Breakpoint Chimes In

The encouraging reviews for our first Act One book, Behind the Screen, continue to roll in. Here is an enthusiastic thumbs-up from professor Alex Wainer, a reviewer for Chuck Colson's Breakpoint. A snip...

My personal favorite of all the fine articles in the book is Scott Derrickson’s “A Filmmaker’s Progress.” Derrickson’s most recent film, the critically praised The Exorcism of Emily Rose, demonstrates that he has achieved a prominence in mainstream filmmaking to which others aspire without compromising his faith. The chapter is a marvelous allegory, a la The Pilgrim’s Progress, of his journey through the various attitudes Christians take toward popular culture such as “The Village of Passive Consumers,” and “The Battalion of Values Changers.” Hitting closer to home for me was “The Content Assasins,” which Derrickson describes as “a small, educated band of Christians who took careful aim at Hollywood movies, then shot holes in their non-Christian content,” particularly aiming at secular worldviews.

Though Derrickson found aspects to appreciate about these and other approaches to the movies, he found the group he best fit in was what he calls the “Quality Club,” the approach that says we have to learn to do excellent and marketable work, be professional and have moral integrity if we expect to have an impact on Hollywood and its audience.

It seems that this is the path Christians aspiring to work in Hollywood must follow to be salt and light in a community more vilified than prayed for or understood by the faithful. This book is a helpful map that will guide many pilgrims on their way to fruitful vocations in a land of many creative but lost people, some of whom, like the people of Nineveh, might surprise us when they finally hear God’s call through his obedient servants.