In the wake of hugely successful movies such as The Passion of the Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia, Hollywood is intentionally making films for and marketing to Christians. One studio has gone so far as to create a "faith division" that targets Christians. Marketing gurus have gotten savvy enough to start holding screenings of some films in churches and lining up pastors to pitch movies to their congregations.

The trend is growing as at least two dozen films with overtly religious themes are lined up for release in 2007. Two of the more notable examples are:

1. Nativity (Dec. 1). Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider) plays the Virgin Mary in this story of her trek with Joseph to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus.
2. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Dec. 14, 2007). The Christian parable and sequel to last year's hit continues with the story of siblings caught in a battle of good and evil in a fantasy kingdom.

Of course, the motivation behind all of this is often more about the love of Mammon than the love of Jesus. With Christian books racking up big bucks such as the nutty Left Behind book series and their dreadful four films, Hollywood is waking up to see that there is big money to be made among the Christian faithful. And when Mel Gibson's The Passion topped $370 million in revenue in North America alone, the potential of the Christian market was obvious.

A recent USA Today story had some interesting points regarding the marketing power of pastors of large churches: "Indeed, studios are finding that ministers who preach to flocks of 5,000 or more a week can be as powerful a marketing tool as a slick advertising campaign." The story goes on to say, "Industry executives are revising traditional advertising campaigns to recognize audiences of faith. Traditionally, studios market movies to the 'four quadrants': men, women, moviegoers younger than 25, and those 25 and older. The churchgoing community has become the 'fifth quadrant.' Just how big that demographic is, however, is anyone's guess. According to a Gallup survey in December, about 57 percent of Americans consider religion 'very important' in their everyday lives."

This trend is a most curious missional twist. God calls His people to bring the good news of the gospel of Jesus to lost people in the culture by using the cultural mediums such as film to communicate. But we are now seeing lost people functioning as missionaries to make and market films for churchgoers.

I was thinking about how true, however, the film executives are. The church I pastor in Seattle (Mars Hill Church) rented a theater with maybe 400 seats for two showings of The Passion and packed each one out. Additionally, we rented an even larger theater for the opening of The Chronicles of Narnia and sold it out quickly. We also do regular Film and Theology nights at our church, hosted by one of our pastors, James Harleman. These events draw hundreds of people for viewing and follow-up theological discussion. We also hosted a screening of a yet unreleased documentary film on the life of the hippie preacher Lonnie Frisbee who died of AIDS; we had some 700 or 800 people attend the showing.

All of this raises some interesting theological questions:

• Should a pastor/church endorse any form of entertainment, including a film, or is that wrongly using spiritual authority for marketing purposes?
• Should Christians view the trend of filmmaking solely for their niche market as a good thing as they are gaining respect or a bad thing that Christians somehow can't just enjoy a decent mainstream film like everyone else?
• Should churches open their auditoriums to watch films or is that a violation of "sacred space"?
• How funny is it that just a few generations ago, Christians from more sectarian and separatistic, fundamentalist homes were told that watching movies was an evil to be avoided and now the same sort of people are a market for "Christian" film?