. Grant Horner confirms in Meaning at the Movies: 

When the work is polished, the screen is king, and it creates a world that seems as real—or realer—than the real world… How many young men have not formed their views on masculinity primarily due to action movies?  

A Christian committed to the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture should immediately stop at the potential of something besides the Bible indoctrinating them. God commands us to submit every thought to the Lordship of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). This Lordship reigns over our entertainment choices and our free time; it is not meant to restrict us, but to free us from error and into the correct way of seeing reality. 

This does not mean Christians cannot enjoy film or get “lost” in a good movie. Quite the opposite, Christians should enjoy movies more than anyone else because our enjoyment has a foundation and an end—the knowledge of God. Every artist reflects God’s beautiful image in complex and stimulating ways. Art without this basis, without God, always leads to despair. How can you not watch the work of a masterful director, actor, or writer and think this person was a product of chance? The Bible affirms what we all know about ourselves and each other—we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). 

But Christians should also be the best at critiquing movies (and enjoying a movie actually plays a crucial role in critique). Only a Biblical worldview gives viewers sufficient confidence to probe a film. After affirming the beauty of the art and the talent of its maker, we are free to dissect and disagree with how reality is presented. This doesn’t spoil the fun or ruin the “fantasy” of film viewing, it actually allows us to fully engage with fantasy and finally take it seriously by recognizing the consequences of worldview. Nothing is ever “pure fantasy.” We ought to remember that fantasy, to really be fantasy, must be grounded in a clear sense of the reality it’s altering. 

One more thing this does not mean is that Christians should use movies as “tracts.” We should not seek to show people how, for example, Star Wars is actually about Christ. No, Star Wars is not about Christ. It is about the fictional “Jedi” and “The Force” and an “Empire.” It is not meant to be a Christian movie. Christians should not try to adapt a movie’s plot for the Bible. Doing this will grossly distort the Biblical message, and the film’s message too. Rather, we should see a movie for what it is, enjoy it, and proceed to discern it, its truth and its error, with a Scripture-saturated mind. May we be able to show the world that the Bible is not a dead book, nor a simplistic one, but rather a complex, living, and active text of ultimate import.

Humanity 

Humanity is at the center of any worldview. Any way of seeing the world must include a way of seeing human beings. Where do we come from? What are we like? What do we aspire to be? If any worldview presumes to be holistic truth, it must include accurate responses to such questions. 

Every movie takes a stab at these questions, tries to explain who we are. The persistent popularity of film is evidence that the medium portrays humans pretty accurately, or at least interestingly. Charlie Chaplin famously declared that film was just a passing fad, never to usurp the stage as the supreme art. He was clearly mistaken. Film lives on because it quite possibly is the best portrayal of humanity we have ever developed. Horner affirms, “God made us in his image; we make movies in ours.” 

Again, if this is true about movies, Christians should not dismiss them. Believers, wanting to think about the worldview a movie is presenting, must first determine how a film renders human beings. We can ask, “What, according to this film, is the source of human dignity?” “What makes a human human according to this movie?” Realize that movies can get a lot of these questions right—confirming what the Bible has already said. Above any other art form, film has the ability to depict life-like people, flaws and all in visible ways.

Arguably the defining characteristic of film, then, is empathy. The best movies invite us to feel with and for characters as if they were real people. We discover a lot about ourselves when we think which characters we relate to the most. The arts are championed in our world precisely because everyone knows we could all use a little more empathy. While art is not to be used as a Gospel tract, Christians can use it as an exercise in empathy. Before dissecting a film’s worldview—just like before we “give an answer for the hope that is in us” (1 Peter 3:15)—we must accept the invitation to feel. Believers in Christ have even more reason to empathize with characters on and off the screen. We know their dignity comes not from the camera pointed at them but from the God who made them. 

Finally, the most fun part about watching movies is being immersed in situations many of us will never encounter. They make us think “what would I have done in that situation?” Just like that question may reveal a lot about our personality, the bulk of a movie’s worldview comes from how its characters respond to the plot. Some movies are dark and hopeless, others are frothy and simplistic. Christians shouldn’t affirm one single style of filmmaking, but we should be able to inspect how a film’s style interprets humans and their problems, remembering that the Bible is all about this too. For Christians, thinking about human struggles in movies reminds us that the Word of God has already answered every question art can pose (Acts 17:27,28). 

A Word on the Director(s)

François Truffaut was a leading figure of the French New Wave, a powerful artistic movement that peaked in the 1960s. Films like The 400 Blows were largely a product of the theories of French film critics who championed directors as the sole authors of films (auteurs). The movies these critics championed, and subsequently made themselves, are singular expressions from the mind of a single creator. Their ideas are why, even today, a director usually gets all the praise (or critique) for his/her film. The “auteur theory” is really just an easier way to critique a film—making movies, however, is always collaborative. 

In her article, “The Christian and Contemporary Art,” my fellow writer Emily Zell wrote: 

We are called to remember that every artist is a created creator. We can thoughtfully enter into discussions of their creations and show how they point to their Creator. Proclaim the gaping God-shaped hole that is made so evident in these works of art and use it to point others to the Fulfiller of all.

Ultimately, what ought to concern every consumer of art is not only what is on the canvas, stage, or screen, but also who put it there. All art is expression by a “created creator.” All of it expresses the longing for something beyond our current existence. As Emily said, we ought to discuss how every work of art points to God—not because it may be “Christian” art, but simply because it is art. 

Filmmakers (the director, writer, editor, etc), then, are not there just to be praised or derided; they are there to express, and we are here to attend to what they have to say. We respect the artist by actively engaging with the work. We ought to acknowledge the talent, creativity, and effort put into making a movie. But, it would be unloving—indeed, a waste of time—to not point to the ultimate foundation for art, beauty, and knowledge. 

Christian, watch movies. You are free to enjoy and discern film—not because it is just entertainment, but because, like a shadow, it makes obvious the presence of the sun.