Catholic Evangelism Media Index
By Richard Bruce BA, MA, and PhC in Economics
Former Instructor St. John's University, New York City
Christain, Paticularly Catholic, Video
Free with Amazon Prime
In addition to the free shipping, a vast collection of free music, including religious music, and many other benefits, an Amazon Prime subscription provides a vast collection of video, both movies and TV for free with almost no ads, there often is a short trailer for a movie at the start of the program. This includes a collection of Christian and more narrowly Catholic video. I have hardly begun to explore this free collection, but here are several videos that I can suggest.
Great for Lent
If you want to remember how much Jesus suffered for our sins, well how do you beat
Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," perhaps the greatest Christian movie ever made, also perhaps the most unpleasent.
Animation
But Mel Gibson's orginization was not satisfied with making the greatest Christian movie, they also made what may well be the greatest children's Christian movie. It is very moving and much more enjoyable than the "Passion of the Christ. It is called,
"The Miracle Maker.". Do not miss this one, even if you do not have children. Perhaps there are some children you can watch it with.
At least some of the creative people who were involved in "The Miracle Maker" were also involved in "Testament the Animated Bible." This is a series of nine animated half hour shows from the Old Testament. Each is done in a different style. Once again it is quite sophisticated. I recommend it for adults, but perhaps not for younger children. This however is not available for free from Amazon at this time. They have offered it for free in the past and I suspect they will in the future, keep an eye out for it.
For children there are also several Veggie tales movies and programs available on prime. Click here for six that are available now. When you see the words watch now under prime video those are the ones that are currently available. There are also many that say "This video is currently unavailable". Perhaps these will be available soon. Watch what they offer and check back.
A Popular TV Series
There is a popular TV series about Christ and his associates,
"The Chosen". It has a 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
It is not exactly clear if it is available on Amazon. I get the message that
it is free with prime and that it is not available. You can also find
"The Chosen" on the Angel
Studios web site. Angel Studios produced the series. They have other
shows that may interest Christians. This seems to be a studio that produces
quality, or at least their work is popular with audiences. As mentioned
above "The Chosen" got a 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. A couple of their kids programs got 100%.
Classic Movies
A famous movie,
The Greatest Story Ever Told" about Christ, is also available on Amazon Prime.
Beyond the Free Amazon Prime Videos
Once again there are many other Catholic and religious films available for free on Amazon Prime. I have listed here some of the most prominent and the best.
Many great religious movies that are not free can be rented in standard
definition for four dollars. As many of these films will touch you and your
family deeply, inspire you to be better Christians they are likely to be
well worth it.
Public Library
An alternative to renting the films from Amazon is to check your local public library to find those. They are likely to have a better collection of religioius movies than Amazon Prime free collection. Library dvds are, however, frequently beat up. If Amazon Prime has the film for free it would generally be better to use the Prime copy. That being said do not shy away from the library collection, as the religious movies are likely to be in far better shape than the popular blockbusters and children's videos. Furtheermore, if the religious movies are checked out a lot that will encourage librarians to include more in the collection. Librarians are always looking for ways to increase their circulation.
If your library does not have important religious movies you might want to suggest they buy them or even buy them yourself and give them to the library. Before you buy them, however, check to see if they want to add the title to the collection. The normal thing to do with a donation is to sell it at a library book sale. So check with the librarians before you buy. Building the public libraries religious collection can be a very cost effective way to evangelize. I have several web pages on evangelization through public libraries.
As a huge portion of the population, perhaps more than half, gets Amazon Prime for the shipping and many other services, it strikes me as important that we explore what Prime has to offer Catholics and other people of faith. This can be another form of evanglization.
The Only Constant is Change
What Amazon offers is constantly changing. So many of the movies and TV shows you are interested in may show up over time, but if you delay on seeing what they offer now it may disappear.
Where to Find Christian Movies and TV series
There is at least one website that tells you where you can stream movies and TV,
Just Watch dot com. This service is provided by Yahoo. If you can not or do not want to get them on the streaming web services they can usually be rented for four dollars on Amazon and other web sites.
Evangelization and You
At my parish there have been messages encouraging us to evangelize. This is one of many initiatives that I am engaged in to evanglize. I encourage you to help me on this. To that end if you wish to pass on your suggestions for possible inclusion in this list, ask questions, or share your thoughts here is my
contact information.
I have a page on
my reasons for subscribing to Amazon Prime.
Media Evangelization Index
Last Updated April 8, 2023