Movies Are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings

by Josh Larsen

hope a few things: that movies, at their most potent, are not diversions or products or even works of art, but prayerful gestures received by God; that we best honor movies when we allow them this potential, rather than treat them like ways to pass the time or purchases to be made or unwashed items to be dissected according to an arbitrary moral code; and that no matter what our response, God still watches them with a heart that is both righteous and merciful. As we watch films, then, let’s enter the theater as we would a sanctuary where a prayer is about to be offered. Let’s listen to the prayer carefully and graciously before we add our own words. Let’s be a congregation, not a censor board. Let’s be open to the possibility that as movie watchers, we’re privileged eavesdroppers on a dialogue between God and the creative beings he made.