Sinners vs. The Chosen: When Christian Criticism Contradicts Christian Consumption

There’s been a lot of noise lately. A lot of finger-pointing. A lot of “this is demonic” commentary about Sinners, a film that many of the loudest critics probably haven’t even seen.

What’s striking isn’t just the outrage — it’s the inconsistency. The same people eager to denounce Sinners barely acknowledged The Chosen when it was in theaters just a few weeks ago. Empty seats. Quiet feeds. Limited excitement. For a show, appearing in theaters across the country, that was made (well!) specifically for Christian audiences, by someone who shares the faith — that silence was deafening.

Meanwhile, Sinners — a story that wrestles with faith, grief, spiritual warfare, and vampires (that always helps) — became a box office phenomenon. It opened to $48 million and is sustaining success to become one of the top-grossing original movies of the 2020s. Clearly, it compelled someone. A lot of someones. The Chosen, by contrast, opened to $11.7 million across over 2,300 theaters. More than solid numbers for a faith-based release, but not the kind of overwhelming support you’d expect from a community claiming to be thirsty (if you will) for more Christ-centered media. The exact kind of entertainment that was designed to compel critical masses (you’ll catch that on your way out), as Christ’s story should.

So again: what are we really showing up for? And, why are we really criticizing?

Ryan Coogler may or may not call himself a Christian, but he clearly carries something to say about faith, Black identity, and the tensions in between. The film weaves in blues, Southern spirituality, and African traditionalism — not to glorify darkness, but to show the complexity of navigating faith in a world that doesn’t make it easy. It’s a real struggle many of us live with daily.

And here’s what few are pointing out: the vampires in Sinners aren’t just monsters. They’re part of a deeply structured cult — one that mimics Christian language and practices. The promise of eternal life through blood and initiation. They preach salvation through community. They demand sacrifice under the guise of belonging. It’s not just horror — it’s commentary: a reflection of what can happen, and has happened, when religion loses its soul and becomes about control instead of Christ.

I’ve seen that before, Sinners.

Some might argue that horror itself is inappropriate for Christians, regardless of content. But Scripture, from Revelation’s apocalyptic imagery to the graphic violence in Judges, doesn’t shy away from depicting the violence, spiritual warfare, and our grotesque realities in a fallen world. The Biblical narrative confronts darkness rather than ignoring it. The problem isn’t horror as a genre; it’s our unwillingness to do the hard work of engagement rather than the easy work of dismissal.

If Sinners unsettles you, it might not be because it’s dark. It might be because it exposes the ways we’ve seen Christian communities twisted — how easy it is to exchange true faith for the illusion of holiness. How easily power, once indoctrinated, can corrupt.

And still, many Christians dismissed it without examining it. Loud online. Absent in nuance. Quiet when The Chosen came around — but suddenly bold in criticism when a different kind of story rose to the surface.

This, solely, isn’t a battle between good and evil. It’s a reflection of what we engage with and why, how quick we are to condemn what challenges us and how hesitant we are to champion what was made for us.

Miles Caton, our collective Black church nephew, who plays the lead in Sinners, said his character’s journey mirrors his own: growing up in church and attempting to understand his calling. He’s not an outsider critiquing faith — he’s inside of it, working it out. And that deserves attention, respect and applause.

I think, as African-American Christians, we expect African-American content to undergird our beliefs. That’s a presumptuous expectation, and a dangerous one. It’s not our job to police Black content and force it to cater to us, and urge people not to support it because it doesn’t fully align. It’s our job to understand the world, understand our personal convictions, understand our collective beliefs, and act in a way that aligns with how to reconcile all three while drawing people to Jesus.

Instead of policing Black content, what if we engaged it with the same intellectual curiosity and spiritual discernment that the early church used when encountering new cultures? They often found connection points to introduce a greater understanding about Jesus that made since in their context and culture. Similarly, we might ask what ‘Sinners’ reveals about Black experiences with religious institutions, historical trauma, or community resilience.

Healthy engagement means we can acknowledge the artistry of brilliance like Coogler and Peele while engaging critically with spiritual themes without demanding that the work fit our predetermined boundaries.

Jesus didn’t sit in temples waiting for people to show up. He walked into homes, interrupted funerals, crossed cultural lines and asked questions at wells. His ministry was in the middle of people’s stories. So if we say we’re following Him, we can’t only watch what we know and mirror. We have to learn how to sit in spaces that challenge us too.

Every time we choose what to consume or critique, we’re making a decision about the kind of Christian we want to be. One that hides from the world — or one that’s willing to converse with discernment, love, and curiosity.

Jesus said go. Not isolate. Not police. Go.

So maybe the real question isn’t, is this demonic?

Maybe the better question is, is this a chance to see something in ourselves? Is this a chance to understand another perspective and engage in a way Jesus would?

And if we can’t tell the difference, we might not be engaging with culture the way Jesus called us to. We might just be reacting to what makes us uncomfortable instead of listening for what God could be revealing — through artists, through tension, through story.

Please watch The Chosen, Christian or not, it’s incredibly good television. And if you haven’t yet — go see Sinners, Christian or not, it’s an incredibly good movie.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.