My father used to tell me, “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” That may be over simplifying things, but in light of some of the criticism I see flying around in Christian circles, I think it’s something we need to think about. There is a disturbing trend in culture that I see infecting us as Christians. It’s this need to be critical, to tear people down, to be just downright mean. In our space it shows up in the comments and reviews left about videos on sites like SermonSpice and WorshipHouse. People going as far as to say things like, “there’s a reason why it’s free.” And here are a couple of comments pulled off WorshipHouse… “pretty lousy.” That was all they said. This one might be the worst I’ve seen: “Really stupid. Not deep, not funny, just stupid..” And here’s my favorite comment that one of our videos has received, “Nice concept, but it’s been done. And better. By others.” By who? When? What am I supposed to do with that?

This is just a small sample of the comments out there. You can surf around and see them for your self. I’m not trying to whine or cry about it. I just think we need to have a frank and open conversation about this. Why do we, as Christians feel a need to tear down these films and videos (and here’s the important part) without offering anything constructive to put in their place. Let me explain what I mean by way of a C.S. Lewis quote. Everybody loves Lewis, right? Once, when Lewis was criticized for oversimplifying the Gospel, he responded to his critic:

[He] would be a more helpful critic if he advised a cure as well
as asserting many diseases. How does he himself do such
work? What methods, and with what success, does he employ
when he is trying to convert the great mass of storekeepers,
lawyers, realtors, morticians, policemen and artisans who surround
him in his own city?

All I’m saying is that if we feel the need to say something, and sometimes something needs to be said, let’s be sure we’re coming at it with a spirit of wanting to help, to encourage, to see our criticism used to further God’s Kingdom and not just to tear down. And if we don’t have anything helpful or constructive to offer, then why say anything at all?

Ya feel me?

So… I saw a video this morning on a certain distributors website which shall remain nameless. The video is a “Christianized” copy of a video put out by the ONE campaign. The ONE campaign video uses highly recognizeable faces and a stark black and white aesthetic to draw attention to the startling statistic that a child dies every three seconds from AIDS or extreme poverty. The video is really well done, highly creative and very effective in communicating its message. Click here to watch it now.

Imagine my surprise when I’m looking through the new releases on a certain website and I come across a video that is an exact copy of this video. It’s black and white, shot on a white background, the people in the video aren’t the same celebrities but they are snapping every three seconds. Then the text comes up and it’s been changed to reflect that every three seconds (same as in the ONE video) six people die. The point the video is trying to make is that people are dying every second and a lot of those people don’t know Christ as Savior. I get that. And I applaud the filmmakers for trying to make that point. I just wish they would have taken inspiration from the ONE video and used that inspiration to creatively come up with their own original idea. As it is, to me it seems they’ve just stolen the idea. They give no credit to the original creators and they are passing it off as an original work. I could go on but I think I’ve made my point.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this in the church video space. It’s one of the most blatant copies I’ve seen, but it’s not the first. We need to be innovators. We need to be drawing on the creativity that God has given us to come up with original and powerful ways to communicate truth. And we need to be above reproach. There is a difference between parody and stealing. There is a difference between homage and rip off. And it just seems wrong.

I would really love it if you guys would weigh in on this topic and let me know your thoughts. I really feel like this is a discussion we all need to be having as makers and users of media and most importantly as bearers of the image of Christ.