In her latest article, screenwriter and entertainment industry pro Zena Dell Lowe pulls no punches, warning Christians that the Academy Awards favorite vampire flick Sinners isn’t just another horror romp, it’s a sly assault on biblical truth, dressed up in borrowed Christian lingo.
Lowe recently posted a substack entitled “Christians Who Think Sinners Is a Great Film Are Missing Something Important,” which dissects how the movie borrows Christian language “but quietly replaces Christian theology.” She’s right on the money, exposing Hollywood’s oldest tricks that undermine faith while pretending to nod at it.
Plenty of believers left the theater buzzing about a tale of community, tunes, and soul-searching battles. But Lowe urges a closer look: “Beneath its rich imagery and emotional resonance, Sinners quietly constructs a theology of its own, one that borrows Christian language while systematically removing Christian truth.”
Stories aren’t innocent fun, as Lowe points out. “Stories are never theologically neutral,” she writes. They build worlds where some ideas win and others get trashed. And Sinners, with its Academy Award nods, is peddling a fake gospel that feels oh-so-spiritual but erases God from the story. If you walked out feeling moved, Lowe isn’t wagging a finger. She’s asking the smart question: “Powerful… toward what?” Because this film pushes a post-Christian vibe that’s all emotion, no substance. It’s subversive, and Lowe nails how it flips the script step by step.
For the unitiated, the film is set in 1930s Mississippi, and follows twin brothers back from Chicago with stolen cash. They flip a sawmill into a nightclub for the Black community, roping in musicians like their cousin ‘Preacher Boy’, whose pastor dad warns him that music invites darkness. Vampires crash the party, resulting a bloodbath and forcing folks to grapple with evil and purpose. At its core? Church versus the music.
Lowe explains how the title “Sinners” gives the movie some biblical gravitas, but she calls it a bait-and-switch. In real Christianity, sin wrecks lives and demands repentance through Christ. Here? It gets repackaged as cool identity and freedom from “repression.” As Lowe puts it, “The film borrows the weight… then changes the definition.”
Christianity is just a buzzkill, and the pastor’s calls for restraint paint faith as fearful and controlling. Music and art is what sets you free. Then there’s the shift to ritual magic over prayer to Christ, with a former lover’s talismans offering real power. Indigenous native American ways look wise and supernatural; Western Christianity, clueless and powerless.
In the barn dance montage, music steals the show. It bends time, heals wounds, and unites souls – all the role that faith in God should fulfill. Vampires are hosting a twisted church, where belonging to their tribe is the definition of salvation. And when Preacher Boy prays the Lord’s Prayer? The vampire mocks it as empty comfort. “Christian ritual remains. Christian comfort remains. But Christian power is gone,” explains Lowe. It made me rethink the movie altogether.
As for the movie’s afterlife vision? Heavenly vibes without judgment or Jesus. Preacher Boy ends up ditching church for the guitar, choosing vibes over doctrine, to which Lowe sums up as the “film’s actual thesis isn’t just ‘music is transcendent.’ It’s this: ‘The people Christianity calls sinners are the ones closest to truth.'” Oof.
Stories shape culture. They touch and shape our very souls, our moral center. When they remove God, junk fills that void. As Hollywood keeps churning out faith-twisting tales, tonight’s Academy Awards will likely catapult Sinners even higher. The film snagged a record-breaking 16 nominations, smashing previous highs set by classics like Titanic. And all the media experts predict big wins, including Best Picture and Best Director for Ryan Coogler, boosting its subversive, anti-Christian message to the masses.
But this is classic Tinseltown; awarding films that mock traditional values while claiming enlightenment as entertainment. This recent trend has even begun promoting evil as virtue in pop culture, with examples like The Bride!, Maleficent, Wicked: For Good, and others, audatiously rehabbing villains into heroes. Alas, Hollywood’s been glamorizing sin since day one, and Sinners is just the latest con job. Don’t be fooled.
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English (US) · 