'Netflix Is Removing Christian Movies' - The True Story Of A False Rumor

Modern American culture is in the process of decentralizing Christianity. While this shift sets the stage for a more diversified belief system that better represents the cultural breadth of our nation, the process is not without its speed bumps. One such hiccup is a persistent rumor that continues to resurface year after year after year which claims that Netflix is removing Christian-oriented cinema from its streaming catalog to support other religions.

There is no factual basis for this claim. In 2021, during the rumor's most recent viral popularity, Netflix issued a statement to USA Today categorically denying that Christan films were ever targeted for removal. This isn't to say that relevant media cannot be removed — Netflix is constantly changing its catalog based on what people watch or what the website has contractual access to –- but only that it wasn't under deliberate fire for its biblical content.

And a quick search proves that Netflix isn't lying. Titles such as "A Week Away," a Netflix original film that sets faith to music, and "The Resurrection of Gavin Stone," a WWE Studios and Blumhouse Tilt religious dramedy, are still easily available for your viewing pleasure. In fact, the genre looks to be alive and well on Netflix. It's not just on Netflix, either — there are a staggering number of films about the Bible that you should definitely add to your Must Watch List.

So, how did we get here? Where did this rumor begin? The truth is ... pretty depressing, actually.

In 2016 (a great year for cinema, by the way), News Thump, a UK-based satire website, stirred the pot by publishing an article titled "Netflix to Remove All Christian Content After Complaints From Muslims." It includes fake quotes from fake people, such as "We demand you remove this terrible material from your website immediately. It's bad enough we have to pay for bulls*** we can download for free anyway, without Dawn French's infidel face being thrust into our televisions." If that weren't enough to clock the article's legitimacy, the author of the piece intentionally noted that this fake quote was delivered to Netflix's CEO on halal goatskin.

As is the want of satirical media, the post uses intentionally inflammatory language to express a point. And while there's no explicit "satire" tag on the article itself, News Thump's About Page expressly states that it is a "satirical and spoof news website, taking a daily swipe at current affairs from the UK and around the world."

USA Today points to News Thump's article as the original source for this rumor, positing that certain individuals took its farcical content at face value and spread it like wildfire on Facebook. Once again, the moral here is that you should always verify your sources before sharing news of any kind. Especially if that news was found on Facebook, a social application that is notorious for permitting disinformation to spread without appropriate flagging.