There is more to the article.

I suppose I should have said our "standard" of morality in not infantile.

It depends on (1) what you mean by evangelicals/fundamentalists and (2) what you mean by ""redeem"".

"Art" (with a capital "A") is a relatively new development in human history, in any case. I doubt many artists/artisans before Bach would have understood the expressionistic cowl now drawn about the face of art. To quote Andre Gide, "Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better," or Paul Klee: "Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see."

In the strickest sense, I'm not sure art can be redeemed at all, in any way. I see redemption as being necessarily linked to right relationships--as with almost all things related to the Gospel, right relationship with God and right relationship with one another. (Jesus never said the world would know his disciples by their art.) The idea of redeeming art implies that art, by itself, can have a relationship to someone. That's a pagan/animist idea, really. It might apply to gardening or animal husbandry, but not dead hunks of wood, fabric, metal, or plastic.

But, even if one accepts a work of art as being something inhabited by its (sub)creator in some fashion, I'm still not sure redemption has anything to do with it. Understanding, yes. But redemption implies transformation...

More often the case, as with the blind leading the blind, "redeemed art" (both in quotes) can end up in a sanctimonius pit worse than where it started.

Christians should be more focused on the redemption of their neighbors than the redemption of Hollywood studios.

Yes -- Harold Best would say that to confuse the art with the artist amounts to idolatry. If you redeem the artists, the art should take care of itself.

I am not filled with hope after learning what sort of church it is and taking a quick look at their Web site, with its three different ways to spell the word "opportunity." This sort of thing could be great if it's done right -- but there are so many more ways to do it wrong.

I thought that was a description of the anti-Christ...or have I watched too many Omen movies? (Rev 13:3 -- "the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.")

this is actually not surprising to me. for some reason, many evangelicals seem to put these quasi-historical films (braveheart being the main one) in the category of "family-friendly." at least that's the attitude i encountered growing up in an evangelical setting: those movies were acceptable because they portrayed noble men and didn't try to pull any sketchy "liberal" revisionist history (such as taking up the cause of the underdogs who overcame without using violence).

also, modern evangelicals seem to have fewer issues with violence in film than with other objectionable behavior. this is true in general, but it's particularly acceptable when it's "redemptive" violence--i.e., when it helps the good-guy protagonists win the day and defeat the evil "other." i suppose, in sense, it reaffirms the evangelical sense of good and evil being utterly separate, utterly discernable--utterly black and white. the morals in these types of films are usually clear cut and the ultimate goal is virtue. i am not so sure this is the way christians are called to see the world--being there's good and evil bound up in each individual--but at least for me, it explains why a church like this would show a film like "troy."