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  ⁂ L. Rhodeslrhodes@merveilles.town

  Jul 4, 2026, 5:14 PM

  Part of what I find so fascinating about all of this is how little reflections there seems to be in evangelical filmmakers' embrace of technologies like AI. There's no debate or even inquiry into how it meshes (or doesn't) with Christian values, because the embrace is driven by prerogatives that override any concern that AI might be unethical or sinful. It's similar to Christian rock in that so many choices are decided by the imperative to meet popular culture on its own terms.

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  ⁂ L. Rhodeslrhodes@merveilles.town

  Jul 4, 2026, 5:18 PM

  For example, the beginning of the "Moses" trailer could pass for a tense, quiet drama about Moses grappling with theophany and the divine commission placed upon him. You could make that story on a soundstage, without all of the VFX, without even attempting to pass it off for a location shoot, and might end up with a movie that is both more interesting and more effective as a tool of outreach. But something in the culture or personalities of evangelical filmmakers won't let them make that movie.

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  ⁂ L. Rhodeslrhodes@merveilles.town

  Jul 4, 2026, 5:26 PM

  That may be because, while it seems logical that evangelical pop culture is meant to evangelize, much of it functions rather as a substitute. They may tell you that the point is to convert the unbeliever, but the product is better geared toward giving evangelicals alternatives that can pass as worship while still feeling like pop culture. In that regard, it's more important that the result looks like it was meant to compete with a Nolan movie than that it does something interesting on its own merits.

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  ⁂ L. Rhodeslrhodes@merveilles.town

  Jul 4, 2026, 5:36 PM

  One last little rabbit hole: "The Old Stories: Moses" is being positioned as a prequel to the Wonder Project's series House of David — or, more bizarrely, as part of the "House of David cinematic universe." That accords with a certain brand of evangelicalism that is inordinately focused on Israelite kingship. It's probably not overstating it to characterize that as a vein of monarchism in modern evangelicalism. Which is interesting in its own right, but then you pair it with their particular brand of patriotism. There's a kind of parallelism, for example, between House of David and their other big production, Young Washington, both of them biopics about the ascension of national leaders to both adulthood an authority. That pretty quickly escalates into a view of American exceptionalism as a revival of Israelite monarchism. So once again we find generative AI being embraced by executives with tendencies toward authoritarianism.

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