Can Screenwriters Scare The Hell Out Of People?
(ANALYSIS) Looking back over the past few years in religion news, it would be hard to find a more haunting headline than this one from The New York Times: “In a First Among Christians, Young Men Are More Religious Than Young Women.”
In fact, the third most clicked Rational Sheep post ever (more popular, alas, than the overture for this project) was a “Crossroads” episode on that topic, with this headline: “Young men are flocking into pews — But The New York Times says these marriage-hungry guys are joining ‘bad’ churches.” In that post, I noted:
This is supposed to be a story about why so many young men are walking through the doors of traditional Christian churches in the post-pandemic years. The men get some ink here, but the final word — the high ground, in debate terms — was given to progressive evangelicals and exvangelicals who believe the real story is that young women are fleeing these same churches.
Why? Because these churches have failed to modernize their doctrines on the ordination of women, “reproductive rights” and other gender doctrines.
In other words, this is another case of “good” religion vs. “bad” religion.
Tragically, from the Gray Lady’s point of view, all those young men are flocking into “bad religion” churches and, thus, many are voting for “bad” political candidates.
Growing numbers of young women are embracing “good,” highly personal, forms of faith — not traditional doctrines and rites.
Now, what does this trend look like when woven into the sermons preached by Hollywood?
Yes, this can be seen in the omnipresent Girl Boss trope in superhero, science fiction and fantasy flicks.
But what do the doctrines of “good religion” and “bad religion” look like in the popular and highly profitable world of horror movies? That was the big question in a recent Religion Unplugged movie review-essay by Joseph Holmes: “‘Black Phone 2’ Dials Into A New Era Of Faith-Based Horror — But Loses Its Signal.”
You can read the rest of Terry Mattingly’s post on Substack.
Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.