The 10 best Christian documentaries on Netflix streaming in 2015 range from full-length theatrical releases to single episodes of television. Most focus on trying to shed light on or debunk popular Christian myths like the gnostic gospels or the feasibility of Noah’s ark, and these topics appeal to both believers and nonbelievers, especially when these stories are told well. We love to watch smart people share their lively opinions about ancient history, especially when we feel invested in the outcome.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are arguably the first Christian documentaries, describing firsthand the life and times of Jesus Christ as he and his disciples traveled the holy land and preached and performed miracles. Many of the other books of the New Testament are the same way, documenting letters that early followers of Jesus wrote to others. Christianity has always been a faith based in extensive documentation and testimony.
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But Christians still make a leap of faith, and that leap creates a space for theories and disagreements to thrive. Should we take Noah’s ark as a literal happening? Was the universe created in six days, and on the recent timeline laid out in the Book of Genesis? Did Methuselah really live to be nearly a thousand years old? Many believers find these questions interesting as ideas, but their faith doesn’t live and die by the answers.
For nonbelievers, conspiracy theories like the hoax of the Priory of Sion, Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel the Da Vinci Code, or the millennia-long debate over the Shroud of Turin can drum up interest in these ancient philosophical questions. Is there room for dissent in faith? It seems that there is, based on the hundreds of different denominations of Christians alone and the sometimes micro-seeming distinctions between them. (If Christian documentaries really aren’t your thing, maybe the 11 best basketball documentaries on Netflix will have more secular appeal.)
When we wonder if Jesus Christ had a wife or if Mary Magdalene was the author of a true gospel, we bring into question whether or not some-odd dozen denominations are right to bar women from serving as church officials. Each one of these questions has ramifications for today’s Christians and often for the nonbelievers around them. Imagine if the Catholic Church decided today to begin letting women be priests. How many Catholics would leave the Church? How many non-Catholics would join?
Ancient questions aside, other documentaries in the list take a more meta view. Jesus Camp is as famous now for the notoriety of one of its few adult characters as it is for the controversial nature of the charismatic Christian children’s camp it features. Mea Maxima Culpa will only become more relevant as the 2015 feature film Spotlight draws more attention to Catholic priest abuses and cover-ups. Holy Rollers raises questions about its director, who turned his career as a Christian card counter into a thriving business many say is advertised by the film.
Many of these films include famous voices and issues, and they all ask us to think about our own beliefs — whether with a light heart or a heavy one. “The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” — Psalm 12:6-7
11. Jesus Camp
Site rank: 11, IMDb rank: 10
Directors: Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
This award-winning 2006 documentary follows a handful of the attendees of a fringe Christian camp in North Dakota. The children pray a lot, prepare for the more physical side of the culture wars, and are taught about the dangers of homosexuality, progressive politics, and mainstream science. In the wake of the film, one featured pastor was disgraced by an imbroglio of drugs and gay sex, and another elected to shut the camp down rather than field the negative press brought on by the film’s release.
10. Bible Quiz
Site rank: 10, IMDb rank: 9
Director: Nicole Teeny
Kind of a Spellbound for the evangelical set, Bible Quiz follows an aspiring champion of the Christian competition of Bible bowl. Children compete by memorizing sections of the Bible and answering Bible trivia in a format many will recognize from secular quiz bowl or trivia teams. Director Teeny follows Mikayla, who hopes to move beyond her place as an outsider and be noticed by a competitive senior boy. Unlike Jesus Camp, Bible Quiz strikes a relatable tone that transcends its religious source text.
9. Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in House of God
Site rank: 6, IMDb rank: 11
Director: Alex Gibney
There have been very publicly discussed incidents of sex abuse by Catholic priests for at least the last thirty years, but Mea Maxima Culpa (“My Biggest Fault”) covers the protest of and reaction to 1960s events that were covered up. Four deaf men abused as children decide to raise a ruckus until they find justice, and the case is escalated through the ranks of the Catholic Church until it reaches the Pope himself. Gibney uses high-profile actors — Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke, Mad Men’s John Slattery, and Law & Order’s Jamey Sheridan — to provide voices for the four men.
8. The Truth Behind: Dead Sea Scrolls
Site rank: 9, IMDb rank: 7
Director: Ann Conanan
Debate over the authenticity and deserved place of the Dead Sea Scrolls has raged since their discovery in West Bank caves in what was then Jordan. This episode of the Truth Behind series delves into the debate, tells the story of how the scrolls were found, and describes researchers’ efforts to preserve these ancient documents. In the tradition of popular TV “history exposés,” Conanan alternates between dramatic recreations, expert talking heads, and shots of the ancient scrolls themselves.
7. Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians
Site rank: 7, IMDb rank: 8
Director: Bryan Storkel
In a perfect distillation of the prosperity gospel preached by Joel Osteen and the late Robert Schuller, the Church Team was a blackjack card-counting group that decided they could beat the house but stay in God’s good graces. A whole house of irony is built on top of that foundation, including one member accused of “cheating” and a Gordian knot of rationalizations. To top it all off, this documentary was directed by one of the members of the group, and he and others now teach card-counting to others as a business. Ethical questions abound!
6. The Truth Behind: Devil’s Bible
Site rank: 8, IMDb rank: 3
Director: Robert Michaels
Lord of the Rings’s Dominic Monaghan narrates this discussion of the Codex Gigas (“giant book”), nicknamed the Devil’s Bible because of the large illustration of the Devil inside. But the nickname is misleading, because the book is indeed mostly a Christian Bible, a copy of the most widely used translation of its time, plus miscellanea from its publication in the 12th century. The mystery isn’t about the Devil at all — it’s who transcribed the text and how many scribes there were. This is the second entry from the Truth Behind series to make the 11 best Christian documentaries on Netflix streaming in 2015.
5. The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife
Site rank: 5, IMDb rank: 4
Director: Andy Webb
This Smithsonian-produced documentary tells the story of the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, a scrap of papyrus that caused an uproar on its public release in 2012. Now believed to be a forgery, the scrap includes Jesus Christ referring to a wife, which would upend a great deal of the gospel and the popular image of Jesus relied upon by religious denominations, including the depiction of women as innate sinners. Forgers rely on the very reaction scholars had to the papyrus: In a race to outdo each other, they tried to authenticate it and ignored red flags.
4. Secrets of Mary Magdalene
Site rank: 3, IMDb rank: 6
Director: Rob Fruchtman
Hundreds of years of Catholic Church teachings and, later, parochial schools taught us all that Mary Magdalene was a harlot, partly clouded by the pure language confusion of references to Mary in the Gospel. But many scholars believe the key to unlocking Mary’s real story is in the gnostic gospels, which include a telling of the life of Jesus Christ from the perspective of Mary Magdalene and creates a new sense of emotional closeness and authority between the two.
3. Waiting for Armageddon
Site rank: 2, IMDb rank: 5
Director: Kate Davis
We’ve all heard (and sometimes made) the jokes about end-times religions, staking the end of the world just a little further into the future each time a predicted doomsdate comes and goes without incident. But as Middle Eastern wars and religious conflicts rage on and seem to increase each day, those who believe in Armageddon find more and more evidence for their beliefs. Davis also sheds light on the biggest reason many evangelical Christians believe so strongly in the protection of and alliance with Israel.
2. The Truth Behind: The Ark
Site rank: 4, IMDb rank: 2
Director: Alex Hearle
The Ark is the third and best installment from the Truth Behind series among the 11 best Christian documentaries on Netflix streaming in 2015. Could Noah’s Ark have existed? Were there really floods that covered the Earth? To both true believers and disbelievers these questions are usually a foregone conclusion in opposite directions, but Hearle explores some possible explanations that many viewers have found interesting. You won’t learn anything that will help you ace a science test, but I suspect you knew that already, and it’s probably all still fun to think about.
1. Wrestling for Jesus: The Tale of T-Money
Site rank: 1, IMDb rank: 1
Director: Nathan Clarke
Clarke’s feature-length documentary began as a simpler thing: following a group in the southern U.S. that used professional wrestling to spread the Gospel. But over three years of filming, Clarke and his colleagues caught on film a sad, fascinating story about dreams deferred and how faith helps one man to keep his dreams and his life glued together despite grim news. As an additional twist, Clarke Kickstarted the final stretch of funding for his film, which eventually screened at independent film festivals.
If your interest in the 11 best Christian documentaries on Netflix streaming in 2015 lies in the more prurient, reality TV-flavored “debunking” shows, there’s plenty to suit you here, as long as you don’t take the questions or potential answers too seriously. And if you’re just a straightforward documentary fan, the award-winning feature-length documentaries on this list will give you plenty to chew on — issues of faith, but also adolescent crushes, questions about raising children, the ethics of mixing religion and vice, and more.
