Most People Approve of Faith Themes in Entertainment

Most Americans are open to religious themes in visual entertainment, the 2026 Faith & Entertainment Index from the Faith & Media Initiative. Researchers tested more than 100 scenes from TV series and films with more than 12,000 respondents in the United States.

In recent years, Hollywood studios and streaming platforms have wrestled with how — or whether — to incorporate faith storylines into mainstream projects. The success of faith-based titles such as Angel Studios’ 2023 hit “Sound of Freedom” and the ongoing popularity of series like “The Chosen” have demonstrated that explicitly religious content can draw sizable audiences. At the same time, industry analysts note that portrayals of religion in secular programming have often been limited or stereotyped, a tension this new research seeks to address.

More than nine in 10 entertainment consumers said they are open to seeing faith represented on screen, and three-quarters said faith can have broad appeal in modern entertainment.

“I knew it would be a big number, but that really is almost like 100 percent,” said Brooke Zaugg, executive director of the Faith & Media Initiative. “Religion can feel scary to talk about — like politics — so it creates the illusion that it’s a small group. That makes it easy for filmmakers to oversimplify it or not give it much thought instead of recognizing how valuable faith storytelling can be when it’s done well.”

Ed Stetzer, dean of Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, who has written extensively on faith and culture, has similarly argued that “religion is not disappearing from American life — it is being renegotiated in public spaces, including media.” He has said in previous interviews that nuanced portrayals of belief can resonate beyond a single faith tradition when they focus on universal human questions.

Support for faith themes was consistent across age demographics. The percentage of each groups who believed faith-based stories have broad appeal include Eight in 10 among Gen Z, 83 percent of millennials, 78 percent of Gen X, and 72 percent of baby boomers. Politically, 82 percent of Republicans believe so, 75 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of independents agree.

Survey respondents were shown scenes drawn from multiple genres and series, including examples from both secular and faith-oriented storytelling. The scenes that scored highest tended to depict characters authentically exploring their beliefs and placing them in familiar and emotionally grounded contexts. Media researchers have long found that audiences respond more positively to religious content when it is integrated organically into character development rather than presented didactically.

One of the top-ranking clips was from the HBO series “The Pitt,” which resonated with viewers across different faith backgrounds for its depiction of Jewish identity, even as it has problems. Other highly rated scenes came from “Young Sheldon,” “Nobody Wants This” and the film “Hacksaw Ridge.”

Shows like “The Pitt,” which even progressive reviewers say has a lot of “woke” content, shine in other instances.  In a discussion about the lead character, who is Jewish and played by Noah Wyle, Kveller.com states “He does mention his Jewish identity earlier, in the show’s fourth episode. In a conversation with charge nurse Dana Evans, she accidentally attributes a quote that comes from the Book of Luke to Shakespeare. The line, he then corrects her, should be attributed to ‘Luke, the disciple, who probably heard it from Paul, the apostle, but what do I know? I’m Jewish, it’s not my book.’”

The research was conducted in two waves between September and November 2025, with participants who watch television or movies at least weekly. Religious affiliation data were weighted to reflect the U.S. population, with oversampling of some groups to ensure statistical reliability. According to the Pew Research Center’s latest Religious Landscape Study, roughly 63 percent of U.S. adults identify as Christian, while religious “nones” account for about 29 percent — a demographic reality that makes broad-based openness to faith themes noteworthy for content creators.

The study corroborates an earlier report from Movieguide, which found that titles featuring strong Christian, biblical, moral or redemptive themes dominated both the Top 10 and Top 25 highest-grossing films of 2024, outperforming movies driven by graphic violence, explicit sexuality or antibiblical worldviews. Industry box office data from 2024 show several family-friendly and faith-adjacent films exceeding projections, reinforcing the report’s conclusion that values-driven storytelling continues to command a substantial audience.

–Alan Goforth