Hollywood’s Faith in the Family
Religion & Liberty Online

Hollywood’s Faith in the Family

S.T. Karnick, who also blogs at The Reform Club, has some pretty solid and informative musings on popular culture.

One of his most recent gems comes along with the news that Fox has created a new religion and family friendly division for its movie studios, named FoxFaith. It also looks like Disney is phasing out its plans to make R-rated movies.

As Karnick writes, “The best way for Christians to affect Hollywood is not to protest but to go to more movies, make clear their love for the medium, and praise Hollywood for what it does right.” The Dove Foundation has been doing some work for quite awhile that shows how profitable G and PG-rated movies are when compared to R-rated films.

If you take even just a quick look at the highest grossing movies of all time, it becomes pretty clear that the bulk of big-time movies are in the PG/PG-13 range. Note, too, that the highest grossing R-rated movie ever (not taking inflation into account), is The Passion of the Christ.

With these moves by Disney and Fox, it looks to me like the market is starting to seriously respond to the signals that so many Americans are sending.

Jordan J. Ballor

Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. He has previously held research positions at the Acton Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has authored multiple books, including a forthcoming introduction to the public theology of Abraham Kuyper. Working with Lexham Press, he served as a general editor for the 12 volume Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology series, and his research can be found in publications including Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Religion, Scottish Journal of Theology, Reformation & Renaissance Review, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Faith & Economics, and Calvin Theological Journal. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity & Politics at Calvin University.