If Christians want to make significant contributions to filmmaking...

William Romanowski, author of Eyes Wide Open, showed up in the pages of today’s USA Today, addressing the potential for Christians to encourage productive dialogue through the medium of film.

Only when evangelicals agree to look at Hollywood not just as an evangelistic tool, or a harmless entertainment provider, but also as an important participant in cultural discourse will they understand that as a major share of the movie market, they are in a position to shape that vital discussion.

I would add that evangelicals who want to make a difference through moviemaking need to learn the power of beauty, of imagery, to provoke and challenge the viewer. It’s one thing to make a movie that provokes us to participate in important conversations. It’s another thing to cultivate viewers’ appetites for spiritual nourishment by showing them images of such beauty that they must seek out the source of such inspiration.

After all, creation itself “pours forth speech” merely by the beauty of God’s design. That’s why Christ taught so much through metaphor… he saw profundity everywhere he looked, not just in the lessons taught at the temple. He wanted us to develop “eyes to see.” Sometimes, imagery can say something entirely different, and far more affecting, than the script.