Religious Films

With worries over the decency of films, many nontheatrical film distributors - even outside of religious films - took steps to regulate the content of their catalogs as this foreword discusses.

Religious moving images were foundational in the nontheaterical space. After initially shunning moving images as morally lacking, religious leaders in the early 1900s started pivoting to embrace the medium, particularly by Christian and Jewish religious leaders.⁵² In this new view, film could be a social cleansing agent, helping to instill productive and upstanding morals and religious thought to the masses at a time when social reformers were striding for the prohibition of alcohol and the reinforcement of traditional values in resistance to flappers, perceived moral failings of the era, and the large amounts of immigrants in communities.⁵³ Within this emerging view was an inherent moral superiority to the working class masses, and a duty to instill these morals and behaviors unto the general public.⁵⁴ Helping change religious minds on film was the introduction of censorship boards throughout the United States in the opening decades of the twentieth century. These boards managed to regulate out the most egregious film subjects in the eyes of churches.⁵⁵ Additionally, religious films were a strategy to attract new membership into churches, to keep the faithful in the church pews, and to spur the religious into doing acts of spirituality: like contributing to missionary undertakings.⁵⁶ 

Key to changing opinions on religious film was the voicing of approval for nontheaterical moving images by religious leaders. Many of these early discussions took place in nontheaterical film trade magazines like the Motion Picture Story Magazine and The Moving Picture World’s regular column “The Picture in the Church.”⁵⁷ Others in the space, like Reverend Herbert Jump, expressed their thoughts on religious moving images in pamphlets. Reverend Jump’s 1910 pamphlet would become an influential piece on the positives of embracing film by Christian churches. Central to this point was convincing church leaders to recommend films to see or to save and purchase projection equipment and make ready space to view films directly.⁵⁸ To justify the expense, Reverend Jump and others pointed out the ability for churches to share projectors with schools and YMCAs and YWCAs, defraying costs and expanding impact.⁵⁹ The response from religious circles was not without criticism, as accounts of Reverend Jump after his pamphlet’s release make claims of him losing his position at South Congregational Church in New Britain, Connecticut, although the story has not been corroborated by other sources.⁶⁰ Even if untrue in this specific case, no doubt the idea of film in churches divided clergy and parishioners. 

Distributors would often market religious films as group packages for greater rental rates, like this example from 1941.

Religious films had specific themes and content decisions in contrast to other nontheaterical film genres. Articulating the essence of a model religious film, Reverend Jump explained in his piece the need for direction from the Bible. He used the example of the Good Samaritan as a potential film concept:

The only thing needed to make the parable of the Good Samaritan a conspicuously successful motion picture film is a new title. Call it ‘The Adventure of the Jerusalem Merchant’, and it would appeal perfectly to the habitue of the dime theatre, and he would catch the noble moral of it far more swiftly, perhaps, than do many of the more well-to-do Christians, who hear it rather than see it, when it is droned further from the pulpit by the preacher of a Sunday morning as the New Testament lesson.⁶¹

Religious themes flowed through films, with sermons, hymns, or other direct religious content taking center stage. When not directly about religion, films often modeled the envisionment of morality and citizenship endorsed by churches.⁶²

Religious film would transition from these beginnings to become a full industry. The debate on embracing film by religious leadership would continue into the 1930s, but by the 1940s an emerging Christian film industry was developing.⁶³ Especially after World War II, religious film distribution took off, with the likes of Cathedral Films and others, creating distribution networks to churches and affiliated institutions across America. Nontheaterical film catalogs dedicated to religious, and especially Christian, films were a common sight.⁶⁴ To assist new presenters, Cathedral Films went so far as to make an eighteen-minute film on how to display films in churches.⁶⁵ With success and time, religious film and Hollywood would blur lines; religious filmmakers introduced more controversial topics, like abortion in the 1960s, and traditional silver screen themes like heavy violence by the 1980s.⁶⁶ While nontheaterical film declined at the end of the twentieth century, churches still host religious, digital moving images regularly and large production houses frequently release religious motion pictures in theaters.